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 the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention which bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or retention of biological weapons; the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which prohibits Iraq from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons.

UNSCR 687 obliged Iraq to provide declarations on all aspects of its weapons of mass destruction programmes within 15 days and accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless under international supervision of its chemical, biological and nuclear programmes, and all ballistic missiles with a range beyond 150km. Iraq did not make a satisfactory declaration within the specified time-frame.

Iraq accepted the UNSCRs and agreed to co-operate with UNSCOM. The history of the UN weapons inspections was characterised by persistent Iraqi obstruction.

Iraqi Non-Co-operation with the Inspectors

The former Chairman of UNSCOM, Richard Butler, reported to the UN Security Council in January 1999 that in 1991 a decision was taken by a high- level Iraqi Government committee to provide inspectors with only a portion of its proscribed weapons, components, production capabilities and stocks. UNSCOM concluded that Iraqi policy was based on the following actions:

to provide only a portion of extant weapons stocks, releasing for destruction only those that were least modern; to retain the production capability and documentation necessary to revive programmes when possible; to conceal the full extent of its chemical weapons programme, including the VX nerve agent project; to conceal the number and type of chemical and biological warheads for proscribed long-range missiles; and to conceal the existence of its biological weapons programme.

In December 1997 Richard Butler reported to the UN Security Council that Iraq had created a new category of sites, “Presidential” and “sovereign”, from which it claimed that UNSCOM inspectors would henceforth be barred. The terms of the ceasefire in 1991 foresaw no such limitation. However, Iraq consistently refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors access to any of these eight Presidential sites. Many of these so-called “palaces” are in fact large compounds which are an integral part of Iraqi counter-measures designed to hide weapons material (see photograph on p35).