Hans Blix recalls Wolfowitz pressing him:"don't you believe there are weapons of mass destruction?"

[sabra]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6424308&page=1

It's been more than five years since Hans Blix left his post as U.N. chief weapons inspector. In the months before the U.S.-led invasion, Blix was on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They were never found.

Blix famously opposed the war that followed, calling it "illegal." He maintains that, given a few more months to complete inspections, he could have convinced the intelligence community that there were no WMDs in Iraq. In one meeting with the Bush administration, Blix remembers Paul Wolfowitz, a Pentagon deputy under then-Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asking, "but don't you believe there are weapons of mass destruction?"

"If I did, I would have put it in a report," Blix said he answered.

[EFerrari]

1. Imho, we can thank Katherine Gun for some of Blix's candor:

The Katharine Gun Case
February 25, 2004


Katharine Gun, a British former government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for the "crime" of telling the truth. She was charged with leaking an embarrassing U.S. intelligence memo indicating that the U.S. had mounted a spying "surge" against U.N. delegations in early 2003 in an effort to win approval of the Iraq war resolution. The leaked memo was big news in parts of the world.

England has no First Amendment that might have protected Ms. Gun. It does have a repressive Official Secrets Act, under which she was being prosecuted by the Blair government.

http://www.accuracy.org/article.php?articleId=1104

Lots of links there. Here is one:


Top Secret Document Reveals U.S. Spying on U.N. Delegates

March 3, 2003


This afternoon, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer refused to comment on questions about a story broken by the Observer newspaper in London. On Sunday the paper published an article headlined "Revealed: U.S. Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War."

The Observer reported that it has obtained a top secret U.S. National Security Agency memo outlining the surveillance of both office and home communications of UN delegates from Security Council member countries.

The high-priority memo was from Frank Koza, chief of staff in the "Regional Targets" section of the NSA, on January 31 -- shortly before Colin Powell's presentation to the Security Council.

The NSA document states that the Agency "is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members" for "insights as to how" members are "reacting to the on-going debate." It cited "policies" and "negotiating positions" that member states "may be considering," as well as "alliances," "dependencies" and "the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises."

http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=545

[formercia]

3. Everyone of importance should assume they are being monitored.

And act accordingly. If you know you are being monitored, you can use it against them by feeding false or misleading information.

I used to send the boys on snipe hunts all the time. It's quite entertaining to watch, actually, since you can determine their source by the reaction they give.

[louis-t]

2. I do remember Limbaugh making fun

saying "he doesn't WANT to find WMDs." He laughed at the vehicles they were driving, too.