WMD Monitoring and Verification Regimes: Lessons from Iraq

Abstract

In the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there emerged a generally accepted view that the US government misinterpreted, or even deliberately misconstrued, the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that, in sharp contrast, international monitoring and verification regimes correctly verified prior to the war that Iraq had no WMD and deterred Saddam Hussein from pursuing them. Critiques of international inspections tend to overstate their capabilities and the levels of confidence that inspection processes can give the international community in verifying weapons development and rollback claims. The Iraqi case is important for thinking about current and future monitoring and verification regimes, but important lessons are being overlooked – and the wrong lessons are being learned. A sober reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the monitoring and verification in Iraq provides important lessons for those dealing with difficult cases now and in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Aaron Karp and several anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on this article.

Notes

See, for example, ‘Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria's Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Korea's Involvement’, 24 April 2008; 'Statement by the Press Secretary', 24 April 2008; David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘The Al Kibar Reactor: Extraordinary Camouflage, Troubling Implications’, The Institute for Science and International Security, 12 May 2008; ‘Smoking gun images of Syrian nuke reactor?’ CBS News, 24 April 2008.

International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic’, Report by the Director General, GOV/2008/60, 19 November 2008.

‘Diplomats Question Syrian Request for IAEA Aid,’ Global Security Newswire, 17 November 2008, available at http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20081117_8838.php

Quoted in ‘ElBaradei Lashes Critics of Syrian Nuclear Aid Request,’ Global Security Newswire, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 25 November 2008, available at http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20081125_8832.php

See Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: Pantheon Books, 2004), p. 272. For similar assessments, see also George A. Lopez and David Cortright, ‘Containing Iraq: Sanctions Worked’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 4 (July/August 2004), pp. 90–103; Frank Ronald Cleminson, ‘What Happened to Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction?’ Arms Control Today, Vol. 33, No. 7 (September 2003), pp. 3–6; Jessica Tuchman Mathews, ‘What Happened in Iraq? The Success Story of United Nations Inspections’, Keynote speech to the International Peace Academy, 5 March 2004; and Juan Cole, interviewed on MSNBC, 28 September 2009.

For fuller elaborations of monitoring and verification regimes, see Joseph F. Pilat, ‘Arms Control, Verification, and Transparency’, in Jeffrey A. Larsen and Gregory J. Rattray (eds), Arms Control Toward the 21st Century (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996), pp. 77–98; and Joseph F. Pilat, ‘‘Verification and Transparency: Relics or Future Requirements?’ in Jeffrey A. Larsen (ed.), Arms Control: Cooperative Security in a Changing Environment (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 79–96.

For a fuller explanation of the challenges of compliance, see Joseph Goldblat, ‘Ways to Improve the Implementation and Enforcement of Arms Control Agreements: Role of Verification’, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Occasional Paper Series, No. 19, Geneva, August 2000; Harald Müller, ‘Compliance Politics: A Critical Analysis of Multilateral Arms Control Treaty Enforcement’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 2000); and Michael Moodie and Amy Sands, ‘New Approaches to Compliance with Arms Control and Nonproliferation Agreements’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 1–9.

For discussions of Libya's renunciation of its WMD programs, see Wyn Q. Bowen, ‘Libya and Nuclear Proliferation’, Adelphi Paper, Vol. 46, No. 380 (May 2006), pp. 7–84; Robert Joseph, Countering WMD: The Libyan Experience (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2009); Bruce W. Jentleson and Christopher A. Whytock, ‘Who ‘Won’ Libya?: The Force-Diplomacy Debate and Its Implications for Theory and Policy', International Security, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Winter 2005/06), pp. 47–86.

See John Hart and Vitaly Fedchenko, ‘Inspection and Verification Regimes’, in Nathan E. Busch and Daniel H. Joyner (eds), Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Future of International Nonproliferation Policy (University of Georgia Press), pp. 95–117.

For detailed discussions of Iraq's lack of cooperation into the late 1990s, see Tim Trevan, Saddam's Secrets: The Hunt for Iraq's Hidden Weapons (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999); Richard Butler, The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Growing Crisis of Global Security (New York: Public Affairs, 2001); and the December 15, 1998 UNSCOM report, Letter Dated 15 December 1998 from the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/1998/1172, 15 December 1998.

