United Nations Special Commission
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.[1] Between 1991 and 1997 its director was Rolf Ekéus; from 1997 to 1999 its director was Richard Butler.
Summary[edit]
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created with the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 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.[2] 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.[3]
The commission found corroborating evidence that Rihab Rashid Taha, an Iraqi microbiologist educated in England, had produced biological weapons for Iraq in the 1980s. The destruction of proscribed weapons and the associated facilities was carried out mainly by Iraq, under constant supervision by UNSCOM.[4]
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.[5][6] 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 for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The successor of the United Nations Special Commission was the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
Allegations of CIA infiltration of UNSCOM[edit]
Evidence that UNSCOM had been used by US intelligence to penetrate Iraqi security and track President Saddam Hussein's movements emerged in January 1999.[30] An investigation by The Washington Post 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 transmissions" that had been noted by the inspectors.[31][32]
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter later accused some UNSCOM personnel of spying,[33] 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.[34]