UN Shuts Down Iraq Weapons Monitoring

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The Security Council voted Friday to immediately shut down the U.N. bodies key to monitoring Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs under Saddam Hussein – a decision an Iraqi diplomat said would close “an appalling chapter” in his country’s history.The resolution terminating the mandate of the U.N. bodies responsible for monitoring for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons was approved by a vote of 14-0, with Russia abstaining.Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin objected to the council’s failure to comply with previous resolutions demanding that the inspectors certify that Iraq has no unconventional weapons before terminating their mandate. “The adoption of this resolution does not give any clear answers to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he said.Since 2005, America has been trying to get the Security Council to end the work of the inspectors, who were pulled out of Iraq just before the 2003 American-led invasion and were barred by the U.S. from returning.American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the efforts of the American-led multinational force in Iraq “have demonstrated that the current government of Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction or delivery systems.”Iraq’s new leaders also have been lobbying for the council to stop using the country’s oil revenue to pay the salaries of the inspectors – and to have all money remaining in the U.N.’s oil-for-food account transferred to the government.Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Hamid Al-Bayati also called it “a historic day,” saying adoption of the resolution turns the page on “an appalling chapter in Iraq’s modern history, which had a destructive impact on the people of Iraq.”The resolution authorizes Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transfer all remaining unallocated funds in the oil-for-food account to Iraq’s Development Fund – about $60 million.The resolution will “terminate immediately” the mandate of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission known as UNMOVIC, which was charged with certifying that Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons programs and long-range missiles were dismantled.It would also end the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, which was responsible for uncovering and dismantling the country’s nuclear weapons program.UNMOVIC is the outgrowth of a U.N. inspections process created after the 1991 Gulf War in which an American-led coalition force ousted invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait.In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors uncovered significant undeclared banned weapons programs including Iraq’s biological warfare program that Saddam sought to conceal, the chemical nerve agent VX and other advanced chemical weapons capabilities, and the indigenous production of long-range ballistic missile engines. IAEA inspectors helped unravel the true extent of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear program, which never succeeded in producing a working weapon.Since leaving Iraq in 2003, UNMOVIC has continued to study satellite imagery in efforts to keep track of equipment with dual civilian and military uses and it has continued to train staff inspectors and experts who could be called on for special assignments.On Thursday, UNMOVIC published a 1,200 page account of Iraq’s weapons programs and the lessons learned in the verification process.The resolution asked the secretary-general to ensure “that sensitive proliferation information or information provided in confidence by member states is kept under strict control.”

UN Shuts Down Iraq Weapons Monitoring

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