U.S., Russia: Iraq had no WMDs

By BILL VARNER
Bloomberg News

The U.S. and Russia have agreed to dismantle the U.N. agency that searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction and affirm that Saddam Hussein’s government had no such arms at the time of the American invasion in March 2003.

The Security Council will adopt a resolution the last week in June to close the U.N. Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission, created in 1999 to search Iraq for biological and chemical weapons, Belgian and British diplomats said. The measure will also end the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency’s mandate to look for nuclear arms in Iraq.

U.N. inspectors found no banned weapons before or since the invasion.

Feisal al-Istrabadi, Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., said his country is “still dealing with the residue of having been a pariah state” and called the resolution a “huge symbolic step that will show we are taking steps forward to be reintegrated in the community of nations.”

He said adopting the U.S.-drafted resolution would be a prelude to lifting all U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq during Saddam’s reign.

The Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq and toppling its government was the alleged threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq has complained about paying $50 million since the invasion to maintain the agency, known as UNMOVIC. The agency, which withdrew the inspectors before the war, employs 34 people and prepares quarterly reports to the Security Council.

An annex to the proposed resolution will include a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar al-Zebari pledging that his government won’t develop WMDs.

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