AP News, June 22nd, 2007
A proposed U.N. resolution would immediately end the work of U.N. inspection bodies which, under Saddam Hussein's regime, played a pivotal role in monitoring Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
Since 2005, the United States has been trying to get the Security Council to wrap up the work of the inspectors, who left Iraq just before the 2003 invasion and were barred by the U.S. from returning.
Iraq's new leaders have also been lobbying for the council to stop using the country's oil revenue to pay the salaries of the inspectors _ and to have all money remaining in the U.N.'s oil-for-food account transferred to the government.
The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, would authorize Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transfer all remaining unallocated funds in the oil-for-food account to Iraq's Development Fund _ about $60 million.
The resolution would "terminate immediately" the mandate of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission known as UNMOVIC, which was charged with certifying that Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs and long-range missiles were dismantled.
It would also end the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, which was responsible for uncovering and dismantling the country's nuclear weapons program.
The Security Council is expected to discuss UNMOVIC _ and the draft resolution _ on Tuesday.
UNMOVIC is the outgrowth of a U.N. inspections process created after the 1991 Gulf War in which a U.S.-led coalition force ousted invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors uncovered significant undeclared banned weapons programs including Iraq's biological warfare program that Saddam sought to conceal, the chemical nerve agent VX and other advanced chemical weapons capabilities, and the indigenous production of long-range ballistic missile engines. IAEA inspectors helped unravel the true extent of Iraq's clandestine nuclear program, which never succeeded in producing a working weapon.
Since leaving Iraq in 2003, UNMOVIC has continued to study satellite imagery in efforts to keep track of equipment with dual civilian and military uses and it has continued to train staff inspectors and experts who could be called on for special assignments.
It has compiled a database of information about Iraq's clandestine weapons programs and will soon publish a 1,200 page account of Iraq's weapons programs and the lessons learned in the verification process, UNMOVIC spokesman Ewen Buchanan said.
The draft resolution asks the secretary-general "to take all necessary measures to provide for the appropriate disposition of UNMOVIC's archives and other property" and to ensure "that sensitive proliferation information or information provided in confidence by member states is kept under strict control."
The draft also urges Iraq to become a party to the chemical weapons convention and allow IAEA inspectors to conduct unnanounced inspections.
