Just heard a news report on AFR news (radio) that when the selection of a chief weapons inspector was made, Russia, France, and Germany had two candidates picked out. One was Blix, the other, I don't recall the name.
Apparently, the US and most experts wanted the other guy presented, but the UN committee responsible for selecting the chief inspector actually contacted Saddam and asked which candidate he preferred.
I will be looking and listening today for more information. This might be old news to many here, but it was the first I had heard of this.
Even if it IS old news, we need to know more. Nice work!
If you remember, Saddam wanted Scott Ritter as head weapons inspector first. They dropped the idea for no reason. The next choice on the list was no Saddam suckup and the UN didn't want that, so Blix was the third choice.
Did anyone here this former inspector (didn't catch his name) on fox news? He was saying that Blix and Mohommed were trying not to find weapons. He also said Iraq could have up to 9 nuclear weapons.
I didn't see the guy on Fox, but the alternative candidate was Rolf Ekeus (sp?), who was the head of inspections in '98. Saddam didn't want him because he was too tough.
Heard this a month ago. It was Rolf Ekeus.
From an article in January's Wall Street Journal by Per Ahlmark, former deputy prime minister of Sweden who has know Blix for forty years:
"First, Mr. Blix's softness on Iraq is not at all an inevitable consequence of the fact that he is a Swede, as am I. His passport does not create illusions about Saddam Hussein; his character does. Rolf Ekeus is also a Swedish diplomat. But when he was in charge of the inspectors he understood the appalling brutality and systematic lying of Saddam's regime.
Indeed, in 1999, Mr. Ekéus made the shortlist for Mr. Blix's current position but was vetoed by Russia, then France. As the former chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler, writes in his book, "Saddam Defiant," the Russians were taking marching orders directly from Baghdad. In Mr. Butler's book, Ambassador Sergei Lavrov is quoted as saying that Russia "blocked the Ekéus nomination because Iraq did not want him!" He goes on to say that all appointments were to be treated the same way -- approval from Iraq was mandatory. When Hans Blix's candidacy was discussed, no veto arrived from Baghdad.
With the go ahead from Saddam, Russia and France threw their support behind Mr. Blix and he was soon approved by the Security Council. The Clinton administration seems to have been too paralyzed by the Monica Lewinsky scandal to put up a fight. Thus, you could say that Hans Blix was handpicked by the very regime he was to inspect and disarm."
January 2000. Newspapers responsed to the selection of Hans Blix.
The Boston Globe: No good can come of the effective veto
that Russia, France and China have given Saddam
Hussein over U-N Security Council decisions.
That is the meaning of their refusal to accept
Secretary General Kofi Annan's choice of the
highly-qualified Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus to
lead a reconstituted U-N commission mandated,
under U-N resolutions, to disclose and dismantle
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. ...
Explaining his country's position, Russia's
ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov,
said the Security Council would not only have to
choose a chief weapons inspector who was
acceptable to Saddam, but that the Iraqi
dictator would also have to approve all members
of the inspection team and even the disarmament
questions the commission could address. This
standoff represents a grave peril not only for
arms control and regional stability but also for
the credibility of the Security Council and the
U-N generally. Russia and France, in their
shameless efforts to obtain commercial favors
from Saddam's regime, have permitted the tyrant
who gassed to death thousands of Iraqi citizens
to determine who will search for his hidden
weapons of mass destruction.
New York Times: The United Nations Security Council's
compromise choice of Hans Blix as the new chief
weapons inspector for Iraq is a disturbing sign
that the international community lacks the
determination to rebuild an effective arms
inspection system in Iraq. Mr. Blix is a man of
unquestioned integrity and tact. But he seems
unlikely to provide the forceful leadership
needed to keep Saddam Hussein from cheating on
his arms control obligations and building
fearsome unconventional weapons. ... The two men
who previously ran the Iraq inspection program,
Rolf Ekeus and Richard Butler, rightly insisted
that Baghdad would have to provide complete
answers to all significant questions about
missing weapons, ingredients and records before
it could be considered in compliance.
Washington should apply a similar standard
before approving any move in the Security
Council to end international sanctions on Iraq.
Newsday: An unfortunate choice to oversee the new
weapons-inspections agency on Iraq has emerged
at the United Nations Security Council: Hans
Blix of Sweden, the retired former head of the
U-N nuclear agency. To choose Blix, 72, to
ferret out Iraq's nuclear secrets is like hiring
Inspector Clouseau [a fictional French police
inspector, a character in the "Pink Panther"
motion pictures, whose name has come to be a
synonym for inept police work] to do the job.
But unless the United States or Britain
intervenes, it appears that [Mr.] Blix will win
council approval as the consensus choice. If
that happens, President ... Clinton will have
wimped out [displayed unacceptable cowardice] on
Iraqi arms inspections.
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/01/000131-iraq1.htm
I couldn't believe that this inspector did not get more coverage. He was talking about those Aluminium tubes. He said he saw how they were being used, and it was not for what the Iraq Gov. claimed.
He also commented on how "fixed" the inspections are. He had telephoned the Mohommedian and told him where he should go. The former inspector said that they never went there.
Ekeus may have been better than Blix, but Kenneth Pollack doesn't give him high marks--he cites occasions when he backed down because of Iraqi pressure and calls Richard Butler "far more aggressive" (The Threatening Storm, p. 87).
Bill Tierney. Amazing report.
"Bill Tierney. Amazing report."
Thanks, It was driving me crazy thatI couldn't remember his name.