U.N. Considers Monitoring Iraqi Weapons Efforts

The United Nations is beginning to consider monitoring potential WMD efforts in Iraq should they be someday restarted in the face of Iran’s nuclear program, Newsweek reported today (see GSN, July 12).

“The question is starting to bubble up,” said a British official.

Demetrios Perricos, chief of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, raised the issue in June at a U.N. Security Council meeting. Russia and France pushed for continued special inspections, while the United States did not comment because politicians in Iraq refuse to accept monitoring or extra constraints.

“They are demanding the same treatment as any other nation,” said a U.N. official.

However, White House experts said that Iraq would need to be monitored closely, especially after the release of Iraqi weapons scientists who served under former leader Saddam Hussein, Newsweek reported.

U.N. investigators have never discovered Iraqi manuals on producing weapons of mass destruction. The issue has yet to become a major concern, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has disbanded its team that worked on Iraq’s nuclear program, according to Newsweek.

The U.N. official said that the Iraqi WMD program “is an issue everyone wants to sweep under the carpet” (John Barry, Newsweek, Aug. 22).

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