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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Blix says US wants its troops in Iraq Blix says US wants its troops in Iraq * * Email * Printer friendly version * Normal font * Large font November 7, 2007 - 6:04AM Advertisement Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix says he fears the United States has a secret plan to keep its troops in Iraq. Dr Blix, who warned against the invasion of Iraq after his inspectors found no evidence that weapons of mass destruction were being held by Saddam Hussein, is in Sydney to receive the Sydney Peace Prize. "One fear I would have is that the US has a hidden thought to remain in Iraq," Dr Blix told ABC radio on Wednesday. "One reason why they wanted in was that they felt they must leave Saudi Arabia. "After the Gulf War in 1991 they left their troops in Saudi Arabia to protect pipelines," he explained. "And when they felt they could no longer stay in Saudi Arabia, Iraq was the next best place because it was more secularised than Saudi Arabia and had the second biggest oil reserves in the region." Mr Blix also said the US military wanted to be very close to Iran, to which it has a very fierce attitude. But Dr Blix said Iran needed more time to consider halting its feared uranium enrichment program in favour of achieving diplomatic relations with the US and other countries. "North Korea is promised diplomatic relations with the US and Japan if they abandon (their) nuclear program and they're also promised a guarantee against attacks ... Iran has nothing of that," he said. Earlier, Dr Blix said Australia's 500 troops in Iraq served mainly a symbolic role. He told News Ltd that Australian troops provided more public relations value than anything and withdrawing them might not make any difference to the situation. Dr Blix recalled the UN team's failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in 700 searches of 500 sites in Iraq. "The aims of the war were, first of all, to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that did not exist," he said. "Secondly, to establish a democracy, and what they ended up with was anarchy; and thirdly, they wanted to weed out al-Qaeda which was not there but which came there (after the invasion)." He said the elimination of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was the war's only positive outcome. © 2007 AAP
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Well thank you Captain Obvious. The next time we need the insight of Hans Blix, will likely be tomorrow morning when he points out that the Sun will invariably come up in the East.
Dying for old bastards, and their old money, isn't my idea of freedom.
There's nothing "hidden" about it.
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