Blix Quotes & Sayings

They have been saying for a long time that Iraq made an effort to import active uranium, and my colleague demonstrated the other day that they came to the conclusion that it was a fake document that everybody is relying upon. — Hans Blix

Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance-not even today-of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. — Hans Blix

The country is not a democratic state. Therefore we fear that they might carry a recorder in their pocket or there may be bugs in the walls, and you cannot be absolutely sure that you get a straight testimony. — Hans Blix

You never get quite down to the bottom of the barrel, but we are much higher than that at the present time. There is quite a lot left in the barrel that could be explained by them. If they have some weapons, if they have some anthrax, they should deliver that. — Hans Blix

I did not think so at first. But the US is so incredibly dependent on oil, that they wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard. — Hans Blix

When I went back to Iraq again, after the liberation was complete, I was myself engaged on a sort of "dig", and I decided to travel with Paul Wolfowitz. It was in its own way an archaeological and anthropological expedition. Here are some of the things we unearthed or observed. Unnoticed by almost everybody, and unreported by most newspapers, Saddam Hussein's former chief physicist Dr. Mahdi Obeidi had waited until a few weeks after the fall of Baghdad to accost some American soldiers and invite them to excavate his back garden. There he showed them the components of a gas centrifuge
the crown jewels of uranium enrichment
along with a two-foot stack of blueprints. This burial had originally been ordered by Saddam's younger son Qusay, who had himself been in charge of the Ministry of Concealment, and had outlasted many visits by "inspectors". I myself rather doubt that Hans Blix would ever have found the trove on his own. — Christopher Hitchens

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much. — Hans Blix

Never humiliate anyone. — Hans Blix

If public opinion still endorses military action that's one thing, but if they wait maybe it will not. So it's not only impatience, but there are several other factors. — Hans Blix

The Iraqis are not threatened by the Turks or by the Iranians or by the Saudis and they tell me that these are not weapons of mass destruction, they are weapons of self-destruction. — Hans Blix

Now the idea about taking people abroad is that if they come over to Cyprus, which we have in mind, and bring their families and would have the possibility to defect after they would be ready to speak their mind, well I hope so. — Hans Blix

To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war ... I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict. — Hans Blix

So interviews are a valuable tool, but under certain circumstances they'd be more valuable than others. — Hans Blix

The world has gotten so interwoven. — Hans Blix

The South Africans decided that they would like to prove to the world they did not have any nuclear weapons and their decision was not doubted because it was the end of the Cold War, it was also the end of apartheid. — Hans Blix

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. — Hans Blix

Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans!
Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.
Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?
Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you ... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are. — Trey Parker

I think that we have to do our job well, investigate thoroughly and then describe very honestly what we see to the Security Council. And some of the things might please people there and other things may not please the people. — Hans Blix

For some twenty years the window that opened at the end of the Cold War has been allowed to hang flapping in the wind. It is high time that the five nuclear-weapon states take seriously their commitment to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament. — Hans Blix

It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it. — Hans Blix

What surprises me, what amazes me, is that it seems the military people were expecting to stumble on large quantities of gas, chemical weapons and biological weapons. — Hans Blix

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals ... we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes. — Hans Blix

It's true the Iraqis misbehaved and had no credibility but that doesn't necessarily mean that they were in the wrong. — Hans Blix

I don't think that anyone seriously fears that the world can be blown to pieces all together. But what one can fear and rightly so are regional things, like in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, the Korean Peninsula, borders in Africa, etc. — Hans Blix

Negotiations with Iran, especially, will not be easy under any circumstances, but I suspect that they might be somewhat less difficult if the nuclear-weapon states could show that their requests are part of a broader effort to lead the world, including themselves, toward nuclear disarmament. Preventing further proliferation is essential, but it is not a recipe for success to preach to the rest of the world to stay away from the very weapons that nuclear states claim are indispensable to their own security. — Hans Blix

Iraq did not spontaneously opt for disarmament. They did it as part of a ceasefire, so they were forced to do it, otherwise the war might have gone on. So the motivation has been very different. — Hans Blix

Even on television, the wavelengths that you use, they have to be distributed between countries. — Hans Blix

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

I had never realized before how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. They are like potted plants that go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily. A single day's growth beard makes a man look careless; two days', derelict; and four days', polluted. Blix and Weston hadn't shaved for three. — Beryl Markham

If you take the biological weapons in the United States we still will have perhaps a single individual who was able to make anthrax, dry it, and spread it through the mail and cause terror. — Hans Blix

There is no sign, not one sign, that the Iraqi regime has any intent to comply fully with the terms of Resolution 1441, just as it has failed to comply with previous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The international community gave Iraq one final opportunity to disarm peacefully, and that opportunity has run its course. Dr. Blix [Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector] told us on Monday that there has been no progress toward credible, verifiable disarmament. — Richard Armitage

Ben isn't hard to manage, but Blix's wife, Karen, likes the title too much to part with it. He's made her a baroness." She sighed. "The whole thing has got rather baroque. Karen and I are friends, or were, in any case. Blix asked her for a divorce and told her he was in love with me, probably thinking it would soften the blow." She shook her head. "Now she won't speak to me. — Paula McLain

But in the Middle Ages people were convinced there were witches. They looked for them and they certainly found them. — Hans Blix

International cooperation, multilateralism is indispensable. — Hans Blix

I also hear your president say that war is the means of last resort and I think he means that. I met him last autumn and he assured me that they wanted to come through and disarm Iraq by peaceful means, and that's what we are trying to do as hard as we can. — Hans Blix

I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard. — Hans Blix

We have not found any smoking guns. — Hans Blix

The U.N. is much more than the case of Iraq. — Hans Blix

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. — Hans Blix

Disarmament by war and democracy by occupation are difficult prospects. — Hans Blix

Look at the Palestinians with the huge, huge percentage of unemployed. What does that breed? Anyone who's unemployed in the world, you feel there's no meaning and there's a risk that you drift over to something desperate. Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well. — Hans Blix

By and large my relations with the US were good. — Hans Blix

There are people in this administration who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things ... — Hans Blix

Like I said, I'm more worried long term about the environmental issues then the use of arms. — Hans Blix

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

The inspections started in 1991, right after the Gulf War. One of the conditions for the ceasefire was that Iraq had to do away with all of its weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. — Hans Blix

On big issues like war in Iraq, but in many other issues they simply must be multilateral. There's no other way around. You have the instances like the global warming convention, the Kyoto protocol, when the U.S. went its own way. — Hans Blix