Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme

Gudrun Harrer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134115570
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book is an authoritative account of the nuclear weapons inspections regime in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.

Without a proper understanding of those years, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq after a futile WMD search remain unintelligible. In the 1990s, after adapting to a completely new kind of intrusive inspections with unprecedented access rights, the IAEA discovered and dismantled Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program and put in place an efficient monitoring system which could have contained Saddam Hussein's attempts to reconstitute his nuclear programs – had he ever tried to. However, the politicisation of the inspection process led to an end of the inspections in 1998.

Based on various sources including inspection reports and other documents in the archive of the IAEA Iraq Action Team at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme presents completely new information about the weapons inspection regime in Iraq and offers valuable lessons for future non-proliferation and disarmament cases. The book also draws on discourse from Iraqi scientists, which provides a close look into not only the motivation of involved Iraqis, but also Iraqi concealment mechanisms.

This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, arms control, Middle Eastern politics, diplomacy, international security and IR.

1
Resolution 687 – the legal basis for the disarmament of Iraq

On 3 April 1991, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 687 with a majority of twelve votes, defining the terms for a permanent cease-fire agreement between the Coalition Forces, under the leadership of the United States of America, and Iraq. The resolution, passed under Chapter VII, stipulated draconian measures against Iraq.¹ The economic embargo was to continue, and its lifting linked to the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and relevant delivery systems.² Furthermore, it obliged Iraq to acknowledge Kuwait’s sovereignty, accept the deployment of a UN observer unit (UNIKOM)³ to monitor the Khor Abdullah waterway in the Persian Gulf and a demilitarized zone (DMZ)⁴ at the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border, release prisoners of war (POW), restore Kuwaiti property and pay compensation for war damage, and forego acts of and support for terrorism. UNSC Resolution 687 contained a very complex and innovative set of provisions and post-war measures which the SC deemed appropriate for restoring peace and security in the region. Though primarily a cease-fire resolution, it had multiple purposes of which the disarmament of Iraq was but one of the most important.⁵ It was quickly branded the “mother of all resolutions”⁶ and described as a “Christmas tree” because “so much was hung on it.”⁷

The resolution requested a massive ceding of sovereignty by Iraq. In fact, it was nothing less than a demand that Iraq surrender its sovereignty, in exchange for a cease-fire. Although it formally called for Iraq’s acceptance and cooperation, its requirements were unilaterally defined, imposed, and legally binding. The SC applied its capacity to make international rules, and indeed international law, in a completely innovative way, by using various institutional techniques. These included recourse to the Secretary-General, the establishment of subsidiary organs, and the participation of specialized agencies.⁸ The terms of Resolution 687 were even further toughened by succeeding resolutions.⁹

Resolution 660 and subsequent resolutions

Resolution 687 derived from a series of resolutions which the Security Council adopted after the occupation and annexation of Kuwait by Iraq on 2 August 1990. The first of these resolutions was 660 which, on the same day, condemned the invasion and demanded Iraq’s immediate withdrawal. UNSC Resolution 661 on 6 August imposed mandatory economic sanctions against Iraq and established a committee to monitor them. These resolutions authorized and channeled growing pressure against Iraq,¹⁰ and especially Resolution 678 on 29 November which foresaw the use “of all necessary means” to uphold and implement Resolution 660 to put an end to Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait. Resolution 665 on 25 August contained a call upon Member States to use “measures commensurate … as may be necessary … to halt” inward and outward maritime shipping (to Iraq), thus authorizing the US to commence its full naval blockade of Iraq. This resolution was heralded as “the most striking example of Soviet-American cooperation” and opened the way for the later use-of-force authorization.¹¹

In Resolution 678 the Security Council, which does not possess its own military means, did not avail itself of the devices of direct action to which the Charter entitles it, but instead assigned authority to take action to Member States. Even the request embodied in Resolution 665 (1990)¹² that the states considering action against Iraq “coordinate their action … using, as appropriate, mechanisms of the Military Staff Committee”¹³—a request which had been strongly supported by the Soviet Union¹⁴—was later abandoned. The Council thus abrogated its right to supervise the actions taken so that they would not exceed the mandate given by the Council.¹⁵ This solution, which left all responsibility for the planning, management and control of the military operation to the United States of America, was to the latter’s convenience.¹⁶ Thus, the space of the permanent members as a whole was to a large extent occupied by the US. It was a striking monopoly situation,¹⁷ made possible by the changing geopolitical environment—i.e. the beginning of the end of the East-West conflict. Had the Soviet Union seen the Iraq conflict as an episode in the context of the Cold War, as it would probably have been only a few years earlier, it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, for the Security Council to reach a consensus.¹⁸ In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union, or later the Russian Federation, was in a transitional period and inward looking. It viewed cooperation with the other major powers as the best way to integrate into a post-Cold War world and to end regional conflicts stemming from the Cold War without too much loss of face.¹⁹ Later in the decade, tensions would resurface.

