Ex-chief weapons inspector slams Iraq war
LONDON (AFP) - Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, slammed the Iraq war as a “tragedy” and blamed it on leaders ignoring the facts, in a comment piece published Thursday.Writing in The Guardian on the five-year anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Blix, who clashed with Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, described the war as “a tragedy — for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity.”
In the sub-headline to the comment piece, Blix, who headed the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, wrote that responsibility for the war “must lie with those who ignored the facts five years ago”.
At the time of the Iraq war, Blix accused the US and Britain of exaggerating the threat from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” — traces of which have never been found.
In his comment piece, he said the war was a “setback in the world’s efforts to develop legal restraints on the use of armed force between states” and added that in 2003, “Iraq was not a real or imminent threat to anybody.”
Blix wrote that had coalition troops not deposed Saddam, “he would, in all likelihood, have become another Kadhafi or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world.”
He said that one positive sign to emerge from the conflict was that “it may be that the spectacular failure of ensuring disarmament by force, and of introducing democracy by occupation, will work in favour of a greater use of diplomacy and ’soft power’.”
See More:Iraq UN WarfareHave Your Say: Ex-chief weapons inspector slams Iraq war
Please note, only selected comments will be published.
Or discuss this report in our our new forums
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 3:07 am and is filed under Breaking News, General . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Free Newsletter
Loading ...Related News
- Bush World War III rant shows he’s really lost it now
- Ex-CIA chief criticises Iraq war
- Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
- ‘Iraq quagmire real threat to US’
- U.S., Russia: Iraq had no WMDs
Email This Page To A Friend
Latest Headlines
- Officers routinely lied to obtain search warrants
- Will the Mortgage Industry Pay for Its Crimes?
- Judge May Make CIA Torture Memo Public
- Roots of surveillance standoff go back decades
- U.S. deploys more than 43,000 unfit for combat
- UN suspends aid flights after Burma impounds food
- BBC kept £106,000 of charity cash
- Peak Food: Blaming the Victims
- The Challenge Of Modern Slavery
- Ex-MI5 chief warns over detention
More Breaking News
Archive