On ‘denial and deception’, see Roy Godson and James Wirtz (eds), Strategic Denial and Deception: The Twenty-First Century Challenge (Transaction Publishers, 2002); David A. Kay, ‘Denial and Deception Practices of WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond’, Washington Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 85–105; Nathan Busch, ‘Risks of Nuclear Terror: Vulnerabilities of Thefts and Sabotage at Nuclear Weapons Facilities’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 2002), pp. 19–60. On other obstacles to effective verification, see Hart and Fedchenko, ‘Inspection and Verification Regimes’, pp. 95–117; and Ephraim Asculai, Verification Revisited: The Nuclear Case (Washington, DC: Institute for Science and International Security Press, 2002), pp. 7–11.

The classical discussion of this problem is Fred Charles Iklé, ‘After Detection—What?’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 39 (January 1961), pp. 208–220.

For a discussion of these cases, see especially Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain their Nuclear Capabilities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).

For similar assessments, see Combating WMD: Challenges for the Next 10 Years, report by the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: National Defense University, February 2005), p. 28; and UNMOVIC, ‘Compendium of Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programs in the Chemical, Biological and Missile Areas’, June 2007, p. 1060, http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/compendium/Chapter_VIII.pdf

Office of the Spokesman, ‘North Korea – Denuclearization Action Plan’, US Department of State, Washington, DC, February 13, 2007, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/february/80479.htm

See ‘North Korea Digs In’, Strategic Comments, Vol. 14, No. 10 (November 2008), p. 2; Choe Sang-Hun, ‘North Korea Limits Tests of Nuclear Site’, New York Times, 13 November 2008, p. A8; Helene Cooper, ‘Nuclear Inspectors Barred From North Korean Site’, New York Times, 10 October 2008, p. A16; Bruce Klinginger and Walter Lohman, Securing U.S. Objectives in North Korea: A Memo to President-Elect Obama, (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 6 January 2009).

For a list of these events, see ‘Chronology of North Korea's Missile Program’, Associated Press, 6 July 2009, available at http://www.ap.org

Blaine Harden, ‘North Korea Says It Will Start Enriching Uranium: Weapons Move Is ‘Retaliation’ for Sanctions', Washington Post, 14 June 2009, p. A1; Blaine Harden, ‘North Korea: Uranium Program Near Completion’, Washington Post, 4 September 2009, p. A8.

Sigfried S. Hecker, ‘What I Found in North Korea’, Foreign Affairs, 9 December 2010.

Ibid.

Paul K. Kerr, ‘Iran's Nuclear Program: Status’, CRS Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 20 November 2008).

For excellent discussions of Iran's deceptions, concealment, and refusal to cooperate in verification, see Sharon Squassoni, ‘The Iranian Nuclear Program’, in Busch and Joyner (eds), Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, pp. 281–301; and Frank Pabian, ‘Evidence from Imagery: The Iran and Syrian Nuclear Programs – An Open and Shut Case?’, lecture given at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, CA, 28 October 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkXbbHMKpHk, abstract and slides provided by author. See also the IAEA reports on Iran's refusals to provide access to key facilities: International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Positions of Security Council Resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, GOV/2009/35, June 5, 2009, http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Iran_Feb_2009.pdf; and David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, ‘IAEA Report on Iran: Centrifuge and LEU Increases, Access to Arak Reactor Denied; No Progress on Outstanding Issues’, ISIS Report, 5 June 2009, http://www.isis-online.org.

Barack Obama, official statement at the G20 Summit, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 25 September 2009; U.S. Government Statement, ‘Public Points for Qom Disclosure posted at the ‘Nuclear Iran’ site of the Institute for Science and International Security, 25 September 2009, http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Official_Comments_Qom_Disclosure.pdf; Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on Iranian Nuclear Facility’, 25 September 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Background-Briefing-By-Senior-Administration-Officials-On-Iranian-Nuclear-Facility. On the Iranian violation of its safeguards agreement by not declaring this site upon the decision to build it, see David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, ‘U.S. and Allies Warn Iran Over Nuclear ‘Deception’', New York Times, 25 September 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html

See William J. Broad, ‘Iran Shielding Its Nuclear Efforts in Maze of Tunnels', New York Times, 5 January 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/world/middleeast/03iran.html; and David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, ‘U.S. Sees an Opportunity to Press Iran on Nuclear Fuel’, New York Times, 2 January 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/world/middleeast/06sanctions.html

See International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic’, GOV/2009/36, 5 June 2009, http://isis-online.org. See also David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘IAEA Report on Syria: Undeclared Uranium Particles Found in Hot Cell Facility in Damascus; Syria Not Answering IAEA's Questions’, ISIS Report, June 5, 2009, http://www.isis-online.org.

