| Blix thought that Saddam was inherently dangerous, and speaks approvingly of his ouster. He does not leap to the conclusion that there were no WMDs because they have not yet been found. He credits the US build up in the Gulf for pressuring Iraq into cooperating, and accepts Bush's sincerity in giving inspections a chance. He says that if the Iraqis had confessed everything, war might have been averted, implying that he thought they had something to confess, and he characterizes their attempts to answer questions "frantic" and "not very successful". He says of the Iraqis: "They cheated, they retreated, they changed figures, they denied access, etc. Why was that if they didn't have anything really to conceal?..." He then goes on to speculate how they could have behaved so suspiciously if it turns out they had no WMDs. Clearly, though, he expected them to have them, and all of the evidence pushed in that direction. "Not leaping to conclusions" is not the same as not having an opinion, it means being willing to investigate further........ |
