 Okay, we can start. For detailed information about the United Nations Security Council, you can just either use this link, or just Google OMSCOM and you will have ample information, lots of information about the United Nations Special Commission. And as I said, for things that they have done, for things that OMSCOM has achieved or has not been able to achieve, has been at the center of a stiff debate. And OMSCOM's purpose, status, things that they have done, and some of its inspectors have been specifically discussed very much, actually at least in the International Forum among scholars, experts. Well, this is something that has lasted for about like nine years or so, from April 1991 till another United Nations Security Council Resolution 1284, December 17, 1999. So approximately for nine years and more, nine and a half years OMSCOM operated in the Iraqi territory. And as I said, the task of OMSCOM was to destroy, remove or render harmless chemical and biological weapons and all material that are used in the manufacturing of these weapons, technologies, as well as ballistic missiles whose ranges exceeded 150 kilometers. So OMSCOM, which was created anew from nothing from scratch, OMSCOM brought together a number of experts, technicians, scholars, those who were known to have a lot of knowledge about chemical and biological weapons, their systems of manufacturing systems, as well as ballistic missiles. And there were hundreds of them over a long period of time, as I said, for about nine and a half years have gone on several occasions, for several missions have gone to Iraq. For instance, one of, when I was doing my post-doctoral research at the Monterey Institute in California, there was a friend, Tim McCarty, who had some 13 missions in Iraq. He was dealing with ballistic missile capability of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and he had taken a very significant role in the destruction, removal or rendering harms of Iraq's ballistic missile capability. And he was one of the most wanted by Saddam, and he was proud of this. So Tim and I, when we sat and talked about things that were going on in Iraq, and he was, of course, depicting a situation which was not very much promising in terms of arms comb achieving all its goal. Because one of the major reasons for this was at the beginning when Iraq was, you know, just defeated when, of course, the wounds were fresh and they were in a very vulnerable situation at the beginning, 91, 92, 93, they could not resist any demands coming from arms comb because arms comb was almost the absolute authority in Iraq. And with the Resolution 687, would you mind please closing the door. With the Resolution 687, Iraq was asked to cooperate, collaborate with the Special Commission people unconditionally. I mean, without, you know, resisting to any demands that might be coming. Of course, from arms comb, of course, arms comb inspectors, as I said, who were drawn from a large pool of scientists, technicians, experts from a number of countries, European countries and other countries, United States in particular, who were expected to, of course, be respectful to the mandate. Well, for several years from 91 to 92, 93, 94, Iraq did not resist too much comply with the requirements of arms comb inspections and arms comb inspectors themselves have been true to their mandate and because they were getting a lot of cooperation from the Iraqi authorities, they were taken to the facilities where chemical weapons, biological, chemical weapons, weapons were being produced. But of course, prior to the war, as I said, Iraq was suspected of developing new weapons and many people knew Iraq had chemical weapons because the world had seen during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 use of, extensive use of chemical weapons in the battlefields by Iraq and also there was strong suspicions about Iraqi biological weapons capabilities and that Iraq was suspected of having biological weapons laboratories, research facilities and manufacturing facilities. But Iraq from the beginning, although accepted and it had no other option but to accept that Iraq had chemical weapons as well as ballistic missiles but always told the arms comb inspectors that they had no work whatsoever with respect to biological weapons. They always denied all these allegations, rejected all these allegations and they said they were clean about biological weapons program. So they had no such a program, they said. But as I said, based on the intelligence coming from different sources not from within Oskar, because Oskar was again a group of inspectors, technicians, experts who were put together to execute the mandate that were given to them by United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 and also explaining paragraphs 8, 9 and 10. So these people of course were taken to these facilities by Iraqi escorts they were escorting the UN people from the headquarters and they were taking these inspectors to facilities where Oskar was supposed to destroy them. But since Iraq denied all these allegations that they had chemical, sorry, biological weapons program but on the other hand inspectors or at least some of them had reasons to believe that Iraq had already embarked upon a biological weapons program and somewhere, hidden somewhere in the Iraqi territory there were such laboratories and maybe stockpiling facilities as well as manufacturing facilities they wanted to unearth these clandestine capabilities or hidden capabilities of Iraq. And therefore because Iraq did not cooperate enough at least as much as the inspectors, Oskar inspectors expected from Iraq some inspectors started to rely on