Pabian, ‘Evidence from Imagery’ (note 22).

Ibid.

IAEA, ‘NPT Safeguards Agreement in Syria’ (note 25).

Albright and Brannan, ‘IAEA Report on Syria’ (note 25).

Peter Crail, ‘Report Alleges Secret Myanmar Nuclear Work’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 40, No. 6 (July/August, 2010), p. 44.

David Albright and Christina Walrond, ‘Technical Note: Revisiting Bomb Reactors in Burma and an Alleged Burmese Nuclear Weapons Program’, ISIS Report, Institute for Science and International Security, 11 April 2011.

F.H. Hammad and Adel M. Ali, ‘Principles of Establishing a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (MEWMDFZ) Monitoring and Verification System’, Paper presented at the Symposium on International Safeguards: Verification and Nuclear Material Security, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, October 29–November 2, 2001, IAEA-SM-367/9/07.

Iraq is believed to have begun its biological weapons programme as early as 1972 and its chemical weapons production in 1974. See Timothy V. McCarthy and Jonathan B. Tucker, ‘Saddam's Toxic Arsenal: Chemical and Biological Weapons in the Gulf Wars’, in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz (eds), Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 52; and Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (New York: Random House, 2002), p. 170.

On Iraqi use of WMD, see Thomas L. McNaugher, ‘Ballistic Missiles and Chemical Weapons: The Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War,’ International Security, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 5–34; US Department of State, ‘Saddam's Chemical Weapons Campaign: Halabja, March 16, 1988’, Bureau of Public Affairs Washington, DC, 14 March 2003.

‘Iraq: The UNSCOM Experience’, SIPRI Fact Sheet, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, October 1998, p. 2.

Graham S. Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Inspection, Verification, and Non-proliferation (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), p. 28.

Ibid., pp. 29–30.

For detailed accounts of these events, see Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (note 36), pp. 26–95; Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), pp. 21–324; and Butler, The Greatest Threat (note 10), pp. 200–222.

United Nations Security Council, ‘Letter Dated 17 December 1997 from the Executive Chairman of the Special Commission established by the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 9 (b) (i) of Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) addressed to the President of the Security Council’, S/1997/987, 17 December 1997.

Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (note 36), p. 57.

Charles Duelfer, ‘The Inevitable Failure of Inspections in Iraq,’ Arms Control Today, Vol. 32, No. 7 (September 2002), pp. 8–9.

Ibid., p. 9.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 11.

Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), pp. 357–374; Butler, The Greatest Threat (note 10), pp. 104–110; 136–137; 221–228; Duelfer, ‘Inevitable Failure’, (note 41) pp. 8–11. See also Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (note 36), pp. 94–95.

For an extended summary of these instances, see Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1999), pp. 181–210; and Jonathan B. Tucker, ‘Monitoring and Verification in a Noncooperative Environment: Lessons from the U.N. Experience in Iraq’, Non-proliferation Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring–Summer 1996), pp. 6–7.

Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions (note 46), p. 212.

Tucker, ‘Monitoring and Verification in a Noncooperative Environment’, p. 11; Rolf Ekeus, ‘Reassesment: The IISS Strategic Dossier on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Survival, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Summer 2004), p. 74.

International Atomic Energy Agency, Board of Governors General Conference, GOV/2816/Add.1-GC(39)/10/Add.1, 4 September 1995, http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC39/GC39Documents/English/gc39-10-add1_en.pdf; Pollack, The Threatening Storm (note 33), p. 76; Ephraim Asculai, Verification Revisited: The Nuclear Case (Washington, DC: Institute for Science and International Security Press, 2002), p. 40. For the chronology of these events and the centrality of Kamel's defection to the Iraqi revelations, see United Nations, ‘UNSCOM: Chronology of Main Events’, http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/Chronology/resolution949.htm

Asculai, Verification Revisited (note 49), p. 38.

For an extended discussion of the tensions between UNSCOM and the IAEA, see Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), pp. 96–102. See also Sharon A. Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’, CRS Report for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 7 October 2003); Tucker, ‘Monitoring and Verification in a Noncooperative Environment’, p. 12; Paul Leventhal and Steven Dolley, ‘Iraq's Inspector Games’, Washington Post, 29 November 1998, p. C01; Gary Milhollin, ‘The Iraqi Bomb,’ New Yorker, Vol. 68, No. 50 (1 February 1993), pp. 47–56.

Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), p. 98.

