The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
The US had
“committed flagrant and gross violations of Iraq’s sovereignty
and
territorial
integrity”, including “imposing an illegal air siege” and openly
declaring
“criminal
schemes against Iraq by allocating funds to finance illegal
activities
aimed at
intervening in Iraq’s internal affairs to commit acts of sabotage
and
terrorism”.
•
Since May
1998, Iraq had been calling on the Security Council, the
Secretary-
General and
the international community to “adopt a fair and firm
position”.
•
Iraq’s
“serious and sincere statements” had remained “unheeded” and
the
Special
Commission had “refused to endorse officially the substantive
facts
about
Iraq’s compliance”.
•
The US had
“rejected” the recent proposals to the Security Council to “move
the
nuclear
item from the status of disarmament to that of
monitoring”.
550.
Iraq concluded
that the “current circumstances” confirmed that Iraq would
“always
be under
siege regardless of what it does, and regardless of its fulfilment
of the Security
Council’s
requirements”.
551.
Mr Aziz
forwarded the decision in a letter to the President of the Security
Council
552.
Mr Aziz
stated that the Special Commission:
“… had
refused to inform the Security Council of the substantive facts …
Instead,
the Special
Commission has continued its old and well-known methods
of
concentrating
on details of no value with respect to the requirements of section
C
of
resolution 687 (1991). It has also continued with its methods of
raising marginal
issues, to
confuse and mislead the Council and world public opinion into
thinking
that those
issues are of some importance with respect to the requirements
of
disarmament.
In addition, it has attempted to conjure up the crises and
provocations
which
characterized the work of the Special Commission throughout the
past years.
The purpose
of this was entirely clear, namely to perpetuate the embargo
pursuant
to the
policy of the United States of America.”
553.
Mr Aziz
set out in detail Iraq’s position on UNSCOM’s approach to the
agreed work
programme
and his meeting with Mr Butler on 3 August. The points
made by Mr Aziz
included:
•
The Special
Commission teams discussing missiles had raised
“trivial”
or
“marginal” additional questions, rather than focusing on the fact
of the
destruction
of special warheads and Iraq’s lack of success in producing
engines
and
gyroscopes for ballistic missiles.
•
Iraq had
“proved that the material balance for R400 bombs was
complete”.
221
UN Security
Council, 14 August 1998, ‘Letter dated 5 August 1998 from
the Deputy Prime Minister of
Iraq
addressed to the President of the Security Council’
(S/1998/718).
124