Introduction: UNSCOM and the future of WMD verification

Abstract

Many people will remember Colin Powell’s historic speech to the UN Security Council describing Iraq’s mobile production facilities for making biological weapons. Many will also remember that shortly after this, in March 2003, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, the former US and UK leaders, respectively, went to war against Iraq on the basis of these “biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails” and Iraq’s illicit nuclear and chemical weapons – only to later find that these claims were incorrect, that the intelligence had been misrepresented, and that, in fact, Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction. This revelation – that there were no weapons of mass destruction despite intelligence findings to the contrary – has come to dominate collective consciousness. Yet, it overlooks the long and complicated history of Iraq’s acquisition and use of outlawed weapons and overshadows the work of international inspectors who successfully uncovered and destroyed these weapons in the decade leading up to 2003. This special issue highlights this history, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), the organization set up after the 1991 Gulf War to oversee the elimination of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons and the long-range missiles that could disperse them. It focuses on UNSCOM’s work to uncover Iraq’s large, hidden biological warfare preparations and includes articles and interviews from people who served in a range of roles at UNSCOM – including its executive chair, deputy chair, commissioner, chief inspectors, spokesperson, and official historian. Together, the collection captures memories, insights, and lessons from some of the key people involved in this unique disarmament undertaking. It does not aim to be a comprehensive account; rather it captures important viewpoints that add to the existing literature and analysis (Braut-Hegghammer 2020; Pearson 1999; Smithson 2011; Trevan 1999). UNSCOM’s experiences in uncovering an illicit, covert biological weapons program remain relevant to today’s policymakers, not least as they provide clarifications about the possibilities of, and challenges to, developing international measures to prevent biological weapons. Biological warfare – the weaponization of disease – is the subject of several international treaties, most significantly the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which bans the development, production, stockpiling and acquisition of biological weapons. Since its inception, the treaty has been criticized for its lack of implementation measures, and debate has particularly focused on possibilities to establish systems for states parties to verify treaty compliance (Lentzos 2019). On the one hand, it is recognized that verifying the convention poses distinct challenges, because the components needed for a biological weapons program have many legitimate uses and could be hidden in a range of civilian and commercial enterprises. On the other hand, many people have concluded that despite these challenges, it is possible to develop systems that could provide sufficient confidence in treaty compliance. This issue has divided the states parties; some (notably the United States) are convinced that it is impossible to verify the convention’s provisions, while others (including most European countries) feel that stronger compliance checks are both feasible and desirable. The difference in views has grown politicized to the extent that the word “verification” has become associated with excessively intrusive systems, which are costly to run and raise concerns about the danger of espionage to legitimate defense and commercial enterprises. Treaty “verification” is now rarely talked about by Western Group states; instead, they speak of “compliance assessment” and “measures to promote compliance.” UNSCOM provides important lessons to inform this debate and the wider efforts to maintain the strength of the regime against biological weapons. As detailed by articles in this issue, different people have different takeaways from the UNSCOM experience. Nikita Smidovich points out that the UNSCOM inspectors fulfilled a verification function that had previously been doubted, by demonstrating that intrusive international inspections could uncover illicit proliferation. There are also suggestions, by Stephen Black (1999), for instance, that UNSCOM triggered renewed global efforts to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, as it demonstrated that even in the most antagonistic circumstances, international inspections can