intelligence coming from other sources one of whom was this guy, as I showed you last time Scott Litter, well that picture was taken later on he put some weight as far as I can see and he was a Marine and he was for several years from 1991 to mid 1990s he was considered to be a hero among the inspectors because he was so efficient according to some inspectors as well as to some other rumors reports whatever reporting the situation on the ground that he was so effective in finding these hidden material and he was using some methods to get intelligence to get information from Iraqis and one of these methods was getting intelligence from other intelligence agencies such as CIA of the United States and most side of Israel that actually was not part of the mandate Oskar inspectors were not allowed to share intelligence or use intelligence coming from other intelligence sources well maybe at the headquarters somewhere in New York or maybe in other fora groups of countries could come together and assemble a certain intelligence and provide Oskar that might have been compatible with the mandate but individual inspectors establishing private links and connections contacts with some intelligence organizations and getting this intelligence and using this intelligence to find out some of the hidden facilities maybe by way of end product that is removal, destruction or random harms of Iraqi biological weapons capability I mean the end result might be fine but the way you achieved this the method that you use in achieving this goal was unacceptable but I'll come back to this but this guy was quite instrumental in unearthing the hidden clandestine biological weapons program of Iraq but through methods that he used although as I said what he found out was significant for the world but the method that he used and some of his colleagues have used was unacceptable from the point of view of the mandate of the Oskar inspectors so according to the job he did actually Iraq was forced to sign the biological weapons convention and they hit of course before this they had to accept that they lied to the international community in terms of not having any work with respect to biological weapons that they had in the past quite intensive work on biological weapons manufacturing well this is of course a field which is not at all very easy but provided that you have a certain basic infrastructure certain equipment of course a certain degree of sophistication in terms of knowledge and technology biological weapons are not that difficult well some people say you can produce at home in your bathroom please don't try this at home all that easy but yet it is not from far from the reach of special states, governments and some non-state actors today but this guy as I said was very influential in figuring out the extent of Iraq's biological weapons program but again for reasons that he adopted and used Oskar has encountered traumas and Saddam Hussein once he understood that some of the Oskar inspectors were in contact with intelligence services such as Mosa and CIA and maybe others he made this a case he started to complain about it he complained not only to his own people publicly but also to the world and said look yes we are under sanctions I understand it you impose these sanctions you send these inspectors but these inspectors are out of their way I mean just cross the line and therefore what they do is not acceptable so I will not cooperate again Iraqi authorities leadership Saddam Hussein said that he would not cooperate with Oskar of course at that moment the situation may not have been properly understood by everybody and when Iraq said it would not cooperate with Oskar inspections that was found as something which would be contradictory to what was asked in the UN Security Council Resolution 687 which was unconditional cooperation with Oskar so Iraq by any means I mean could not argue that it was not going to cooperate because it had accepted a theory at the beginning with paragraph 33 as a condition of ceasefire that it would cooperate with the inspections and everything so and when he direct when Saddam Hussein direct his feet and just did not want to cooperate on the ground that Oskar inspectors were crossing the line and were just going beyond their mandate and they were doing things that would not be acceptable the United States threatened with retaliation with counter-action and there was a short for a short period of time what was known as the Operation Desert Fox and in order to persuade Saddam Hussein that he should continue to cooperate with Oskar without creating any number of other demands then of course this operation Desert Fox convinced Saddam Hussein at least that he should continue to allow inspectors to continue to do their job but from that point onwards frictions have always been there between Iraqis and the inspectors and in the meantime as I was explaining or just briefly mentioned Iraq was under heavy sanctions all out sanctions comprehensive sanctions almost every single item that were needed in the daily lives of people in the street men, women, elderly, women, children so they were all under sanctions and they were being secretarized very very carefully and as I said like many people agree the sanctions themselves in the eyes of many people have become weapons of mass destruction for the Iraqi people and as I said figures vary and according to different sources but hundreds of tons of people have lost their lives because of some illnesses that could not be cured because of lack of medication or proper food which was lacking etc etc so these were the humanitarian dimensions of the problem which under the context