Why didn't Bush let Hans Blix and the Iraq weapons inspectors do their job?

Question

After all, Blix said that Saddam was fully cooperating.
But Bush started the war anyway, and Blix was forced to cut the search short.
If he had been able to stay, we could have confirmed that Iraq didn't have WMD without war.
And saved 655,000 Iraqi lives.

ATTENTION REVISIONISTS: Blix said Saddam WAS letting him do his job. Your attempts to re-write history will fail.

ATTENTION YUPCHAGEE: Blix specifically said there was NO PLACE he was not allowed to go. Your attempt to re-write history will fail.

thenextJFK, if YOU want a discussion, why don't you tell me what well-known fact I have presented that is wrong, rather than asking for a source?

LeAnne, your revisionism is the most pathetic of all. I'm talking about 2003. You know, the war? Hans Blix? Failed attempt to get an authorizing UN resolution? Hello???

Answer 1

The war was never about wmd. it was about oil and the ego of a father and son.

Answer 2

Ummm how long had it been since Blix had been to Iraq longhair?

Nov 8 UN creates resolution 1441 reaffirming member states to use any means nescessary to uphold stability in the region.
It also tries to get Saddam to agree to inspections again.
Saddam agrees to them but then never allows them.

Congress had already voted 3 weeks before that to authorize use of force in Iraq.

Feb 14th 2003 Blix gives report to UN Security Council saying if Iraq had cooperated since 1991 this could have been short and all this could have been avoided.

So Blix had from Nov 8th 2002 until March 20th 2003 to get something going. And he couldnt.

Put down the bong and come back to reality.

Answer 3

You got a whole lot of things wrong here. First, Saddam had his military one step ahead of Mr. Blix. They sanitized everything ahead of his visits. Second, even the UN report says there have been around 60,000 Iraqi civilians killed, not your figure of 655,000.

Every time someone states that figure it grows by leaps and bounds.

If y'all are going to lie like that the least you can do is agree on a number first.

The UN had 17 resolutions against Saddam but your precious UN is nothing more than a paper tiger and couldn't enforce them.

Since Blix hates the USA anyway, who is he to believe

Answer 4

In December 1999, UNSOM was replace by UNMOVIC (U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) in Iraq. This was Resolution #1284. Saddam (NOT President Bush) rejected this resolution and ejected the inspection team. Before their departure, they had destroyed 48 long range missiles, 14 conventional warheads, 30 chemical warheads, 40,000 chemical munitions and 690 tons of chemical agents. The team had also discovered a nuclear program far in advance of what was previously thought.
Iraq's record of compliance to the U.N. resolutions was dismal. When the U.N. teams were allowed to inspect, they were not allowed access to numerous buildings and several different sights.
If you insist on bashing Bush - at least try and do it with some credible and valid facts.

Added: Part of Hans Blix's report to the U.N.:
"I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered, and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.
The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.
Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized.
Iraq said that the small quantity of [the] agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.
UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.
There are also indications that the agent was weaponized. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.
I would now like to turn to the so-called air force document that I have discussed with the council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi air force headquarters in 1998, and taken from her by Iraq minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I'm encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.
The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.
The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot, 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved here in the past few years at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. "

If only it were as simple as your conclusions. For some reason (perhaps fear of the Kurds retaliation or a Sunni uprising) Saddam's own soldiers believed he had WMDs, and Saddam's demeaner (even by Blitz's own account) led him to believe he would eventually find WMDs in Iraq. Hindsight is a great teacher, but, unfortunately, it isn't available at the time the tough decisions are made.
The earlier arsenals that I referenced and Saddam's willingness to use these weapons, as well as the intellegence of numerous other governments - let alone the prospect of the forces behind the events of 9/11 getting their hands on some WMDs - all contributed to the decision to invade Iraq. Perhaps there was other mitigating circumstances as well, we will probably never know all of the facts - but given what we did know, or thought we knew, I honestly think it would have been fool hardy to assume Saddam had complied with the very same UN resolutions he so often rejected.

Answer 5

It was never Saddam's refusal to allow access, it was the delays he caused. When inspectors would show up to inspect, do spot-on surprise inspections, Saddam's men would make them wait at the gates for hours, sometimes days. This would, theoretically, allow Saddam's men time to move or hide components.

This went on for 14 years, Freaky.

Hans Blix never said "fully complied", I'd like to see YOUR source for that quote, about the entire inspections program.

What he has often said was that inspections certainly hindered any program Saddam might have, and that he believed that any program wouldn't succeed so long as inspectors were in Iraq, full cooperation or not. He never has said that Iraq was fully in compliance with the 14 U.N. resolutions in regards to WMD's, just that he believed his inspections were thwarting Saddam's attempts to procure and construct WMD's.

That all said, we had to weigh ALL our intelligence on the matter, not just that coming through the U.N. inspection teams.

Heaven help us the day we rely solely on U.N. intelligence to make our war policies.

Answer 6

I don't accept the premise of your argument. It is absurd that we are responsible for those deaths if that many have even happened. What are they counting people who died of old age? If that number had any basis in even a half truth the liberal media would have it posted all over kingdom come.

Hans Blix had a long time to try to do his job. He never showed much interest in doing it.

Answer 7

I think that if you do some research, you will find that you are the one rewriting history.

How many resolutions did the Security Council vote in against Saddam? Was it 17? 18? I lost count.

If you want a discussion, you would do better to cite some "credible" sources...rather than your obvious partisan hatred for all things Bush.

But thanks for sharing.

Answer 8

Bush knew Saddam had no WMDs. That's why he invaded. He thought he would have a quick and easy little victory like Daddy Bush. But Junior didn't have the good sense to recognize the difference between winning a defensive battle against an army that's away from its home base and an occupation where the troops are outnumbered by more than 1000 to 1.

Ever since he peeled off the stickers and rearranged them to "solve" that Rubik's cube he has been overestimating his intellectual capacity.

Answer 9

Because Bush was in a hurry to get over there get Iraq's oil reserves for himself.

And all the contracts Halliburton could ever want.

Answer 10

Two words, United Nations.

655,000? Does that number include Saddam's?

Answer 11

Blix did his job He confirmed that Mobile weapons lab Bush claimed to have found. Was in fact a crop duster service rig.

It's a shame all those years Bush spent in Texas he didn't learn the basics of agriculture.

Go big Red Go