United Nations Special Commission

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United Nations Special Commission

An organization created by the United Nations in 1999 to ensure that Iraq complied with Security Council resolutions not to produce biological, chemical or nuclear weapons after the Gulf War. UNSCOM was created in 1991 and dissolved in 1999 amid allegations that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was using it to spy on the Iraqi military.

References in periodicals archive ?

Kay's lack of familiarity with the history of the UNSCOM biological investigation also causes him to underestimate its effectiveness.

Unconventional weapons

Richard Spertzel, a former UNSCOM specialist in biological warfare, recalled the case of an Iraqi official coyly asking a new member of his team: "How far is it from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis?

Iraq: what does disarmament look like?

Since the establishments were closed, Iraq asserted that the inspections must be held another day or that an Iraqi official would accompany the inspectors in accordance with an agreement between UNSCOM and Iraq regarding Friday inspections.

Law not War

This, by itself, should be sufficiently good reason for the UN to force the Iraqi dictator, for the sake of peace, to let UNSCOM inspectors back in.

Countdown: a war against Iraq looks increasingly inevitable. Various ideas have been floated as to how the end of Saddam Hussein might best be achieved. But after the fall of the Iraqi despot, then what? (Iraq)

UNSCOM inspections revealed evidence of the production of large amounts of biological agents, including anthrax, and have charged that Iraq had "vastly understated" the amount of biological warfare agents they had manufactured.

Foreign Policy By Catharsis: The Failure of U.S. Policy Toward Iraq

From his UNSCOM experience, Butler demonstrates the ways in which sovereign states function, whether they are permanent members of the UN Security Council, charged with the maintenance of world order, or, like Iraq, defeated in war but with a regime practiced in survival.

Saddam Defiant

He said in the letter that he respected Ekeus ``as a diplomat and a person'' but "we all decided some months ago to have a new beginning and we don't want associations with UNSCOM, which discredited itself", a reference to US spies planted among the inspectors of the previous monitoring commission.

Iraq Plays An 'All Or Nothing' Game On Sanctions As Security Council Rift Deepens

The UNSCOM belief that three biological agents were filled into weapons is supported by Iraqi statements concerning the filling of munitions and their deployment ready for delivery.

Nuclear blindness: an overview of the biological weapons programs of the former Soviet Union and Iraq

Ambassador Martin Indyk discussed the change in policy concerning Iraq, sparked by Saddam Hussein's outright defiance of UNSCOM.

Briefing unveils dangers and follies

In November 1993, Baghdad allowed UNSCOM to install permanent U.

Are Sanctions Just? The Problematic Case of Iraq

Charles Duelfer, the deputy chairman of the UN Special Commission - or UNSCOM - said that the Security Council's resolutions on disarming Iraq "have not changed".

Weapons inspectors `to go back to Baghdad'

Wednesday, with air strikes against Iraq under way, senior administration officials said they believed and feared that the UNSCOM inspection program was dead, as the president had predicted.