Chemical Weapons and the Iraqi Crisis Harald Müller, Politique étrangère, 2/2004  (Summer 2004)

AbstractIraq was, at the end of the 1980’s, the world’s third “chemical power” ranking behind the United States and the Soviet Union. During that time, the manner in which this power was turned against Iran or against the Kurdish population of Iraq did not provoke any strong reaction on the part of the international community, while the majority of the iraqi arsenal was actually developed thanks to foreign companies, and in particular thanks to european ones. The situation changed in 1991 as a result of the Gulf war, after which the United Nations ask Baghdad to shed light on its programs of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), with UNSCOM embarking on its missions of inspection. While the results of these missions are not negligible, many questions remained unanswered, in particular with regard to Iraq’s chemical weapons. UNMOVIC resumed its inspections at the end of 2002, and obtained some significant results within a few months; however, the war, begun in March, interrupted its work, thus bringing to a halt a promising dynamic made up of a combination of military pressure with on the spot inspections.Harald Müller is