How will the world see Blix in six months?

[Ambro2000]

I would not be surprised if US planted some convenient chemical weapons and such if they don’t find any to try to justify this war……

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
I would not be surprised if US planted some convenient chemical weapons and such if they don’t find any to try to justify this war……

what's your point? Would this be a bad thing? And when the US does find banned weapons... how will the US prove to the world that they are for real? Can that be done?

[Ambro2000]

My point is that it is not impossible that US plant some chemical weapons in Iraq and then say how meaningless the UN weapon inspectiones where...

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
My point is that it is not impossible that US plant some chemical weapons in Iraq and then say how meaningless the UN weapon inspectiones where...

but as soon as the US finds anything along those lines everyone will say the US has planted it. No matter what - no one will believe the US.

[gunkulator]

Hans Blix will be remembered as the consultant he is. Like all successful consultants, his main focus was to find ways to continue to collect his large fees. The standard formula for most consultants is to perform an initial assessment that shows that yes, there may indeed be problems (or WMD) to uncover. Consultant recommendations always suggest that, surprise, surprise, what is needed is more of the services that the consultant provides.

Consultants always produce periodic reports that show slow but steady improvement, but just when you might see the light at the end of the tunnel, a new problem arises. I, for one, am not shocked that Blix kept saying that, nope, he's still not done. Better send me back. BTW, here's the latest bill.

US and UK finally called his bluff. demanding some timetable for completion. Of course, this is the bane of all successful consultants. Years and years of inspections but, by golly, we're still not done and ya know what might help? More inspections! Three times as many. Just think of the bills! Woohoo!

[Ambro2000]

but as soon as the US finds anything along those lines everyone will say the US has planted it. No matter what - no one will believe the US.

I think that many people will believe in the Bush administration. Especially in the US. It’s a matter of trust. Internationally the trust for US has probably never been as low…

US and UK finally called his bluff. demanding some timetable for completion. Of course, this is the bane of all successful consultants. Years and years of inspections but, by golly, we're still not done and ya know what might help? More inspections! Three times as many. Just think of the bills! Woohoo!

and the bills for the war was cheaper?

[Kramerman]

and the bills for the war was cheaper?

By no means, but it got somthn freakin accomplished

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


So where are these NBC weapons? By the looks of Powell's report, Iraq should be overflowing with them. None has been discovered so far. Whatever happened to all those intelligence sources that the CIA had to protect? So what's the hold up? Why haven't the US forces made a beeline to those nasty caches so alleged?

The pro-war faction is now trying to divert attention to somewhere else.

I'm sorry, UR, apparently you did not read what I wrote. It was Blix's job to verify the Dec. 8 report - not ignore it.

That report said that Saddam had no WMD or had destroyed what he had. Blix had to verify that report. He had to verify the destruction claim. He made no serious attempt to do so.

What he did, instead, is run around Iraq looking for WMD!

No you want to divert attention again from Blix's failure by saying that we have not found WMD. What we need to find are the scientists who can confirm or not the truth of Saddam's statement.

If it turns out that he had in fact destroyed the chemical weapons and these scientist can verify that, I hope you will admit that Blix failed the UN and the world for not interviewing the scientists and verifying Saddam's claims.

[Ambro2000]

By no means, but it got somthn freakin accomplished

Yes, the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqis civilians. Fantastic!

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ambro2000


Yes, the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqis civilians. Fantastic!

Thousands?

Nobody knows yet how many were killed, directly from the war, a reaonable estimate would probably be a little more than a thousand...
(EDIT: unfortunately some more thousands will die/are dying from indirect effects of the war)

Answer me this... how many would have died this year alone under Saddam's regime? How many would have died next year? The year after? The year after that?

Hopefully, their suffering will end here.