of what was going on and when people were so focused on getting rid of Saddam Hussein's such and such capabilities people's attention was not yet that much confined to the situation on the ground as to what was happening to innocent people or ordinary people on the ground and that issue gained further momentum with some organizations non-governmental organizations taking the lead and thinking out of the box and trying to see behind the walls as to what exactly or how exactly Iraqi people were being affected because I mean there was this wholesome approach in the world that Iraq meant Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein meant Iraq no that was not this there was a man at the top and there were approximately 40 people in Iraq who were trying to make a living who were trying to survive on all these sanctions and many of whom had nothing to do with Iraqi policies or Saddam Hussein's policies and all the more so many of whom were already being persecuted or were sort of subject to very bad treatment in terms of I don't know tortures maybe killings, assassinations or at the least at the minimum dislocation from their homes sent to other places because Saddam Hussein wanted to play with or many played the demographic structure of Iraq all through his years in power starting from of course early 1970s and then cease power in 1970s as the one man and then until the 2003 war so the issues were undermined and people were fixated to what was going on with the Ascom inspections and because reports coming every six months from Ascom reporting that while we have gone there in such and such place we have destroyed such and such amount of this such and such amount of that and we have debriefed such and such number of scientists Iraqi scientists and we have learned such and such information this and that so these six monthly reports you can find on the internet if you like and these are length reports sometimes several hundred pages and we are explaining the situation in a very much detail but again because of this especially in the aftermath of unearthing biological weapons capabilities of Iraq by way of getting some of the intelligence from some intelligence organizations that was not necessarily approvable with the mandate of the inspectors given by UN Security Council 687 then for the second time when frictions continued between Iraqi authorities and the inspectors at some point the inspections came to a halt just stopped almost stopped because Iraq was employing certain methods such as not issuing visas to inspectors because when we talk about inspectors we are not talking about the very same people for all these years there is a group of people like the fifth of them assembled in the United Nations headquarters in New York for instance dispatched to Iraq stayed there for maybe weeks, months I don't think years or even if they stay for extended periods they go back and forth and then after some time new people come replace them and conduct inspections from the point that they were left and things like that but each new inspector had to receive a visa and in the past Iraqi authorities were issuing visa rather quickly swiftly but this time they delayed the visa procedure that was one of them secondly those were supposed to be escorting the inspectors because we are talking about Americans, French or maybe Japanese inspectors not necessarily the same group but a typical group of inspectors they are in the Iraqi territory they don't know where to go and probably at that time they did not have this navigation instruments in their cars and so they needed escorts from the Iraqi government for basically two reasons first of course to find their ways to the facility in which they would find and destroy some chemical, biological weapons or missile and of course for protection after all Iraq was not a heaven as you can imagine after the war and there were too many militia all around and there was a certain degree of Iraqi in the streets and it was not safe it was not a safe environment for inspectors to wander around on their own so they had to be taken to certain places escorting was necessary and brought back to their secured headquarters within Iraq and this escort was of vital importance for inspectors to inspectors to continue so after this Desert Fox which convinced Saddam Hussein that he should continue to let the inspectors do their job again rumors or information coming from the floor from the ground I was continuing with respect to inspectors cooperating with other intelligence services and this time Saddam Hussein said ok that's it period I'm putting a halt to providing escorts to inspectors if they want to carry on they are free to carry on but I'm not giving any more escorts so if you were the United Nations Secretary General then if you were again at that time the United Nations Secretary General your inspectors because that was a UN body was a property of the United Nations let's say and these inspectors are not given any more escorts what would you do would you still ask them to continue their job or what else you would do instead well United Nations Secretary General took a very wise decision and actually took a decision that he could take the only decision that was to ask them to stop their inspections because without escorts you cannot operate you cannot find your place even if you found who would provide security and if one or more of the inspectors were shot and dead by the people or if there was for instance confrontation at one of the facilities that people did not want to let inspectors in and of course inspectors were carrying maybe some guns and some other stuff I cannot comment