page_title: Iraq disarmament crisis
section_title: 2002–2003
hierarchical_section_title: Iraq disarmament crisis / 2002–2003
caption_attribution_description: English: Colin Powell's UN presentation slide showing alleged mobile production facility for biological weapons. (Subequently shown to be an incorrect allegation.) Speech title: Remarks to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary Colin L. Powell, February 5, 2003 Slide title: detail of where material is carried in mobile production facilities for bio weapons work
context_page_description: The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. Since the 1980s, Iraq was widely assumed to have been producing and extensively running the programs of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Iraq made extensive use of chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, including against its own Kurdish population. France and the Soviet Union assisted Iraq in the development of its nuclear program, but its primary facility was destroyed by Israel in 1981 in a surprise air strike.
  After the Gulf War in 1990, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials with varying degrees of Iraqi cooperation and obstruction, but the Iraqi cooperation later diminished in 1998. The disarmament issue remained tense throughout the 1990s with U.S. at the UN, repeatedly demanding Iraq to allow inspections teams to its facilities. These crises reached their climax in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W.
context_section_description: During late 2002 and into 2003, the United States government continued to call for "regime change" in Iraq and threatened to use military force to overthrow the Iraqi government unless Iraq rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) it supposedly possessed and convinced the UN that it had done so.
  US diplomatic pressure to bring Iraq to compliance quickly created a diplomatic crisis in the UN, where some members were in agreement with the U.S. position, while others dissented, notably the permanent Security Council members France, Russia and the People's Republic of China, and fellow NATO members Germany and Belgium.
  The Bush administration began a military buildup in the region, and after pushing hard gained passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Led by Hans Blix, Head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and Mohamed ElBaradei Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Resolution brought weapons inspectors back to Iraq in November 2002.
  Inspectors began visiting sites where WMD production was suspected, but found no evidence of such activities, except for 18 undeclared empty 122 mm chemical rockets that were destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision. P. 30 Inspectors also found that the Al-Samoud-2 and Al-fatah missiles violated the UN range restrictions, the former also being partially destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision.
  On March 7, 2003 Hans Blix reported accelerated cooperation throughout the month of February but it was still not "immediate" and "unconditional" as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1441. He informed the UN security council that "it will not take years, nor weeks, but months" to verify whether Iraq had complied with its disarmament obligations.
  U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in the Azores islands for an "emergency summit" over the weekend of March 15–16, 2003, after which Bush declared that, despite Blix's report, "diplomacy had failed" to compel Iraq to comply with UN Resolution inspection requirements, and stated his intention to use military force to attack Iraq in what was, according to the Bush administration, compliance with the threat of "serious consequences" in UN 1441.
caption: Diagram of alleged Mobile Production Facility For Biological Agents, presented by Colin Powell before the United Nations.
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