Unable to verify, unworthy of trust

(Washington, D.C.): Hans Blix today reminded the world why he was chosen as chief UN weapons inspector by those who have, over the last eleven years, been running interference for Saddam Hussein: During a press conference in Baghdad this morning, he declared that he had beseeched Iraqi interlocutors to give him a basis for improving the “tone” of his much-anticipated 27 January report to the Security Council.

Sure enough, they gave him ten concessions which he promptly, and obligingly, trumpeted to the international press. Unfortunately, none of them represent real breakthroughs, let alone materially address the underlying problem — Saddam’s continued unwillingness to disarm.

For example, the Iraqi regime’s new pledges to “encourage” its scientists to talk with inspectors without minders present is a canard. Their interviews will surely be conducted in rooms equipped with Iraqi eavesdropping “bugs.” In any event, their families will still effectively be held hostage at risk of torture, rape and/or execution. In short, the scientists will be no more free to talk than when their government was actively discouraging them from agreeing to unescorted interviews (yet another material breach).

No less empty is the newly-expressed Iraqi invitation for the inspectors to visit “private” places, like weapon scientists’ homes. If such sites were not already under orders to be swept before an inspection last week turned up a few boxes of documents describing nuclear weapons work dating from the 1980s, they are surely cleaned up now.

Most preposterous of all, however, is the notion that the Blix-negotiated deal on the use of UN helicopters is a breakthrough. Pursuant to it, Iraqi “minders” (no more than “an appropriate number,” of course) will accompany each flight. It is hard to see how this arrangement will do other than compromise the value of such aircraft as means by which the inspectors theoretically could move swiftly anywhere in the country with at least some element of surprise.

Anyone objectively observing Blix’s performance over the past seven weeks will recognize him as a man less concerned with confirming Saddam’s non-compliance with UN resolutions than with sparing the Iraqi despot the promised consequences of his doing so. As a gutsy op.ed. published in today’s Wall Street Journal by one of Blix’s countrymen and long-time colleagues, former Swedish deputy prime minister Per Ahlmark, makes clear, this outcome is no accident. It was with precisely this expectation in mind that France and Russia insisted, at Saddam’s instigation, that Blix get the job. For these reasons, the Bush Administration should now be dispelling any illusion that either the content or the “tone” of Inspector Blix’s 27 January report will bear materially on the true state of affairs in Iraq — or on U.S. decisions to disarm that nation by liberating its long-suffering people.

STOCKHOLM — Has Hans Blix suddenly grown a backbone? Last week, the Swedish diplomat and chief U.N. weapons inspector told reporters that it’s “clear” Iraq has “violated the bans of the United Nations in terms of imports.” Western journalists have reported that those imports include missile parts, but Mr. Blix says it is not clear at this time whether they are related to weapons of mass destruction.

It is possible that with war on the horizon, Mr. Blix and his team are becoming more aggressive so as not to be caught on the wrong side of history yet again. But the fact remains that Saddam Hussein could not have asked for a more pliable character than Hans Blix. And in a very real sense, Saddam did choose him.

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. Ekus 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 Ekus 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.

Does that mean that Mr. Blix is doomed to fiasco? Probably, but not in the same way he failed in the 1990s. Before examining the present situation, let’s first revisit his prior failures as chief weapons inspector during past assignments to Baghdad. Mr. Blix was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna from 1981-97. After several inspection in the ’80s, he assured the world that nothing alarming was taking place in Iraq. Mr. Blix gave Iraq a clean bill of health and Saddam official cover.

And yet the suspicions about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions were heatedly discussed throughout the ’80s. Israel had destroyed the Osirak reactor just outside Baghdad in June 1981. To the Israeli government it was obvious that Saddam, with his enormous oil resources, did not need nuclear power for civilian purposes. A few years later, with his attack on the Kurds and war with Iran, the whole world could see that the Iraqi dictator was obsessed not only by producing weapons of mass destruction but also by using them against neighboring countries and his own population. None of this, it seems, set off any alarms bells for Mr. Blix.

Despite his obvious shortcomings as IAEA chief before the Gulf War, after the war he was asked to head the U.N. inspections team, this time in tandem with Mr. Ekus. And, like the previous period before 1991, Iraqi officials again assured the U.N. that they were hiding no weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix again believed them. He even reproached the most creative and energetic of his inspectors, David Kay, who did not trust Saddam’s henchmen. Mr. Blix said that he should trust them.

The crucial discoveries in the middle and end of 1991 became possible when Mr. Kay initiated raids into suspected buildings without telling the Iraqis in advance. Hans Blix disliked this method. But Mr. Kay went on efficiently, was supported by Mr. Ekus, and found large amounts of documents and weapons within a year after the war. He proved that Iraq had huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons.

It later became visible beyond doubt that, when the Gulf War broke out, Saddam had been only six to 18 months from his first atomic device.

At the end of 2002, we could have hoped that Mr. Blix was convinced by the Bush administration, the United Kingdom and the new U.N. resolution not to be so easily deceived by Saddam Hussein. But he obviously still does not realize that the tyrant in Baghdad will never open his hidden arm stockpiles, and then disarm, if he does not feel pressured by the only tool he has respect for: military might.

Last week’s statement about violations notwithstanding, Mr. Blix continues to express his displeasure with the buildup of U.S. military forces in the Gulf region. “We can all be anxious and worried” about the Pentagon’s preparations, he has said. Mr. Blix also seems intent on trying to redefine and prolong his mission in a way which was not decided by the Security Council in November last year.

As much as I hate to admit it, perhaps these attempts to appease Saddam are related to the political climate of his, and my, native country. Mr. Blix knows that a huge majority of his fellow Swedes despise the idea of a military confrontation with Iraq. Sweden has lived in peace for almost 200 years and did next to nothing to contribute to the defeat of Nazism and Communism. During the first Gulf War the official Swedish policy was probably the most anti-American in Europe.

For Mr. Blix it might be a strange idea that free nations sometimes have to take action before rapidly increasing threats could overwhelm us. Yet there are some Swedes, believe it or not, who today understand that certain rogue states constitute such enormous dangers; Hans Blix is obviously not one of them.

Mr. Ahlmark is a former deputy prime minister of Sweden.