UN Inspection Research Articles

Joseph S. Chirtel

Joseph S. Chirtel, 94, died on Jan. 11 in Osprey, Florida. “Joseph served as a corporal in the 20th Weather Squadron and was honorably discharged in February of 1946. He was director of manufacturing for Stauffer Chemical and retired in 1983 after 35 distinguished years in the industry. After retiring, he continued to work as a part-time consultant to various government agencies involved in the chemical treaty ban. He was honored when asked to travel to Iraq in 1996 on a UN inspections mission. He had many professional affiliations, held four patents, and was a part-time consultant until his final day.”—Priscilla Adams, daughter Most recent title: Director of manufacturing, Stauffer Chemical Education: BS, chemical engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1948; MS, chemical engineering, University of Delaware, 1949 Survivors: Daughter, Priscilla Adams; stepdaughter, Phyllis Irwin; one granddaughter. Predeceased by his wife, Elaine. To recognize your late loved one or colleague,

WHILE WAITING FOR THE PROTOCOL

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) regime currently suffers from a lack of effective compliance procedures. Because a legally binding compliance protocol to the BWC is not available, other measures are needed to stabilize the regime against the risk of violations of its rules. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the experiences of UN inspection teams show that among the necessary components of effective compliance mechanisms are an intermediary level between bilateral consultations of states parties and involvement of the UN Security Council as well as independent assessment capabilities. This article suggests that the UN Secretary General could assume such an intermediary function and, using the authority contained in Article 99 of the UN Charter, could investigate not only alleged use of biological weapons but also alleged breaches of the BWC. A standing expert unit in the Department for Disarmament Affairs could provide the independent expertise necessary for such investigations. Such a compliance mechanism could provisionally help stabilize the BWC regime until a permanent compliance system can be agreed.

Chrétien, Bush, and the War in Iraq

The in Iraq overshadowed Canada-U.S. relations during Chretien-Bush years. Prime Minister Jean Chretien's refusal to support U.S.-led invasion to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power without backing of United Nations enjoyed solid parliamentary and public support. But conservative commentators, politicians, and business community criticized government for substituting process for policy, letting down its closest ally, and risking American retaliation. Bush administration officials expressed disappointment and hinted at possible damage to relationship. (1) This essay examines rift between Chretien and Bush governments over Iraq. It argues that Chretien's decision to stand aside reflected a deep skepticism about President George Bush's case for war. (2) As Canadian government saw it, U.S. administration's contention that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was uncertain at best. Ottawa's calls for a vigorous UN inspection program and Security Council sanction were aimed at subjecting claim to international scrutiny and decision. Chretien judged correctly that close intertwining of Canadian and U.S. economies made substantive retaliation unlikely. However, anti-Bush rhetoric from members of governing party complicated management of Iraq issue and irritated president, who canceled a planned visit to Ottawa in spring of 2003. At a deeper level, issue appears to have widened differences in values and outlook between two countries, and complicated Prime Minister Paul Martin's efforts to improve Canada-U.S. relations. Setting Stage It is generally agreed that relations between Canada and U.S. deteriorated in post-2000 period. Many observers attribute this to philosophical gulf between Chretien and Bush governments, implication being that dealings would improve when one or both of them was replaced. (3) Underlying this, however, were two factors that conditioned management of relationship and handling of Iraq war. The first was growing divergence between values and worldviews of Canadian and American publics in post-cold era, despite steadily increasing integration of two countries. Michael Adams has argued that Canadians became more socially liberal, skeptical of traditional authority, and supportive of a cooperative approach to resolution of international issues. Americans, by contrast, became more socially conservative, deferential to authority in a highly competitive national environment, and inclined to a survival of fittest view of world. (4) In international affairs this could be seen in Canadians' embrace of a multilateral, rules-based order and American view, which relied more on power and less on cooperation and expanding role of international law in pursuing U.S. interests abroad. (5) Chretien sometimes went out of his way to highlight Canada's policy differences with U.S., a practice he defended as good domestic politics. (6) The second factor was impact of attacks upon U.S. by al Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001. The attacks created a profound sense of vulnerability among Americans and elevated security to top of Washington's agenda. Bush made cooperation in war on terrorism litmus test of other countries' relations with U.S., saying Either you are with us, or you are with terrorists. (7) Chretien declared that while Ottawa would stand with U.S., the laws of Canada will be passed by Parliament of Canada. (8) Canadian officials took lead in drafting a plan to increase border security and facilitate low-risk trade and travel, which became basis of Smart Border Declaration, signed by Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, in December 2001. The Canadian government demonstrated its commitment by announcing a $7 billion (Cdn) program over five years. …

