Iraq WMD Inspection Body to be Dissolved

The U.N. Security Council could act this month to disband its team responsible for WMD inspections in Iraq, Reuters reported yesterday.  The move would come nearly four years after the U.S.-led invasion and more than 15 years after the group was formed in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War (see GSN, March 7, 2006).

The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission was created to verify the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, surprising numbers of which were uncovered after the first war.

“There was consensus in the council that the work of the mandate must be terminated and the file must be closed,” Security Council president Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa told reporters yesterday.

The council would, however, seek to preserve the commission’s experience.

“The council would like to further discuss how to retain the expertise and especially the human expertise of the people that have worked in the last four years in this area of weapons of mass destruction,” Kumalo said.

Despite not being allowed into the country since the 2003 invasion, the commission has retained a staff of 34 in New York, along with a Cyprus field office and two local employees in Baghdad, and has a $10 million annual budget, Reuters reported (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, March 7).

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