US 'created" Weapons facts -Hans Blix

[Sgt. Peppers]

US 'created' weapons facts

by Duane Heath

02/24/04: (News 24) Berlin - The United States and Britain "created facts where there were no facts" in the run-up to last year's invasion of Iraq, the former head of the United Nations' weapons inspections team in the country said in an interview published on Tuesday.

Hans Blix, whose teams did not make significant weapons finds during months of searching Iraq before the war, has repeatedly criticised, in recent weeks, US and British handling of information ahead of the war.

"Our inspectors had a fixed phraseology. If something was missing, then the official formulation was 'yet to be established'," Blix was quoted as saying by the German weekly Stern. "But the Americans and British persistently read 'exists'. So they created facts where there were no facts."

Inspectors

Blix acknowledged that inspectors would not have gained access to Iraq in late 2002 without US military pressure - but he added that "men such as Vice President (Dick) Cheney, Defence Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld and his deputy (Paul) Wolfowitz said the inspections were, at best, useless".

"During a meeting at the White House at the end of October 2002, six months before the beginning of the war, Cheney told us he would not hesitate to discredit the inspections," Blix was quoted as saying.

Blix, who headed the UN inspection teams from 2000 to mid-2003, also said that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had "absolutely no interest in cooperatin".

"We know today that Saddam (Hussein) was a danger to his own people - but not the world," he told Stern.

"The war was not justified," he said. "The United States needed weapons of mass destruction to be able to wage the war."

More...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5759.htm

[mac2]

1. Exaclty....

Everyday I turn on the TV to see someone spinning the story saying Bush was given the wrong information. Our intelligence is terrible. Even blaming Clinton (when we know...Congress accused him of politics and refused financial help or legal help).

The Whistle Blowers, foreign nations, Ms. Rice herself, proved this was not true.

We knew..he knew and certain people in Congress knew. Iraq was not a threat to us. A few like the Progressive Democrats protested.

The bucked stopped at the White House. 9/11 was a go ahead before it happened.

[grannylib]

2. This misadministration's grasp on what is fact and what is fiction is so

tenous it would be funny, were not the implications so profound.
WMD vs 'WMD-program-related-activities' and His Chimpness smirks, "What's the difference?"
Try the lives of 500 + of our troops, you chickenshit chickenhawk sonofabitch...

On Edit: and even if WMDs are eventually found in Iraq, that will not negate the fact that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11, and if we find 'em, we probably planted 'em, most likely having sold Saddam the dang things in the first place.

[jbfam4]

3. welcome to DU

Good post.....great article........

"Blix's book, "Disarming Iraq", which recounts the process of weapons inspections in the country, is due out in March. "

This book should be a must read for anyone voting in the Nov. election.