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Hans Blix, the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC in a brief stop-over in Vienna - on his way to Baghdad - gave a keynote address to a group of would - be inspectors at the Vienna International Centre. The group of 57 inspectors from 22 countries, having completed their three-week training course, are going back to their respective countries and are placed on a roster from which UNMOVIC can draw personnel for future inspections.
Dr. Blix spoke for an hour to the group on their final day of the course. He highlighted the task of UNMOVIC, the role of the inspectors and current activities of the mission. His keynote address was preceded by a short open segment of the meeting, where members of the press were allowed to stay. In this segment Dr. Blix had the following short statement to the training group:
"I would first like to say that I am glad to have the opportunity to talk to you this morning on my way from New York to Baghdad. And I hope that you will soon help us to inspect in Baghdad and in Iraq to bring your professional skills to bear in the inspection process. We want to see the disarmament of Iraq through the inspection option, the inspection avenue, that is the alternative to the avenue of armed action. And in fact I think everybody would like to see effective inspections to be the way to disarmament. This is certainly the wish of the Arab world, all Europeans and I‘m convinced also of President Bush and Mr. Blair whom we saw yesterday. But it requires as we know cooperation by Iraq, an active cooperation, both on process and on substance. It requires a lot more, it requires support by Member States and we do get a lot of support, a lot is promised to us, airplanes, drones, intelligence and what have you. We get a lot of support from Governments. But without active cooperation by the Iraqi side it is difficult to achieve effective inspections. I don’t say that it is impossible, we had eight years there when a lot was achieved, but we would like to have a disarmament that is quicker than that. The world is not going to wait another eight years. It requires professionalism of us and of you and you are professionals, you are selected for this training course because you are professionals in the field of chemistry or biology or in the field of missiles. And you have learned a lot during this training course. I know that they are well run, we have experience in them. You must have learned a lot even though this course was a little bit shorter than the earlier ones. They will have talked to you how to conduct yourself during inspections. There is only one word that I would like to add and always underline and that is that we are not in Iraq to humiliate the Iraqis. We are there to perform effective inspections, to be correct and professional. Effective, we have our demands, we have lots of rights, it is the most intrusive inspection system we have in the world. But the purpose is not to humiliate. It is always somewhat unpleasant to be submitted to controls whether it is the taxman or it is the border controls when you go through airports. We don’t want to make it additionally unpleasant. That’s not the purpose of it. It is the effective inspections that carries. Now in the days and the weeks that come, Mr. El Baradai, the head of the IAEA and I myself will of course do our best in order to maintain inspections as the viable path to disarmament. And I hope that you will be able to do the same in the field later on. Thank you very much." 