16Sep02-UN weapons inspectors in Iraq
John Bowman, CBC News Online | September 16, 2002
Iraq has agreed to allow weapons inspectors back into the country – no conditions attached. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan made the announcement on Sept. 16, 2002, after receiving a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
The letter asked the UN "to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq."
Annan said Iraq is ready to open immediate talks on the technicalities of the inspectors' return.
Although the deal isn't yet final, Hans Blix, the head UN weapons inspector, said at a news conference in September that he expects an advance inspection team to arrive in Iraq Oct. 15.
The full team, including nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, would start their work two months after that, Blix said. But he said the team wouldn't be "fully operational" until two months after the nuclear inspectors arrive.
The Swedish head of UNMOVIC, the new UN inspection body, said it would take four months of inspections before the team's first report on Iraq's disarmament would be ready, if the Iraqi government cooperates with the inspections.
Blix said the teams would conduct a few test inspections to gauge the Iraqi's compliance with the UN officials. He said Iraq would have "no sanctuaries" from the inspectors.
How did weapons inspectors come to be in Iraq?
Following the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations weapons inspectors were given the job of monitoring the disarmament of Iraq under the UN ceasefire conditions. The UN Special Commission, or UNSCOM, was established to run the inspections and to locate all stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them.
The inspections were also part of the trade sanctions against Iraq: the sanctions would remain in place as long as Iraq had biological, chemical or nuclear capabilities.
In the years since the war, UNSCOM inspectors have uncovered facilities that are part of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs, despite resistance from the Iraqi authorities. The inspectors oversaw the destruction of some of these facilities in 1992 and 1996.
They have also found nuclear-related equipment in Iraq, in some cases using covert electronic devices to gain their information. The use of these invasive techniques prompted Iraq to accuse the weapons inspectors of spying for the United States.
Australian Richard Butler, the chief weapons inspector at the time, vehemently denied the accusations. China, Russia and France joined Iraq in calling for Butler's resignation.
In 1996, Iraq became even less co-operative with the inspectors. UNSCOM officials had to wait several hours before they were allowed to inspect five sites in March 1996. Iraq barred Americans from serving with the inspection teams in 1997.
The UN negotiated with Iraq to get the inspectors working again, but in 1998 Iraq stopped co-operating with the inspectors entirely. In December of that year, the inspectors said their work had been completely stopped and left Iraq. The U.S. responded with air strikes on Iraq.
In 1999, the UN folded UNSCOM and replaced it with the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, UNMOVIC. Unlike the old commission, UNMOVIC is made up of only UN staff.
What do they do?
In an interview with Salon.com in 1998, David Kay, the first chief UN weapons inspector in Baghdad, described how the arms inspections worked.
The team stayed in the Baghdad Sheraton hotel, where all the rooms were bugged. For security reasons, the teams generally ate only at the hotel restaurant.
The inspectors' day started early so that the team could arrive at a site before the employees got there. Sometimes, the team would go out overnight when a target facility was considered especially valuable. During one of those overnight runs, Kay and his team were captured and held hostage for four days.
If the team were going on an unannounced "challenge" inspection, it was important not to let the Iraqis know their destination. Even many of the team members wouldn't be told where they were going.
Very often the team was looking for documents, so they had to be careful not to let people smuggle papers out of a site. This involved doing pat-down searches even of women, a difficult thing to do in a Muslim country. They had female members of the teams do the searches in those cases.
The inspectors found it difficult to surprise the Iraqis. Usually, someone would spot the inspection team and radio ahead to warn the staff at the site of their arrival.
If the team suspected a site contained forbidden weapons, the inspectors would attempt to seal the site, to keep people from going in and out. The teams were unarmed and, as Kay put it, "middle-aged scientist types," so the Iraqis rarely complied with the orders.
The teams would then videotape them moving supplies out of the site. There would sometimes be a surveillance plane overhead taking pictures. The inspectors would ask individuals leaving the site to open their briefcases. Sometime they did; sometimes they didn't.
Kay said the team knew they would find nothing when the Iraqis were welcoming and friendly. When there was something significant in a facility, they would be more evasive and claim they had lost the key or use some other ruse.
Who are the weapons inspectors?
The role of chief weapons inspector is usually given to academics, diplomats and experts in nuclear arms.
Before heading up UNSCOM from 1997 to 1999, Richard Butler was an Australian ambassador to Thailand and to the United Nations and an envoy to the transitional Cambodian government.
Before that he was the Australian ambassador for disarmament and held many position in the Australian Foreign Service. He's considered an expert on arms control and security issues.
The present head of UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 16 years before joining the weapons inspection body. Before that he was a member of Sweden's delegation to the UN General Assembly for 20 years.
The first head of UNSCOM, David Kay, was also a member of the IAEA before becoming chief inspector.
Canadian Mark Moher was considered a strong candidate to head up UNMOVIC before Blix was appointed. He was Canada's ambassador to the UN for disarmament affairs for four years until 1999.
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