IAEA, Report by the Secretary General, Board of Governors General Conference, August 2, 1995, GOV/2816-GC(39)/10, http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC39/GC39Documents/English/gc39-10_en.pdf

International Atomic Energy Agency, Board of Governors General Conference, GOV/2816/Add.1-GC(39)/10/Add.1, 4 September 1995, http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC39/GC39Documents/English/gc39-10-add1_en.pdf; Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions (note 46), p. 215; Pollack, The Threatening Storm (note 33), p. 76; Asculai, Verification Revisited (note 49), p. 40.

Squassoni, ‘Iraq: UN Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 4.

Ibid. For the official UNSCOM report outlining the unanswered questions about Iraq's proscribed programmes (often called the Amorim report), see ‘Final Report of the Panel of Disarmament and Current and Future Ongoing Monitoring and Verification Issues’, S/1999/356, 30 March 1999.

Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions (note 46), p. 628.

Mohamed ElBaradei, ‘Iraq's Nuclear File: Still Open’, Washington Post, 1 June 1998, p. A17. For analysis of this letter, see Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions (note 46), p. 630.

See ‘Letter Dated 15 December 1998 from the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council’, S/1998/1172. For a first-hand account of the events leading up to this report, see Butler, The Greatest Threat (note 10), pp. 200–22.

Rolf Ekeus, ‘Shifting Priorities: UNMOVIC and the Future of Inspections in Iraq, An Interview with Ambassador Rolf Ekeus’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 30, No. 2 (March 2000), pp. 3–6.

Pearson, The Search for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 108.

Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 12. See also Gary Milhollin, ‘Hans the Timid’, The Wall Street Journal, 26 November 2002, p. A24; Asculai, Verification Revisited, pp. 38–41; Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), pp. 96–102.

For the text of UNSC Resolution 1441, see http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2002/sc2002.htm

Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 1; ‘Iraq Nuclear Chronology: 1990–2002’, Nuclear Threat Initiative; ‘Attacking Iraq: Countdown Timeline’, GlobalSecurity.org.

For similar arguments, see Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 10; Edward Ifft, ‘Iraq and the Value of On-Site Inspections’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 34, No. 9 (November 2004), pp. 22–23.

See Duelfer, ‘Inevitable Failure’ (note 41), p. 10; Trevor Findlay and Ben Mines, ‘UNMOVIC in Iraq: Opportunity Lost’, in Trevor Findlay (ed.), Verification Yearbook 2003 (London: VERTIC, 2003), p. 55.

Richard Stone, ‘U.N. Inspectors Find Wisps of Smoke but No Smoking Guns’, Science, 229 (28 March 2003), p. 1968.

Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 9. See also Trevan, Saddam's Secrets (note 10), pp. 381–382.

Both UNMOVIC and the IAEA stated that this list was clearly incomplete, since it left off some scientists that UNSCOM had positively identified as part of Iraq's WMD programmes. Iraq apparently did provide a more complete list, but, according to Blix, this was ‘at the end of February and early March 2003 and it was too late’. See ‘Press Encounter with Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei’, UN News Centre, 9 January 2003, http://www.un.org; and Hans Blix, lecture given at the Globalisation, World Governance, and the Reform of the United Nations workshop, Turin, Italy, March 13–14, 2004, p. 8.

Hans Blix, ‘Oral Introduction of the 12th Quarterly Report of UNMOVIC’, report to the United Nations Security Council, 7 March 2003. For analysis of this issue, see Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), p. 11.

Stone, ‘U.N. Inspectors Find Wisps of Smoke but No Smoking Guns’, p. 1968.

Squassoni, ‘Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (note 51), Summary, p. I; Findlay and Mines, ‘UNMOVIC in Iraq’ (note 66), pp. 54–55.

See Hans Blix, ‘An Update on Inspection’, report to the Security Council, 27 January 2003.

Hans Blix, Briefing of the Security Council, 14 February 2003.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Blix, ‘Oral Introduction of the 12th Quarterly Report of UNMOVIC’.

Ibid.

Ibid.

UNMOVIC, ‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programs’, UNMOVIC Working Document, 6 March 2003. See also Findlay and Mines, ‘UNMOVIC in Iraq’ (note 66), p. 55.

Mohamed ElBaradei, ‘The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq’, report to the United Nations Security Council, 27 January 2003, www.un.org/News/dh/iraq/elbaradei27jan03.htm.

Ibid.

See, for example, ElBaradei's statement in ‘Press Encounter’.

