Goodbye UNSCOM

1 On 18 April 1991, after Iraq had formally accepted the provisions of Resolution 687, the Secretary-General submitted to the Security Council his recommendations for the creation of UNSCOM. With the concurrence of the Council, he then appointed the Executive Chairman and 20 individuals from 20 member-states to serve on the Commission. See UNSCOM webpage: www.un.org/Depts/unscom/index.html, and Sydney Bailey & Sam Daws, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 377.

2 The Office of the UNSCOM Executive Chairman was set up at UN Headquarters in New York, with offices in Bahrain and Baghdad. UNSCOM's staff in New York included technical experts as well as diplomatic and administrative staff. The Bahrain office served as the assembly and training point for inspection teams as well as a logistics and supply point, while the Baghdad office provided communications and logistical support in the field. The total staff complement (excluding the aircrews that provided transport to and within Iraq, some 45 persons) was approximately 120.

3 `Helms praised Annan, who took office 1 January, for his willingness to meet with congressional leaders and his enthusiasm for reforming the UN. “When people get to know each other, problems ease up,” Helms told reporters after Annan spent about 90 minutes with the committee.' Craig Turner, in the Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1997.

4 The package allows US arrears of $819 million to be paid over three years, conditional on a reduction in the US share of the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets from 25% to 20% and from 30% to 25%, respectively, and various other factors. As of September 1999, the fate of this package remained uncertain.

5 The latest such coalition operation authorized by the UNSC is one to restore order in preparation of independence in East Timor under SCR 1264 of 15 September 1999.

6 In February 1999 alone, the UNSC shut down two of the UN's longstanding peacekeeping operations, MONUA in Angola and UNPREDEP (its sole preventive deployment) in Macedonia, the latter due to a Chinese veto of its mandate renewal arising from Beijing's displeasure over Macedonian diplomatic recognition of Taiwan some weeks earlier.

7 Elaraby interview, 10 January 1996. Complaining about the conception and execution of US foreign policy insensitive to the views of its allies and others, in February 1999 French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine described the USA as a `hyperpower', dominating the world economically, militarily, and culturally.

8 From an interview with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on NBC-TV, `The Today Show' with Matt Lauer, 19 February 1998.

9 Ian Black, `Iraq Hides Stockpiles for Biological Arms', The Guardian, 10 April 1995.

10 Initially, this program, first mandated by SCR 986 of 14 April 1995, allowed for $2 billion of oil exports from Iraq over six months to be paid into a UN-controlled escrow account to cover food and medicine imports into Iraq (as well as various UN expenses and compensation for victims of Iraq's aggression against Kuwait in 1990). The total was raised to $5.2 billion by SCR 1153 of 20 February 1998.

11 In one of the rare comical moments of this saga, the documents were purported by the Iraqi government to have been discovered in a chicken coop on a farm owned by General Hussein Kamal Hassan. See UN Document S/1995/864 of 11 October 1995 for this and much more detail. Incredibly, the general some months later returned to Iraq, perhaps counting on his family connections for protection. He was dead within days.

12 France had suggested that a separate team of inspectors accompanied by diplomats effect the palace inspections, a variation of which proved to be the compromise ultimately accepted, but Washington and London were loath initially to tolerate anything seen as weakening UNSCOM's mandate.

13 Britain sent ships and aircraft and the Netherlands dispatched frigates. Canada and Australia pledged logistical support.

14 John M. Goshko, `Security Council Debate Reflects Continued Split on Iraq', Washington Post, 19 December 1997.

15 US bombing of Iraq without explicit Security Council authorization had occurred in 1993, in retaliation for an alleged plan to assassinate former President Bush. Since 1991, the USA and UK (with French participation initially) had patrolled no-fly zones imposed by these countries over northern and southern Iraq to protect Iraqi civilians from the Baghdad regime, drawing on the terms of UNSC Resolution 688 of 5 April 1991 for legitimization of their actions.

16 James Traub, `Kofi Annan's Next Test', New York Times Magazine, 29 March 1998, p. 46.

17 Ibid., p. 74.

18 John M. Goshko, `U.S. Says Questions Remain on Iraqi Pact', Washington Post, 25 February 1998.

19 UN Documents S/1998/278 of 27 March 1998 and S/1998/326 of 15 April 1998.

20 UN Document S/1998/719 of 5 August 1998.

21 Barton Gellman, `Top Inspector Denies Aiding US War Aims; Russia, China Question Motives of UNSCOM's Butler', Washington Post, 18 December 1998.

