Dr. Hans Blix, former chief of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) between 1999 and 2003, was called to testify at the British Iraq War Inquiry board. He was discussing the findings of the inspection teams in Iraq before the US invasion in 2003 - findings that weren't released until June 2003, months after the invasion began.

Asked about the inspections he oversaw between November 2002 and 18 March 2003 - when his team was forced to pull out of Iraq on the eve of the war - he said he was "looking for smoking guns" but did not find any.

While his team discovered prohibited items such as missiles beyond the permitted range, missile engines and a stash of undeclared documents, he said these were "fragments" and not "very important" in the bigger picture.

"We carried out about six inspections per day over a long period of time.

"All in all, we carried out about 700 inspections at different 500 sites and, in no case, did we find any weapons of mass destruction."

Although Iraq failed to comply with some of its disarmament obligations, he added it "was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they did not have any".

It's a popular meme for the conservatives in our country to claim that Saddam didn't allow the inspectors back into the country prior to the 2003 invasion, but in fact he did. The teams had a little over three months before they withdrew, and they only withdrew because they were warned that Iraq was about to become a war zone. It's also a popular meme for the conservatives to even deny that WMDs were the principle justification for the US invasion. The record shows otherwise.

I'm not particularly thrilled by Blix's behavior in 2002-2003. I think he was extremely passive, that he could have done much more prior to the invasion to alert the media and other countries that Iraq really had no WMD program to either threaten Western interests or to arm terrorists. But, like many scientists, he preferred to wait until all the data were in and a full report could be staffed for the United Nations. Now he spends his time trying to make up for that lapse in judgment.

Interestingly, the New York Times covers the same Blix testimony without using the words "weapons of mass destruction" at all. The editors there must have forgotten the paper's history in that department. Or maybe they're just embarrassed by it all.

I had thought that the National Level Exercise 2010 had been cancelled, but it seems that it was just downsized. If I'm not mistaken, these news articles seem to suggest that the FBI, FEMA, and state and local officials played out the search for and disarmament of an improvised nuclear device in Los Angeles. I can't find any indication that DOD (USNORTHCOM), so maybe they saved a few bucks without losing all of the planning that had gone into the event. But check out the hilarious video! Jack Bauer, they're not. From the UPI:

The exercise that began Monday involves a team of state, local and national agencies dealing with an improvised nuclear bomb planted at the landmark Los Angeles Coliseum.

"Threats involving weapons of mass destruction are complex, and confronting them must be practiced constantly," Assistant Director Steve Martinez, the head of the FBI office in Los Angeles, said.

The FBI says in a written statement the scenario involves finding not only the bomb, but also secondary devices in Los Angeles. Once located, the "bomb" will be disabled and hauled away to a safe location.

If I can piece the exercise plot together, a nuclear weapon detonated in Indianapolis (I guess terrorists hate corn), and then they traveled across the United States to Los Angeles with a second improvised nuclear device. And as they were setting up the second nuke, they decided to emplace a half-dozen radiological dispersion devices around the city. You know, just to spread the panic. It's amazing the ridiculous scenarios that they devise to practice these response drills. But here's the really funny part - the Freedom Watchers were keeping a careful eye on the feds... because you know NLE 2010 was just an exercise to prepare for when they come to take the guns away... no, really.

THIS IS AN ALL-DAY EVENT! OPERATION OVERWATCH: NATIONAL LEVEL EXERCISE* 2010 Keep your eyes peeled & your cameras at the ready! Look for any / all signs of: Troop movements (including foreign troops) Convoys Jet / helicopter "fly-overs" Drones / unmanned aerial vehicles Robots / robotic vehicles "Dog-fights" Paratrooper drops Urban warfare drills FEMA evacuation drills HAZMAT drills Checkpoints Blackouts "Cyber attacks" Communication disruption "Emergency Broadcast System" implementation Etc. ... In laymen's terms: The military & "first responders" are testing their ability to contain & control the nation in the event of a devastating terrorist attack. In short: They are practicing for martial law.

Truly wacko.

This just cheered me up. Some youthful activists are sitting in at Tom Coburn's office until he allows the Uganda Recovery Act to pass the Senate. (Boy, the Senate really is the place where good ideas go to die - or get obstructed.) Go sign the petition, donate money for coffee, and cheer these guys on!

The momentum is building and more people just keep coming to join dozens of activists refusing to leave Senator Tom Coburn's office in Oklahoma City until he allows the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act to pass the Senate. Click here to help from wherever you are.

