"But tarring the Blix-led inspection mission ranked as a high priority for war enthusiasts on the Bush team who were eager to pressure Blix into becoming more confrontational with the Iraqi government and perhaps to lay groundwork for discounting his future reports to the Security Council. Key rightwing media voices were warbling from the same songbook. “We hope that as the days unfold Mr. Blix understands that his own credibility is as much on the line as Saddam Hussein’s,” the Wall Street Journal editorialized on November 22, adding darkly that “Mr. Blix has his own track record in Iraq, and it doesn’t inspire confidence that he will go to the mat to disarm the dictator. The question now is whether the seventy-four-year-old Swedish diplomat is going to let Saddam make a fool of him and the U.N. one more time.” The Journal’s editorial page, often the source of opening salvos that quickly resound in the national media echo chamber, was just getting started. Two editions later, a long top-of-thepage attack appeared under the headline “Hans the Timid.” As if to be graphic about Blix’s dubious character, the drawing that accompanied the op-ed article showed him wearing a tie with a peace sign on it"

Hans Blix Politics See all quotes by Hans Blix →

React to this quote

More by Hans Blix

“He's as reliable as a Volvo.”

“I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media.”

“Personally, Mr. Blix is amiable and has a sense of humor; politically he is weak and easily fooled. I can think of few European officials less suitable for a showdown with Saddam. Indeed, it is with utter disbelief that I watch television news about Mr. Blix's negotiations with the Iraqi dictator's henchmen. Regardless of how this crisis develops from this point, the United Nations has neglected its duties by asking a wimp to lead the inspectors who are supposed to stand up to the brute of Baghdad.”

“… there are people in this administration who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things…”

“I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could — with 100 per cent certainty — know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.”

“There was a very consistent creation of a virtual reality, and eventually it collided with our old-fashioned, ordinary reality.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Ever since my extraordinary encounter with that big cream-colored wolf in the zoo near Thetford, I had wanted to see and know more about these creatures that had so preyed on my imagination as a child…"

— Shaun Ellis

1977

#books

"To-day the United States stands out as the mightiest Power on earth, and yet America is a threat to no one. All know that she will never use her power for selfish aims or territorial aggrandisement in…"

— Clement Attlee

Politics1883–1967

#time

"they cudgel their brains with absurd questions, such as, for instance, why God did not make the world many centuries earlier. They persuade themselves that it is easy to conceive, to be sure, how God …"

— Immanuel Kant

Philosophy1724–1804

#time

"Three hundred years ago it would have seemed absurd to say that this black mineral, this sea-coal, which could be used as a substitute for wood to burn in one's grate, could be applied to revolutioniz…"

— Winston Churchill

Politics1940–2010

#time