22 UN Document S/1998/1172 of 15 December 1998. Christopher Hitchens (`Weapons of Mass Distraction', Vanity Fair, March 1999, p. 104) and Gellman (note 21 above) outline intense contacts between Butler and US authorities in the run-up to its release.

23 Confidential interviews with Security Council and other UN delegations.

24 Rolf Ekeus, generally extremely supportive of Butler personally, faulted him only for a lack of political sensitivity: `With Richard Butler, UNSCOM became too political, which is not a good thing' (author's translation. See ` “l'UNSCOM est devenue trop politique”, juge Rolf Ekeus', Afsané Bassir-Pour, Le Monde, 8 January 1999.)

25 In the new situation created by the bombing campaign, Washington was content to see UNSCOM inactive as long as it could protect the sanctions regime, which it considered more vital to its capacity to contain the Iraqi government's capacity to destabilize its region. (Confidential interviews in Washington, June 1999.)

26 Barbara Crossette, in `Reports of Spying Dim Outlook for Inspectors', New York Times, 8 January 1999, noted: `From its inception, the commission has been an intelligence-gathering operation, as well as a disarmament agency.... “When we ask for good nonproliferation people, where do they come from? The Red Cross doesn't have chemical weapons experts.” ' [quoting senior UNSCOM official Charles Duelfer].

27 Barton Gellman, `Annan Suspicious of UNSCOM Role', Washington Post, 6 January 1999.

28 John J. Goldman, `Annan, US Deny Iraq Spy Accusations', Los Angeles Times, 7 January 1999.

29 Ibid.

30 Colum Lynch, `US Spying Goals in Iraq Called Difficult', Boston Globe, 7 January 1999.

31 `Back-Stabbing at the UN', editorial, Washington Post, 7 January 1999.

32 `A Spy Enigma in Iraq', editorial, New York Times, 7 January 1999.

33 Jim Hoagland, `Time to Face the Super-Thug Alone', Washington Post, 8 January 1999.

34 In a letter to the Washington Post, published 8 January 1999, `The Secretary-General's Stand on Iraq', Fred Eckhard, Annan's spokesman, asserted: `The only sources we have had for this story are journalistic ones.... It is absurd for a journalist to call the United Nations about a story he is writing, initiating a rumour and asking his interlocutors whether they are worried about it, and then to use their response as evidence for his own story.' UN staff members did speak with the Washington Post but complained later that they had been asked to respond to leading and hypothetical questions.

35 A. M. Rosenthal, `The Carpet of Contempt', New York Times, 8 January 1999. The title of his New York Times column on 15 January 1999, `The UN Suicide Road', aptly sums up his view of Annan's approach to Iraq.

36 `Goodbye, UNSCOM', editorial, Wall Street Journal Europe, 13 January 1999.

37 Thomas Lippman & Barton Gellman, `US Says It Gave UNSCOM Equipment to Monitor Iraq', Washington Post, 8 January 1999. Tim Weiner, `US Used UN Team to Place Spy Devices in Iraq', New York Times, 8 January 1999.

38 Martin Sieff & Betsy Pisik, `Spy Reports Undercut Credibility of UNSCOM', Washington Times, 8 January 1988.

39 `Closely Watching Saddam', editorial, Bostom Globe, 8 January 1999. In the light of a belief widely held in Washington that France and Russia had been tipping off Iraq to planned UNSCOM surprise inspections, French and Russian complaints about these US practices were seen by the Boston Globe as hypocritical. French and Russian intelligence services were widely thought to be represented within UNSCOM.

40 See, for example, `UNSCOM Scandal', editorial, The Nation (Islamabad), 8 January 1999; `UN as US Spy', editorial, Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 8 January 1999; `Stepping over the Line', editorial, Japan Times, 11 January 1999.

41 `Justified Spying', editorial, Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1999. See also Georgie Anne Geyer, `What if UNSCOM Was Used?', Washington Times, 12 January 1999.