Here's the low-down: After impassioned lobbying from tens of thousands of activists, historic legislation aimed at ending Africa’s longest-running war is on the verge of passing the Senate unanimously. In fact, the bill has more bipartisan support in Congress than any bill focused on sub-Saharan Africa in American history. But Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, nicknamed “Dr. No”, is single-handedly blocking this landmark legislation because the bill authorizes new funds to assist victims of the violence (you can read more about why in the Campaign FAQ).

As Senator Coburn prevents this bill from passing, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is terrorizing communities across three countries in central Africa. In the past two months alone, Joseph Kony's rebel army has massacred hundreds of people and abducted hundreds more, including children who are forced to become soldiers.

That's why we are holding the Oklahoma Hold Out, and we're not going home until Senator Coburn agrees to a compromise.

The most committed activists - who know that Senator Coburn's obstructionism is preventing the action needed to end this senseless violence - are "holding out" outside Senator Coburn's office in downtown Oklahoma City until the Senator allows the bill to pass.

People are driving and flying from all corners of the country to join in person.

We invite you to join as well, or if you can't join them in person, we need your support from right where you are.

I'm hoping this isn't another "yeah, we thought about it but then Newt Gingrich called us weenies" kind of thing. Because it would be really good news if it isn't:

The review is shaping up to be a major showdown for Obama this year. It is taking on some of the most sacred cows of the nuclear program. For the first time, influential voices, including a former top nuclear commander and senior Obama advisers, are proposing that one leg of the nuclear arms “triad’’ - a $30 billion-a-year enterprise made up of land-, air-, and sea-based weapons - be eliminated.

Another historic change under consideration is adopting a “no-first-use’’ policy, a public declaration stating the United States would not use nuclear weapons first, a step long advocated by arms control advocates who believe it would reduce the incentive for other nations to develop nuclear weapons.

Also on the table, the officials say, is explicitly limiting the nuclear arsenal’s mission to deterring other nuclear weapons - not chemical or biological attacks or halting a massive conventional military assault, as current policy stipulates.

“The US-Soviet standoff that gave rise to tens of thousands of nuclear weapons is over, but the policies developed to justify their possession and potential use remain largely the same," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington think tank and leading advocate of disarmament. “Unless the United States reduces its reliance and emphasis on nuclear weapons, other states will have a cynical excuse to pursue or to improve the capabilities and size of their nuclear forces."

Whitehouse.gov has a summary of the Obama/Biden administration's foreign policy platform up. There are no radical departures from the campaign, but of course now the policy prescriptions there are on the official White House website as official presidential policy. They include a refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, holding Pakistan more accountable, supporting Israel come what may, adding America's weight to "the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty and hunger around the world in half by 2015", de-politicizing the intelligence community and repairing America's tattered diplomatic initiatives.

But Julian Borger at the UK's Guardian makes special note of two elements of Obama's campaign platform that are now official US policy and are sure to make rightwing heads explode:

The new Obama administration is willing to talk to Iran "without preconditions" and will work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, the White House said today.

The Obama foreign policy agenda that appeared on the White House website said: "Barack Obama supports tough and direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions," the policy outline said. The Bush administration made direct talks between the US and Iran conditional on Iranian suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. This step breaks that conditionality, as part of a fundamental shift in diplomatic approach. The Obama agenda said the new administration will "talk to our foes and friends" and not set preconditions.

However, talks with Iran will be "tough and direct", and will put on the table the same deal that the international community has been trying to get Tehran to accept for the past four years: extensive economic and diplomatic help if uranium enrichment is suspended, further economic pressure and diplomatic isolation if it does not. Iran has resisted this carrot-and-stick approach so far, despite four sets of UN sanctions, but western diplomats hope that direct engagement by Washington will help break the impasse. "In carrying out this diplomacy, we will coordinate closely with our allies and proceed with careful preparation," the White House said. "Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress."

The other notable shift in US foreign policy announced today was a strategic decision to move towards a "nuclear free world", through bilateral and multilateral disarmament. "Obama and [Vice President Joe] Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it," according to the agenda. It is a long term goal. The US will maintain a "strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist", but begin to take steps on the "long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons".

Continue reading »

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea announced for the first time Thursday it has nuclear weapons, and it rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying the bombs are protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

Rice: No U.S. plan of attack
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the North had no reason to believe the United States would attack.

“The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea,” Rice said in Luxembourg.

I feel a lot better now that Condi has said this, don't you? She has her eyes on Iran anyway.