[Ambro2000]

You are absolutely right! The exact number from both of the wars including the sanctions could very well measure up to half a million, maybe more…
I doubt that Saddam would kill so many and even if he would that’s not important. What gives you the right to kill x number of people just to get a dictator that no longer plays by your whistle? How many countries have USA manage to bomb in to a democracy? Answer = none
If I should follow your logic it would be all right for me to kill a few million Americans because that’s likely so many that your regime will kill in foreign countries in a couple of years to come and have done so in the past I might add……

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
You are absolutely right! The exact number from both of the wars including the sanctions could very well measure up to half a million, maybe more…
I doubt that Saddam would kill so many and even if he would that’s not important. What gives you the right to kill x number of people just to get a dictator that no longer plays by your whistle? How many countries have USA manage to bomb in to a democracy? Answer = none
If I should follow your logic it would be all right for me to kill a few million Americans because that’s likely so many that your regime will kill in foreign countries in a couple of years to come and have done so in the past I might add……

How many? Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines to start. The people Puerto Rico seem to like being "occupied" by America.

My God, the anti-Americans here refuse to acknowledge the significant American successes in spreading democracy. To them, Iraq is still about Oil and not about freedom.

I find it difficult to believe that such people really exist. I suspect that they even believe the American revolution was about Oil.

[Chris 62]

US killed thousands....HA HA HA HA

I guess the money for food, that instead went for palaces had NOTHING to do with that, eh?

Lame troll, not even on my rating scale.

Blix is on the record as saying if there are such weapons, they are planted by the coalition, which is consistant with his behavior.
I was told by a Swedish friend he made his rep as a Soviet appeaser in the cold war, and we was selected for his current job by Russia and france, and low and behold, he was unable to find anything, which supported their postion.

What a coincedence,

Opinion of him won't change, whatever is held of him now will remain the same, for or against.

[Drake Tungsten]

Blix also has the honor of being the head of one of the two IAEA nuclear inspections regimes that declared Iraq to be nuke free. Both pronouncements were found to be false later. He has a real storied career...

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Chris 62
US killed thousands....HA HA HA HA

I guess the money for food, that instead went for palaces had NOTHING to do with that, eh?

I'm sorry but I have to react to such willfull ignorance about the Iraqi sanctions program. Have you any idea just how the sanctions program was set up and under which conditions it operated? There is a darker side to the UN sanction program you don't seem to be aware of. It seems ordinary Iraqis were simple reduced to political bargaining chips in the process.

Chapter 5. Oil-for-Food

In the mid-1990s, as political support for Iraq sanctions declined, the Security Council decided to revise its earlier plan on humanitarian trade, proposing that Iraq export oil on a controlled basis and use the revenues, under UN supervision, to buy humanitarian supplies. The Council passed Resolution 986 as a “temporary” measure on April 12, 1995, with a restrictive cap on oil sales. The government of Iraq, facing an increasingly serious economic crisis, agreed to the Council’s conditions a year later. Though Oil-for-Food brought undoubted short term benefits to a desperate population, it never eliminated the humanitarian crisis.

5.1. A Short Term Policy

When the Security Council and the government of Iraq finally agreed in May 1996 to allow the sale of oil for the purchase of food and other necessities, no one supposed that six years later the UN would be still be operating on the same basis, running a program to provide the Iraqi population with an inadequate supply of even the most basic necessities. (91)

In November 2000 the UN Secretariat reported to the Security Council that
the humanitarian programme was never intended to meet all the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi population or to be a substitute for normal economic activity. Also the programme is not geared to address the longer term deterioration of living standards or to remedy declining health standards and infrastructure. (92) The Secretary-General repeated this concern in his report of March 2, 2001, reminding the Council that Oil for Food "was never meant to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people and cannot be a substitute for normal economic activity in Iraq."

The US and the UK have consistently ignored the implications of such warnings. As year after year of this “short term” program passes, it results in further deterioration of the country’s dilapidated infrastructure, more human suffering, and deeper damage to Iraqi society. Officials in the United Nations with direct experience in administering Oil-for-Food, like Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, concluded that the system was unworkable and should not continue.

