Looking back, trying to make sense of the disastrous success that was the Iraq War, it's difficult to remember what happened when. So I'm glad that back then, when I noticed something, something about the timing, the order things happened in, something quite significant, I wrote about it:
"As delivered
Introduction of draft UNMOVIC Work Programme, Security Council 19 March 2003
Executive Chairman Dr. Hans Blix
19 March - Mr. President
"UNMOVIC was established by the Security Council resolution 1284 (1999)
and was enabled to enter Iraq and carry out its inspection work almost
three years later.
"It might seem strange that we are presenting a
draft work programme only after having already performed inspections
for three and a half months. However, there were good reasons why the
Council wanted to give us some time after the start of inspections to
prepare this programme. During the months of the build up of our
resources in Iraq, Larnaca and New York and of inspections in Iraq we
have - as was indeed the purpose - learnt a great deal that has been
useful to know for the drafting of our work programme and for the
selection of key remaining disarmament tasks. It would have been
difficult to draft it without this knowledge and this practical
experience.
"The time lines established in resolution 1284 (1999)
have been understood to mean that the work programme was to be
presented for the approval of the Council at the latest on 27 March. In
order to meet the wishes of members of the Council we made the Draft
Work Programme available already on Monday this week. I note that on the
very same day we were constrained together with other UN units to order
the withdrawal of all our inspectors and other international staff from Iraq.
"I naturally feel sadness that
three and a half months of work carried out in Iraq have not brought the
assurances needed about the absence of weapons of mass destruction or
other proscribed items in Iraq, that no more time is available for our
inspections and that armed action now seems imminent."
Full text at:
http://www.cafe-uni.co.uk/peace/iraq/blix19march.htm
Was I the only person who was shocked and surprised when Hans Blix made
this speech at the UN on 19 March? This was the eve of the war and
there I was confronted with a fact that no-one seemed to have mentioned,
which was that Unmovic was only now due to submit its work programme.
Thus it's very clear to me that the US and UK jumped the gun in invading
Iraq. It's also clear that the US had decided - independently of any
work Unmovic might undertake - that it was going to invade Iraq, and
that mid-March was the last possible date the invasion could begin,
unless it was postponed till the autumn. And postponement till the
autumn was out of the question because of the cost of keeping troops and
equipment so long in the Middle East, and because it's likely the
pro-war movement would run out of steam. Other excuses for the rush to
war were just spin.
20/5/03 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/hans$20blix$20dadge/uk.politics.misc/oFeVcpv5TeU/DPQfQYDXRlsJ
