Almost two years after the invasion of Iraq, denounced the US for opting for military intervention over inspection. Gamal Nkrumah and Dina Ezzat sounded out former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq Nobody could accuse of slacking in his last days on the job. Exactly two years this week the former United Nations Monitoring, Verification Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) chief faced former US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the explosive UN Security Council session of 5 February 2003 in which a straight-faced Powell brandished a little glass tube that allegedly contained material that provided evidence that the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein developed chemical weapons. Powell so desperately wanted to convince the UN Security Council to pass a resolution sanctioning military intervention in Iraq. Powell hoped that pulling a little trick he would at least impress Blix and Mohamed El- Baradie, the Egyptian-born director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who were supervising the search for the alleged Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, the experts knew better. The Americans were behaving impetuously, Blix and El-Baradie concurred, insisting that they had not been able to find a shred of evidence supporting Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. Notwithstanding Blix's protests, five weeks after Powell's remonstrations at the UN, the US invaded Iraq in what Blix describes as "a pre- meditated but not pre-determined war". With the US-led invasion of Iraq, the international inspectors never returned to Iraq. The US conducted its own inspection instead. America's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was in vain. A little over two weeks ago, the White House declared that it suspended the search for the lethal weapons and that no such weapons were found in Iraq. "We [as international inspectors] could have concluded our search with the same results," Blix told Al-Ahram Weekly. "International inspection under the auspices of the UN would not have cost that much money, blood or suffering," he added. The US was determined to go to war, Blix told the Weekly. "But the chance of finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction was fast receding," Blix said. "We told them we could not find evidence. We could not have said then that there were no weapons," he added. "International inspection came closer to truth than the intelligence agencies of the world's most powerful nations," Blix pointedly stated. Blix categorically rejects accusations that he was playing into the hands of the Americans. He also dismisses suggestions that he used vague language in his statements on Iraq before the UN Security Council to avoid going too far in upsetting the US. "We [Blix and El-Baradie] reported that we have seen no smoking gun." He says that the US and Britain accused him of lying. Blix believes the US attempts to unseat El- Baradei as head of the IAEA is due to the fact that he did not present the US with the smoking gun it was looking for in Iraq. Blix does not even dismiss as fanciful the notion that recent claims made over alleged Egyptian attempts to illicitly develop a nuclear weapons programme are only part of a concerted US attempt to tarnish the image of El-Baradie, the Egyptian candidate for the top IAEA post who is running uncontested. So how did he get involved with the nuclear inspection business? "I was a university student shortly after World War II and I wanted to make sure that my world and the family that I raise would be free of war. I was very naïve then and I began by arranging for tourists to travel for peace. I thought that if like-minded youth campaigned hard enough for peace by travelling all over the world, that global peace would be secured," Blix mused. "Of course, the whole exercise was not a very practical or effective method of advancing world peace." Next, Blix did a stint at the Swedish Foreign Ministry. "But I did not want to spend my entire life dining with dignitaries and attending receptions," Blix quickly added. He enrolled at the University of Uppsala where he studied international public law. "I was drawn to the UN, and my career took off. I was in a job that gave me tremendous pleasure and a sense of purpose." But, surely there must be certain drawbacks. Today, anger wells up within him when he watches the moving images emanating from Iraq of death, destruction and destitution. Blix says he feels sympathy for innocent civilians caught up in the Iraqi quagmire. As he stated explicitly in his 2004 bombshell Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Blix maintains that during the last few months before the invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi authorities fully cooperated with the UN inspectors. "The Iraqis cooperated on procedure even though they couldn't present us with documentary evidence. This was very strange because Iraq was a country with very good book-keeping," Blix noted. He acknowledged that Baghdad put up with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 which he describes as "a draconian resolution that would not have been accepted by any state that was not under direct threat of armed attack". Two years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Blix argues that there was a chance -- a very small one -- that the war could have been averted. If Saddam was to go on Iraqi TV and make a clear statement of commitment to further cooperate on specific inspection requirements, then it might have been possible for more voices in the international community to object more vociferously against the US determination to invade Iraq. "I had spoken with [Arab League Secretary- General] Amr Moussa, since he was the person who had been able [in September 2002] to convince Saddam to allow the inspectors to return to Iraq. We agreed on certain points and he was supposed to go to Baghdad days before the US- led invasion of Iraq to speak with Saddam. This trip that could have alleviated the crisis was cancelled abruptly. I never knew why." Blix is still convinced that the war on Iraq was illegal since it was carried out without the sanction of the UN Security Council. "Even if they found the weapons -- which they didn't -- this war would still be illegal. It was not passed by the Security Council," Blix stressed. And for Blix the US declaration that no weapons were found in Iraq is not enough to close the file of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This file, he says, has been in the UN Security Council since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and it is only the Security Council that can declare it closed. "It is the Security Council that can decide what to happen next," Blix said. He added that in accordance with Security Council resolutions 687 and 1441, "Iraq is still obliged to be under monitoring and if they want to change that, it is for the Security Council." Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the war- torn country lays in ruin. "The only good thing was to topple Saddam Hussein who was a real dictator," Blix conceded. "Even so, the forcible removal of a tyrant set a dangerous precedent." Blix believes that the time has come to focus on inspection and not on war and deposing dictators. Military intervention, he argued, can hardly serve as an instrument of enforcing nuclear non-proliferation. "But it is clear that [the Americans and British] had many other motives" for their invasion of Iraq than the issue of non- proliferation. Blix was in Egypt recently to discuss this prickly issue. He arrived in Cairo on 28 January, in his capacity as the head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), a distinguished international body of 15 members from different countries, to take part in a seminar organised on regional non-proliferation. "Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Middle Eastern Perspective", was the theme of a two- day seminar that took place in Cairo last week. Organised jointly by the WDMC, the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), Pugwash (the 1995 Nobel Peace Winner, a Canadian non- governmental organisation advocating non- proliferation) and Germany's Fredriech Ebert Stiftung. And, in an unprecedented development for this region, the seminar brought together non-governmental activists and experts from within and without the Middle East, including Syrians and Israelis, to brain-storm over the prospects of non-proliferation in the Middle East. "Our point of departure is the US declaration that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq," said Ambassador Abdel-Raouf El- Reedy of the ECFA. In its paragraph 14, UN Security Council Resolution 687 that legalised the war to liberate Kuwait, made a clear reference to the fact that destroying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should be the first step towards making the entire Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction. "It was the Egyptian permanent delegation to the UN at the time that insisted on including this clause in the resolution. Now that Iraq has been disarmed, the time has come for the peoples of this region to get down to the business of seriously eliminating all weapons of mass destruction," El-Reedy said. He added that this issue is especially significant for Egypt in view of "the 15-year-old initiative of President Hosni Mubarak to make the Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction". Blix wholeheartedly concurred with Ambassador El-Reedy. Speaking to the Weekly in the sumptuous surroundings of the Mena House Hotel where the WMDC held its board meeting, Blix seemed more focussed on the purpose of non-proliferation rather than on the issue of paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687. Blix does not consider the file of the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction closed in the absence of a final UN Security Council resolution on the subject. According to Blix the objective of non- proliferation in the Middle East could only be pursued in the same way that it has been pursued in other regions: "through dialogue and discussion among the members of the region". Blix recounted the South American experience. "Argentina and Brazil first agreed among themselves [on the purpose of abandoning weapons of mass destruction in their region] and then invited the IAEA," Blix said. As far as the Middle East is concerned, Blix admits that there is a legitimate fear on the part of Arab countries of Israel's nuclear arsenal -- especially since Israel's nuclear facilities are not subject to international inspection or safeguards. "Israel does not put the issue of non- proliferation at the top of its agenda. Actually it says it is at the bottom of the agenda," Blix explained. Progress on the political talks in the Middle East, Blix said, could be a catalyst to remove this issue up the agenda. But, Israel has the full backing of the US for its supposedly legitimate security concerns. And, from a legal point of view, Israel is not party to many non- proliferation treaties including the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Even the resolution that was adopted by the 2000 review conference of the NPT, which calls on Israel to join the treaty, does not have a binding nuclear inspection clause, Blix said. He argued that countries of the region might feel less threatened by Israel's nuclear capabilities if the Israeli facilities were subject to international inspection. Blix said he is well aware of the comparisons that people in the Middle East draw between the way the US treats Iran and Israel on the issue of nuclear weapons. "Iran is party to the NPT. Israel is not," he said. He hastened to add that this should not justify any military strike against Iran. "Iran has the right to possess peaceful nuclear energy. It is such a colonial notion for the US to question why Iran needs nuclear energy when it has oil. This is not an acceptable argument. Mexico develops nuclear energy and it is a big oil producer," Blix said. The answer to the Iranian questions, Blix said, is in the guarantees. "Iran has to have sufficient guarantees that it will not be subject to military strikes aimed at eliminating its nuclear capabilities," he argued. He added that the Iranians should also have sufficient guarantees that they will continue to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. Blix strongly believes that nuclear energy is a prerequisite for satisfying the future energy needs of the world. He explains that nuclear energy is clean and relatively safe, given the advanced state- of-the-art technology and the fact that nuclear energy poses no threat to the environment by releasing dangerous carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, Blix has no qualms about the using of nuclear energy to satisfy global energy needs. "I am green. I am passionate about the environment. And, I am still in favour of nuclear power essentially in order to contain the dangers of global warming. I am sure that nuclear energy will come back in a big way in the near future," he predicted.
