Iraq agreed to the following in 1991 (from UN Security Council resolution ending Gulf War):
8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:
(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;
(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;
9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:
(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;
(b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval:
(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself;
(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above;
(iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;
10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;
11. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968;
12. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; to submit to the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution a declaration of the locations, amounts, and types of all items specified above; to place all of its nuclear-weapons-usable materials under the exclusive control, for custody and removal, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General discussed in paragraph 9 (b) above; to accept, in accordance with the arrangements provided for in paragraph 13 below, urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; and to accept the plan discussed in paragraph 13 below for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance with these undertakings;
They stonewalled the inspections throughout the 1990's (this is according to the UN's own inspectors, not the Bush or Clinton administrations), and then booted inspectors out of the country altogether in 1998. Now, only because the U.S. finally makes an issue of it, they have let inspectors back in. And yet, if you read the entire text of the Powell speech and listen to the intercepts and view the photos, it is clear that they are still not cooperating with the very inspections they agreed to in 1991 despite nearly a dozen resolutions and other statements by the UN telling them to do so. Indeed, in 1998 the UN resolution passed in the wake of the inspectors being kicked out stated that Iraqi noncompliance would have "the severest consequences for Iraq". And we saw last week that they are moving trucks up to complexes the day before inspectors arrive, filling them, and carting them away; holding telephone conversations about items they clearly do not want the inspectors to see, and then hiding those items; continuing to shoot at U.S. and British planes (which violates virtually every UN resolution regarding Iraq since 1991); and moving around missiles that are clearly too large to be permissible under the plain language of Resolution 687 from 1991 (see the language above about the 150 km maximum permitted range for Iraqi missiles).
And the question is: Should the world do absolutely nothing about this?
And if your answer is "yes, nothing should be done," then disband the UN and allow New York to build some office buildings on that valuable piece of real estate on the East Side of Manhattan. Because it's really just wasted space, isn't it? |
