Blix Says US Misled Itself, The World on Iraq

[cal04]

Bush administration officials misled themselves on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and ''then they misled the world," Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector said yesterday. Speaking at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Blix criticized the administration's actions before invading Iraq in March 2003, but stopped short of saying it intentionally fooled the public on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

''I've never maintained that the administration deliberately misled" the public, said Blix, who headed the inspection team before the US-led military action in Iraq. ''I think they misled themselves, that we can see. And then they misled the world." Asked at a press conference later what he meant, Blix said the administration interpreted satellite pictures and Iraqi defectors' information as evidence that weapons existed in Iraq when that information was, in his opinion, inconclusive. ''They took things they saw as conclusive," he said. ''They were not critically thinking. They wanted to come to these conclusions."

Invoking Roman mythology to describe the contrasting US and European approaches to Iraq before the war, Blix said the United States was ''like an impatient Mars quick to use its strong military force to solve problems, while Europe like a patient Venus," opting for diplomacy. A Bush administration official said the White House had not heard Blix's remarks and could not comment. But, the official said, ''the president has been very clear before on the reasons for going into Iraq." In addition to the Bush administration, Blix criticized the news media for ''not devoting enough critical thinking" leading up to the Iraq war. Asked about New York Times reporter Judith Miller's recent admission that she and other journalists got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction, Blix said of the UN inspectors, ''We were not wrong."

In a story published Sunday in the Times, Miller was quoted as saying: ''WMD -- I got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts, and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong." Blix said, ''We did not say there aren't any weapons of mass destruction, partly for being cautious." But, he said, the inspectors had been to more than 700 sites in 500 places in Iraq, and ''we didn't find anything."

rest of the article
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/10/22/blix_says_us_misled_itself_the_world_on_iraq?mode=PF

[JoFerret]

1. The return of the repressed

....yes - this dreadful saga is like a tale classical mythology.

[LaurenG]

2. Blix tried soo hard to get the current

a**hat in charge not to go there before the war. I get so angry thinking how it didn't have to be this way, yet a bunch of shortsighted, selfish people made me have to live in a hellish America along with them.

[rocktivity]

7. Selfish yes, shortsighted no

As far as putting together a military-industrial machine that will guarantee instability in the Middle East and channel money towards the Bush crime family for years to come, everything has gone according to plan. If they were shortsighted about anything, it was that the corporate media would be able to hold the line against widespread criticism and dissent. If only Al Gore hadn't invented the internet!

:headbang:
rocknation

[LaurenG]

9. lol damn that AL

I was referring to the shortsighted sleeping majority of republicans who thought this was a good idea, but on second thought (voter fraud what it is and all) never-mind, you're right.

[Horse with no Name]

3. ''the president has been very clear before on the reasons

for going into Iraq"

Which time? He has changed the reason so many times I don't imagine he even remembers.:shrug:

[AlamoDemoc]

4. Blix is untrustworthy paid CIA n/t

[cliss]

11. I share the same feeling.

Why do I not trust Blix? Because he really didn't say that much before the build-up to war. I kept praying, hoping, that he would GET OUT THERE and tell the truth. He if anybody, knew what was really going on.

He just had some mealy-mouthed comment or response.

I'm from Sweden, too, so it's really hard to admit this.

Why is it so easy to surface, after the damage has been done, and offer "expert" opinions? Notice, how many people are NOW saying it was a mistake.

[achtung_circus]

13. I, and the majority of my countrymen (and women) heard him.

People all over the world heard him.

He was in a difficult situation, handled himself well, acted diplomatically, as he needed to do, but his opinion was there.

[achtung_circus]

12. You can't just post like that.

If you have an opinion, back it up with a fact.

[0007]

21. I agree!

[gratuitous]

5. Well, the US didn't mislead the ENTIRE world

But nobody had the will or the strength to stop the insanity.

[charlyvi]

6. WMA was irrelevant.

They wanted the Mideast for themselves--not to remake it but to subdue it for oil and Israel. Had there been no 9/11 what do you want to bet we'd still be over there? These people have turned our nation into an outcast, whored the US Treasury to line their pockets, and are now trying to dumb down our children through their Christofascist worldview being substituted for actual science--for actual cognitive reasoning. In other words, keep the masses busy while we do whatever the hell we want; and make them too dumb to ever see it. I hate these people.

[Gregorian]

8. God damn the pusher man.

The US is not the same as the Bush administration. They purposefully misled the world. PNAC is all you need to know. Hans you are a good man. But let's be honest- when a country is addicted to a substance, evil people can take advantage. The people take ultimate responsibility for letting this happen. But it would not have happened the way it did, if we had been more like Venus.

They knew, because of 9/11 and how it was ignored and then "used" to promote an agenda.

