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
We would like to have clues as to where the United States' and other countries' intelligence feel they know Iraqis are storing weapons of mass destruction, ... Then, we can send in the inspectors.
I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard.
We want to be serious when we come forward with accusations, as we were when ordering the Iraqis to destroy a very large missile program.
If the Iraqis were to use any chemical weapons, then I think the public opinion around the world would immediately turn against Iraq, and they would say, as well, that the invasion was justified.
The Iraqis have been putting themselves in a position to rejuvenate their weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.
We will want to see a lot more (cooperation) this weekend.
We expect them to accept what we have said and destroy the missiles as we have stated, ... They have done so in past always when we have requested so.
It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and then a new mandate, with new, changed directives were to arise, ... It would be better have those earlier. My impression is that there is good intensity with talks about that, and we will abide by whatever the council decides.
The situation is tense at the moment, but there is a new opportunity and we are here to provide inspection which is credible.
The U.N. is much more than the case of Iraq.
It would be inappropriate for me to assume they still have weapons of mass destruction, but at the same time, it would be naive to exclude that possibility,
perhaps the most important problem we are facing.
The things that have happened in the last few days are a bit troubling.
Sorry, but in the chemical sector we can't go that far.