'Good Overall Picture' Provided of Military Weapons Capabilities

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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 …