Disarming Iraq
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Author | Wesley Wark |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000121 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
DISARMING
IRAQ
Hans Blix
New York: Pantheon, 2004. x, 292pp, $34.00 cloth
(ISBN
0-375-
42302-8)
In
the
extended
run-up
to
the
Iraq war, a previously little-known
Swedish diplomat by the name
of
Hans Blix held the world media's
rapt attention. As chairman
of
UNMOVIC
(the
United
Nations
Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission for Iraq), BIix,
along with his colleague Mohamed ElBaradei, was at centre stage in the
unfolding drama
of
the confrontation with Saddam Hussein's regime.
Would
Blix's weapons inspectors find
hidden
evidence
of
Iraqi
weapons
of
mass destruction that
both
the
us
and
UK
governments
and
their intelligence communities claimed existed? Would they provide
the
UN
security council with the grounds to declare Iraq in "material
breach"
of
its disarmament obligations
and
so pave the way for an
UN-
authorized war? Would atruculent Iraq cooperate
and
stave
off
an
invasion?
Blix has a cherished souvenir from this period
of
his life, a poster
brandished during one
of
the massive peace marches in New York City
that reads "Blix
not
Bombs." But it is one
of
the more rewarding fea-
tures
of
his memoir that Blix resists the temptation
to
inflate his power
over events. He knows that
it
was never a case of"Blix
not
Bombs." He
was a faithful servant
of
the
UN
security council, no more,
and
UNMOVIC
was its instrument.
UNMOVIC's
ascendancy reflected the frag-
ile consensus
that
surrounded
UN
security council resolution 1441,
passed in November 2002, that gave Iraq a final chance to cooperate
with the international
community
in disarmament.
When
that con-
sensus dissolved and the security council became deadlocked, Blix
and
UNMOVIC
became onlookers to decisions made in Baghdad,
Washington,
and
London. Despite
the
weight
of
expectations
and
diplomatic stardom that descended on Blix, he comes across as a
man
of
great integrity, a memoirist to be trusted.
Though
his book has by
now faded from the best-seller lists, it deserves an honourable place in
the library
of
key
works on the genesis
of
the Iraq War.
The
greatest asset
of
Blix's
memoir is that it provides important con-
text for understanding the history, nature, strengths,
and
limitations
of
UNMOVIC.
The
UN
agency was an experiment in the ongoing evolution
282
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Wint«
2004-2005
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