The use of ballistic missiles
- Iraq fired over 500 SCUD-type missiles at Iran during the Iran-Iraq War at both civilian and military targets, and 93 SCUD-type missiles during the Gulf War. The latter were targeted at Israel and Coalition forces stationed in the Gulf region.
- At the end of the Gulf War the international community was determined that Iraq’s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles should be dismantled. The method chosen to achieve this was the establishment of UNSCOM to carry out intrusive inspections within Iraq and to eliminate its chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles with a range of over 150km. The IAEA was charged with the abolition of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme. Between 1991 and 1998 UNSCOM succeeded in identifying and destroying very large quantities of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles as well as associated production facilities. The IAEA also destroyed the infrastructure for Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme and removed key nuclear materials. This was achieved despite a continuous and sophisticated programme of harassment, obstruction, deception and denial (see Part 2). Because of this UNSCOM concluded by 1998 that it was unable to fulfil its mandate. The inspectors were withdrawn in December 1998.
- Based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999 and earlier UNSCOM reports, we assess that when the UN inspectors left Iraq they were unable to account for:
- up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, including 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent;
- up to 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tonnes which, in the Iraqi chemical warfare programme, were unique to the production of VX;
- growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admits to having manufactured);
- over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents.
- The departure of UNSCOM meant that the international community was unable to establish the truth behind these large discrepancies and greatly diminished its ability to monitor and assess Iraq’s continuing attempts to reconstitute its programmes.