Notes from the Editors, November 2004

» Notes from the Editors What was the principal motive for the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Few informed observers now believe that it was to eliminate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Months before the war in December 2002 we wrote in these pages: "Iraq today probably does not possess functional chemical and biological war capabilities since these were effectively destroyed during the UN inspection process in 1991-1998." In early October 2004 Charles Duelfer, the CIA's top weapons inspector, officially confirmed in a 918-page report delivered to two Congressional committees that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion. All such "capabilities," his report indicated, had been destroyed or had simply "decayed" as a result of the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent UN weapons inspection process. Of course even if it had been shown that Iraq had such weapons prior to the war this would not have justified the U.S. invasion, since numerous countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have weapons of mass destruction with the United States as the world leader in the possession (and use) of such weapons.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Weapons of Mass Destruction and the United Nations

What Happened in Iraq? The Success Story of UN Inspections This is an extraordinarily important moment for the United Nations. Before attention is lost in the controversies over the war itself and in the challenges of its aftermath, the UN must capture, clarify, and publicize the record of international inspections in Iraq: for itself, for member governments, and for the public. Was the process encompassing the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) from 1991 to 2003 a success? Or was it the bumbling embarrassment, the sham, portrayed by top U.S. officials and still understood that way by the American public--and perhaps by the public elsewhere? The bottom line is that it was in fact a rather striking international success that stands out in the record of recent decades. However, it is a success studded with weaknesses that need to be understood and corrected and one that, because it is not yet recognized, is not fully real. Without a concerted analytical effort, the record of what actually happened, and its very real promise for the future, could easily be lost. In the surging controversy over British and U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq, a critical fact is still largely unnoticed: while the national intelligence services were getting it wrong, UN inspectors were getting the picture largely right. In 1991-1998, UNSCOM and the IAEA--while facing unrelenting Iraqi opposition and obstruction--successfully discovered and eliminated most, if not all, of Iraq's unconventional weapons and production facilities and destroyed or monitored the destruction of most of its chemical and biological weapons agents. Iraq's most secret program--its biological weapons program--was discovered through painstaking detective work and was reported to the Security Council four months before the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel. UNSCOM also uncovered covert transactions between Iraq and more than five hundred companies from more than forty countries--a body of work that assumes fresh significance in the light of recent disclosures of the nuclear sales network of Pakistan's A. Q. Khan. Also, inspectors put in place a mechanism to track and block banned exports and imports. In the months immediately preceding the war, UN inspectors' assessments of Iraq's programs were remarkably close to what has since been found--and far more accurate than U.S. or British prewar beliefs. UNMOVIC was permitted to operate for less than four months, and only for a matter of weeks at full strength. But to the best of present knowledge, the inspectors were in fact in the process of finding and beginning to dismantle what was there. This record suggests a number of lessons--positive and negative. First, it appears that a package of international restraints--sanctions, the procurement investigations, and the export/import controls combined with core inspections--worked together in a way that is not yet understood, and that this package was considerably more effective than has been appreciated then or since. Second, even though UNSCOM and the early IAEA inspections operated under a degree of Iraqi obstruction that the Security Council never should have tolerated, the UN inspections' greatest area of weakness lay in New York, not in Iraq. Iraq played a highly effective game of divide and conquer in the Security Council, setting the permanent members against each other until political support was so undermined that inspections were forced to a halt in 1998. The lesson is clear. Political unity in backing inspections is as important as technology and expertise on the ground, and the Security Council is not now set up to provide it. Inspections should not again be launched without more settled political support behind them. And the Security Council should never again allow rules of the game that tilt the playing field so steeply in favor of the miscreant and against its own agents. …