on that but if something happened and one or more of inspectors just lost their lives who would be responsible of course the UN Secretary General would assume therefore he withdrew the inspectors so when we come to the end of 1998 actually and 1999 there is this you know they put a halt to the inspections and by the end of 1998 of course inspections have achieved a great deal as I said IAEA finished the job much earlier as early as 1995 Iraqi nuclear infrastructure was almost rendered harmless and the material that was necessary some of the enriched uranium and some amount a certain amount of plutonium I guess were taken out of the country and some of the instruments some of the other stuff were just destroyed or rendered harmless nuclear job was fine we got home earlier but because of all these problems and many more I mean this is just a very brief executive summary of what happened there and then Ascon was somewhat worn out was somehow corrupt and also lost its credentials or credibility in terms of the job and you know and also trustability so and because of them is saying threatened with not providing escort to the inspectors of course the UN Secretary General had taken the only decision that could take which was to take them out of the country probably they went first to Jordan I can remember exactly but inspectors were not anymore operating in the Iraqi territory and by the end of 1998 as I said even though a great deal of job was done not everything was accomplished so we understand this from reports that were issued by the Ascon I mean first director Rolf Ekehus and the other second director Rich Spotler his their pictures last time so then of course there was nothing throughout 1999 there was almost nothing in Iraq that was not acceptable from the perspective of the the free world which I mean who had committed itself to cleaning the Iraqi territory from all these weapons so the world wanted to make sure that Iraq was clean and they also wanted to see that you know that job was accomplished but for a reason that I explained that was not the case of course this being the case on the other hand I mean all through the 1990s the whole world was discussing the misery that the people the citizens of Iraq were undergoing were experiencing all through these years because of lack of food medicine and anything under heavy sanctions under not at all any smart sanctions and comprehensive sanctions and all these civilian casualties because of lack of food dedication as I said and the world was discussing other issues one of which of course in between these years the world also witnessed things that have happened in Rwanda in Africa and also in the former Yugoslavia so the world's attention was attracted by other developments and Iraq was somewhat a routine sometimes this routine was broken with some developments the pop-up developments like Scott Ritter's statements or some allegations about outcomes corruption etc etc but what and the world and many countries who had their representatives at the United Nations and the United Nations Security Council such as France for instance started to question the validity of sanctions and the effectiveness of what was being done and of course the lack of inspections left things in limbo I mean the job was not accomplished so the United Nations had to take a decision first and foremost to finish the job that was started back in 1991 in 687 and also to put an end to the misery of the civilian people so for this reason the United Nations Security Council took a decision I hope I can find here where is it well it's 1284 I may have difficulty finding right now this December 17th no board marker December 17th 1 7 there is no December 17th anyway 1999 the United Nations Security Council adopted the resolution 1284 1284 and this resolution is very important first of all by adopting this resolution the United Nations system acknowledged that Ascon which it had created with United Nations Security Council resolution 687 was corrupt went out of line went beyond the mandate and that what Ascon did well in some respects was of course commendable and acceptable but what some of the things that they have done was not acceptable so therefore UN Security Council resolution 1284 the sold Ascon just abolished Ascon says no more Ascon and now we are putting but since the job is unfinished I mean Ascon has left at certain point without you know the mandate and say okay here what we have done and finished the job no that was not the situation and since the job was not finished the job had to be finished and Ascon being corrupt and abolished there was need for another institution another sort of a group of inspectors but this time consisting of good guys not corrupt guys so that was United Nations commission for monitoring and verification inspection commission UNMOVIC United Nations monitoring verification inspection commission UNMOVIC UNMOVIC well imagine I have this word mark here UNMOVIC alright alright so UNMOVIC was created with 1284 and what UNMOVIC was of course I mean the former inspectors not all of them I mean that was not an all out blaming of every single Ascon inspectors for having involving corrupted you know relations etc no some of them were accused of having some you know legitimate connection with intelligence services and many of them were praised for the job that they have done commanded and they were tanked for the job that they have done but all in all Ascon did not exist some of the former Ascon inspectors also had duties or responsibilities within UNMOVIC but most of the UNMOVIC inspectors again brought from a large pool of technicians experts and specialists and I