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As a U.N. weapons inspector who searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Hans Blix said the war could have been avoided if more time was given to the weapons inspectors.
Blix, chairman of the International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, presented the 2007 SIU School of Law Hiram H. Lesar Lecture Wednesday to a full house in the Student Center Ballrooms.
In his lecture, "Disarming Iraq," Blix discussed events leading to the war with Iraq in 2003. He said the war could have easily been avoided.
"Had we been allowed to continue inspection for a few months - which a majority of the U.N. Security Council wanted - we would have been able to avoid the war in Iraq," Blix said. "No weapons would have been found."
Blix is a Swedish diplomat who led the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from January 2000 to June 2003, when the Bush administration believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Although weapons weren't found, Blix said he doesn't blame the United States for thinking Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, because he had a gut feeling they were there.
"Most people, including myself, thought so at that time in the autumn of 2002 because we had seen how inspectors were stopped during the meetings," Blix said.
He said the United States entered the war to end terrorism, but its actions have had the opposite effect.
"It was to be a stop to terrorism, but it has created more terrorism - a breeding ground for terrorism," Blix said.
Mike Lawrence, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, said after Blix's lecture that the government didn't have enough information to invade Iraq.
"I think he made a good point that we need to have all the information we can get before we commit U.S. troops to combat," he said. "In the case of Iraq, we may well have gone into the country prematurely."
Unlike in the Gulf War, the United States also went without support, Lawrence said.
"He made the point that the elder Bush rallied the international community behind our effort," Lawrence said. "The current President Bush did not achieve that kind of support before he committed us to Iraq."
Lawrence said he liked what Blix said about nuclear weapons around the world.
"I thought it was encouraging that he thought there is an opportunity to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world and ultimately eliminate them," he said.
Check out River Region's coverage of Hans Blix
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