5.2 Deductions and Delays

Under Resolution 986, the Council initially allowed Iraq to sell $2.0 billion worth of oil every six months. The resolution called for deductions of 30% from all Iraqi oil sales to finance the Compensation Fund. The resolution allowed additional deductions of about 4% for UN agencies including the Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP), the arms inspection units (the UN Special Commission - UNSCOM - and the International Atomic Energy Authority – IAEA), and for fees for the use of the Turkish pipeline for Iraq’s oil exports. Of the remaining 66%, the resolution earmarked 13% for the three autonomous Kurdish northern governorates of Dahuk, Arbil and Suleymaniyah, where a UN inter-agency group would run the humanitarian program, and the remaining 53% for the balance of the country where the government would be in charge of distribution. The government of Iraq accepted the resolution in May 1996, and oil started flowing in December 1996. Because of procurement and shipping lags, the UN humanitarian supplies did not arrive in Iraq until April 1997.

This arrangement contained a strange allocation of the deductions, taking them all from the portion allocated to the Baghdad-controlled population. Thus the 13% of the population in the Kurdish areas of the North got 13% of the total oil sales, while 87% of the population in the Baghdad-controlled areas in the Center and South got just 53% of oil sales – 61% of the rate available in the North. (93)

Contrary to common perception, the Oil-for-Food program is not “humanitarian aid.” No foreign government or NGO donates food, medicines or other necessities to Iraq under the program. The government of Iraq sells oil and then pays in hard currency (from a UN-controlled “escrow account”) for imports which the Security Council Sanctions Committee must approve. Thereafter, the UN distributes the imports in the North and UN staff oversee Iraqi government distribution in the Center and South.

From December 10, 1996 until July 19, 2002, a period of over five and a half years, the government of Iraq sold a total of $55.4 billion in oil through UN-controlled sales. This amount looks impressive. However, far less in value of goods has arrived in Iraq. After 33% deductions for a combination of war reparations, UN operations and other items, the Council and the UN Secretariat approved $35.8 billion in contracts. (94) As of July 19, 2002, only $23.5 billion worth of goods had actually arrived in Iraq. (95) A combination of factors explain this $10.2 disparity, including cumbersome procedures imposed by Security Council rules, poor or obstructionist Iraqi management, “holds” mostly imposed by the United States, and other factors.

Over a period of about five years, serving an Iraqi population of 23 million, the program has delivered roughly $200 worth of goods per capita per year, including oil spare parts and other goods not directly consumed by the population. Allowing for domestic production outside the Oil-for-Food program and for smuggling, the result still appears to leave Iraqi citizens an exceedingly low per capita income which may be at or below the $1 per day World Bank threshold of absolute poverty.

Responding to criticisms of slow delivery, the Security Council has streamlined procedures for contract approval since the early days of the program. By 2002, the UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) had introduced procedural reforms including electronic submission of contract technical details, electronic signatures from border inspection personnel, several fast-track lists for items with no dual-use concern, a pre-vetting of contracts by OIP experts, and improved means for financial transactions. But OIP has been under-staffed and faced with a huge and growing task of contract management and oversight.

For the country as a whole, less than two-thirds of the ordered items have arrived during the whole program. Sanctions proponents argue that this discrepancy is largely due to deliberate Iraqi obstruction. The evidence, rather, is that the contract approval system put in place by the Security Council bears a substantial responsibility for these delays and delivery blockages. In spite of improvements and reforms and in spite of the good will of many UN officials who do their best to speed the process along, oil-for-food still suffers from heavy bureaucratic centralization and red tape, as well as political manipulation, for which the Iraqi people pay a heavy price.