They knew, because you told them there were no WMD, but they refused treat your word as the truth.

They knew, because even after Saddam was gone, they refused to leave.

They knew, because they outted Plame.

They knew, and they lied to the world.

And now we know.

[bleever]

10. Blix, El Baradei, Scott Ritter: they all knew we were being hustled.

I'm so damn tired of hearing the refrain, "EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.

No. Untrue.

[LynnTheDem]

14. ''the president has been very clear on the reasons for going into Iraq"

Yes indeed;

THERE IS NO DOUBT...

WE KNOW WHERE THEY ARE...

MUSHROOM CLOUDS...

DRONES ARMED WITH CHEMICAL WEAPONS...

500 TONS OF SARIN...

HE HAS IN FACT RECONSTITUED HIS NUCLEAR PROGRAM...

THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT...

WE KNOW FOR A FACT...

WEAPONS
OF
MASS
DESTRUCTION.

No they're not here...maybe under the Oval Offioe chair? hyuk hyuk

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. If we ever once got it wrong and it benefitted entities other than

Amurkan corporations... then I might start to believe in the "innocence" of it all.

[PATRICK]

16. A much kinder

interpretation of intent than they ever granted him, btw.

[Peace Patriot]

17. Misled? Wrong? What tripe! Blix helped disarm Iraq, rendering its...

...people helpless, then AWOL bombed the shit out of a country with no air force, invaded and occupied it. I don't think Blix intended this outcome, and he tried to stop it. But he is in a very dicey position, morally and every other way, and he and his team could possibly have been in considerable danger leading up to the invasion.

This was a deliberate, concerted, criminal, and, in the case of US citizens, traitorous scheme to manufacture a war, and to commit atrocious war crimes, including mass deaths of innocents and widespread torture. Nobody involved was "misled." Nobody involved was merely "wrong." We can track this plot to PNAC and neocon INTENTIONS, and through numerous Bushite actions going back to at least the secret Cheney energy meetings prior to 9/11, to the Ledeen/Franklin/AIPAC meeting in Rome that year (where the Niger forgeries were cooked up, and who knows what else?), and to the conscious and deliberate "stovepiping" and cooking of WMD intelligence, capped by the conscious and deliberate destruction of the CIA's non-proliferation project in the outing of Plame and Brewster-Jennings.

If Fitzgerald (and McNulty) have the goods on these people, then anyone who had a part in it, at whatever level of knowledge or culpability, is going to be trying to disassociate themselves from this conspiracy without giving the deeper game away (the continuing and widening war in the Middle East, and how it was instigated), because the players of that game are extremely dangerous and powerful people. Blix and the UN weapons inspectors were USED, and then were brutally shoved out of the way, as the prize was taken. And perhaps he cannot afford to tell the whole truth (may fear ending up like David Kelly), or doesn't fully understand how he was gamed.

I am glad, however, that he is calling Miller on her crap. For her to say now that she was "wrong" and "misinformed" is a colossal lie, and it's probably the one we're going to hear from Bush (and others) at some point--and from a whole lot of Repub and Dem politicians trying to scurry out of the way.

"I came to Casablanca for the waters." (--Rick)

[TiredOfLies]

18. according to Richard Clarke on 60

minutes last yr, no one was misled, according to Clark everytime someone told bush about AlQaeda, Bush said NO, I want Iraq, BUSH and only BUSH misled the world, of corse Cheney, Wolfowitz,Rummy should go on trial with him.
from where i sit Blix, Clark, Tennet and others just didn't have the guts to speak up until it was to late, they were all setting back waiting for a book deal.

[DELUSIONAL]

19. lack of "critical thinking"

This seems to be the hall mark of the whole bushie gang.

Bushie goes by his "gut" feelings. Apparently he surrounds himself with the same sort of jerks.

[madmark]

22. The "critical thinking" part of Blix' comments also struck me; nothing

this admin does reflects critical thinking except in the pr/spin arena and lately they are even f*cking that up.

[carolinalady]

24. Requires: brains, maturity and humility. I think the whole posse

lacks all three.

[maryallen]

20. Misled?

MISLED?
As in a mistake?
I don't think so.

Come on, Blix:
Stop bending over backwards, tying yourself in knots to appease the asshat in the White House.

They KNEW what they were doing. They did it DELIBERATELY.
They are treasonous bastards and I'm sick of them all.

[TexasLawyer]

23. me too

they all need to be doing hard time.

[CHIMO]

25. "Moral and Intellectual Coward"

The words of Scott Ritter. The section is not in the transcript but appears at about thirty minutes into the interview.

Scott Ritter on the Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/21/144258

Also of note to foreign politicans attempting to understand Washington politics, a bit further in the interview a bit on global domination and regional transformation. In addition to the statement that Bolton's speech has already prepared.