In Speech, Blix Urges Disarmament

Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat famed for his recent work as U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, said last night that the United States should spearhead the nuclear disarmament effort.

He spoke before a full audience in the Kirkland House Junior Common Room.

The U.S. is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, but has refused to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which has been ratified by 138 states world wide.

“I would like to see the U.S. come back to the role of ‘lead wolf’, and come away from the role of ‘lone wolf’,” he said.

Blix served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997. He returned from retirement to head the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from 2000 to 2003.

He now chairs the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, an independent group that recently released a report on the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

In his address, titled “A Renewal of Disarmament? Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons,” Blix argued that disarmament is easier today, given increased global interdependence and fewer territorial conflicts among nations.

“The time is right for disarmament,” Blix said, adding that nuclear weapons are unnecessary in conflicts with terrorists.

Using a nuclear weapon against a terrorist is “like trying to shoot mosquitos with cannons,” he said, citing a Swedish proverb.

Blix criticized current US policy and said international cooperation is necessary to prevent nuclear proliferation.

“I have the feeling they think anyone outside the Beltway might be a nuclear proliferator,” he said.

James F. Collins III ’07 said after the event that “It was evident from his speech that he cares a lot about these issues, I thought it was...good to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

The lecture was co-sponsored by the International Relations Council (IRC), the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Kirkland House.

Martin Liby Alonso ’09, Director of Speaker Events for IRC Campus Outreach, said that he made contact with Blix through a parliamentarian in the Swedish Liberal party.

Alonso, a native of Sweden, belongs to the Liberal party and served on the Gavle City Council before coming to Harvard.

“Swedish liberals are a breed close to extinction” Alsonso said, referring to Blix. “I’m proud to have him.”

“He’s probably the most internationally well known and well-regarded Swede,” he added.

Though Blix devoted most of his lecture to the discussion of nuclear proliferation, he referred more than once to his work in Iraq, saying that “truth was a casualty” of the war there.

“The main evidence for weapons of mass destruction has been called faith-based evidence,” Blix said.

“You could be even nastier and say it was fake-based evidence,” he added.