Intimidation
- Once inspectors had arrived in Iraq, it quickly became apparent that the Iraqis would resort to a range of measures (including physical threats and psychological intimidation of inspectors) to prevent UNSCOM and the IAEA from fulfilling their mandate.
- In response to such incidents, the President of the Security Council issued frequent statements calling on Iraq to comply with its disarmament and monitoring obligations.
Iraqi obstruction of UN weapons inspection teams
- firing warning shots in the air to prevent IAEA inspectors from intercepting nuclear related equipment (June 1991);
- keeping IAEA inspectors in a car park for 4 days and refusing to allow them to leave with incriminating documents on Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme (September 1991);
- announcing that UN monitoring and verification plans were “unlawful” (October 1991);
- refusing UNSCOM inspectors access to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture. Threats were made to inspectors who remained on watch outside the building. The inspection team had reliable evidence that the site contained archives related to proscribed activities;
- in 1991–2 Iraq objected to UNSCOM using its own helicopters and choosing its own flight plans. In January 1993 it refused to allow UNSCOM the use of its own aircraft to fly into Iraq;
- refusing to allow UNSCOM to install remote-controlled monitoring cameras at two key missile sites (June-July 1993);
- repeatedly denying access to inspection teams (1991- December 1998);
- interfering with UNSCOM’s helicopter operations, threatening the safety of the aircraft and their crews (June 1997);
- demanding the end of U2 overflights and the withdrawal of US UNSCOM staff (October 1997);
- destroying documentary evidence of programmes for weapons of mass destruction (September 1997).
Obstruction
- Iraq denied that it had pursued a biological weapons programme until July 1995. In July 1995, Iraq acknowledged that biological agents had been produced on an industrial scale at al-Hakam. Following the defection in August 1995 of Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s son-in-law and former Director of the Military Industrialisation Commission, Iraq released over 2 million documents relating to its mass destruction weaponry programmes and acknowledged that it had
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