Michal Lehuta
International University Bremen
17 March 2003
(2,882 words)


Today, word “Iraq” became a synonym for a suppressive authoritarian regime dangerous for the world peace as well as a possible victim of imperial superpower policy. The Iraqi issue is being discussed on highest levels among politicians, in schools and cafés among students and professionals, in front of TVs in households among ordinary people.. It’s linked more and more with more general questions as whether and when is the use of force legitimate, or the role of the United Nations as such. Question of Iraqi disarmament became indirectly a symbol of disunity of the United Nations; it’s associated with pacifist and anti-americanist movement. Therefore, it’s worth to have a closer look at this matter.
I guess that no one would argue that Iraqi regime, if it has weapons of mass destruction, poses no threat to its people or other states. This thread perception is reinforced by Iraq’s aggressive performance to its neighbors in two wars and by stubborn and noncompliant behavior to the following United Nations weapon inspections.
Therefore, the discussion over how to respond becomes increasingly crucial. The aspiration of solving this problem have had several United Nations Security Council resolutions, but the Resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, aimed at being the final attempt. How this decision came to being? What were the considered policy options? What does it say in concrete? I’d like to answer these questions in this essay.
At first, I will briefly introduce the problems in the disarmament process of 1990s. I’ll continue with description of change that war against terrorism brought to the treatment of non-standard political regimes. In the end, you can get acquainted with the Resolution 1441 a bit closely. My structure of the essay is mainly chronological, covering primarily the major developments in January - November 2002. Efforts to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) began in 1991 when it was ejected from Kuwait. Huge amount of problems linked with this fairly complicated goal have been constantly arising ever since. Iraq had to comply with economic sanctions, weapon inspections and non-flight zones (north of the 36th and south of the 32nd parallel).
In 1998, however, Iraq blocked the inspections and accused its leader, Scott Ritter, of spying for America.