IAEA chief: should have 'howled' louder on Iraq

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said he should have "howled harder" on Iraq and that the war was the most "dissatisfying moment" of his life.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in responding to 10 questions in Time magazine, also said the jury is out on whether Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

One of the main justifications for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the administration of President George W. Bush was the assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found in the years since the war began.

"The most dissatisfying moment of my life, of course, was when the Iraq war was launched. That hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives on the basis of fiction, not facts, makes me shudder," ElBaradei said.

Asked what had been a "bad judgment call" on his part, ElBaradei responded: "I should probably, before the Iraq war, have screamed and howled harder and louder to prevent people from misusing the information that was made available by us."

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10338932.htm

[gratuitous]

1. Yes, you should have, Mr. El-Baradei

I think there was some miscalculation on the part of a lot of people about just how evil the Bush administration was. The Bushistas were often credited for good faith negotiations where there was absolutely no reason for doing so. I think Mr. El-Baradei was gulled into thinking that the Bush administration was operating on the up and up. Now that the true dimensions of the evil that is anything associated with the name Bush have become apparent even to the gullible, it's a damn shame they weren't listening just a little closer to us folks who were shouting at them that they were dealing with evil. Nope, just a bunch of dirty fucking hippies over here; can't believe for a moment that those nice Republicans in the Bush administration aren't all operating with the best of intentions.

[KG]

2. funny the stones people grow when they no longer would have to suffer consequences from doing the

right thing when it mattered.

[grytpype]

3. It wouldn't have helped.

[timeforpeace]

4. You can make up for it by howling even a little about Iran. Do your job.

[jasi2006]

5. It would not have mattered. Ask Condi

Saddam had complied with what they asked of him in his 12,000 page report on the destruction and status of Iraq WMDs. 8,000 of those pages never made it to the public. The administration was locked and loaded for invading Iraq. Period!! If you ask me, what we did to Iraq and Saddam and his family were war crimes of the highest order.

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Zhade]

7. Well gee, that makes up for a MILLION DEAD IRAQIS, huh?

NT!

[struggle4progress]

8. The UN inspectors were in Iraq, doing their job, when W announced his invasion was imminent:

nobody stood up. The UN barely had time to pull its inspectors before the bombing started

As soon as W had his authorization, the machine was in motion