5.3 Blocked Contracts, Holds and “Dual-Use”

In the period before Oil-for-Food, the Iraq Sanctions Committee reviewed proposed import contracts to determine whether they should be exempted from the import ban under Resolution 687. Foods and medicines considered strictly humanitarian most readily won approval, but even in this humanitarian area the Committee blocked contracts when a single delegation objected. The United States tended to block foods that might be inputs to Iraqi food processing industries as well as a range of medicines that were alleged to have potential military use. Additionally, the United States, blocked a large number of contracts for other goods, including wrist watches, paper, textiles, shoe soles and other ordinary items that had no possible military use. The US blocked shoe soles as inputs to Iraqi industry but allowed complete shoes to be imported, it blocked textiles but allowed ready-to-wear clothes to be imported. The Committee never developed any criteria, addressing each contract on an ad hoc basis. The United States and the UK were not the only delegations to propose blockage of contracts, but they were responsible for the great majority of blockages. Their actions appeared to many observers to be arbitrary, capricious and punitive. (96)

After the passage of Resolution 986, the ground rules changed, but barriers to contracts remained a major issue of contention. The United States and the UK insisted that Iraq be prevented from importing not only weapons but also items that appear to be for civilian use but which might in some way contribute to the government’s military capacity or be turned into weapons through re-manufacturing. Such items are known as “dual-use.” A Council member could place such items, or any other that they chose, on “hold” – blocking them as an agreed import. Of fifteen Council members, only two made regular use of holds: the United States and the UK. The United States imposed the overwhelming majority. As of July 19, 2002, no less than $5.4 billion in contracts were on hold, (97) up from $3.7 billion on May 14, 2001.

Holds have blocked vital goods. They have affected water purification systems, sewage pipes, medicines, hospital equipment, fertilizers, electricity and communications infrastructure, oil field equipment, and much else. Sometimes just a small part of these contracts is alleged to have dual use. Other Council members do not agree that these items represent a credible dual-use threat, and they have often noted that holds are imposed inconsistently – an item may be placed on hold on one occasion and let through on another, even on contract with the same firm. Because the Sanctions Committee works by consensus, a single member can block any contract, even if all other members are ready to approve. As a result of these holds, contracts for many critical infrastructure projects failed to gain approval, generating much international criticism of the holds process and contributing to the broad loss of credibility of the Iraq sanctions regime.

On December 18, 2001, the OIP weekly update noted that
The total value of contracts placed on hold by the 661 Committee continued to rise . . . The “holds” covered 1,610 contracts for the purchase of various humanitarian supplies and equipment, including 1,072 contracts, worth $3.85 billion, for humanitarian supplies and 538 contracts, worth $527 million, for oil industry equipment. During the week, the Committee released from hold 14 contracts, worth $19.8 million. However, it placed on hold 57 new contracts, worth $140.6 million. (98) These numbers dwarfed the 161 contracts on the same date, worth $253 million, that were on “inactive hold,” that is, for which the problem was the result of some administrative irregularity. (99)

Many present and past members of the Council and other expert observers believe that the United States often has used the system of “holds” for political purposes and not because of real concerns over the dual-use potential in contracts. Even the UK, which has imposed a very small minority of holds, has quietly expressed concern that US holds are excessive and impossible to defend. The UK government took a diplomatic initiative in 2000 to persuade Washington to ease up on the holds and let more goods through. The United States, however, did not agree. Since the UK démarche, the value of contracts on hold has more than doubled, from $2.25 billion in October 2000 to $5.4 billion in mid-July 2002. As of February 2001, the most recent date for which we have a complete breakdown, the US was solely responsible for over 93% of all holds, the US and the UK together for 5%, and the UK alone for 1%, while 1% was attributable to all other Council delegations, past and present. Approximately the same breakdown has continued to July, 2002, according to knowledgeable delegates.