Mohamed ElBaradei, ‘Transcript of ElBaradei's U.N. Presentation’, CNN.com, 7 March 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.elbaradei/

Mohamed ElBaradei, interviewed on Hard Talk, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News, 29 August 2003.

Ibid.

Ibid., emphasis added.

Quoted in Online News Hour, PBS, 7 October 2005, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/nobel_10-07-05.html

Hans Blix, interviewed in ‘Verifying Arms Control Agreements: An Interview with Hans Blix’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 33, No. 6 (July/August 2003), p. 12.

Hans Blix, in ‘Transcript of the Interview with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and Dr. Hans Blix, former head of UNMOVIC’, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 21 March 2004. See also a similar formulation in ‘Getting it Right The Next Time: An Interview with Hans Blix’, Arms Control Association, 19 June 2004.

Blix, Disarming Iraq (note 5), p. 215.

Demetrius Perricos, ‘Acting Executive Chairman's Speaking Notes – Security Council, 29 June 2007’, briefing given to the United Nations Security Council, 29 June 2007.

Ibid.

Kenneth Katzman, ‘Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance’, CRS Report to Congress, Congressional Research Service, 26 April 2005.

David Kay, ‘Statement on the Interim Progress Report on the Activities of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG)’, speech before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2 October 2003.

Charles Duelfer, ‘Testimony of Charles Duelfer, Special Advisor to the DCI for Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction’, report to the United States Congress, 30 March 2004; Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), pp. 441–60, 469–71.

Duelfer Report, Vol. 1, ‘Scope Note’, pp. 1–5.

Ibid. See also Charles Duelfer, interview, on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 27 April 2005.

See, for example, Mohamed ElBaradei, interview by the Academy of Achievement, Washington, DC, 3 June 2006, p. 6; ‘Interview With Hans Blix’, El Pais, 9 April 2003.

The authors thank William Perry for this important insight. See also Michael O'Hanlon, ‘Blix Blames Politicians, Not Intelligence, for Iraq’, New York Times, 20 March 2004, p. B11.

Perricos, ‘Acting Executive Chairman's Speaking Notes’.

International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, Report by the Director, 1 June 2004, GOV/2004/34, par. 47.

International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, Report by the Director, 10 November 2003, GOV/2003/75, para. 52.

Mohamed ElBaradei, interview with Charlie Rose, The Charlie Rose Show, 30 October 2007; ‘'No Credible Evidence' of Iranian Nuclear Weapons, Says UN Inspector’, The Guardian, 30 September 2009.

International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, Report by the Director, 2 September 2005, GOV/2005/67, p. 11, para. 49.

ElBaradei came very close to admitting as much in a 2010 interview with Jack Shenker of the Guardian. See Jack Shenker, ‘Cautious Reports on Tehran Nuclear Programme ‘Were Framed to Avoid War'’, The Guardian, 31 March 2010.

See, for example, ‘Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria's Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Korea's Involvement’, 24 April 2008; and ‘Statement by the Press Secretary’, 24 April 2008. See also David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘The Al Kibar Reactor: Extraordinary Camouflage, Troubling Implications’, The Institute for Science and International Security, 12 May 2008; ‘Smoking Gun Images of Syrian Nuke Reactor?’, CBS News, 24 April 2008.

International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic’, Report by the Director General, GOV/2008/60, 19 November 2008.

This discovery also provided some support for the US claim that this reactor was built with North Korean assistance, since the North Korean reactor that US officials have claimed served as the design basis for the alleged Syrian reactor uses natural uranium as its nuclear fuel. See Greg Webb, ‘IAEA Issues Tough Report on Alleged Syrian Nuclear Site’, Global Security Newswire, 19 November 2008, available at http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/ts_20081119_9297.php.

David Albright, Paul Brannan, and Jacqueline Shire, ‘Syria Update: Suspected Reactor Site Dismantled’, Institute for Science and International Security, 25 October 2007. For the full text of Syria's Comprehensive Safeguards agreement, see INFCIRC/407, July 1992. According to the IAEA, under the 1992 safeguards agreement, Syria is obligated to report ‘the planning and construction of any nuclear facility’. See International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Statement by IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei’, 25 April 2008.

Quoted in ‘ElBaradei Lashes Critics of Syrian Nuclear Aid Request’, Global Security Newswire, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 25 November 2008.

For a similar assessment, see James M. Acton, Mark Fitzpatrick, and Pierre Goldschmidt, ‘The IAEA Should Call for a Special Inspection in Syria’, Proliferation Analysis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 26 February 2009.

