Reply #58: I listened to interview of Hans Blix on C-Span last night. His new book

[KoKo]

really isn't a criticism of Bush but points out that neither he nor the other inspectors felt Bush would really Invade Iraq. He thought the strategy was to threaten by building up troops to get the inspectors back in. He felt 50,000 troops would have been enough but when Bush increased it to 250,000 there wasn't enough time to pressure the Iraqi's further or to complete the inspections.

He also implied that US,GB and Spain were not within the UN Charter and were possibly illegal in international law by not bringing the last resolution to a full vote. His specialty is "international law." If you remember Powell and Bush said that they didn't need to have a full vote on the resolution because the Resolution (sorry don't have the #) but the one after Poppy invaded still stood and so a new vote wouldn't achieve anything. I think we may here more about that conflict over whether US,GB,Spain should have brought the Resolution to use force to the full vote. Somewhere down the line when this all sorts out, the UN will have to address the implications of what the three countries did.

Blix pointed out that if in the future other countries decide to follow a doctrine of pre-emptive strike none of us will be safe anywhere from missiles being lobbed. He has a sense of humor and a laid back attitude but I think "behind the scenes" some work might be in progress because our actions did weaken the UN and we have to hope that other countries will see how dangerous that is for the safety of all our world's population.