1. The Gulf War and Conditions of the Cease-Fire
On August 2, 1990, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq initiated the
brutal and unprovoked invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The United
States and many foreign governments, working together and through the
UN, sought by diplomatic and other peaceful means to compel Iraq to
withdraw from Kuwait and to establish international peace and security
in the region.
President George H.W. Bush's letter transmitted to Congress on January
16, 1991, was accompanied by a report that catalogued the extensive
diplomatic, economic, and other peaceful means pursued by the United
States to achieve U.S. and UNSC objectives. It details adoption by the
UNSC of a dozen resolutions, from Resolution 660 of August 2, 1990,
demanding that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait, to Resolution 678 on
November 29, 1990, authorizing member states to use all necessary
means to "implement Resolution 660," to implement "all subsequent
relevant resolutions," and "to restore international peace and
security in the area."
Despite extraordinary and concerted efforts by the United States,
other countries, and international organizations through diplomacy,
multilateral economic sanctions, and other peaceful means to bring
about Iraqi compliance with UNSC resolutions, and even after the UN
and the United States explicitly informed Iraq that its failure to
comply with UNSC resolutions would result in the use of armed force to
eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's regime remained
intransigent. The President ordered the U.S. armed forces, working in
a coalition with the armed forces of other cooperating countries, to
liberate Kuwait. The coalition forces promptly drove Iraqi forces out
of Kuwait, set Kuwait free, and moved into southern Iraq.
On April 3, 1991, the UNSC adopted Resolution 687, which established
conditions for a cease-fire to suspend hostilities. Among other
requirements, UNSCR 687 required Iraq to (1) destroy its chemical and
biological weapons and ballistic missiles with ranges greater than 150
km; (2) not use, develop, construct, or acquire biological, chemical,
or nuclear weapons and their delivery systems; (3) submit to
international inspections to verify compliance; and (4) not commit or
support any act of international terrorism or allow others who commit
such acts to operate in Iraqi territory. On April 6, 1991, Iraq
communicated to the UNSC its acceptance of the conditions for the
cease-fire.
2. Iraq's Breach of the Cease-Fire Conditions: Threats to Peace and
Security
Since almost the moment it agreed to the conditions of the cease-fire,
Iraq has committed repeated and escalating breaches of those
conditions. Throughout the first seven years that Iraq accepted
inspections, it repeatedly obstructed access to sites designated by
the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). On two occasions, in 1993 and 1998,
Iraq's refusal to comply with its international obligations under the
cease-fire led to military action by coalition forces. In 1998, under
threat of "severest consequences," Iraq signed a Memorandum of
Understanding pledging full cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA and
"immediate, unconditional and unrestricted" access for their
inspections. In a matter of months, however, the Iraqi regime
suspended cooperation, in part as an effort to condition compliance on
the lifting of oil sanctions; it ultimately ceased all cooperation,
causing the inspectors to leave the country.
On December 17, 1999, after a year with no inspections in Iraq, the
UNSC established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) as a successor to UNSCOM, to address
unresolved disarmament issues and verify Iraqi compliance with the
disarmament required by UNSCR 687 and related resolutions. Iraq
refused to allow inspectors to return for yet another three years.
3. Recent Diplomatic and Other Peaceful Means Rejected by Iraq
On September 12, 2002, the President addressed the United Nations
General Assembly on Iraq. He challenged the United Nations to act
decisively to deal with Iraq's systematic twelve-year defiance and to
compel Iraq's disarmament of the weapons of mass destruction and
delivery systems that continue to threaten international peace and
security. The White House background paper, "A Decade of Deception and
Defiance: Saddam Hussein's Defiance of the United Nations" (September
12, 2002), summarizes Iraq's actions as of the time the President
initiated intensified efforts to enforce all relevant UN Resolutions
and demonstrates the failure of diplomacy to affect Iraq's conduct:
For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein has deceived and defied the
will and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by, among
other things: continuing to seek and develop chemical, biological, and
nuclear weapons, and prohibited long-range missiles; brutalizing the
Iraqi people, including committing gross human rights violations and
crimes against humanity; supporting international terrorism; refusing
to release or account for prisoners of war and other missing
individuals from the Gulf War era; refusing to return stolen Kuwaiti
property; and working to circumvent the UN's economic sanctions.
The President also summarized Iraq's response to a decade of
diplomatic efforts and its breach of the cease-fire conditions on
October 7, 2002, in an address in Cincinnati, Ohio:
Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the
Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction,
to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for
terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those
obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological
weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and
support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The
entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance,
deception and bad faith.
In response to the President's challenge of September 12, 2002, and
after intensive negotiation and diplomacy, the UNSC unanimously
adopted UNSCR 1441 on November 8, 2002. The UNSC declared that Iraq
"has been and remains in material breach" of its disarmament
obligations, but chose to afford Iraq one "final opportunity" to
comply. The UNSC again placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm
and not on the inspectors to try to find what Iraq is concealing. The
UNSC made clear that any false statements or omissions in declarations
and any failure by Iraq to comply with UNSCR 1441 would constitute a
further material breach of Iraq's obligations. Rather than seizing
this final opportunity for a peaceful solution by giving full and
immediate cooperation, the Hussein regime responded with renewed
defiance and deception.
For example, while UNSCR 1441 required that Iraq provide a "currently
accurate, full and complete" declaration of all aspects of its weapons
of mass destruction ("WMD") and delivery programs, Iraq's Declaration
of December 7, 2002, failed to comply with that requirement. The
12,000-page document that Iraq provided was little more than a
restatement of old and discredited material. It was incomplete,
inaccurate, and composed mostly of recycled information that failed to
address any of the outstanding disarmament questions inspectors had
previously identified.
