'Good overall picture' provided of military weapons capabilities.

The Special Commission on Iraqi disarmament, set up under Security Council resolution 687 (1991), has reported that, while Iraq had not yet given a credible accounting of its military biological activities, it had a good overall picture of the extent of Iraq's past programmes in the ballistic missile and chemical weapon areas, and that the essential elements of its proscribed capabilities had been disposed of.

In a 20 June report (S/1995/494), the Special Commission stated that although some issues had still to be resolved in those areas, the uncertainties arising from them did not present a pattern consistent with efforts to conceal a programme to retain proscribed weapons. It was also confident that through its ongoing monitoring and verification system, it could detect any attempt to reconstitute a proscribed capability in those areas.

To ensure the comprehensiveness of the system, Iraq had to respond satisfactorily to the Commission's concerns regarding its past biological weapons programme, the report stated. Until then, the Commission could not report to the Council that Iraq had met the terms laid down in paragraph 22 of resolution 687 (1991). Iraq had said that for it to see value in cooperating with the Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it needed to be convinced that there was a prospect for such implementation.

Evidence available to the Commission had established that iraq had obtained or sought to obtain all the materials tequired to produce biological warfare agents, the report stated. With Iraq's failure to account for all those items, the only conclusion that could be drawn was that it had purchased and used them at least in part for proscribed purposes. The Commission had received documentary evidence from other Governments in support of that conclusion.

While all the elements of a system for biological monitoring were in place and monitoring was proceeding, the Commission could not be sure that it was comprehensive, because it had been unable to obtain a credible account of Iraq's past military biological activities. Since April 1995, iraq had told the Commission that it would be prepared to address the matter in late June 1995.

Indeed, on 1 July, during high-level talks between the Commission and Iraq in Baghdad, Iraq admitted that it had had an offensive biological warfare programme and had produced and stored large quantities of the warfare agents botulinum toxin and anthrax. Iraq promised to provide to the Commission a "full, final and complete disclosure of all aspects" of the programme by the end of July.

Other weapons

The Commission stated that it had essentially completed the accounting of iraq's proscribed ballistic missile capabilities and their repair and production facilities. Missile monitoring was now operational. Investigations would continue until the Commission was satisfied that it had obtained as detailed a picture as possible of all aspects of Iraq s past programmes and current capabilities.

The Commission also reported completion of the destruction of Iraq's identified chemical weapon facilities, stockpiles and production equipment, and that its chemical monitoring system was already operational.

Over a period of two years, 480,000 litres of chemical warfare agents, 28,000 chemical munitions and 648 barrels of some 45 different precursor chemicals had been destroyed. An effective export/import monitoring mechanism had been designed to prevent the resumption of Iraq's prohibited chemical activities.

Rolf Ekeus, Executive Chairman of the Special Commission, told reporters that the Commission's 10 April report (S/1995/284) had highlighted the discovery that Iraq, just before the Persian Gulf war, had systematically acquired components for the production of a new type of chemical agent-VX-a warfare agent that was ten times as potent as Sarin.

Iraq, he said, had initially disclosed that it was doing research work on the agent in small quantities, but had admitted later that it had produced 260 kilograms of VX. The Commission had found that Iraq had imported precursor chemicals sufficient to produce 200,000 kilograms.

An expert team from the Commission had been able to verify broadly that one of the precursors for producing VX had been disposed of in trenches outside Baghdad. The Commission had ideas of how to verify the disposal of the second precursor and believed that the question of VX was under control.

There were some remaining uncertainties, but these were not consistent with systematic efforts to conceal a programme to retain prohibited weapons, Mr. Ekeus stated. They were not of any magnitude to affect the assessment as to whether Iraq had completed the substantive actions required of it under the cease-fire resolution.

The task of establishing ongoing monitoring and verification in the biological area had also taken longer, because Iraq's declarations about its dual-use capabilities were initially incomplete and the data varied from declaration to declaration to the point of contradiction, according to the report.

Iraq was also unable to account definitively for all the materials and items that might have been used and known to have been acquired by it. The Commission assessed that Iraq had obtained or sought to obtain all the items required to produce biological warfare agents. Its failure to account for all those items led the Commission to believe that they had been purchased and used in part for the production of agents for biological weapons.

IAEA report

The IAEA, in an 11 April report (S/1995/287) on the monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with Council resolution 687 (1991), expressed confidence that the essential components of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme had been destroyed.

That assessment had been based not only on the verification of Iraqi statements, but also on information gathered during inspections provided by suppliers and Member States and, to a great extent, on an analysis of the large cache of original Iraqi documentation that had been seized by previous inspection missions.

The IAEA stated that its extensive knowledge of the scope of Iraq's past nuclear weapons programme had facilitated the design and implementation of a credible and sustainable plan for the ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with relevant Council resolutions. That plan had been operational since the end of August 1994 and IAEA's Nuclear Monitoring Group had been continuously present in Iraq since then. The Group had conducted more than 160 inspections at some 70 facilities, including 23 not previously inspected, the report stated.

Iraq rejects

resolution 986

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed AlSahaf informed the Secretary-General on 15 May that his Government would not implement Council resolution 986 (1995) because it objected, inter alia, to the proportion of petroleum to be exported via the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline and to the modalities for distribution of humanitarian relief in three northern governorates.

That resolution, adopted unanimously on 14 April, had authorized States to permit the import of up to $1 billion in Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products every 90 days. The Council had acted after expressing concern over the "serious nutritional and health situation of the Iraqi populations".

After the adoption of resolution 687 (1991), setting out complex and detailed conditions for a cease-fire following the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict, the UN has periodically reviewed the sanctions regime against Iraq. Until the Council action on 14 April, no significant change had occurred with regard to easing the sanctions.

Kuwaiti prisoners

On 3 May, Kuwait told the Security Council President that Iraq was "persisting in its refusal" to allow the international Committee of the Red Cross to visit Iraqi prisons. (It was reported by the Kuwait National Committee for Missing-in-Action-Prisoners of War Affairs that there were still 625 detainees in Iraq from ten countries.)

Iraq was making a serious effort to return property seized during its occupation of Kuwait, the letter added, but it had not yet returned some 200 armoured vehicles, the HAWK missile system, official documents from Kuwaiti government offices, and private-sector property worth millions of dollars.

Critical food shortages and international indifference were threatening the lives of more than 1 million of the most vulnerable people in Iraq, the World Food Programme reported on 5 May.