"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said as chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and his UNMOVIC (U.N. Monitoring, Verification, And Inspection Committee) team were failing to confirm that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. In Disarming Iraq, a remarkably even-tempered and diplomatic account of the period, Blix wryly notes that this was one of the few occasions in which he agreed with Rumsfeld, who never masked his contempt for the inspection process—at least so long as its conclusions didn't jibe with his own.
Now that even President Bush is making light of WMD claims (which, for those with short memories, were once cited as the primary justification for war), Rumsfeld's statement reads like a sinister paradox, essentially declaring UNMOVIC's efforts ineffectual and useless. Had Blix and company uncovered stockpiles of illegal chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons, the U.S. could have returned to the U.N. Security Council with strong justification for armed action; if not, with no "evidence of absence," the administration could still go through with invasion. All of which is enough to make anyone wonder why the septuagenarian Blix, longtime director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ever came out of retirement for such a thankless job.
Though Blix was determined to staff UNMOVIC with a globally diverse and politically dispassionate team, responsive only to Security Council directives, even he was inclined to agree with the hawks: "My gut feelings, which I kept to myself, suggested to me that Iraq still engaged in prohibited activities and retained prohibited items, and that it had the documents to prove it." (Or, as Blix wonders elsewhere, "Who would attach the presumption of innocence to the regime of Saddam Hussein?")
In Blix's mind, the pre-war military buildup had softened the Iraqis enough to allow UNMOVIC the access it needed, though he was wary of the "cat-and-mouse" games played by its officials and minders. Of course, he also doesn't miss the irony involved in the ways inspections aided the buildup. But for the most part, Disarming Iraq trudges dutifully through the process, with a brief and pointed final chapter about the war's aftermath, which has done nothing to legitimize WMD claims.
Nothing in Disarming Iraq could be described as any great revelation, nor does Blix support his claims with anything like a scintillating prose style, but the book's dry, methodical tone has its own quiet power. Much like former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who recently brought to light allegations regarding the Bush administration's skewed priorities before and after Sept. 11, Blix is a lifelong public servant, not an ideologue, which makes it difficult to impugn his statements as politically motivated. Blix has every reason to be angry, but he's chosen instead to write a carefully documented report, perhaps hoping that some lessons—about the over-reliance on intelligence and defectors, the effectiveness of non-hostile inspection methods, and the importance of restoring U.N. legitimacy and power—will have currency in the future. After all, no amount of hindsight will turn back the clock.