「民生パワー」概念の再検討

The EC/EU has evolved as an international actor, or rather as one of the ‘great powers’ over the issue of peace and international security. This article asks what kind of actor or power the EC/EU has been since the 1970s, with special reference to EC/EU policy towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq (1979-2003).In 1972, François Duchêne described the EC as a ‘civilian power’ in discussing ‘Europe's role in world peace’. The new concept of civilian power was introduced as different from the traditional concept of military power. The EC behaved as a significant actor in external economic affairs. However, the international setting in which the EC developed its international identity changed from the East-West détente to the new Cold War. In 1982, Hedley Bull harshly criticised the notion of ‘civilian power Europe’ as a contradiction in terms, because the EC had yet to be an international actor and because the influence exerted by ‘civilian’ European states was ‘conditional upon a strategic environment by the military power of states’. From the perspectives of ‘the return to power politics’ of the 1980s, Bull was rather advocating a ‘Western European military alliance’. As the Cold War was ending and the EC was transforming into the EU with CFSP, the concept of civilian power re-emerged. Christopher Hill and William Wallace discussed the ‘actorness’ of the EU, which ‘requires not only a clear identity and a self-contained decision-making system, but also the practical capabilities to effect policy’.Section One of this article examines the conceptual history of ‘civilian power’ from the 1970s to the 1990s. Section Two attempts to apply the concept to EC/EU policy towards Iraq: from Saddam's inauguration in July 1979, through the Iran-Iraq War in 1980-88, the Gulf conflict in 1990-91 and the Operation Desert Fox in 1998, to the de facto collapse of Saddam's regime in April 2003. The EC/EU became deeply involved with the issues revolving around Iraq: oil, hostages/terrorism, economic sanctions, arms transfer, UN peace-keeping, logistical and financial assistance to the US-led multilateral forces, and the issue of a continued UN inspection or a war.The Iraq War broke out in March 2003. International society would effectively disarm Saddam of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and change his undemocratic regime. Some Americans might well be overwhelmed with a success. It would however be naïve to conclude that the EU did not play any role in pre-war and post-war Iraq. At least two significant issues remained in Iraq, the Gulf region and the world: the establishment of a truly international regime of WMD non-proliferation and the promotion of democracy with little use of military force. In terms of capabilities, the EU collectively may still be a civilian power. In terms of expectations, the EU would cease to be such a power. With ten new members joining the EU and with a EU constitution and CSDP in sight, however, the concept of civilian power Europe should be more sophisticated and more effective in describing and analysing EU diplomacy. This must also be the lasting task of European integration theory.

Iraq and the Arabs' Future

THERE SHOULD BE no illusions about the sort of Arab landscape that America is destined to find if, or when, it embarks on a war against the Iraqi regime. There would be no hearts and minds to be won in the Arab world, no public diplomacy that would convince the over whelming majority of Arabs that this war would be a just war. An American expedition in the wake of thwarted UN inspections would be seen by the vast majority of Arabs as an imperial reach into their world, a favor to Israel, or a way for the United States to secure control over Iraq's oil. No hearing would be given to the great foreign power. America ought to be able to live with this distrust and discount a good deal of this anti-Americanism as the road rage of a thwarted Arab world-the congenital condition of a culture yet to take full responsibility for its self-inflicted wounds. There is no need to pay excessive deference to the political pieties and givens of the region. Indeed, this is one of those settings where a reforming foreign power's simpler guidelines offer a better way than the region's age-old prohibitions and defects. Above and beyond toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein and dismantling its deadly weapons, the driving motivation of a new American endeavor in Iraq and in neighboring Arab lands should be modernizing the Arab world. The great indulgence granted to the ways and phobias of Arabs has reaped a terrible harvest-for the Arabs themselves, and for an America implicated in their affairs. It is cruel

Deadly Unknowns About Iraq’s Biological Weapons Program

Editor’s Note: In the fall 1997 issue of Asian Perspective, Milton Leitenberg addressed the weakening of international nonproliferation efforts with respect to biological weapons. He cited Iraq’s production and deployment of biological weapons as one ongoing concern that the international community should address with appropriately stern sanctions. In the following article, Mr. Leitenberg comments on the current controversy surrounding UN inspection of Iraq’s biological weapons program.

The UN inspections in Iraq: lessons for on-site verification

The UN inspections in Iraq: lessons for on-site verification