Maybe you would like a look at a UN disarmament report from 1999
4. From the inception of the relevant work, in 1991, Iraq's compliance has been limited. Iraq acknowledges that, in that year, it decided to limit its disclosures for the purpose of retaining substantial prohibited weapons and capabilities.
5. Actions by Iraq in three main respects have had a significant negative impact upon the Commission?s disarmament work:
Iraq?s disclosure statements have never been complete;
contrary to the requirement that destruction be conducted under international supervision, Iraq undertook extensive, unilateral and secret destruction of large quantities of proscribed weapons and items;
it also pursued a practice of concealment of proscribed items, including weapons, and a cover up of its activities in contravention of Council resolutions.
11. In the BW area, the report has to cover all elements of Iraq?s biological warfare programme as Iraq?s declaration in this area cannot, in its totality, be verified by the Commission as being full, final and complete. For this reason it is not possible to present a material balance in this area when there is no firm basis for either side of such a balance.
14. Thirdly, these overall circumstances have meant that, in spite of the years that have passed and the extensive work that has been undertaken, it has not been possible to verify, fully, Iraq's statements with respect to the nature and magnitude of its proscribed weapons programmes and their current disposition.
17. In response to the Commission's requests for relevant documents, Iraq has repeatedly claimed that they no longer exist or cannot be located, a claim which often has been shown to be false, either because inspection activities have in fact located precisely such documents or because Iraq has reversed its stated position and then produced relevant documents.
26. Analysis at the laboratories designated by the Commission has detected the presence of degradation products of nerve agents, in particular VX, on a number of warhead remnants which had been excavated at the sites of the unilateral destruction. The October 1998 meeting of international experts convened by the Commission concluded that "the existence of VX degradation products conflicts with Iraq?s declarations that the unilaterally destroyed special warheads had never been filled with any chemical warfare agents.
28. The full and verifiable accounting for proscribed missile conventional warheads remains outstanding in the verification of the premise that Iraq has not retained any holding of proscribed missiles and that all proscribed missiles and their warheads indeed had been destroyed. Issues related to remnants of warheads that have not been recovered, but which have been declared by Iraq as unilaterally destroyed (some 25 imported warheads and some 25 Iraqi manufactured warheads), remain unresolved in the accounting of proscribed warheads that Iraq claimed to have destroyed unilaterally. Iraq has not provided a definite explanatory statement for the Commission to be able to determine the reasons why no remnants to account for some 50 warheads declared as unilaterally destroyed, were recovered.
29. The full accounting for imported proscribed missile propellants is outstanding. Any retention of such propellants would be an indication that not all proscribed missiles were destroyed as claimed by Iraq. The propellants at issue are used exclusively for such proscribed missiles only. Documents, including an inventory list on their declared unilateral destruction, requested by the Commission, have not been made available by Iraq to support its declaration on the quantities (over 500 tonnes) of proscribed propellants it claims to have destroyed unilaterally.
30. An inventory of proscribed missiles that Iraq declared as destroyed unilaterally contained a reference to seven indigenously produced missiles which were in possession of the Army in 1991. No remnants which could prove such destruction, have been recovered. The Commission has not been able to verify the nature and destruction of these missiles and repeatedly requested Iraq to confirm, through physical evidence, the declared unilateral destruction of these seven missiles. The verification in this area is considered essential as it might involve operational missiles produced indigenously by Iraq. The November 1997 Emergency Session of the Commission determined that the accounting for these seven missiles was one of the priority requirements.
33. Iraq declared that 550 shells filled with mustard had been "lost" shortly after the Gulf War. To date, no evidence of the missing munitions has been found. Iraq claimed that the chemical warfare agents filled into these weapons would be degraded a long time ago and, therefore, there would be no need for their accounting. However, a dozen mustard-filled shells were recovered at a former CW storage facility in the period 1997-1998. The chemical sampling of these munitions, in April 1998, revealed that the mustard was still of the highest quality. After seven years, the purity of mustard ranged between 94 and 97%. Thus, Iraq has to account for these munitions which would be ready for combat use. The resolution of this specific issue would also increase confidence in accepting Iraq?s other declarations on losses of chemical weapons which it has not been possible to verify
34. Among 1,550 R-400 bombs produced by Iraq, more than 1,000 bombs were declared as destroyed unilaterally by Iraq, including 157 bombs stated as having been filled with biological warfare agents.
35. The degree of verification achieved is not satisfactory. Iraq declared that it had produced a total of 3.9 tonnes of VX. Iraq provided documents on production in 1988, but failed to provide verifiable evidence for its activities in 1990. Iraq also denies that it weaponized VX. Sampling by the Commission of special warheads has thrown significant doubt upon this claim. Iraq needs to provide verifiable evidence and clarifications to support its declarations on the production and weaponization of VX. Technical meetings with the Iraqi specialists and field verification are required.
On 1 July 1995, Iraq, for the first time, acknowledged that it had had an offensive BW programme but still denied any weaponization. Subsequently, in August 1995, after the departure form Iraq of Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan, Iraq admitted that it had weaponized BW agents and deployed biological weapons for combat use.
38. Since August 1995, Iraq has submitted a number of "Full, Final and Complete Disclosures" (FFCD) of its declared BW programme. These declarations have been assessed by the Commission and by international experts as incomplete, inadequate and containing substantial deficiencies. They were not accepted as a full account of the scale and the scope of Iraq?s BW programme. This refers in particular to weaponization of produced BW agents, bulk BW agent production and acquisitions for the BW programme.
41. Finally, it needs to be recognised that Iraq possesses an industrial capability and knowledge base, through which biological warfare agents could be produced quickly and in volume, if the Government of Iraq decided to do so.
time for some people to wake the fvck up already.... Thats from your precious beloved ineffectual UN.
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