United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission

The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1284 of December 17, 1999. "UNMOVIC was to replace the former UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) and continue with the latter’s mandate to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological weapons and missiles with a range of more than 150 km), and to operate a system of ongoing monitoring and verification to check Iraq’s compliance with its obligations not to reacquire the same weapons prohibited to it by the Security Council." [1]

Commission

Dr. Hans Blix of Sweden was appointed UNMOVIC's Executive Chairman by Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan. Blix served from March 1, 2000, to June 30, 2003. "The Secretary-General has also appointed 16 individuals to serve on the College of Commissioners of UNMOVIC which provides advice and guidance to the Acting Executive Chairman in the execution of his duties." On July 1, 2003, Demetrius Perricos was appointed by the Secretary-General as Acting Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC. "The Commission’s staff include weapons specialists, analysts, scientists, engineers and operational planners. ... Unlike its predecessor, UNSCOM, the staff of UNMOVIC are employees of the United Nations." [2]

"Weapons in Iraq" January 2003

• "'We know for a fact that there are weapons' in Iraq." --White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003, press conference. [3]

UNMOVIC Inspectors Withdrawn from Iraq March 2003

"Although its inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003, UNMOVIC continues to operate with respect to those parts of its mandate it can implement outside of Iraq and has maintained a degree of preparedness to resume work in Iraq. It maintains a roster of more than 300 experts ready to serve and continues to conduct training. Details of its main ongoing activities are set out in reports to the Security Council." [4]

UNMOVIC 21st Quarterly Report, February 6, 2005

• Report submitted by "the Acting Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC in accordance with paragraph 12 of Security Council resolution 1284 (1999) of 17 December 1999," and distributed May 27, 2005.

The First Quarterly Report went into general distribution June 1, 2000. All subsequent quarterly reports can be viewed by accesing the UNMOVIC website and clicking on the "Document List".

Publications

• Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, Pantheon (March 2004), ISBN 0375423028.

Related SourceWatch Resources

• weapons of mass deception
• weapons of mass destruction
• weapons of mass destruction investigation

External links

Chronologies & Timelines

• Timeline Iraq: "A Decade of Tensions" (August 1990-September 2003), IPS News website.
• Timeline of UN-Iraq-Coalition Activity (1991-2002), U.S. Department of State, December 31, 2002.
• Iraq Information Portal: Chronology of Events (2000-2004), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR); chronology begins with January 17, 2000: "UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appoints Rolf Ekeus to head the newly created UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspection team in Iraq. [1/18 NYT, FT, WSJ, WP, 1/19 FBIS, 1/28 MEED]"
• "Inspecting Iraq: A Record of the First 40 Days" (December 4, 2002-January 3, 2003) compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 4, 2003. Includes links to related articles in the chronology.
• "Tracking Inspections in Iraq," Inspection Reports November 2002-March 2003, and July 2003 and Charting Inspection Sites 1st through 17th weeks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website.

Photographs

• UNMOVIC album (144 photos), photobucket.com website.

Documentation

• IAEA reports and other documents, IraqWatch.org.
• IAEA Briefings and other documents, IAEA.org.
• UNMOVIC/IAEA Inspections in Iraq, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies website.
• Hans Blix, "Draft Notes For The Briefing To The Security Council," posted at Global Policy Forum website, October 28, 2002.
• "Raw Data: Text of Resolution on Iraq," [Adopted as Resolution 1441 at Security Council meeting 4644], posted at Fox News, November 8, 2002.
• "Raw Data: Hans Blix's Report to the U.N.," posted at Fox News, January 28, 2003.
• Stephen Zunes, "An Annotated Critique of President George W. Bush's March 17 Address Preparing the Nation for War," FPIF Policy Report, March 2003.
• Hans Blix, "Disarming Iraq - Hans Blix Report To UNSC." "Notes for the briefing of the Security Council on the thirteenth quarterly report of UNMOVIC," June 5, 2003.
• Sharon A. Squassoni, "Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction," Congressional Research Service, updated October 7, 2003.