can tell you this may not be written anywhere but I can tell you that for almost each and every UNMOVIC inspector Iraqis consent was sought well de facto not necessarily this is something that is acknowledged but behind the words there was some negotiations with the Iraqi authorities as to whether they would have any concerns about any particular inspector that would take part in the UNMOVIC missions yet and this UNMOVIC was created and in addition to that taking into consideration all the sufferings of Iraqi people the world had come to the point of acknowledging better and better and more and more that sanctions actually did not stop Saddam Hussein from doing what he was doing anyway and that sanctions were not limiting his ambitions or whatever he was doing but rather putting heavy pressure on daily life on the ordinary people therefore Saddam Hussein or Iraq was offered something very very interesting which was I mean the United Nations Security Council said to Saddam all right you claim at the beginning that ALSCOM was corrupt and now we figured out that you were right we abolished ALSCOM now we create a new inspection mechanism a new body of inspectors all of them good guys relations with any of the intelligence services which sort of guarantee you but in return for you to accept these guys to Iraq and giving them escort so that they finish their job the job that was left unfinished by ALSCOM if you let them go Iraq operate in the field and finish the job as the mandate as and visit in 687 then starting from that day onwards until they finish the job and you come clean I mean your territory become becomes clean we will suspend the sanctions of course sanctions that would have relevance to people's daily life I mean not sanctions on weapons but sanctions on food medication and some other material so that was a very generous offer well looked at the issue from humanitarian perspective maybe it was not that enough but when you consider or bear in mind what was written back in 87 I mean 687 I mean UN Security Council Resolution 687 Iraq was asked to unconditionally cooperate with inspectors so United Nations Security Council might have very well insisted that I mean I have abolished ALSCOM and now you have to take ANNOVIC without any questions but of course UN Security Council also figured out the situation on the ground thank you Quran so now we have an ANNOVIC well United Nations Monitoring Verification Inspection Commission which was created with UN Security Council Resolution 1284 dated December 17th 1999 so with this resolution ANNOVIC was created ALSCOM gone out of window and Iraq was offered a kind of deal and the deal was in return for Iraq's acceptance of ANNOVIC and to continue the unfinished job or the job that was unfinished by ALSCOM sanctions that were imposed on Iraq would be lifted during all this period that ANNOVIC would operate and would bring the mandate to an end because remember Resolution 687 is a ceasefire resolution a ceasefire is an interim solution it's not an end solution it's not the ultimate solution there is still war conditions war is not brought to an end with a peace treaty there is no peace treaty so ALSCOM and IAEA were given the task of clearing the Iraqi territory from all the weapons of mass destruction and their infrastructure and after that Iraq would be clean and would transition forces and Iraq would come clean and become again a noble member of the international community but this job was unfinished because of all this and that the whole story I tried to explain here ANSCOM was corrupt at some point and then ANNOVIC was created and therefore for the ceasefire to sort of come to an end the execution of ANNOVIC's mandate the unfinished mandate of ANSCOM then of course Iraq was supposed to sign a peace treaty and for this to happen ANNOVIC had to continue from the point that was left unfinished by ANSCOM and Iraq was given a deal was given an offer to let these guys in the Iraqi territory because again for the very same reasons that ANSCOM would not operate because Iraq was not giving any more escorts I mean the sort of Iraqi people who would guide them all through the Iraqi territory and also protect them ANNOVIC also needed this escort without these Iraqi escort units ANNOVIC could not go to Iraq and could not operate there so Saddam Hussein was to let ANNOVIC in let them operate finish the job until such time Iraq would not suffer any more from such sanctions who affected people's daily life that was a very good deal indeed but Saddam Hussein did not accept he said there would be another intervention in the sovereignty of Iraq and this ANNOVIC was never able to go to Iraq until 2002 November and therefore the UN Security Council Resolution 1284 was not put in practice starting from end of 1998 till from December 1998 to November 2002 for almost exactly for years or to be exact for the seven months the territory was not being inspected was not being sort of clean from whatever was left in the facilities so what is important here and this is something I mean now we go beyond the context of Iraq so far we have discussed the situation in Iraq the UN Security Council Resolutions non-implementations this and that but what was the or what were the consequence of all this for the rest of the world and for the rest of the story because the Iraqi story at least Saddam Hussein's story continued until the day he was of course executed after soon after the war he was seized he was arrested in place where he was hiding away but from just to remind you thank you Coral 1990 this is an imaginary board marker I'm just trying to figure out what I'm writing here no no no fine