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Inspected Sites in Iraq Have Been Looted, U.N. Says
About 90 Iraqi sites that were once monitored by U.N. weapons inspectors prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom have been looted since the war began, according to a report released Friday by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (see GSN, March 4). “The continuing examination of the [satellite] imagery has revealed that approximately 90 of the total 353 sites analyzed containing material of relevance have been stripped and/or razed,” chief U.N. weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said in the report. He also said that new construction has begun at 10 of the 90 sites, according to Reuters. The report adds that while Iraq provided inspectors with more than 90 unopened vials of biological agents following the 1991 Gulf War, 13 containers of “seed stock” had been used, some for weapons programs. “The issue remains as part of the residue of uncertainty with respect to the continued existence in Iraq of seed stocks that could possibly be used in the future for the production of biological weapons agents,” Perricos said in the report (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, March 5).
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