How will the world see Blix in six months?

[germanos]

Originally posted by rah

But it is funny hearing all the people that said we should have given them more time now saying the we should have already found something in the short time we've had.

You're compairing apples and oranges here.

Remember that Hans Blix was given the task of proving Iraq had NO bio-/chem weapons (nor the abilty to produce them), while the pentagon claimed it knew where they are stocked and produced.

[GePap]

The Us was claiming they had iron-clad proof that these weapons existed and very good ideas were they were. They also claimed that Iraq could disamr itself in just a few days if it wanted.

Blix had a staff of a few hundread and a budget under 100 million dollars. The US has a staff of 200,000 and a budget of 60 billion right now.

Blix will be largely forgotten, but unless the US can find evidence for most of its pre-war claims, he will end up looking well.

[Velociryx]

Yes, but thanks to American military presence, the Inspectors weren't having to dodge bullets.

Can you see how that might make the search a bit more difficult?

Mysterious and complex, remember?

-=Vel=-

[Victor Galis]

I think the drums in question, turned out to be ordinary pesticides.

[Lincoln]

Blix will be forgotten. I think he did the best he could though. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. They are just now finding some of the underground maises that are under man-made lakes.

[Zulu Elephant]

I realised that the US government had been very anti-Blix from the start of the inspections but I didn't realise it had turned so many people into rabid Blix-haters, perfectly willing to condemn him with no evidence other than the Bush administration's anger at him not being at hungry for war as they were.
Anyone who condemns Blix as incompetent or a liar or is certain that he will soon be found to be one or the other has clearly suspended all rational judgement and has little or no idea about the inspections process other than the fact that it was standing in the way of a quick start to the war (sort of like a trial standing in the way of quickly sending the accused to prison)
As the more rational people who have posted on this thread have mentioned, Iraq is a big place and it doesn't take huge, easy to find industrial estates to make chemical or biological weapons (if this was true - how come the people/person who was sending anthrax through the mail in the US wasn't found)
Personally I think that there probably think there were/are some WMD being hidden by Saddam but certainly not the huge stockpiles sitting out in the desert, just waiting to be found, that many in the anti-Blix camp would have us believe.

[chequita guevara]

Why is it like looking for a neele in a haystack? The government promised the world that it had iron-clad proof, that it knew where stuff was being produced and where it was being hidden. Our government now has control of many of those areas. What happened?

If we don't find anything, then you realize that the million or so Iraqis who died under the sanctions are on our heads alone. Saddam will share no blame, since we will have proven that he complied.

Think about that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Think about what? Even if there were no WMD (we probably will find them in the upcoming weeks), we got rid of Saddam. That's good enough for me.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Yes, but thanks to American military presence, the Inspectors weren't having to dodge bullets.

Can you see how that might make the search a bit more difficult?

Mysterious and complex, remember?

-=Vel=-

And how many bullets are US troops dodging right now out in the middle of the desert? I know, 0. Oh, and the US gets to shoot back, and susually ends the whole "people shooting at them" bit relatively quick.

Complex yes, but for me complexity is not mysterious....

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Think about what?

That our country murdered a million Iraqis. If we don't find any WMDs, then that's the case, regardless of whether or not we've liberated them. It still remains to be seen whether we let them collapse into another Afganistan or actually try and keep our word. Frankly, if it's the latter, we're gonna be there for years, just like the occupations of Bosnia and Kosovo, which were only supposed to take a short time.

[Zulu Elephant]

If the US government had this concrete proof of the whereabouts of WMD, then they should have shared it with the inspectors.
The few times the US gave a (supposed) heads-up to the inpectors, they went there and found nothing meaning that US's 'concrete' evidence was inaccurate or the US didn't share its really concrete evidence with the inspectors.
If the the first is true then the US was lieing and if the second is true, then why the hell didn't they share it?
More likely, the US never had concrete proof, simply fuzzy evidence interpreted in a certain way to justify war(this isn't to say Saddam doesn't/didn't have WMD, just that the US was acting more certain than it should have been)

That aside, I have to agree with Imran. I was in favour of the war (with UN support, the lack of which pissed me off) not because of WMD (anyone who thought Saddam might fire them at the west was living on another planet) but to liberate the people.

[Ned]

Blix had a job to do and he failed. His failure lead to the war, pure and simple.

His job was to verify what Saddam said in his Dec. 8 report. Blix did not do this. He didn't even give it a serious college try.

He could have insisted that Saddam permit scientists be interviewed outside Iraq (with all the scientists families outside Iraq as well) but he did not. Without the scientists, there simply was no way Blix could have verified the Saddam report in a country the size of California in a 100 years.

Asking for more time, as he did, was simply ludicrous.

So the question is not whether Blix will be vindicated. He already failed his mission.

[Q Classic]

why am i not particularly surprised to see those who were really in favor of the war already ready to make hans blix look like a bumbling fool?

same reason why i'm not particularly surprised to see those who didn't want war willing to give hans blix less of a harsh time.

[chequita guevara]

I have no opinion of Blix, really. The US made a claim. It failed to prove it's claim and went to war. If no WMDs are found, it will be proven that the US lied to start a war.

That will be nothing new.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Blix had a job to do and he failed. His failure lead to the war, pure and simple.

His job was to verify what Saddam said in his Dec. 8 report. Blix did not do this. He didn't even give it a serious college try.

He could have insisted that Saddam permit scientists be interviewed outside Iraq (with all the scientists families outside Iraq as well) but he did not. Without the scientists, there simply was no way Blix could have verified the Saddam report in a country the size of California in a 100 years.

Asking for more time, as he did, was simply ludicrous.

So the question is not whether Blix will be vindicated. He already failed his mission.

Ah. All assertions and no evidence. Not surprised at all.