UNMOVIC's Future

From what I am being told, the UNSC will not make a decision about UNMOVIC’s future during its upcoming meeting.

Whether or not to keep UNMOVIC or a similar organization has been a matter of debate for quite a while now. For example, Hans Blix has argued that such an organization could be useful in dealing with future proliferators.

However, the prospect that previously WMD-free Iraq could pursue nasty weapons may keep UNMOVIC in business a while longer.

John Barry writes in Newsweek article:

In case a future Iraqi leader decides that Iran’s nuclear ambitions next door mean Iraq should restart Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-, chemical- or biological-weapon program, what kind of international monitoring should the country be subject to? “The question is starting to bubble up,” says a British official who is not allowed by his government to speak for attribution.

Demetrios Perricos, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, the agency probing Iraq’s WMD work before the U.S. invasion, raised the issue in the United Nations Security Council in June. France and Russia both indicated that they thought Iraq would need to accept continued special inspections. The United States did not comment because Iraqi politicians are reportedly adamant that the new, sovereign Iraq will accept no special constraints or monitoring. “They are demanding the same treatment as any other nation,” says a U.N. official who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of his position.

So we may end up with an Iraq that has no WMD, but is subject to a UN monitoring system intended to prevent Baghdad from reconstituting its WMD programs – the same thing we could have had without the invasion.

Ick.