Support Grows for Dismantling UNMOVIC

Support among U.N. Security Council members for shutting down the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Agency is growing, Reuters reported yesterday. The agency and its predecessor, the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, have been responsible for locating and destroying Iraq’s WMD materials and programs following the 1991 Gulf War (see GSN, Feb. 28).

“I can agree that there is a general perception by the council members that the time to wrap up the body has come. The problem is how to do it,” said Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Andrei Denisov.

“There was a broad consensus to look at the mandate pretty quickly,” said acting U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson.

The agency’s budget — $12 million per year — comes from Iraqi oil revenues, according to Reuters, and the Baghdad government has been lobbying the Security Council to shut it down so that the funds can be reappropriated.

French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said he hoped discussions to do so could begin by September (Reuters, June 8).

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