The US, The UN and Iraq

perception wrote:

Oh and before anyone gets too uppity about my dark thoughts about Dr. Blix---remember he is a public official just like Bush and Cheney.

Well, if you really think so, but I thought, he was an UN-employee:

Quote:

Executive Chairman

Under the terms of Security Council resolution 1284, the UN Secretary-General was asked to appoint an Executive Chairman for UNMOVIC, after consultation with and subject to the approval of the Security Council. On 26 January 2000, the UN Secretary-General wrote to the President of the Security Council, recommending that Dr. Hans Blix of Sweden be appointed Executive Chairman to UNMOVIC.

On 27 January 2000, the President of the Security Council wrote to the Secretary-General, informing him that the Security Council had approved the appointment of Dr. Blix and asked that he take up his mandated tasks as soon as possible. Dr. Blix took up his duties on 1 March 2000.

http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/ExecChair/ExecChai.htm

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Translation of "public official": anyone (appointed or elected) whose salary is financed with taxpayers' monies - assuming we paid our U.N. dues recently <G>

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Thanks for your translation, HofT, which isn't different from mine.

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Meanwhile:

While we agonise about whether to go to war, the US has moved on to a different question: what next?

Decisions, decisions

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Walter,

You might be part of the "Axis of Weasels" but at least you are not "a cheese eating surrender monkey".

This is what I like about diplomatic language. Its so understated. Its the way a turn of phrase can be used to imply contempt without actually saying it.

E.g. US Sec State for Attack (sorry Defense) Rumsfeld-

"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without an accordion". Laughing

No doubt there are some choice words about Tony Blair flying about in Washington (but in private - we have 40,000 troops in theatre). After all it was never Bush's intention to go the UN route. He thought a bit of flag waving conflated with 911 would be enough. But that guy Tony Blair "you know he's just so pursuasifying" So the UN benefitted from the entertaining Colin Powell show, but none of it really mattered.

Now as Jonathan Freedland points out, we in Europe should understand the nature of this American administration. They have invented a new language of diplomacy and its time we started to listen and understand it and not just laugh at it.

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Steve - those phrases originate with the editor-in-chief of the Murdoch newspapers, who is Australian. The same organization, btw, flooded Paris (where they have no paper) with free issues of a rag entitled "Chirac est un ver" (Chirac is a worm). Perhaps one of the Australians on this forum can shed light on Murdoch's motives?

Can't account for Secretary Rumsfeld's remarks - but he's not secretary of State, and diplomacy isn't his strong suit.

Question for you: watched (live on cable TV) Tony Blair's latest Iraq speech in Parliament; it contained nothing new but even so the usual hecklers in the back benches seem to have fallen silent. What happened?

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Walter - the author of the Guardian article you quote "Decisions, decisions" takes at face value Mr. Kagan's writings, of which here's a sample:
http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/2002-04-18-kaganpost.asp

What conceivable business could NATO, a defensive alliance, have acting as peacekeeper between Israelis and Palestinians - neither lot being NATO members, or likely to ever enter into an alliance with the U.S.?

Far from making a statement of fact, Kagan is whistling in the dark while walking through a graveyard when he pontificates on a "rift" between America and Europe. His is the self-proclaimed "neo-cons's" (read: plain cons) agenda, consisting of a single item only (not unrelated to their religion) and any overlap with other interests of conservatives in the U.S. is purely opportunistic and temporary.

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Just as a point of reference when calculating the pros and cons of going to war to "liberate the Iraqis", it might be helpful to remember that estimates of civilian Iraqi casualties range from 1-5 hundred thousand...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2079264/

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Snood, for those poor souls, liberation will be immediate, irreversible and ultimate . . .

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perception wrote:

Oh and before anyone gets too uppity about my dark thoughts about Dr. Blix---remember he is a public official just like Bush and Cheney.

It is hardly worth noting your scurrilous imputations about the probity and honesty of Dr. Blix--so i'll ignore what seems to be a typical position of those in favor of war: that any opposed are duped, deluded or corrupt.

Dr. Blix is not a public official like Bush and Cheney--he was appointed, not elected; and, he was not appointed by this administration, he was appointed by the United Nations. We don't sign his paycheck, so it is perhaps understandable that he doesn't go running down Pennsylvania Avenue once a week to find out what he thinks.

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Snood - the very article you post doubts those estimates. Most ordnance - especially that controlled by JSTARS - is now much more precise than what was used in the Yugoslavian bombardment; that lasted for 90 days and made just over 1 (one) thousand civilian victims.

Casualties may yet mount, but only in case of internal Iraqi warfare. The proposed intermingling of Turkish and Kurdish forces in the north is a ticking time bomb, as are Shia-controlled areas bordering Iran in the south.

Finally: a real defense-in-depth by Saddam in Baghdad and surrounding areas could cause casualties to rise to even higher numbers than the one- to five- hundred thousands (one hundred to five hundred kilodeaths, in the trade) mentioned in the article.

