Hans Blix

Dr. Hans Blix
Hans Blix

Hans Blix in Vienna 2002. Photo by Dean Calma, IAEA
1st Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
In office
January 2000 – June 2003
Preceded by None
Succeeded by Demetrius Perricos
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
In office
1981 – December 1, 1997
Preceded by Sigvard Eklund
Succeeded by Mohamed ElBaradei
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office
October 18 1978 – October 12 1979
Preceded by Karin Söder
Succeeded by Ola Ullsten
Born 28 June 1928 (1928-06-28) (age 81)
Uppsala, Sweden

Hans Martin Blix (born 28 June, 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden) is a Swedish diplomat and politician. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978 - 1979). Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Demetrius Perricos. In 2002, the commission began searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. He is the son of professor Gunnar Blix and Hertha Wiberg and grandson of professor Magnus Blix. He comes from a family of Jamtlandic origin.

Contents

Early career

Blix studied at Uppsala University and Columbia University, earning his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (Trinity Hall).[1] In 1959, he became a Juris Doctor in International Law at the University of Uppsala, where he was appointed Associate Professor in International Law the next year. [2]

Between 1962 and 1978 Blix was a member of the Swedish delegation at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. He held several other positions in the Swedish administration between 1963 and 1976, and from 1961 to 1981 served on the Swedish delegation to the United Nations. From 1978 to 1979, Blix was the Swedish Foreign Minister.

Blix chaired the Swedish Liberal Party's campaign during the 1980 referendum on nuclear power, campaigning in favor of retention of the Swedish nuclear energy program.

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (1981-1997)

Blix became Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency between 1981 and 1997 after Sigvard Eklund. He personally made repeated inspection visits to the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osiraq before its attempted destruction by the Iranians, in 1980, and its eventual destruction by the Israeli Air Force in 1981 during Operation Opera. Although most agreed that Iraq was years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon, the Iranians and the Israelis felt any raid must occur well before nuclear fuel was loaded to prevent nuclear fallout. The attack was regarded as being in breach of the United Nations Charter (S/RES/487) and international law and was widely condemned.

Iraq was alternately praised and admonished by the IAEA for its cooperation and lack thereof. It was only after the first Gulf War that the full extent of Iraq's nuclear programs, which had switched from a plutonium based weapon design to a highly enriched uranium design after the destruction of Osiraq, became known.

Iraq disarmament crisis (2002-2003)

During the Iraq disarmament crisis before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Blix was called back from retirement by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to lead United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in charge of monitoring Iraq. Kofi Annan originally recommended Rolf Ekéus, who worked with UNSCOM in the past, but both Russia and France vetoed his appointment. Newt Gingrich stated that approving Hans Blix as chief UN weapons inspector was one of the biggest mistakes the United States ever made.

Hans Blix personally admonished Saddam for "cat and mouse" games [3] and warned Iraq of "serious consequences" if it attempted to hinder or delay his mission [4].

In his report to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Blix claimed that "If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament -- under resolution 687 -- could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided." [5]

Blix's statements about the Iraq WMD program came to contradict the claims of the George W. Bush administration, [6] and attracted a great deal of criticism from supporters of the invasion of Iraq. In an interview on BBC TV on 8 February 2004, Dr. Blix accused the US and British governments of dramatising the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the regime of Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found. [7]

In an interview with London's Guardian newspaper, Hans Blix said, "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media" [8].

In 2004, Blix published a book, Disarming Iraq, where he gives his account of the events and inspections before the coalition began its invasion.

Hans Blix said he suspected his home and office were bugged by the United States, while he led teams searching for Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.[3]Although these suspicions were never directly substantiated, evidence of bugging of UN security council representatives around the time the US was seeking approval from the council came to light after a British government translator leaked a document "allegedly from an American National Security Agency" requesting that British intelligence put wiretaps on delegates to the UN security council.[4]

Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission

Since 2003 Blix has been chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), an independent body funded by the Swedish government and based in Stockholm [9].

In December 2006, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission said in a report that Pakistan’s infamous and controversial nuclear proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan could not have acted alone or “without the awareness of the Pakistani government”.[5]

Honours

Cultural references

Bibliography

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 2002 Friedmann Award Given to Dr. Hans Blix http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2002/friedmann_2002 Retrieved 3/21/07
  2. ↑ http://www.wmdcommission.org/sida.asp?ID=33 Retrieved 3/21/07
  3. ↑ "Blix suspected U.S. spied on him", cnn. Retrieved on 2007-09-20. 
  4. ↑ "Iraq war 'spy memo case' collapses", cnn. Retrieved on 2008-04-21. 
  5. ↑ "A Q Khan did not act alone" says Hans Blix team[1]
  6. ↑ "Nuke-hunter Blix awarded Sydney Peace Prize", ABC News Online (May 21, 2007). 
  7. ↑ [2] Congregation of the Regent House on 25 June 2007
Government offices
Preceded by
Karin Söder		 Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs
1978 – 1979		 Succeeded by
Ola Ullsten
Preceded by
Sigvard Eklund		 Director General of the IAEA
1981 – 1997		 Succeeded by
Mohamed ElBaradei
Preceded by
None 		Executive Chairman of the UNMOVIC
2000 – 2003		 Succeeded by
Demetrius Perricos
Sydney Peace Prize laureates

Muhammad Yunus (1998) · Desmond Tutu (1999) · Xanana Gusmão (2000) · William Deane (2001) · Mary Robinson (2002) · Hanan Ashrawi (2003) · Arundhati Roy (2004) · Olara Otunnu (2005) · Irene Khan (2006) · Hans Blix (2007)