The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
by Iraq in
the direction of the border with Kuwait”.78
It included
a demand that Iraq
“co‑operate
fully with the United Nations Special Commission”.
180.
In autumn
1994, UNSCOM conducted a thorough review of Iraq’s
biological
weapons
programme, including “an attempt to create a material balance of
equipment
and …
growth media acquired by Iraq”.79
The review
“reinforced the suspicion that the
Al Hakam
factory was a biological warfare agent production facility and that
other sites
were also
involved in the biological weapons programme”.
181.
Inspections
and interviews had:
“… enabled
the Commission to arrive at a firm assessment that Iraq’s
declarations
in the
biological area at that time were fundamentally wrong and
misleading as
it was
attempting to hide a full-scale biological warfare programme,
including
weaponization.
The Commission came to the unequivocal conclusion that Iraq
had
in fact
produced biological weapons, that its biological programme was
offensive
in nature,
that Al Hakam had been constructed as a dedicated biological
warfare
agent
research and production facility and had been operational before
January
1991, and
that additional sites, including al-Muthanna, a known chemical
weapons
establishment
were involved in the programme.”
182.
UNSCOM
“confronted” Iraq with its assessments in February
1995.
183.
Iraq admitted
in December that it received proscribed SCUD missile
gyroscope
components
in 1991 and a shipment of proscribed advanced missile gyroscopes
was
184.
Mr Haass
wrote in his memoir that, during the Clinton Administration, there
was:
“… a range
of efforts that sought to promote regime change, something that
got
the CIA and
the Clinton administration enmeshed in a disastrous attempt to
oust
Saddam
Hussein by covert means. The coup was uncovered and crushed in
March
1995. There
was as well a parallel overt initiative to strengthen the Iraqi
opposition
that lived
outside Iraq …”81
185.
In April 1995,
the Security Council was advised that the Special
Commission
assessed
that Iraq had “obtained or sought to obtain all the items and
materials required
to produce
biological warfare agents in Iraq”. Given Iraq’s failure to account
for those
78
UN Security
Council resolution 949 (1994).
79
UN Security
Council, 11 October 1996, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on
the activities of the Special
Commission
established by the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 9 (b)
(i) of resolution 687 (1991)’
(S/1996/848).
80
UN Security
Council, 11 October 1996, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on
the activities of the Special
Commission
established by the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 9 (b)
(i) of resolution 687 (1991)’
(S/1996/848).
81
Haass
RN. War of
Necessity War of Choice: A Memoir of two Iraqi Wars. Simon
& Schuster, 2009.
56