United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
to ensure
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
's compliance with policies concerning
Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction after the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
.
Between 1991 and 1997 its director was
Rolf Ekéus
Carl Rolf Ekéus (born 7 July 1935 in Kristinehamn, Sweden) 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 commission ...
; from 1997 to 1999 its director was
Richard Butler.
Summary
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created with the adoption of
United Nations Security Council Resolution 687
United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 was adopted on 3 April 1991. After reaffirming resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, 677, 678 (all 1990) and 686 (1991), the Council set the terms, in a comprehensive ...
in April 1991 to oversee Iraq's compliance with the destruction of Iraqi chemical, biological, and missile weapons facilities and to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's efforts to eliminate nuclear weapon facilities all in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The UNSCOM inspection regime was packaged with several other UN Security Council requirements, namely, that Iraq's ruling regime formally recognize Kuwait as an independent state and pay out war reparations for the destruction inflicted in the Gulf War, including the firing of Kuwaiti oil supplies and destruction of public infrastructure. Until the UN Security Council saw that Iraq's weapons programs had been aborted and Iraqi leaders had allowed monitoring systems to be installed, the UN's aforementioned sanctions would continue to be imposed on Iraq.
The commission found corroborating evidence that
Rihab Rashid Taha, an Iraqi
microbiologist
A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...
educated in England, had produced
biological weapons
A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterrori ...
for Iraq in the 1980s. The destruction of proscribed weapons and the associated facilities was carried out mainly by
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, under constant supervision by UNSCOM.
Inspectors withdrew in 1998, and disbanded the following year amid allegations that the United States had used the commission's resources to spy on the Iraqi military. Weapons inspector
Scott Ritter later stated that
Operation Rockingham had cherry-picked evidence found by the United Nations Special Commission; evidence, he says, that was later used as part of the
casus belli
A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one ...
for the
2003 invasion of Iraq.
The successor of the United Nations Special Commission was the
.
History
1990
The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was headed by
Rolf Ekéus
Carl Rolf Ekéus (born 7 July 1935 in Kristinehamn, Sweden) 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 commission ...
and later
Richard Butler. During several visits to Iraq by the United Nations Special Committee (UNSCOM), set up after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait to inspect Iraqi weapons facilities, weapons inspectors were told by
Rihab Rashid Taha that the al-Hakam germ warfare center was a chicken-feed plant. "There were a few things that were peculiar about this animal-feed production plant,"
Charles Duelfer
Charles A. Duelfer is Chairman of Omnis, Inc., a consulting firm in aerospace, defense, intelligence, training, and finance. He is a regular commentator in the media on intelligence and foreign policy and is the author of ''Hide and Seek: The Sea ...
, UNSCOM's deputy executive chairman, later told reporters, "beginning with the extensive air defenses surrounding it."
1991–1995
The powers given to UNSCOM inspectors in Iraq were: "unrestricted freedom of movement without advance notice in Iraq"; the "right to unimpeded access to any site or facility for the purpose of the on-site inspection...whether such site or facility be above or below ground"; "the right to request, receive, examine, and copy any record data, or information...relevant to" UNSCOM's activities; and the "right to take and analyze samples of any kind as well as to remove and export samples for off-site analysis".
Acceptance of the intrusion of the UNSCOM's inspectors on the part of the Iraqi regime was slow coming. But with the threat of punitive military action looming from the international community, and particularly the U.S., Saddam Hussein begrudgingly allowed UNSCOM's inspectors into the country to begin their work.
From August 1991 the U.S. government made a
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides da ...
reconnaissance aircraft available to UNSCOM. The imagery was analysed by U.S. analysts, but the volume of imagery exceeded analysis capacity. With UNSCOM authority,
Scott Ritter and some other UNSCOM weapons inspectors also regularly took
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides da ...
imagery to Israel for analysis. Iraq protested about the supply of such information to Israel.
Between 1991 and 1995, UN inspectors uncovered a massive program to develop biological and nuclear weapons. A large amount of equipment was confiscated and destroyed. Iraq by and large refused to cooperate with UNSCOM and its inspections as mandated by UN SC Res. 687 until June 1992, ten months after deadline, at which time the Iraqi government submitted "full, final and complete reports" on all of its weapons of mass destruction programs. These reports, however, were found to be incomplete and deficient, and at the same time UN inspectors were subjected to harassment and threats on the part of the Iraqi regime.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 699 was also passed in 1991, declaring that Iraq was responsible for all funding of UNSCOM's inspections in Iraq.
In 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector Dr.