Articles & Commentary

2000

• "New, 'improved' inspections for Iraq," Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo, Egypt), January 13-19, 2000.
• Laurie Mylroie, "Special Report: Iraq in the Absence of Weapons Inspectors," Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, July 1, 2000.
• Ken MacLeish and Sarah Sloan, "New U.S. Demand for Iraq Inspections in August Signal Possible Election-Year Ploy," International Action Center, July 5, 2000.
• "Anticipating Inspections: UNMOVIC Readies Itself for Iraq," Interview with Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Arms Control Today, July/August 2000.
• "Uncertain future for new U.N. arms inspection team," Reuters, August 22, 2000.

2001

• Patricia Lewis, "From UNSCOM to UNMOVIC: The United Nations and Iraq," UNIDIR Disarmament Forum, 2001.
• Geoffrey Kemp and Morton H. Halperin, "A Report on U.S. Policy Options Towards Iraq," Council on Foreign Relations, June 28, 2001.

2002

• Jack Boureston and James Russell, "Iraq: The Weapons Inspection Conundrum," Center for Contemporary Conflict (U.S. Navy), April 2, 2002.
• Julian Borger, "US hawk 'tried to sully Iraq arms inspector'. Pentagon No 2 ordered CIA to investigate record of UN agency chief," Guardian/UK, July 16, 2002.
• "White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq. President Meets With Blair on Strategy Ahead of Speech," MSNBC, September 7, 2002; pulled from MSNBC website and posted at The Memory Hole.
• Ian Williams, "The UN Gambit," The Nation, September 12, 2002.
• James Bone, "Spy Scandal Reduced America's Control of Mission," Times (London), September 18, 2002.
• "Iraq wanted know-how, but did not store WMD: ex-UN inspector Ekeus," AFP, September 23, 2003.
• Kevin Whitelaw, "Hide & seek, again. Iraq offers to admit U.N. inspectors, so now the question is: Can they disarm Saddam Hussein?" USNews.com, September 30, 2002.
• Katherine Kersten, "New Iraqi inspections are almost certain to fail," Star Tribune, October 9, 2002.
• Mark Berniker, "Showdown at the UN," Asia Times, October 17, 2002.
• Thalif Deen, "A fig leaf short of a war?" Asia Times, November 5, 2002.
• Paul Belden, "At the UN, a bullet in the 'material breach'," Asia Times, November 8, 2002.
• Todd W. John, "How the techies will find Saddam's arsenal," Asia Times, November 15, 2002.
• Michael J. Jordan, "Inexperience marks team of inspectors. Chief UN inspector Hans Blix and an advance team arrive in Baghdad Monday," Christian Science Monitor, November 18, 2002.
• Nermin El-Mufti, "No spying this time," Al-Ahram Weekly, November 21-27, 2002: Interview with Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for UNMOVIC, and Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for IAEA.
• Anthony H. Cordesman, "The New Iraqi 'Shell Game'. The Strategy Iraq May Employ to Defeat UNMOVIC and IAEA Efforts," Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 2, 2002.
• Oliver North, "Who are these people & what are they doing?" TownHall.com, November 6, 2002.
• Mark Matthews and Tom Bowman, "U.S. officials brief inspectors on Iraq's weapons programs. State Department, intelligence officials meet with U.N. panel," Baltimore Sun, November 13, 2002.
• David Isenberg, "Disclosing the UN spin game," Asia Times, December 12, 2002.

