Was it the British PM’s office running the inspections?
Blix’s professional recommendation was that unfettered inspections were working and SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war.
This American Life did a story a while ago about the Decision Point Theatre at the Reagan Library about the invasion of Grenada. Part of the story was the amusing tale of a class of students who decided not to invade Grenada, that it was unwarranted and that it was stupid. The students continued to maintain this view in the face of the simulation telling them they were wrong, wrong, wrong.
I realize that these libraries are in a large part hagiographies to the men they are named after, designed to show every action and every decision in the best possible light. That doesn’t mean that they ought to lie outright about the known facts of the matter, but then I get grumpy about the Creationism Museum too and that ain’t changing any time soon either.
In Hans Blix’s book, “Disarming Iraq,” pages 193-194, Blix recounts a meeting with Tony Blair on February 20. Blix writes: “I said… that while I appreciate the intelligence we received, I had to note that it had not been all that compelling… Personally, I tended to think that Iraq still concealed weapons of mass destruction, but I needed evidence.”
And as Blix was recounting his March 7th update to the UNSC, Blix stated:
It’s also a fact that Blix considers the war to be “unjustified.” But it is not accurate to state, or at least imply, that Blix either knew that there were no WMD, or was on the verge of giving Iraq a clean bill of health, or had really made up his mind one way or another. It’s very clear that he wanted to work in Iraq for a few more months before coming to any final conclusions, but he remained suspicious that Iraq was hiding something.
So let’s let Blix speak for himself, rather than making him out to be as anti-war as, say, someone like me.
Bush’s stress is greater based on the fact that he is the only one who decided to end the inspections knowing that those inspections were indeed a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to Iraq’s disarmament obligation.
However the hard cold fact which is undeniable, is that when Congress - including Repubs and Dems - voted to authorize war ‘if necessary’ there were no inspectors inside Iraq on the verge of disarming Iraq peacefully.
Bush is the sole decider on kicking inspectors who were there out. Congress did not have that luxury in October 2002 of knowing that Saddam Hussein would concede and let inspecters in plus invite the CIA in.
The minds you speak of are not dealing with the same issue and or conditions
The stress on Bush mind has to be more severe.
That is why it is quite obvious that Bush is in denial about inspections and his sole final decision to squander the progress the diplomatic means were achieving.
I would love to see a reasoned and fact based argument against this.
No inspecters in Iraq when Congress voted for war if necessary and over two hundred inspecters inside Iraq when Bush decided alone to kick them out five months later .
I don’t see how my comment you addressed presupposes that Blix had reached a conclusive opinion on his work or that he was partucularly more anti war or not.
My statement I believe is quite fair and realistic:
“Blix’s professional recommendation was that unfettered inspections were working and SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war.”
Blix expressed a view that unfettered inspections were working so it stands to reason that he did not believe that Bush and Blair should have fettered them up and start a war.
Is my statement accurate or not as written?
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
“Blix’s professional recommendation was that unfettered inspections were working and SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war.”
Blix expressed a view that unfettered inspections were working so it stands to reason that he did not believe that Bush and Blair should have fettered them up and start a war.
[/QUOTE]
Do you have a cite (prior to the war) where Blix said that the inspections were either unfettered OR that they were working? I agree that he didn’t feel there was ample evidence to go to war over, but I’ve never seen a statement where Blix was that open that he felt SH or Iraq were cooperating to a level he was comfortable with and that the inspections were working to his complete satisfaction. To me, from memory, his stance was much more nuanced than you seem to be attempting to portray it…shades of gray, instead of the black and white picture you seem to be trying to assert.
The Senate specifically rejected a Levin amendment to require the President to return to Congress for another war authorization if the UNSC did not authorize the use of force. 75 senators voted against the amendment, in other words, to authorize the President to go to war no matter what the diplomatic situation might be vis a vis Iraq or the United Nations.
So, given the choice to make a later decision on the specifics of the diplomatic situation and allowing Congress to determine whether war was required, as opposed to going “all in” and authorizing war subject to the President’s judgment alone, the substantial majority of Congress chose to invest all decision making in the President.
In essence, they voted for a game of chicken with Saddam and put Bush alone in the driver’s seat. The cries of “bu-bu-bu-but we didn’t intend to vote for a car crash!” ring quite hollow to me.
You’ll note that I provided a cite in Blix’s own words that most clearly did not conclude that Saddam was cooperating enough to avert war. Blix specifically said – you can read it in black and white in my earlier post – that he deferred to the Security Council on the judgment of whether the cooperation was sufficient.
NFBW is clearly projecting his own views onto Blix.
Yes, what you posted is more along the lines of my own memories of what Blix was saying. That’s why I was asking NFBW to back up his own claim with a cite demonstrating, clearly and prior to the war, his assertion of “Blix’s professional recommendation was that unfettered inspections were working and SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war.”
