Iraq: Compliance, Sanctions, and U.S. Policy
speech, there were renewed calls from several members of Congress for the overthrow of
Saddam and House passage of H.J.Res. 75 on December 20, 2001, by a vote of 392-12. The
joint resolution says that Iraq’s refusal to readmit U.N. inspectors is a material breach of its
international obligations and a mounting threat to peace and security, but does not explicitly
authorize U.S. military action.
Amid the U.S. threats, on March 7, 2002 Iraq held a meeting with U.N. Secretary
General Annan and UNMOVIC director Blix on the restart of inspections, a meeting Annan
called useful. Another round of talks is slated for April 18-19, 2002. Comments by
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on February 24, 2002 suggested that the United States would
accept new inspections only if such inspections were unconditional and comprehensive, a
standard that some Administration officials believe Iraq will never meet. Several Western
and most Arab governments are opposed to a U.S. military campaign against Iraq, a message
reinforced by Arab leaders to Vice President Cheney on his trip to the Middle East in March.
Arab leaders voiced opposition to an attack on Iraq at the March 27-28 Arab League summit
in Beirut, during which Iraq and Kuwait took some steps to reconcile.
The January 30, 2002 CIA proliferation assessment for Congress, covering January to
June 2001, repeats U.S. suspicions of Iraqi rebuilding of and research on WMD, but presents
little hard evidence of such activity. There are also allegations of illicit Iraqi imports of
conventional military equipment. A Jane’s Defence Weekly report of July 25, 2001, says Iraq
has been illicitly obtaining spare parts for fighter jets and helicopters from Belarus, Ukraine,
and the former Yugoslavia.
The following sums up the status of disarmament efforts in Iraq and outstanding issues.
Nuclear Program
During 1991-1994, despite Iraq’s initial declaration that it had no nuclear weapons
facilities or unsafeguarded material, UNSCOM/IAEA uncovered and dismantled a
previously-undeclared network of about 40 nuclear research facilities, including three
clandestine uranium enrichment programs (electromagnetic, centrifuge, and chemical isotope
separation) as well as laboratory-scale plutonium separation program. Inspectors found and
dismantled (in 1992) Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons development program, and they
found evidence of development of a radiological weapon, which scatters nuclear material
without an explosion. No radiological weapon was ever completed, but there is debate over
whether Iraq ever tested such a device. UNSCOM removed from Iraq all discovered nuclear
reactor fuel, fresh and irradiated. Following the defection of Husayn Kamil (Saddam’s
son-in-law and former WMD production czar) in August 1995, Iraq revealed it had launched
a crash program in August 1990 to produce a nuclear weapon within one year, and that it had
planned to divert fuel from its reactors for a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA, before it ceased work in Iraq, said that Iraq’s nuclear program had been
ended and that it had a relatively complete picture of Iraq’s nuclear suppliers. A May 15,
1998 Security Council statement reflected a U.S.-Russian agreement to close the nuclear file
if Iraq cleared up outstanding issues (nuclear design drawings, documents, and the fate of
some nuclear equipment), but an IAEA report of July 1998, indicated that some questions still
remained. The United States did not agree to close the file. In January 2002, as it has in each
of the past 3 years, IAEA inspectors verified that several tons of uranium remained sealed,
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