arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)
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US hawk 'tried to sully Iraq arms inspector' by guardian(posted by guido) Thursday April 18, 2002 at 02:14 PM |
Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and a leading hawk in the Bush administration, commissioned a CIA investigation of the chief United Nations weapons inspector in an apparent attempt to undermine the importance of inspections and strengthen the case for military action against Iraq, it was reported yesterday.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Wolfowitz asked the CIA earlier this year to look into Hans Blix's record when he was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) between 1981 and 1997.
The IAEA's critics argue that during this period the agency took Iraqi assurances about its civil nuclear programme at face value and failed to spot signs that Saddam Hussein was secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Mr Blix, a 73-year-old Swedish diplomat who now heads the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission (Unmovic), told the Guardian that the IAEA during his watch had been prevented from carrying out intrusive inspections by the internationally agreed rules it was forced to operate under.
But he conceded that before the Gulf war the Iraqis "were cheating and fooling us and everybody else" and he said "the lesson was learned". He promised that Unmovic would be "firm" in its inspections, although it would not "undertake any unnecessary provocations".
He made his remarks in an interview before the news of the CIA investigation surfaced, and his office made no comment on the report yesterday.