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Iraq Moves Toward CWC Membership
Iraq is pressing forward with efforts to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Arms Control Association reported Saturday (see GSN, June 30). The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in May submitted to Iraq information about the country’s former chemical weapons programs. Nations that join the Chemical Weapons Convention must submit records of any previous chemical arms efforts within 30 days of bringing the treaty into force. Iraq had an active chemical weapons effort prior to the 1991 Gulf War. However, Baghdad subsequently ended the program. Iraq said in 2004 it would sign the convention once a permanent government was in place, but it has yet to do so. It has in the past year participated in two implementation training workshops operated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as part of its work with the treaty monitoring body. Iraq is also pressing the U.N. Security Council to end the role of UNMOVIC in Iraq. The council does not seem to close to making its decision on the future of the agency designated to verify the end of Iraq’s WMD programs, Arms Control Today reported. Some council members continue to debate what role — if any — UNMOVIC would play in the future. The May 30 UNMOVIC report describes Iraq’s former chemical weapons program and reports that “a number of issues … remain unresolved.” While “there is a high degree of confidence” that Iraq’s chemical weapons were eliminated, it is feasible that some still exist, the report states. Inspectors stopped the program but they could not account for the chemical weapons agents and munitions that Iraq claimed to develop. The ambiguity was due to the Iraqi regime’s insufficient records, the regime’s decision to destroy some of its weapons away from U.N. inspectors, and the Iraqi military’s unintentional mixing of chemical munitions with conventional munitions during the war with Iran. A U.S. National Ground Intelligence Center report released June 21 stated that coalition forces recovered about 500 potential lethal munitions with degraded chemical weapons agents following the March 2003 invasion (Paul Kerr, Arms Control Today, July 8).
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