Blix criticizes weak evidence of Iraqi arms

Michael Miller

Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector who

often questioned the United States in its rush to war in Iraq, spoke

to a receptive crowd on Thursday in UC Irvine’s Distinguished Fellows

Series.

In the free hour-long speech, held before a packed room in the

campus Social Science Lecture Hall, Blix chastised the Bush

administration for what he viewed as weak evidence on Iraq’s weapons

of mass destruction, but he also acknowledged the difficulty in

dealing with rogue states in a world fast developing nuclear arms.

“I sometimes wonder what the world would think of the U.N.

Security Council today if it had authorized war in March 2003,” Blix

told the crowd. Soon after, he added, “The closer we got to the day

of unleashing armed action, the weaker the evidence looked.”

Blix’s statements were supported by a largely enthusiastic

audience, which applauded a number of his remarks about U.S. foreign

policy. However, Blix offered both sides of the argument on Iraq,

noting that Saddam Hussein had lost the trust of most of the world by

playing “cat and mouse” with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Blix also spoke about nuclear tensions among other countries,

particularly Iran and North Korea. He said he was “pessimistic for

the short term, but optimistic for the long term,” praising the

efforts of the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in

keeping peace between nuclear weapons states.

The world, Blix contended, had changed since the treaty was signed

in 1968, as economics and other factors had brought many countries

closer together. He said he did not foresee a nuclear conflict

between superpowers, as many feared during the Cold War.

“We are linked to each other and interdependent,” Blix said.

Spectators grew most involved in the lecture when Blix turned his

focus to America’s handling of the war in Iraq. The crowd broke into

applause when Blix mentioned the lack of weapons of mass destruction,

and when he referred to the Bush administration’s case for the war as

“faith-based intelligence.”

Later, the speaker got a laugh when he dryly noted, “The book I

have written, ‘Disarming Iraq,’ has stayed on the nonfiction list.”

The lecture followed a number of others this year by speakers who

largely sided with the Bush administration’s views. Among the

previous guests in the 2004-05 Distinguished Fellows Series were

former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh and former

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who supported the invasion

of Iraq.

Last February, the campus drew protests from a number of faculty

and students who opposed the appearance of John Choon Yoo, a former

Justice Department official. Yoo had helped to draft a controversial

2002 memo concerning torture laws, which many believed had paved the

way for prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Cecelia Lynch, the director of UCI’s Center for Global Peace and

Conflict Studies, who invited Blix to the series, said she hadn’t

known about the other speakers when she contacted him. Every year in

the Distinguished Fellows Series, the center invites a major

political figure to speak to students. The center dubs the event the

annual Margolis Lecture, after UCI professor emeritus Julius

Margolis.

“The Margolis lecture should be a major figure in foreign policy

or arms control,” Lynch said. “Dr. Blix was actually our first choice

this year.”

Hamida Desoqi, an Irvine teacher who got an autograph from Blix

after the lecture, said she had come to the event largely for

enlightenment.

“I was glad to be here and hear him speak live,” Desoqi said. “I

don’t know his political views. That’s why I came to hear him.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].