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Carl Rolf Ekéus is a Swedish diplomat. From 1978 to 1983, he was a representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and he has worked on various other disarmament committees and commissions.
The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of the primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.
The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999 and its mission lasted until June 2007.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on 8 November 2002, offering Iraq under Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions. It provided a legal justification for the subsequent US-led invasion of Iraq.
Hans Martin Blix is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union on-site and led the agency's response to them. Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos. In 2002, the commission began searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. On 17 March 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered an address from the White House announcing that within 48 hours, the United States would invade Iraq unless Saddam Hussein would leave. Bush then ordered all of the weapons inspectors, including Blix's team, to leave Iraq so that America and its allies could invade Iraq on 20 March. In February 2010, Blix became head of the United Arab Emirates' advisory board for its nuclear power program. He is the former president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations.
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created by the United Nations to ensure Iraq's compliance with policies concerning Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War. Between 1991 and 1997 its director was Rolf Ekéus; from 1997 to 1999 its director was Richard Butler.
In March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US and UK claimed it possessed. The 2003 invasion of Iraq began a few days later. Prior to this decision, there had been much diplomacy and debate amongst the members of the United Nations Security Council over how to deal with the situation. This article examines the positions of these states as they changed during 2002–2003.
David Christopher Kelly was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility, and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.
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The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was a fact-finding mission sent by the multinational force in Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction alleged to be possessed by Iraq that had been the main ostensible reason for the invasion in 2003. Its final report, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq WMD, was submitted to Congress and the president in 2004. It consisted of a 1,400-member international team organized by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency to hunt for the alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological agents, and any supporting research programs and infrastructure that could be used to develop WMD. The report acknowledged that only small stockpiles of chemical WMDs were found, the numbers being inadequate to pose a militarily significant threat.
Operation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990–91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Use of the codeword was referred to in the annual British defence policy white paper "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1991" where at page 28 it states "The United Kingdom is playing a full part in the work of the Special Commission; our involvement is known as Operation ROCKINGHAM." The activities carried out by the UK as part of Rockingham were detailed in the following white paper.
The following lists events in the year 2003 in Iraq.
During the lead-up to the Iraq War, the United States had alleged that Iraq owned bioreactors, and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle. Subsequent investigations failed to find any evidence of Iraq having access to a mobile weapons lab.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1284, adopted on 17 December 1999, after recalling previous relevant resolutions on Iraq, including resolutions 661 (1990), 687 (1991), 699 (1991), 707 (1991), 715 (1991), 986 (1995), 1051 (1996), 1153 (1998), 1175 (1998), 1242 (1999) and 1266 (1999), the council established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) to replace the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). It was the final resolution adopted in 1999.
The legality of the Iraq War is a contested topic that spans both domestic and international law. Political leaders in the US and the UK who supported the invasion of Iraq have claimed that the war was legal. However, legal experts and other world leaders have argued that the war lacked justification and violated the United Nations charter.
Alexander Coker was formerly a Chief Inspector of the Chemical Weapons team in Iraq, while working for the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Prior to that he held various other posts at UNMOVIC and had been seconded from the British Government to carry out work for UNMOVIC’s predecessor, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM).
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1762 was adopted on 29 June 2007.
Åke Sellström is a Swedish academic and expert in arms, especially in chemical weapons. He has been active at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI).
References
- ↑ Graham S. Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Inspection, Verification and Non-Proliferation, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2005, pages 140-142, 146..
- ↑ BBC Radio 4, Weapons Inspector’s Uncovered, Thursday 10 July 2003 (Radio 4 programme, 8pm).
- ↑ UNMOVIC Working Document, Unresolved Disarmament Issues - Iraq’s Proscribed Weapons Programmes, 6 March 2003.
- ↑ Middle East Policy Council, June 2004, Volume XI, Number 2. Archived June 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ The Hutton Enquiry Archives, Evidence, Files retrieved from Dr Kelly’s home computer: E-mail from Dr Kelly 9 July 03, Inquiry File reference COM/4/0084. Archived 2008-11-21 at the Wayback Machine
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