Hans Blix

Dr. 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
Personal details
Born	(1928-06-28) 28 June 1928 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 January 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.

Early career

Blix studied at Uppsala University and Columbia University, earning his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (Trinity Hall). In 1959, he graduated in International Law at the University of Uppsala, where he was appointed Associate Professor in International Law the next year.

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 Referendurm 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. Hans Blix personally admonished Saddam for "cat and mouse" games [2] and warned Iraq of "serious consequences" if it attempted to hinder or delay his mission [3].

In his report to the UN Security Council on February 14, 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." [4]

Blix's statements about the Iraq WMD program came to contradict the claims of the Bush administration, [5] 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 U.S. 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.

Newt Gingrich stated that approving Hans Blix as chief U.N. weapons inspector was one of the biggest mistakes the United States ever made.

The motivation behind the Russian and French veto which ruled out Rolf Ekéus must also bear scrutiny. Russia in particular has profited hugely from the increase in energy prices following the Iraq conflict and continuing tensions with Iran. Blix had little credibility in Washington due to his inspection teams failures and Iraqi obfuscation during the mid to late 1990s which culminated in the limited airstrikes of Operation Desert Fox in late 1998. These attacks effectively destroyed the broad 1991 Gulf War coalition that had liberated Kuwait.

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" [6].

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

Ultimately, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found. [7]

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 [8].

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, “without the awareness of the Pakistani government”.

Honours

• Doctorate Honoris causa of the University of Moscow in 1987.
• Recipient of the Henry de Wolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award (Washington, D.C.), 1988.
• Honorary membership in the Cambridge Union Society.
• Gold Medal for distinguished service in the field of nuclear affairs by the Uranium Institute (now World Nuclear Association) in 1997.
• Doctorate Honoris causa of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2003.
• "Commander of the Légion d'Honneur" in 2004.
• Doctorate Honoris causa of the University of Padova in 2004.
• Sydney Peace Prize 2007.

Cultural references

• Hans Blix is parodied in Team America: World Police, where he is fed to sharks by Kim Jong-il, President of North Korea.
• Hans Blix appeared in the documentaries The World According to Bush [9] and Europe & USA: Behind the Scenes of a Political Rupture [10] .
• Hans Blix appears in David Hare's political play Stuff Happens.
• Hans Blix is mentioned in Pain Of Salvation's song "America", from the album Scarsick.

Bibliography

• Disarming Iraq, Hans Blix, Pantheon (9 March, 2004). ISBN 0-375-42302-8
• Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters, Hans Blix, The MIT Press (30 April, 2008). ISBN 0-262-02644-9

See also

• Mohamed ElBaradei
• Iraq disarmament crisis
• Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
• Hans Corell
• Operation Rockingham

External links

• WMD Commission biography
• United Nations biography
• Blix's BBC profile
• Excerpt from the book Disarming Iraq by Hans Blix
• Audio of NPR interview with Hans Blix March 16, 2004 (Morning Edition, 8 minutes 24 seconds)
• Audio of NPR interview with Hans Blix March 17, 2004 (Fresh Air, 33 minutes 5 seconds)
• Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2004
• "Nuclear Freeze"-Hans Blix Boston Review