2003

• Marguerite Michaels, "UN Moves to Take Iraqi Scientists Abroad," TIME, January 8, 2003: "UNMOVIC has completed arrangements to interview Iraqi officials in a location beyond Saddam's reach. But will Baghdad comply? And will the scientists themselves agree?"
• Rohan Pearce, "IRAQ: Inspections expose US, British lies," Green Left (Australia), January 15, 2003.
• Ayman El-Amir, "The burden of truth. Who's to produce the smoking gun?" Al-Ahram Weekly, January 23-29, 2003: "Iraq is guilty until proven guilty."
• Justine Thompson, "Blix and ElBaradei: Bomb sniffing, UN style," CBC News (Canada), January 24, 2003.
• Hans Blix, "More Work Remains on Iraqi Disarmament, Blix Says. UNMOVIC chairman reports on Iraq to U.N. Security Council," posted at U.S. Department of State website, January 27, 2003.
• Phyllis Bennis, "Powell's Dubious Case for War," Foreign Policy in Focus, February 5, 2003.
• Alex Massie, "Iraq has an obligation to come clean," The Scotsman, February 7, 2003.
• Firas Al-Atraqchi, "Irrefutable Evidence Against Iraq? The Telling of a Tall Tale," Dissident Voice, February 7, 2003.
• Wade Boese, "Unfinished Business in Iraq. IAEA and UNMOVIC Outline Remaining Disarmament Tasks," Arms Control Today, April 2003.
• David Isenberg, "Iraq's WMD revisited," Asia Times, April 9, 2003.
• Nicholas Watt, "Hans Blix: US was Bent on War," Guardian/UK, April 12, 2003.
• Kamal Ahmed and Peter Beaumont, "No role for UN in weapons hunt," Guardian/UK, April 20, 2003.
• Carl Conetta, "Disarming Iraq: What Did the UN Missions Accomplish?" Project on Defense Alternatives, April 25, 2003.
• Trevor Findlay and Ben Mines, "Iraq's Weapons: The US fails to best UNMOVIC," basicint.org, June 4, 2003.
• William Bowles, "A conspiracy of silence?" InformationClearinghouse, July 14, 2003.
• "Permanent inspection team proposed. Britain, France support UNMOVIC plan; U.S. opposes," AP, November 26, 2003.
• "U.N. Weapons Commission Wants to Return to Iraq," Reuters, December 3, 2003.
• "UN arms inspectors say no access to US-UK info on Iraq," AFP, December 3, 2003.

2004

• Bill Nichols, "U.N. weapons inspector sees vindication in U.S. frustration," USA Today, March 1, 2004: "Demetrius Perricos, acting head of the United Nations weapons inspection program, can't disguise his satisfaction that almost a year after the invasion of Iraq, U.S. inspectors have found the same thing that their much-maligned U.N. counterparts did before the war: no banned weapons."
• Evelyn Leopold, "UN Iraq Inspectors Say U.S. Has Not Cooperated," Reuters, March 2, 2004.
• Bill Maxwell, "After Pigeon Inspections, Bush Eats Crow," St. Petersburg Times, March 3, 2004.
• Edith M. Lederer, "U.N. inspectors say known Iraqi sites with material for banned weapons were cleaned out or destroyed," AP, June 7, 2004.
• "UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after," World Tribune, June 11, 2004.
• Ben Johnson, "Exporting Saddam's WMDs," FrontPageMag.com, June 18, 2004.
• Stewart Stogel, "Weapons probers told to move office," Washington Times, July 5, 2004.
• Judi MacLeod, "Hidden Paul Martin firm trained UN weapons inspectors in Ottawa," Canada Free Press, July 12, 2004: Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's consulting firm Lansdowne Technologies gave "lessons in finding weapons of mass destruction ... to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in 2001."
• Paul Kerr, "UN: Iraqi Weapons Sites Looted," Arms Control Today, July/August 2004.
• "No WMD: Bush Legitimizes Invasion of Iraq," Washington Dispatch, October 7, 2004.
• Jonathan S. Landay, "Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says," Knight Ridder, October 8, 2004.
• "Findings of US team confirms UN analysis of Iraq's weapons programme," noticias.info, December 3, 2004.

2005

• Edith M. Lederer, "US Talks of Ending Iraq Inspectors' Work," AP, February 27, 2005.
• Edith M. Lederer, "U.N. Report Says Satellite Images Show Some 90 Inspection Sites in Iraq Stripped or Razed," AP, March 4, 2005.
• "U.N. agency: 90 dangerous sites looted in Iraq. Vials of 'seed stock' among materials of concern, inspectors say," Reuters, March 5, 2005.
• Edith M. Lederer, "U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq," AP, June 3, 2005.
• Jennifer Loven, "White House downplays Iraq missing weapons report," Chicago Sun-Times, June 4, 2005.