Sharad Joshi, ‘Playing Politics: How the Regional Context Impedes Confronting Myanmar's Alleged Nuclear Program’, Issue Brief, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 4 February 2011.

UNMOVIC, ‘Compendium’ (note 14), pp. 1100–2.

‘CWC: Key Challenges and the Road Ahead,’ WMD411, Nuclear Threat Initiative, July 2010, http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2o3.html. For an excellent discussion of the verification challenges of the BWC, see Jonathan B. Tucker, ‘Seeking Biosecurity Without Verification: The New U.S. Strategy on Biothreats’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 41, No. 1 (January/February 2010), pp. 8–14.

Duelfer Report, Vol. 1, ‘Scope Note’, pp. 1–5.

Blix, ‘Oral Introduction of the 12th Quarterly Report of UNMOVIC’.

Jentleson and Whytock, ‘Who ‘Won’ Libya?’ (note 8), pp. 47–86.

Trevor Findlay, ‘LOOKING BACK: The UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 35, No. 7 (September 2005), pp. 45–8; Cleminson, ‘International Verification of WMD Proliferation’; Richard Butler, ‘Don't Kick the Inspectors out of the U.N’, New York Times, 29 June 2007, p. A27.

For some of the limitations of the Additional Protocol, see Gene Aloise, Government Accountability Office, ‘Nuclear Non-proliferation: IAEA Safeguards and Other Measures to Halt the Spread of Nuclear Weapons and Material’, testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, 26 September 2006.

Paul Richter, ‘Clinton Says U.S. Diplomacy Unlikely to End Iran Nuclear Program’, Los Angeles Times, 3 March 2009; Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘Gates Says U.S. Overture to Iran Is ‘Not Open-Ended’’, New York Times, 27 July 2009; Elaine M. Grossman, ‘North Korean Regime Unlikely to Get Rid of Nuclear Arms, White House Official Says’, Global Security Newswire, 4 May 2009, available at http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090504_7509.php.

Nuclear Energy Study Group, ‘Nuclear Power and Proliferation Resistance: Securing Benefits, Limiting Risk’, American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs, May 2005, p. 8. For a description of some international R&D efforts in this area, see the European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Transuranium Elements, ‘Nuclear Safeguards Research and Development’, http://itu.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php?id=194

Nuclear Study Group, ‘Proliferation Resistance’ (note 122), p. 8.

Nikolai Khlebnikov, David Parlse, and Julian Whichello, ‘Novel Technologies for the Detection of Undeclared Nuclear Activities’, IAEA-CN-148/32, released by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center on March 2007; Joseph F. Pilat, ‘IAEA Safeguards: The Role of Advanced Safeguards Technologies in Meeting Tomorrow's Challenges’, Paper presented at the JAEA-IAEA Workshop on Advanced Safeguards Technology for the Future Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Ibaraki, Japan, 13–16 November 2007, pp. 1–12.

On the capabilities of WAES for reinforcing nuclear safeguards, see International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report, 2007, pp. 101–117.

See International Atomic Energy Agency, Model Protocol Additional to the Agreement(s) Between the States(s) and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards, INFCIRC/540 (Corrected), 1997, Article 9. On the implementation of the Additional Protocol as a necessary component for monitoring suspect programs, see Garry Dillon, ‘Wide Area Environmental Sampling in Iran’, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, 13 November 2006.

See Irmgard Niemeyer and Sven Nussbaum, ‘Wide Area Monitoring for Nuclear Safeguards Applications’, Presentation at ESA-EUSC Workshop for Image Information Mining for Security and Intelligence, EUSC Torrejon Air Base, Madrid, 27–28 November 2006; Bhupendra Jasani, Irmgard Niemeyer, Sven Nussbaum, Bernd Richter, and Gotthard Stein (eds), International Safeguards and Satellite Inagery: Key Features of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Computer-Based Analysis (Berlin: Springer, 2009).

See, for example, Sven Nussbaum and Irmgard Niemeyer, ‘Automated Extraction of Change Information from Multispectral Satellite Imagery’, ESARDA Bulletin, No. 36 (July 2007), pp. 19–25; Bhupendra Jasani, Martino Pesaresi, Stefan Schneiderbauer, and Gunter Zeug (eds.), Remote Sensing from Space: Supporting International Peace and Security (Berlin: Springer, 2009).

See especially Pabian, ‘Evidence from Imagery’ (note 22).

See Admiral Richard C. Macke, speech given at ‘Arms Control and the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Defense Special Weapons Agency, 8–11 June 1998.