Though the holds add up to a very large figure, the numbers alone do not tell the full story. The United States delegation may have insisted on putting a “hold” on just one item in a large contract, with the result that the whole contract was blocked. In the worst case, one contract put on hold can endanger an entire investment project. As OIP Director Benon Sevan noted in 1999,
The absence of a single spare part or item of equipment, as small as it may be, could be sufficient to prevent the completion of an entire water injection project or well completion programme. (100) Sevan notes that the oil sector is the source of all the humanitarian revenue. Yet this sector was at first prevented entirely from importing equipment and spare parts (101) and it continues to suffer severe dilapidation because of a large number of holds that result in permanent damage to oil wells, serious safety risks, dangers of environmental damage, and risk to the country’s future production capacity. (102) Sevan has noted that such vital items as pumping controls, exploration equipment, well-drilling, degassing, hydrostatic testing and much more have been placed on hold. (103) Such goods are vital for rehabilitation and modernization of the oil sector, a precondition for Iraq to produce more oil to pay for its immediate needs and long-term reconstruction.

Holds placed on pesticides and animal vaccines have resulted in serious loss of domestic food production. Even essential health care equipment has not escaped the dubious charge of “dual-use.” There have been holds on heart-lung machines, blood gas analyzers, and other equipment. In some cases, the US has argued that it has put holds on such orders because of associated computers or data processing capacity. Sevan expressed his scepticism of this approach in comments in February 2002:
Many of the items such as computers placed on hold are readily available in the markets and shops of Baghdad . . . what is being placed on hold is the utilization of funds from the escrow account. (104) In one case, an ambulance contract suffered because it contained communication equipment. In the end, though, the vehicles got through, but only because they were delivered without radios, which had to be removed from the contracts as a condition of lifting the holds. (105)

The UN can track the end-use of imports and determine that they were used for stated, purely civilian purposes. This is known as the “end-use/user verification” process and some 300 UN staff are currently available in Iraq for this purpose. UN officials, including the Secretary General, have regularly criticised the “holds” and argued that the UN has a much-enhanced capacity for on-site inspections and end-use verification. (106) But the United States insists that it has little faith in such options, preferring to impose holds instead. While perfect verification is probably impossible, the US approach imposes a very high cost for a very slight benefit. Its holds prevent many critical goods from reaching Iraq, blocking essential humanitarian supplies and urgently needed equipment and infrastructure. The import of modern ambulances without communications radio suggests the unacceptably compromised humanitarian system that Iraq must endure under the UN flag.

Resolution 1409 of May 14, 2002 theoretically eliminates holds, but it will probably not eliminate blocked goods. The massive Goods Review List, with suspect items totalling more than 300 pages,(107) provides a substantial barrier to future importation of goods into Iraq. Further, the Iraq Sanctions Committee will continue to exercise oversight and we can expect, based on past practice, that the US will find ways to block large numbers of contracts and insist that the Goods Review List be administered in a restrictive way.

Some knowledgeable observers believe that the new arrangements under Resolution 1409, including the administration of the Goods Review List, may prove equally onerous than the system that preceded it. No one expects that shipments for vital infrastructure like water, sanitation, communications, and electricity will suddenly rise to acceptable levels. Nor is it expected that the oil industry, which provides the essential funding of the humanitarian program, will be able to obtain sufficient badly needed parts and equipment, much less new investment.

Looking at the accumulated records of holds, the biggest disparity between orders and deliveries exists in the Telecommunications-Transport sector, where the US has placed so many holds that the value of contracts on hold recently exceeded the value of all contracts delivered throughout the program. (108) The Electricity, Oil Spares and Water-Sanitation sectors likewise suffer from large numbers of “holds” on contracts that are vital to Iraq’s infrastructure. UN officials implementing the program have insisted repeatedly that such holds gravely damage the program. Sevan has spoken about holds’ “direct negative effect on the program,” about the “interminable quagmire,” and the “appalling disrepair” of Iraqi infrastructure” but to no avail. (109) Resolution 1409 may at least partially relieve this nightmare, but progress initially appears very slow. In the first week of implementation, just $7.6 million in holds were released, (110) a rate that if sustained would require more than 13 years to work down the entire backlog.

source: Global policy

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/irqindx.htm