In addition, since the passage of UNSCR 1441, Iraq has failed to
cooperate fully with inspectors. It delayed until two-and-a-half
months after the resumption of inspections UNMOVIC's use of aerial
surveillance flights; failed to provide private access to officials
for interview by inspectors; intimidated witnesses with threats;
undertook massive efforts to deceive and defeat inspectors, including
cleanup and transshipment activities at nearly 30 sites; failed to
provide numerous documents requested by UNMOVIC; repeatedly provided
incomplete or outdated listings of its WMD personnel; and hid
documents in homes, including over 2000 pages of Iraqi documents
regarding past uranium enrichment programs. In a report dated March 6,
2003, UNMOVIC described over 600 instances in which Iraq had failed to
declare fully activities related to its chemical, biological, or
missile procurements.
Dr. Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, reported to the UNSC on
January 27, 2003 that "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine
acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of
it." Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the IAEA, reported
that Iraq's declaration of December 7 "did not provide any new
information relevant to certain questions that have been outstanding
since 1998." Both demonstrated that there was no evidence that Iraq
had decided to comply with disarmament obligations. Diplomatic efforts
have not affected Iraq's conduct positively. Any temporary changes in
Iraq's approach that have occurred over the years have been in
response to the threat of use of force.
On February 5, 2003, the Secretary of State delivered a comprehensive
presentation to the UNSC using declassified information, including
human intelligence reports, communications intercepts and overhead
imagery, which demonstrated Iraq's ongoing efforts to pursue WMD
programs and conceal them from UN inspectors. The Secretary of State
updated that presentation one month later by detailing intelligence
reports on continuing efforts by Iraq to maintain and conceal
proscribed materials.
Despite the continued resistance by Iraq, the United States has
continued to use diplomatic and other peaceful means to achieve
complete and total disarmament that would adequately protect the
national security of the United States from the threat posed by Iraq
and which is required by all relevant UNSC resolutions. On March 7,
2003, the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain presented a draft
resolution that would have established for Iraq a March 17 deadline to
cooperate fully with disarmament demands. Since the adoption of UNSCR
1441 in November 2002, there have been numerous calls and meetings by
President Bush and the Secretary of State with other world leaders to
try to find a diplomatic or other peaceful way to disarm Iraq. On
March 13, 2003, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN asked for members of the
UNSC to consider seriously a British proposal to establish six
benchmarks that would be used to measure whether or not the regime in
Iraq is coming into full, immediate, and unconditional compliance with
the pertinent UN resolutions. On March 16, 2003, the President
traveled to the Azores to meet with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose
Manuel Durao Barroso, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Spanish
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to assess the situation and confirm
that diplomatic and other peaceful means have been attempted to
achieve Iraqi compliance with all relevant UNSC resolutions. Despite
these diplomatic and peaceful efforts, Iraq remains in breach of
relevant UNSC resolutions and a threat to the United States and other
countries. Further diplomatic efforts were suspended reluctantly
after, as the President observed on March 17, "some permanent members
of the Security Council ha[d] publicly announced they will veto any
resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq."
The lesson learned after twelve years of Iraqi defiance is that the
appearance of progress on process is meaningless - what is necessary
is immediate, active, and unconditional cooperation in the complete
disarmament of Iraq's prohibited weapons. As a result of its repeated
failure to cooperate with efforts aimed at actual disarmament, Iraq
has retained weapons of mass destruction that it agreed, as an
essential condition of the cease-fire in 1991, not to develop or
possess. The Secretary of State's February 5, 2003, presentation cited
examples, such as Iraq's biological weapons based on anthrax and
botulinum toxin, chemical weapons based on mustard and nerve agents,
proscribed missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver weapons of
mass destruction, and mobile biological weapons factories. The
Secretary of State also discussed with the Security Council Saddam
Hussein's efforts to reconstitute Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
The dangers posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long-range
missiles are clear. Saddam Hussein has already used such weapons,
repeatedly. He used them against Iranian troops in the 1980s. He used
ballistic missiles against civilians during the Gulf War, firing Scud
missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia. He used chemical weapons
against the Iraqi people in Northern Iraq. As Congress stated in 1998
in Public Law 105-235, "Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction
programs threaten vital United States interests and international
peace and security." Congress concluded in Public Law 105-338 that
"[i]t should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to
remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to
promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that
regime."
In addition, Congress stated in the Authorization for Use of Military
Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), that:
Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the
United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf
region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its
international obligations by, among other things, continuing to
possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons
capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and
supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.
Nothing that has occurred in the past twelve years, the past twelve
months, the past twelve weeks, or the past twelve days provides any
basis for concluding that further diplomatic or other peaceful means
will adequately protect the national security of the United States
from the continuing threat posed by Iraq or are likely to lead to
enforcement of all relevant UNSC resolutions regarding Iraq and the
restoration of peace and security in the area.
As the President stated on March 17, "[t]he Iraqi regime has used
diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage." Further delay in
taking action against Iraq will only serve to give Saddam Hussein's
regime additional time to further develop WMD to use against the
United States, its citizens, and its allies. The United States and the
UN have long demanded immediate, active, and unconditional cooperation
by Iraq in the disarmament of its weapons of mass destruction. There
is no reason to believe that Iraq will disarm, and cooperate with
inspections to verify such disarmament, if the U.S. and the UN employ
only diplomacy and other peaceful means.