42 Scott Ritter, `How Britain and US Fell Out over Saddam Secrets', Sunday Telegraph, 10 January 1999. Ritter's revelations (and speculations) can be found in greater detail in his Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem - Once and For All (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999). An insightful review by Brian Urquhart (`How not to Fight a Dictator', New York Review of Books, 6 May 1999, pp. 25-29) places Ritter's material in context.

43 Cameron Stewart, `Butler: I Never Served US Interests', The Australian, 11 January 1999.

44 Barbara Crossette, `Reports of Spying Dim Outlook for Inspections', New York Times, 8 January 1998.

45 Barbara Crossette, `France, in Break with US, Urges End to Iraq Embargo', New York Times, 14 January 1999.

46 John Goshko, `Gore Signals Flexibility on Iraq Sanctions', Washington Post, 14 January 1999.

47 `Walking the International Tightrope', New York Times, 19 January 1999.

48 Ibid.

49 At a press conference in Baghdad, 23 February 1998, Annan said, `You can do a lot with diplomacy, but of course you can do a lot more with diplomacy backed up by fairness and force.'

50 On 24 March 1999, Annan stated: `It is indeed tragic that diplomacy has failed, but there are times when the use of force may be legitimate in the pursuit of peace.' UN website (www.un.org).

51 `Kofi Annan's Goals on Iraq', op-ed piece, Washington Post, 18 January 1999.

52 Seymour M. Hersch, `Saddam's Best Friend', The New Yorker, 5 April 1999.

53 Soon thereafter, recriminations developed. In Talk magazine (September 1999), Butler wrote of Annan's deeply alarming' behavior (p. 198). He also took Ekeus to task for a June 1996 agreement he reached with Iraq providing for a special regime to govern inspections of sites deemed `sensitive', seen by Butler as the thin edge of the wedge leading directly to the crisis over `presidential sites'. He had little to say about the allegations of US spying under UNSCOM cover.

54 Author's translation. `Le secrétaire général de l'ONU est attaqué sur son role au Rwanda et face à l'Iraq', Afsané Bassir-Pour, Le Monde, 31 January-1 February 1999.

55 `Under UN Cover', editorial, Washington Post, 3 March 1999.

56 UN document S/1999/356.

57 On 15 September 1999, Political Directors of the Permanent Five were reported to have registered forward movement on this issue, with further discussion among UN delegates of these countries slated later that month. See Alan Cowell, `Major Nations Report Progress on Pact to Ease Sanctions on Iraq', New York Times, 16 September 1999.

58 A UK government-supported conference, `Can Sanctions Be Smarter? The Current Debate', was organized by the Humanitarian Policy Group and the Relief and Rehabilitation Network at the Overseas Development Institute in London, 17-18 December 1998.

59 In fact, NATO's `Strategic Concept', as finally adopted at the NATO Summit in Washington, 23-25 April 1999, fell well short of US rhetoric. The role of the UN was emphasized repeatedly in the document, at the insistence of European NATO members, while the `out of area' objectives of NATO seem opaque. NATO website (www.nato.int).

60 From briefing by James Rubin on 19 April 1999.

61 Ben Barber, `US Asks UN to Implement Peace Deal Not Broker', Washington Times, 14 May 1999.

62 See UN Document S/1999/779 of 12 July 1999 on the Secretary-General's approach to implementing SCR 1244.

63 See Eric Schmitt, `US Pressures UN on Kosovo Duties', International Herald Tribune, 22 July 1999.

64 During a visit to Kosovo shortly after his confirmation by the Senate as US Permanent Representative to the UN, Richard Holbrooke sounded a much more positive note, both with respect to UN-NATO cooperation on the ground and the performance of the UN Secretary-General's Personal Representative in Pristina, Bernard Kouchner. See Steve Erlanger, `For Holbrooke, a New Job, but the Old Balkan Difficulties', New York Times, 31 August 1999.

65 Scott Ritter, `Policies at War', op-ed article, New York Times, 16 August 1999.

66 For Boutros-Ghali's view of his difficulties with Washington, see his Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga (New York: Random House, 1999).

67 For a balanced assessment of Annan's difficulties in maintaining good relations with Washington, see John Goshko, `Iraq Dilemma Erodes Annan's Bond with US', Washington Post, 23 February 1999.

68 Hubert B. Herring, `Diplomacy and Betrayal', New York Times, 31 May 1999.