Hans ‘Moleman’ Blix is already trying to brush aside Colin Powell’s evidence against Iraq in advance of tomorrow’s presentation.
Hans Blix said there was no evidence of mobile biological weapons laboratories or of Iraq trying to foil inspectors by moving equipment before his teams arrived.
In a series of leaks or previews, the state department has said Mr Powell will allege that Iraq moved mobile biological weapons laboratories ahead of an inspection. Dr Blix said he had already inspected two alleged mobile labs and found nothing: "Two food-testing trucks have been inspected and nothing has been found."
Well, if Hans Blix has searched two whole trucks it’s obvious that Saddam Hussein has no such mobile labs. It’s not like he couldn’t hide them or anything…
Please. The inspections game is a sham, and a bad one at that. The inspectors honestly think that just because they haven’t found anything (other than chemical warheads that is) that means that there is nothing to find.
That begs the question: Saddam clearly has buying materials that can be used for the production of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. So where are they? Saddam claims to no longer have them – yet there is plenty of evidence which indicates that the Hussein regime has lied.
He said the choice for the UN was between continued containment and invasion. Both strategies had problems, but an invasion required 250,000 troops and over $100bn while for containment the numbers were 250 inspectors and $80m.
What Mr. Blix forgets is the price of failed containment: potentially millions of casualties. Containment, especially containment guaranteed by the UNMOVIC’s Keystone Kops is a bet that is tantamount to suicide. It’s like knowing that a convicted felon has a gun and doing nothing on the assumption that he’s not quite crazy enough to fire it again. Invasion does present a set of very thorny problems, but the costs of a lackluster inspection regime is simply too much for any nation to bear.