it's okay I mean this is the Taiwan inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq and in January 1999 oops there is this UN Security Council meeting which was attended by Richard Butler and he presented his report and that report was adopted with the unity of votes and December 1999 this UN Security Council Resolution 1284 and November 2002 unmovic in Iraq well of course in December 1999 as I said when Saddam Hussein was given a deal was offered a deal to accept unmovic inspectors to finish the job and in return for which sanctions would be lifted suspended not lifted but suspended which would of course make life much more easier for most of the Iraqi people but he declined to accept he did not accept on the grounds that it would be another way of intervening or intervention in the Iraqi sovereignty and therefore from December 1998 and onwards when inspectors were out of Iraqi territory until November 2002 unmovic which was created in December 1999 could not go to Iraqi territory and in the meantime as I said there was this January 1999 meeting of UN Security Council where Anscombe the last second and the last director of Anscombe Richard Butler presented his report which was adopted by the UN Security Council UN Security Council members and in that report this is the most controversial part and even just this February this year in Paris and you have seen the picture me, Butler and Orlov as remember I said these people looked like drunk but because after 10, 12 hours of work people were really exhausted I had a chance to discuss again because I had a chance to discuss with him in March 1999 at the Wilton Park meeting and then this year earlier this year as to whether what he wrote in his report had any consequences or anything to do with the decisions that were taken by the United States in terms of intervening in Iraq he of course said that was not at all his intention and things that he wrote about the situation in Iraq were based on the information that he had at the time of course this is a very long report 120 or so pages and it's in a very detailed expose of what was done and what was the situation at the time when they had to leave because Anscombe had to leave on a short notice without making the necessary preparations for leaving or maybe finishing the job so he says I'm paraphrasing or very much summarizing he says I mean we have destroyed this much amount of this and that and I mean we have concerns about some material remaining in Iraq which may have weapons implications especially chemical material and some chemical weapons because you know what it is not that easy to have an exact estimate or exact figure about how much of which weapon category a particle country may have or how many of them even in some time you know in mid 1990s several years after the Soviet Union collapsed and I share this with my arms control disarmament class students a person who was in charge of the former Soviet nuclear warheads sometime in 96 or so he says well we have 30,000 plus or minus 5,000 nuclear warheads I mean how can you not count the exact number of nuclear warheads and these are hell of a weapon I mean these are very very important weapons so when it comes to chemical biological weapons we're talking about chemical substances biological agents I mean whose exact amount may not be properly known at any given time so therefore and in a country like Iraq where you may not totally trust the accountancy system or they may not even have this material accounting and control system properly placed everywhere in the country so it was very difficult for the UNSCOM inspectors to make an exact good estimate of how much of chemical weapons that Iraq had were destroyed or how much of this amount was not destroyed yet or and how much raw material or material that could be weaponized that could be produced into chemical weapons were still left in the country the same applies to biological agents even with respect to ballistic missiles which are very very important weapons systems they were not properly counted because nobody knew the exact number of ballistic missiles of Iraq and how many of them were destroyed and how many were left undestroyed so therefore it is not that easy to put the fair to put to blame on Richard Butler as many people did back in the late 99 and early 2000s but I mean Iraq was a very difficult country but the reports suggested that I mean the sort of the the various meaning or one's understanding of this report was that the job was unfinished meaning still weapons or material that could be weaponized were remaining there so that was as I said adopted with unanimity awards a transition of the meeting where Iraq here presented was also present to as an observer so from this point onwards until November 2002 for 47 months Iraq was not inspected no inspections whatsoever was carried out in Iraq so this is significant and this had been the subject of very much controversy because in the meantime several things happen I mean now we are concentrating on Iraq but what else has happened the war in Kosovo the NATO of course a new mandate and strategic concept and also some other developments that have distracted the attention of the UN people and of course 9 11 and after 9 11 United States first confines attention to Afghanistan but then turned to Iraq and after Iraq was on the radar screen target many of the developments have gained momentum and this of course have paved the way to unmovic putting its foot on the Iraqi territory in November 2002 but controversies let alone disappearing gain further momentum as well and therefore this is the subject of our discussion on Friday starting at 9 40