They Created Facts Where There Were no Facts

Interview with Hans Blix

[Dr. Hans Blix, 75, was the chief weapons inspector of the United Nations. Twelve months ago, the US armed for its attack on Iraq with pure propaganda. Today it is clear Saddam’s horror weapons had not existed for many years. Blix’s book “Mission for Iraq” will be published in March 2004. This interview originally published in Stern magazine, February 24, 2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.stern.de/politik/ausland/index.html.]

Stern: “Blix, no bombs”. Do you miss being a peace hero?

Blix: That poster hangs in my office and brings me job. A year ago, the conflict was not around hawks or doves. At the UN there were patient and impatient hawks. War was the last option.

Stern: You could not prevent war. Why did you fail?

Blix: Did I really fail? The majority of the UN Security Council voted again a war. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the UN inspectors only relied on information from the US and Great Britain. Would this have enhanced the credibility of the United Nations today? Seen this way, I didn’t completely fail.

Stern: However you also believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction shortly before the war’s beginning.

Blix: They have become weapons of mass disappearance. All the secret service reports were false.

Stern: Is that also true for the German BND (German intelligence service)?

Blix: Yes. The German secret service assumed that Iraq had mobile bio-weapons laboratories on trucks. The German government was obviously convinced that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I had this impression after a long conversation with foreign minister Fischer. Only president Chirac was skeptical. The secret services will poison one another, he said to me.

Stern: In the months before the war, your inspectors examined 700 locations. They found rockets, a few canisters of poison gas but not much more.

Blix: Right, we did not find any arsenals.

Stern: Why didn’t that convince the Americans?

Blix: They didn’t want to listen…The Americans and Brits were stubborn. “The weapons existed.” Thus they created facts where there were no facts. My warnings were ignored.

Stern: Wasn’t the White House interested in facts?

Blix: I believe the reasons for the attack on Iraq involved the need to strike back. September 11, 2001 shook Americans far more than people in Europe. Perhaps the attack on Iraq was more a punitive action than a preventive war.

Stern: Were you and your inspectors troublesome hindrances for the US?

Blix: No, I don’t believe that. No inspections would have occurred in Iraq without the military pressure of the US. At the same time men like vice-president Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his representative Wolfowitz claimed…

Stern: …the men who enjoy the trust of the US president..

Blix: …that inspections at best were pointless. At a meeting in the White House at the end of October 2002, six months before the beginning of the war, Cheney told us he could not hesitate to discredit the inspections. That was very brutal. I was quite shocked. However president Clinton in 1998 had already dispatched the bombers to Iraq and retracted the decision at the last minute.

Stern: How did Cheney and Bush act when you met them?

Blix: We only met them once. Cheney acted like a corporate CEO. He spoke the whole time. The president was very friendly and made a boyish impression. He squirmed here and there on his chair. He said he felt honored to see us.

Stern: What did he say to you?

Blix: The conversation wasn’t very substantive. He wasn’t a wild Texan, he said. The US would allow the Security Council to discuss a solution for a short time. I believe the Americans wanted to give the inspections a chance. Unlike other countries, the US only supplied a little secret service information at first to help us. However when we sent the first inspectors to Baghdad in November 2002, the US showed great interest. They had exact ideas about how these inspections should run.

Stern: Were the inspections seen as the extended arm of the CIA?

Blix: Yes, they had concrete demands, perhaps doubling the number of the inspectors or, even the unrealistic idea of sending scientists abroad on inquiries. They were incredible. They had a list with names. They didn’t apply as much pressure at any other point.

Stern: Why?
Blix: We should serve as smugglers for possible deserters. The US has always relied strongly on deserters. Since 1998, they have learning nothing more about Iraq.

Stern: At that time, Saddam Hussein threw the weapons inspectors out of the country.

Blix: Yes. At that time, all the inspectors were questioned at a US military base when they returned from the base in Iraq. We made ourselves more independent of the US. Happily we never say a deserter. The United Nations is not an agency for deserters.

Stern: Where are Saddam’s weapons?

Blix: I believe today that most were actually destroyed after the end of the first Gulf war in 1991. Later the infrastructure was destroyed, that is production facilities, chemicals and nutrients for bacteria.

Stern: The weapons were first destroyed after their discovery by weapons inspectors.

Blix: Yes. However no inspector – with one exception – ever found a hidden bio- or chemical weapon… Perhaps the sanctions of the UN in those years led to an unnoticed disarmament of Iraq.

Stern: Why didn’t the Americans believe in your cautious statements about Saddam Hussein’s weapons arsenal?

Blix: There are people who believe in witches. They see a broom in a corner or a black cat as proofs for the existence of witches. I believe today men like Cheney or Rumsfeld created their own virtual reality – with the help of the media. They brought a few numbers, not explanations. However we were there. At three locations, we found prohibited materials, rocket engines. They were illegal but not a danger to world peace. The war was not justified in any way. The US used weapons of mass destruction to wage wars. Thus they shaped or constructed a reality. They had to sell the war. That was scandalously careless.

Stern: Didn’t US Secretary of State Powell’s great appearance before the Security Council convince you when he presented alleged proofs of mobile laboratories and weapons?

Blix: It is said Powell wrestled with the CIA secret service for several days about the information for his speech. He should have rejected a large part as unconvincing. What he presented was the best he could show, perhaps photos of a chemical factory. Trucks could be seen there, supposedly decontamination vehicles. We already investigated this chemical factory several times. We had taken samples and found nothing.

Stern: What about the trucks?

Blix: They were water trucks.
Stern: Did the hawks pull the wool over Powell’s eyes?

Blix: Powell is a very loyal servant of his president. The president is his commander-in-chief. Possibly this loyalty was exploited.

Stern: How long were the inspections to continue?

Blix: Perhaps until May.

Stern: When did you know that the war could not be prevented any more?

Blix: I still thought at the beginning of March that was not inevitable. The Iraqis had begun destroying 70 missiles. That was rather spectacular. However that was not enough for the Americans. Even Tony Blair tried at the last moment to avert war, perhaps for reasons of publicity. He was under great pressure. Once I asked him, what would happen if one invaded a country with 150,000 men and then found no weapons of mass destruction.

Stern: What was Tony Blair’s response?

Blix: He said: No, no, these weapons exist. Still he tried to find a solution at the last moment. He hoped Saddam Hussein would show the world that he really changed. As a proof, he should fulfill five demands within ten days. The Security Council would then decide about that fulfillment.

Stern: Where did this idea break down?

Blix: The French and the Germans mistrusted the Americans. They simply didn’t believe that the US would accept a concession from Iraq.

Stern: Why did Saddam play a cat and mouse game with the world?

Blix: He had no interest in cooperating. It was said that the sanctions would be lifted when he was stripped of power. On top of that, the façade of terror was maintained. Pride may also have played a role. At an interrogation, Saddam was asked why he didn’t allow any inspectors in his palaces. He should have answered: “We simply didn’t want you to invade our privacy.”

Stern: The expedition in Iraq is over. In the meantime, Iran is allowing inspectors into the country to monitor its nuclear projects. Libya has abandoned its nuclear weapons program. That wouldn’t have happened without the Iraq war. Aren’t preventive wars reasonable?

Blix: No. Today we know Saddam was a danger for his own people but not for the world. The lesson from the Iraq war is: sanctions and inspections work. They also help in nuclear disarmament – as long as they are carried out professionally and independently. And most importantly they don’t cost any human lives.