October 11, 2002: Cheney Threatens to ‘Discredit’ Chief UN Inspector, IAEA Director

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, meet with White House officials to discuss the status of the UN inspections of alleged Iraqi WMD stockpiles (see October 8 and 11, 2002). The White House opposes further inspections, while the UN and IAEA feel further inspections could be valuable even in light of Iraqi duplicity. Blix will later recall that he and ElBaradei were surprised that they met first with Vice President Cheney before meeting with President Bush. Blix assumes that the meeting with Cheney is “sort of a courtesy call.” Instead, Cheney lays out the US position in stark terms. As Blix will later recall: “Much of it was a fairly neutral discussion, but at one point [Cheney] suddenly said that you must realize that we will not hesitate to discredit you in favor of disarmament. It was a little cryptic. That was how I remembered it, and I think that’s also how Mohamed [ElBaradei] remembered it. I was a little perplexed, because it was a total threat, after all, to talk about the discrediting of us. Later, when I reflected on it, I think what he wanted to say was that if you guys don’t come to the right conclusion, then we will take care of the disarmament.” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009]