Having seen NFBW in action in other threads I figured it would be best to try and nail him down on this assertion rather than letting him change the goal posts or shift the entire discussion, which seems to be his normal MO.
Exactly this. They “voted to authorize war ‘if necessary’”, but designated one man and one man only to decide whether it was necessary, which is dangerous in any case, but gravely so in this instance, when evidence suggested that the man clearly wanted a war.
And was equally clearly cherry picking the data to take us to war.
In answer to the OP, I agree that the proper role of the Presidential Library is to present Bush’s thoughts on the issues of his Presidency. So, the exhibit as described seems fine to me. I doubt Bush would be game for recording a new version in which he takes sole blame for the war anyway (which wouldn’t be the objective truth either).
If video-Bush says “my first choice was to use diplomacy rather than putting american troops into harm’s way”, well, it is true that diplomacy was attempted for some time.
While NotfooledbyW feels that video-Bush’s remark is “blatantantly untrue”, where they actually differ is in whether the diplomacy was successful, not whether it had been attempted.
I posted this link earlier. Please read it:
Blix clearly states that Iraq is fully cooperating, that he expects the remaining issues can be resolved in a matter of a few months, and that the continued presence of the UN team will prevent Saddam from resuming prohibited programs.
The quote from Ravenman about this report does not contradict any of those points; it only acknowledges that Iraq’s cooperation was not immediate. To someone like Bush, I suppose that is a pretext for war. To any sane person, it is a ridiculous reason to invade.
I’ve only skimmed it (sorry I missed your link earlier btw), but this is dated the 7th of March, 2003…12 days before the invasion, when it was quite clear that the trigger had already been pulled. By that point, nothing Blix could have said would have made any difference.
I agree with you that it wasn’t a good pretext for war, but I don’t think this really backs up the assertion that “Blix’s professional recommendation was that unfettered inspections were working and SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war”, merely that by the 12th Blix was reasonably happy with the progress, that he still had reservations and needed more resources and specifically more time. Certainly he DID need all of those, but by the 12th of March it was too late by half a year to be even as cautiously optimistic as your cite shows he was at that time…hell, it might have been too late a year before. Certainly, by the time we were already deploying substantial forces in the area the die was cast unless something extraordinary occurred, such as Saddam and his sons unilaterally agreeing to abdicate and leave the country.
Not clear to me. Can you quote the part you are referring to?
I doubt it was this:
Sure:
Blix is a scientist. In your quote, he is acknowledging that he can’t predict the future. He is not prepared to say that there are no WMD stockpiles or programs in Iraq; he can only say that none have yet been found, that after some initial foot-dragging, Iraq is now fully cooperative; and that he estimates the remaining issues can be resolved in a few months.
And that Iraq will be no threat to the US during those months.
It may be that the resolution he seeks is unsatisfactory, or even that they discover a huge cache of hydrogen bombs tomorrow, so of course he’s not saying everything is fine. He doesn’t have the authority to say one way or the other, as Ravenman’s quote indicated; all he can do is report his findings.
But it is clear from his report that Bush knew weeks in advance that his intelligence had been wrong, and that he was invading, not to save the US from a legitimate threat, but because Saddam’s cooperation was not “immediate.” Reasonable people can debate whether that justified further sanctions. No sane person can believe it justified 4000 American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and a trillion dollars.
You keep saying the 12th of March; the report was dated the 7th of March, and since we were bugging the UN, Bush probably knew of the findings well before that. I completely disagree that it was too late to stop the invasion. All he had to do was say no.
I absolutely cannot understand anyone who says that once the troops were stationed on the border, he had to invade, unless it is in the context of their opinion that Bush was completely insane.
As for your assertion that the die was cast a year in advance, you may be right. But all that shows is that Bush was lying to the public the entire time he was claiming that “nobody wants war,” and that Saddam was forcing his hand.
He didn’t have to invade because the troops were there, but he did have to either invade or pull them out. And once he pulled them out, what would have been the chances of Saddam continuing to cooperate? I’d say about zero.
Why? As a veteran, I realize that you can get antsy when you’re sitting around with nothing to do, but it’s still better than getting shot at.
And unless they were raiding Iraqi farms for chickens, I fail to see how their supply train was more complex when they were sitting on the border than when they were in running battles.
At worst, they could have had various members of the Coalition of the Willing rotate their contingents in and out, to maintain a reduced but continual presence.
He doesn’t say that. TonySinclair is saying that.
I have directly quoted Hans Blix’s autobiography in which he said that on February 20 that he “tended to think” that Saddam had WMD. If Hans Blix himself was leaning toward the belief that WMD was hidden, how could Bush know “weeks in advance” that the intelligence was wrong?
You’re purporting that Bush knew something for a fact based on UNSCOM inspections, when the head of UNSCOM himself had not drawn that conclusion… and in fact his suspicions were that WMD might actually be there!!
Mind you, I’m not defending the war. It was wrong. But you can’t just draw conclusions that are in direct opposition to the historical record.