Review of International Nuclear Hans Blix: Disarming Iraq
Front Man, Useful Idiot—or just idiot?, October 2, 2011A few notes on Blix's book [i]Disarming Iraq—The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction[/i]. He was 'director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997' ... and from 2000-2003 'executive director of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission' until the inspections were suspended in March 2003'. Published 2004, and in paperback 2005 with an added chapter 'After War: Weapons of Mass Disappearance'.
I'd received the impression that Blix was an honest broker, a serious hard-working chap with the interests of humanity at the forefront of his Swedish democratic mind. This book (a charity shop purchase!) shows he's just another part of the problem.
Just a few notes:
* He has no doubts at all about 9/11, or 'September 11' as it's indexed. For someone investigating technical issues, this alone shows he's useless.
* He has no doubts (and produces no evidence) that Iraq was the most murderous regime since WW2—[i]One of the bloodiest regimes the world has seen was eliminated. ... a giant statue of him [Saddam Hussein] was felled.. before the ... television cameras of the whole world.[/i] The naive detail about the statue—the accompanying detail was of course faked—is typical of Blix. What about mass slaughter in eastern Europe, in India and Bengal, in Nigeria, in Vietnam and Cambodia?
* Israel is only mentioned twice; there is nothing on Vanunu or 'ZOG'—this must be deliberate censorship policy on Blix's part, since anyone serious about nuclear matters must have views on Vanunu.
* He gives absurd unevidenced descriptions, which is standard media policy of course. Such-and-such a man is a 'brilliant negotiator', for example. People like Blair, Rice, Colin Powell are given this sort of unhelpful treatment.
* It's suggestive of his mentality that laughably irrelevant personal stuff is included—an operation, what his wife thought, how his hotel had no satellite link—but not whether this mattered.
* His accounts of UN procedures, such as they are, are impossible to judge reliably; there are anonymous briefings, meetings, reports, but no way to tell the status of these events.
Looking over this book, and considering his 16 or so years heading the IEAE, one has to wonder if he was just a gullible simpleton, or a carefully selected well-informed front man? I've read Blix was/is Jewish. Obviously it's easiest just to arrange promotion for someone naive—they never need know. But there's a risk that search a person might awaken and latch onto some topic and not leave it alone.
I'm not even sure it's his own book. The English is formally correct—for example he distinguishes 'illicit' from 'elicit', something many English speakers can't do. How heavily edited was this book? I don't know; but its mass deception is painful to read.