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http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/cfsp-00-f-6.htm

Quote:

NIX TO BLIX: MAN WHO CERTIFIED IRAQ AS NON-NUCLEAR IS UNLIKELY TO FIND -- OR EVEN TO SEEK -- SADDAM'S HIDDEN WEAPONS

Security Council's Choice is Sure Sign of End of 'Containment'

Center for Security Policy
SECURITY FORUM No. 00-F 6

27 January 2000

In a hugely disappointing decision yesterday to fill a senior UN bureaucratic post, the Security Council spoke volumes about its depleted appetite for further confrontations with -- to say nothing of additional efforts to punish -- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Security Council formally endorsed Secretary General Kofi Annan's recommendation to appoint Hans Blix. a Swedish diplomat with a checkered record, to become the first head of the successor to the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM).

Blix was the lowest-common-denominator choice for the job after Russia, China and France vetoed his much more conscientious compatriot, Rolf Ekeus. He is a natural choice to run the sort of Potemkin inspection operation that those three countries clearly have in mind for their once-and-future client, Iraq. Given Blix's dismal sixteen-year performance as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- an organization that had an uncanny track-record during his tenure of not finding evidence of nuclear weapons activities prohibited by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Thus not only Iraq, but Iran, North Korea, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa were among the nations that succeeded in largely concealing indigenous or collaborative nuclear weapons programs from Blix's IAEA.

France, Russia, and China must be tickled pink (pun?) with Dr. Blix, their annointed stooge. He's certainly been performing to their expectation.

timber

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Timber - that 2-year-old article concerns "nuclear" weapons, of which Saddam has none.

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No, Helen, it refers to Dr. Blix's performance while head of the IAEA, but it goes to the point of his having been appointed to head up UNSCOM over the far more able and pragmatic Rolf Ekeus, who while being polite, expresses little admiration for Dr. Blix or the job being done by UNSCOM. The editorials appended to the article are quite illuminating.

timber

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Timber

In addition to what HofT responded, French media have another opinion than you suggested.

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Granted the estimates are a shot in the dark. But I think the last couple lines of that article say alot....

"The best way to minimize casualties is to minimize targeting that network. Bush officials insist they are planning to do just that. If the war comes, they should be held to that standard."

The only change I'd make in those lines is to change my italicized "if" to "when".

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The site from which your article is taken, Timber, Iraqwatch, says of itself that it receives its principal support from the Smith Richardson Foundation. Although i already suspected, to be fair, i did a search of newspaper articles on Smith Richardson--this foundation has a track record for supporting conservative enterprises and organizations. Most recently, it attracted journalistic attention for its widespread and diligent support for anti-affirmative action groups. Although i don't necessarily rubber stamp all affirmative action programs, i believe the idea to be a good one, needing both work to make it fair and efficient, and support against partisan attack. The organizations which Smith Richardson supports in the attack on affirmative action are ones with i find to be not only partisan, but very often, groups which i would eschew as venal in motive. I consider Smith Richardson suspect in their motives and politics, and by extension, Iraqwatch. I would say what you've quoted form Iraqwatch is what the folks over there want people to believe. Were there independent confirmation of their characterization of Dr. Blix from respected journalistic sources (people careful because of their reputations, and the threat of suit), i might believe. Neither Iraqwatch nor Smith Richardson operate under the same constraints as do established journalistic organizations which cherish their reputations.

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Timber - with respect, the editorials you cite are unrelated to nuclear weaponry, as indeed is Dr. Blix's claimed expertise. Nuclear weapons don't exist in Iraq; btw, Setanta, that's not a matter of political opinion, it's a scientific certainty.

Back when the old Sovs were still around and we had to struggle with mathematical models with variables like "megatons" and "megadeaths", a very great physicist remarked at one of those "disarmament" conferences:

"Madness is the ability to make fine distinctions among different kinds of nonsense."

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snood wrote:

Just as a point of reference when calculating the pros and cons of going to war to "liberate the Iraqis", it might be helpful to remember that estimates of civilian Iraqi casualties range from 1-5 hundred thousand...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2079264/

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OK, Setanta, here are some other appraisals of Dr. Blix. from BBC, Slate, and National Review. Are those "Mainstream" enough?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2268819.stm

Quote:

As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 to 1997, he was in charge of overseeing inspections of the country's nuclear programme.

During that time, the Iraqis managed to hide an advanced nuclear weapons development programme from the IAEA. It was only discovered after the Gulf War in 1991.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2074629/

Quote:

Hans Blix
Incompetent bureaucrat or cowardly diplomat?
By Chris Suellentrop
Updated Tuesday, November 26, 2002, at 4:16 PM PT

When the United Nations named Hans Blix its chief weapons inspector, it chose a henhouse to guard the fox. Blix's record suggests that he's too cautious, too respectful of Iraq's official pronouncements, and too concerned with diplomatic niceties to carry out the kind of forceful inspections needed to disarm Iraq.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york100102.asp

Quote:

Author Archive
October 1, 2002 10:20 a.m.
Blix-krieg

Helen, sure Blix was a Nuclear Disarmament specialist (and not an effective one), but he was, as pointed out by all these articles, he was appointed not to do Nuclear Disarmament inspections, but to head thenew WMD Disarmament inspection team. The articles all address the issue of his current appointment. France and Russia wholeheartedly endorsed his appointment, over other candidates to which they were opposed.

timber

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