The Gulf War Ceasefire
Major components:
1) Adoption under
Chapter VII of the
United Nations Charter (Binding for all nations.)
2) Restitution to
Kuwait, release of
detainees, return of Kuwaiti property, recognition of Kuwaiti
sovereignty, and a resolve to live in peace with
Iraq’s neighbours.
3) Establishment of a
U.N inspection regime with an estimated timetable of 90 to 180 days
4) Draconian
sanctions would remain in place until these requirements were complied with.
The Iraqi regime, under
Saddam Hussein, did not comply with this
Security Council Resolution. On June 30th, 1991
Saddam secretly formed a
Concealment Operations Committee, chaired by his younger son,
Qusayy Saddam. The same month,
inspectors under the resourceful
David Kay discovered an Iraqi program to enrich
uranium with huge magnets. In July, several kilos of
highly enriched uranium were discovered with large stocks of natural, unenriched
uranium.
Iraq also gave supplies of
Scud missiles, many loaded with
chemical and
biological weapons, over to the
Special Republican Guard for concealment from the
inspectors.
Iraq kept teams of scientists and engineers working together on
WMD projects but hidden within innocuous looking government agencies. In May 1992,
Iraq was forced to confess that it had a
biological warfare program.
Sources:
Pollack, Kenneth.
The Threatening Storm. New York: Random House Books, 2002.