 carl rolf ekÃ©us (born 7 july 1935 in kristinehamn, sweden) is a swedish diplomat. from 1978 to 1983, he was a representative to the conference on disarmament in geneva, and he has worked on various other disarmament committees and commissions. between 1991 and 1997 he was director of the united nations special commission on iraq, the united nations disarmament observers in iraq after the gulf war. in late july 2002 he reportedly said in the svenska dagbladet newspaper that during his time in this position he attempted to resist attempts by the united states to use the commission to perform espionage. his successor as director was richard butler. iraq suspended the inspections in 1998 after claiming that it was a cover for espionage. journalist andrew cockburn reported in britain's the first post that ekÃ©us told him how former u.s. president bill clinton attempted to prevent saddam hussein's iraq from being certified as free of weapons of mass destruction. despite ekÃ©us' belief that iraq was nearly certifiable as being free of such weapons, u.s. secretary of state madeleine albright announced that united nations sanctions would not be lifted until such time as hussein was no longer in power. the iraqi government responded by ending its previous cooperation with the u.n. weapons inspectors. iraqâs wmd myth: why clinton is culpable ekÃ©us later became sweden's ambassador to the united states and the chairman of the board of the stockholm international peace research institute. according to the journalist christopher hitchens, ekÃ©us "told me that he'd been offered by tariq aziz in person, to his face, a bribe of a million and a half dollars to change his inspection report. that was going on throughout the entire process. rolf wouldn't, of course, agree to take it, but if they were asking him, it means they were asking everybody."  the story has also been covered by the telegraph.{{cite web|last=harris|first=francis|title=saddam's $2m offer to wmd inspector|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/
1935_births Ambassadors_of_Sweden_to_the_United_States Living_people Organization_for_Security_and_Co-operation_in_Europe Swedish_diplomats