Hans Blix
Hans Blix
Hans Martin Blix; born 28 June 1928) is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairsand later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union on site, and led the agency response to them. Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionDiplomat
Date of Birth28 June 1928
CountrySweden
There are still a number of questions, including the question of possible further external assistance to the nuclear program. You don't know what you don't know.
What we have said we need all the time is the presentation of more evidence -- that they have not been taking the questions seriously which were posed in the report with which they are familiar, and we would like to have responses to those questions,
We have not seen a serious effort on the Iraqi side ... or evidence that would clear up the question marks.
I think we have to learn what did they have. They say that they will adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty for nuclear weapons. They are already party to that treaty, and they have had inspections for years.
I think the more evidence that is placed on the table, if there is some, the better,
is a disarmament resolution and not an inspection resolution.
Our inspectors had been there, and they had taken a lot of samples, and there was no trace of any chemicals or biological things, ... And the trucks that we had seen were water trucks.
We had hoped that it would clarify a lot of issues that remained open since 1998. It did give information about peaceful programs concerning biology and chemistry, but it did not really shed any new evidence from the chemical weapons and biological weapons program.
Our role is not to humiliate the Iraqis.
or any other very sensitive thing, we'll say cannot be circulated to anybody.
that could be risky from the point of view of proliferation.
It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side,
The Iraqis are not threatened by the Turks or by the Iranians or by the Saudis and they tell me that these are not weapons of mass destruction, they are weapons of self-destruction.
If public opinion still endorses military action that's one thing, but if they wait maybe it will not. So it's not only impatience, but there are several other factors.