Rod Barton
Rod Barton is an Australian politician. He is the co-founder of the Transport Matters Party and was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, representing the Eastern Metropolitan Region. He was elected in November 2018 but was not re-el ...
showed Taha documents obtained by UNSCOM from
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
that showed the Iraqi government had just purchased 10 tons of growth media from a British company called
Oxoid.
[ ]Growth media
A growth medium or culture medium is a solid, liquid, or semi-solid designed to support the growth of a population of microorganisms or cells via the process of cell proliferation or small plants like the moss '' Physcomitrella patens''. Diff ...
is a mixture of sugar, proteins and minerals that allows microscopic life to grow. It is used in hospitals, where swabs from patients are placed in dishes containing growth media for diagnostic purposes. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth media was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it.
Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to inspectors that she had grown 19,000 litres of botulism
Botulism is a rare and potentially fatal illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium '' Clostridium botulinum''. The disease begins with weakness, blurred vision, feeling tired, and trouble speaking. This may then be followed by weakn ...
toxin; 8,000 litres of anthrax
Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The s ...
; 2,000 litres of aflatoxin
Aflatoxins are various poisonous carcinogens and mutagens that are produced by certain molds, particularly '' Aspergillus'' species. The fungi grow in soil, decaying vegetation and various staple foodstuffs and commodities such as hay, sweet ...
s, which can cause liver cancer
Liver cancer (also known as hepatic cancer, primary hepatic cancer, or primary hepatic malignancy) is cancer that starts in the liver. Liver cancer can be primary (starts in liver) or secondary (meaning cancer which has spread from elsewhere to th ...
; clostridium perfringens
''Clostridium perfringens'' (formerly known as ''C. welchii'', or ''Bacillus welchii'') is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming pathogenic bacterium of the genus '' Clostridium''. ''C. perfringens'' is ever-present in nature an ...
, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene
Gas gangrene (also known as clostridial myonecrosis and myonecrosis) is a bacterial infection that produces tissue gas in gangrene. This deadly form of gangrene usually is caused by '' Clostridium perfringens'' bacteria. About 1,000 cases of ga ...
; and ricin
Ricin ( ) is a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) and a highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, ''Ricinus communis''. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin for mice is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of bod ...
, a castor bean derivative which can kill by inhibiting protein synthesis. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella
''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are ''Salmonella enterica'' and '' Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is fur ...
, foot and mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, followe ...
, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but which is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the US and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq had a smallpox outbreak in the 1970s and UNSCOM scientists believe the government would have retained contaminated material.
UNSCOM learned that, in August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Taha's team was ordered to set up a program to weaponize the biological agents. By January 1991, a team of 100 scientists and support staff had filled 157 bombs and 16 missile warheads with botulin toxin, and 50 bombs and five missile warheads with anthrax. In an interview with the BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
, Taha denied the Iraqi government had weaponized the bacteria. "We never intended to use it," she told journalist Jane Corbin of the BBC's Panorama program. "We never wanted to cause harm or damage to anybody." UNSCOM found the munitions dumped in a river near al-Hakam. UNSCOM also discovered that Taha's team had conducted inhalation experiments on donkeys from England and on beagles from Germany. The inspectors seized photographs showing beagles having convulsions inside sealed containers.
1996
The al-Hakam germ warfare center, headed by the British-educated Iraqi biologist Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha, was blown up by UNSCOM in 1996. According to a 1999 report from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the normally mild-mannered Taha exploded into violent rages whenever UNSCOM questioned her about al-Hakam, shouting, screaming and, on one occasion, smashing a chair, while insisting that al-Hakam was a chicken-feed plant.
Iraq charged that the commission was a cover for US espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tang ...
and refused UNSCOM access to certain sites, such as Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ar, حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused ...
headquarters. Although Ekéus has said that he resisted attempts at such espionage, many allegations have since been made against the agency commission under Butler, charges which Butler has denied. Within the UN establishment in Iraq, UNSCOM was not without its critics, with the UN's humanitarian staff informally calling the inspectors 'UN-Scum'. In return, the UN's humanitarian staff were called "bunny-huggers".
Also in 1996, the Iraqi ruling regime agreed to the terms of United Security Council Resolution 986
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
, an oil-for-supplies agreement in which Iraq was allowed to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months as a ways to purchase supplies for its increasingly impoverished and malnourished population. This agreement also allowed the UN to oversee the use and management of oil revenues, and to see that some of the funds went to pay war reparations and for the work of UNSCOM in Iraq during this period. The distribution of supplies purchased with oil revenues was also to be supervised by UN inspectors to ensure fair and equal distribution throughout the Iraqi population.
