Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
WASHINGTON – As intelligence communities in the United States and Israel debate whether Iran is building a nuclear weapon, a voice from the past has issued an ominous warning to proceed carefully before anyone pulls a trigger or bombs the nuclear facilities of the Islamic republic, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Hans Blix, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency in looking for nuclear weapons following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, warned the P5+1 countries "not to repeat Iraq's mistake, about Iran."
The P5+1 countries are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – United States, France, Great Britain, Russia and China, plus Germany.
They are now in the process of negotiating with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, which a number of Western countries believe is making a nuclear weapon. Blix, a former Swedish diplomat, said that "memories are short."
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"Memories of the failure and tragic mistakes in Iraq are not taken sufficiently seriously," Blix said. "In the case of Iraq, there was an attempt made by some states to eradicate weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, and today, there is talk of going on Iran to eradicate intentions that may not exist. I hope that will not happen."
Blix headed the U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq from March 2000 to June 2003. It was his job to look for WMDs that Washington and London at the time thought then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding.
However, no such weapons were found, undercutting the entire basis for entering Iraq and replacing the Iraqi regime.
Blix believes that there is even less evidence available today for the existence of any nuclear weapons in Iran, which has been hit with numerous international and unilateral U.S. sanctions to halt its nuclear development program.
"It is true that diplomatic negotiations have dragged over the years with little results so far," Blix said. "Some people assume that a war action will solve the problem."
Threats, he said, can "back up diplomacy but threats can also undermine diplomacy."
Iran denies that its nuclear program is involved in making nuclear weapons.
The Islamic republic contends that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and as a member of the IAEA, it has a "right" under its provisions to develop nuclear energy, which it has been doing through a vigorous uranium enrichment program.
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