Resolution 678 specified two purposes for which “all necessary means” could be employed: (1) the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, and (2) the establishment of peace and security in the region—the latter a very loosely defined mandate intended to broaden the basis for the use of military force.²⁰ The US government conducted systematic diplomatic work on different levels for the adoption of this resolution. President George H. W. Bush devoted himself mainly to the use of force issue and worked actively on the telephones before meeting Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ten days prior to the presentation of the resolution to the Security Council for a vote.²¹ The Soviet government favored a two-step procedure with two resolutions. However, at the meeting with Bush, Gorbachev agreed to a resolution which would combine the Soviet and American positions: the first part of the resolution would contain a deadline, and the second would authorize the “use of all necessary means.”²²

A new pattern, initiated in 1987 by the United Kingdom, became useful for the work on the resolution in the Security Council:²³ the Permanent Five (P-5) began to hold regular meetings in order to discuss first Cambodia, and later Afghanistan. Though these meetings were in the beginning “neither brilliant nor very satisfying,”²⁴ they established the precedent and mechanism for an immediate dialogue among the P-5 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Resolution 660, which on 2 August 1990 condemned the invasion of Kuwait and demanded Iraq’s immediate withdrawal, was achieved practically overnight through governmental consultations among the P-5. However, for subsequent resolutions the US, namely Thomas Pickering, applied a new tactic to engage the SC members in building a strong sanctions regime against Iraq and, if sanctions failed to get Iraq out of Kuwait, to prepare the way for the use of force. Pickering describes this tactic as “not letting a day go by” in the Security Council without the members having worked on a resolution on Iraq. Thus, the Iraq issue remained in the center of public action for a considerable time and kept the SC members focused on moving ahead, preventing them from other activities and diverting ideas.²⁵

With the mandate given by the Security Council for the use of military force against Iraq, the Bush administration went to Congress for authorization of US military involvement in Iraq. In 2003, George W. Bush took the opposite approach, securing congressional authorization first and then trying to get the international community to fall in line. This became the source of many of the US difficulties in engaging the international community on Iraq in 2003.

Adoption of Resolution 687

After the termination of the military campaign on 28 February 1991, the US administration considered it important that Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait not be the only result of the war. Therefore, the opportunity was taken to improve pre-conflict conditions. The work done by the US Permanent Representative to the UN to “mill the members of the Security Council, particular in their personal capacities, into a club” had its effect during the preparations for Resolution 687.²⁶ The text of the resolution was first drafted by the United States and United Kingdom and then presented to the other permanent members of the Security Council, who discussed and fine-tuned the details before presenting it to the non-permanent members.²⁷ The UN Secretariat was not consulted,²⁸ but given a certain role in the area of administrative support for the verification of the implementation of the resolution.²⁹

France, which was often involved in the early stages of drafting, was the first of the other three P-5 members to be brought on board by the US and UK. The text was then discussed at a formal meeting with the Soviet Union and China. The latter, during the drafting of Resolution 678, had initially opposed the “use of all necessary means” formula but then followed the lead of the Soviet Union,³⁰ and would continue this pattern.³¹ The US made efforts to accommodate Soviet and Chinese concerns, as long as they did not compromise the specific purpose of the resolution as the US and UK saw it. After a P-5 consensus had been reached, the non-permanent members of the Security Council were addressed collectively, with at least four of the five permanent members present.³² Unilateral wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Resolution 687 – the legal basis for the disarmament of Iraq
• 2 Tasking the IAEA
• 3 The start of the inspection process
• 4 Obstruction and concealment
• 5 Methodological work
• 6 Deterioration on all fronts
• 7 The breakthrough – the document-search inspection
• 8 A more coherent picture
• 9 Procurement and declaration questions
• 10 The underground reactor and faulty designations
• 11 Between bombing campaigns
• 12 Permanent presence
• 13 Hussein Kamel’s defection
• 14 Dead ends
• 15 The collapse
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index