1998 Airstrikes
On the evening of 15 December 1998 the Security Council convened to consider two letters from weapons inspectors. The IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...
report by Mohamed El Baradei stated that Iraq "has provided the necessary level of cooperation to enable... uractivities to be completed efficiently and effectively". The UNSCOM report, authored by Richard Butler, deplored the restrictions, lack of disclosure, and concealment. While conceding that " statistical terms, the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraq's cooperation," his letter listed a number of instances where unspecificed "undeclared dual-capable items" had been discovered, and where inspections had been held up so that buildings could be cleared of sensitive material.
Since Operation Desert Fox
The 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets from 16 to 19 December 1998, by the United States and the United Kingdom. On 16 December 1998, President of the United States Bill ...
had already begun at the time of the meeting (just hours after the inspectors had been evacuated), the Security Council debated about who was to blame for the military action, rather than whether they should authorize it. The Iraqi representative said:
The Russian ambassador added:
The view of the Council was split, with several countries placing the responsibility on Iraq. The United States declared that "Iraq's policy of unremitting defiance and non-compliance necessitated the resort to military force". The United Kingdom stated that the objectives of the action were "to degrade Iraq's capability to build and use weapons of mass destruction, and to diminish the military threat Iraq poses to its neighbours. The targets chosen, therefore, are targets connected with his military capability, his weapons of mass destruction and his ability to threaten his neighbours."
1999: End of UNSCOM
In December 1999, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1284, replacing UNSCOM with the , also known as UNMOVIC. Four countries – among them Russia, France and China – abstained from voting on Res. 1284, which led the Iraqi regime to reject the resolution because they saw the resolution as a way for the UN to claim Iraq as a "protectorate".
UNSCOM's intention of identifying and eliminating Iraqi weapons programs resulted in numerous successes, illustrating the "value of a system approach to biological arms verification". But the overall effect of the UN sanctions on Iraqi in the 1990s had some negative effects on the Iraqi people. Graham-Brown (2000) and Halliday (1999) argued the sanctions caused malnutrition rates among Iraqis to increase and infant mortality rates to soar, exacting a heavy toll on ordinary Iraqi civilians not part of Saddam's patrimonial "shadow state". However, research by Dyson nd Cetorelli (2017) demonstrated that claims of a rise in infant mortality rates and malnutrition rates among Iraqi civilians due to sanctions were due to manipulation of a 1999 UNICEF survey by Saddam's regime, noting that comprehensive surveys after 2003 found no evidence that UN sanctions caused a rise in child mortality rates.
Allegations of CIA infiltration of UNSCOM
Evidence that UNSCOM had been used by US intelligence to penetrate Iraqi security and track President Saddam Hussein's movements emerged in January 1999. An investigation by the ''Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'' claimed that CIA engineers, working as UN technicians, installed equipment to spy on Iraqi sites without Butler's knowledge, and that this explained the unidentified "burst transmission
In telecommunication, a burst transmission or data burst is the broadcast of a relatively high-bandwidth transmission over a short period.
Burst transmission can be intentional, broadcasting a compressed message at a very high data signaling rate ...
s" that had been noted by the inspectors.
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter later accused some UNSCOM personnel of spying, and also alleged that the purpose of the spying was to target Saddam in the bombing. Butler, on the other hand, denied allegations that foreign intelligence agencies "piggybacked" UNSCOM and questioned the factual accuracy of several of Ritter's statements.
Ritter on Iraq's WMDs after 1998
In June 1999, Ritter said:
When you ask the question, "Does Iraq possess militarily viable biological or chemical weapons?" the answer is "NO!" It is a resounding "NO". Can Iraq produce today chemical weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Can Iraq produce biological weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Ballistic missiles? No! It is "no" across the board. So from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability.[See also ]
Butler resigned 1999
Butler resigned from UNSCOM on 30 June 1999.
See also
*'' In Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq'' – documentary film directed by Scott Ritter
*Iraq disarmament crisis
The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. Since the 1980s, Iraq was widely assumed to have been producing and extensively running the programs of biologi ...
and Iraq disarmament timeline 1990–2003
1990
24 July 1990
* Nine days before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, US State Department spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler states: "We do not have any defence treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defence or security commitments to Kuwait."
2 ...
*UNSCOM personnel: Rolf Ekéus
Carl Rolf Ekéus (born 7 July 1935 in Kristinehamn, Sweden) 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 commission ...
, Richard Butler (diplomat)
Richard William Butler, (born 13 May 1942) is a retired Australian public servant, United Nations weapons inspector, and a former Governor of Tasmania.
Early life and career
Butler was born in Coolah in rural New South Wales. He grew up in Syd ...
, Charles A. Duelfer, Scott Ritter, Corinne Heraud, Alexander Coker, David Kelly
References
External links
United Nations on UNSCOM
{{authority control
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
Organizations established by the United Nations
687
Iraq and the United Nations