[news] US is misquoting my Iraq report, says Blix

[resist admin]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 00:30:18 -0000
From: Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby at dojo.tao.ca>
To: project-x at lists.resist.ca
Subject: [pr-x] US is misquoting my Iraq report, says Blix

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/31/1043804520548.html

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
February 1, 2003

US is misquoting my Iraq report, says Blix
By Judith Miller and Julia Preston in New York


Days after delivering a broadly negative report on
Iraq's cooperation with international inspectors, Hans
Blix challenged several of the Bush Administration's
assertions about Iraqi cheating and the notion that
time was running out for disarming Iraq through
peaceful means.

In an interview on Wednesday, Dr Blix, the United
Nations chief weapons inspector, seemed determined to
dispel any impression that his report was intended to
support the United States' campaign to build world
support for a war to disarm Saddam Hussein.

"Whatever we say will be used by some," Dr Blix said,
adding that he had strived to be "as factual and
conscientious" as possible. "I did not tailor my
report to the political wishes or hopes in Baghdad or
Washington or any other place."

Dr Blix took issue with what he said were US Secretary
of State Colin Powell's claims that the inspectors had
found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving
illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to
prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors
had reported no such incidents.

Similarly, he said, he had not seen convincing
evidence that Iraq was sending weapons scientists to
other countries to prevent them from being
interviewed.


Nor had he any reason to believe, as President George
Bush charged in his State of the Union speech, that
Iraqi agents were posing as scientists, or that his
inspection agency had been penetrated by Iraqi agents
and that sensitive information might have been leaked
to Baghdad.

Finally, he said, he had seen no persuasive
indications of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda. "There are
other states where there appear to be stronger links,"
such as Afghanistan, Dr Blix said. "It's bad enough
that Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction."

Russia has also denied any knowledge of links between
Iraq and al-Qaeda extremists. The Russian Foreign
Minister, Igor Ivanov, said on Thursday that "so far,
neither Russia nor any other country has information
about Iraq's ties with al-Qaeda".

"If we receive such information we will analyse it,"
he said. "Statements made so far are not backed by
concrete documents and concrete facts."

Meanwhile the founder of a militant Islamist group in
northern Iraq has denied US reports that his
organisation was the secret link between Baghdad and
al-Qaeda.

Mullah Krekar, a refugee in Norway, said Saddam was
his foe, and the Kurdish Islamist said he had no
contact with al-Qaeda.

He said that he could prove that his Ansar al-Islam
(Supporters of Islam) organisation, which controls a
sliver of land in northern Iraq, had "no contact with
al-Qaeda, with Osama [bin Laden], with Saddam Hussein,
with Iran or Iraq".

Ansar's role is at the heart of the US's latest
attempt to demonstrate a connection between al-Qaeda
and Iraq.

The New York Times, agencies



-- 
Macdonald Stainsby,
External Relations Co-ordinator,
Douglas Students Union.
**
In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht.
***
"`Order rules in Berlin.' You stupid lackeys! Your
`order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will rear
ahead once more and announce to your horror amid the brass
of trumpets: `I was, I am, I always will be!'"

-Rosa Luxemburg, 1918.


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