Iraqi missile motors and other weapons-related equipment have been smuggled to Europe for recycling in scrapyards after they were left unguarded following the US invasion last year, UN inspectors said in a report released on Monday.
Several sites in Iraq that once contained equipment that could have been used for biological or chemical weapons have been emptied and dismantled since May last year, according to the report to the UN Security Council.
It made clear that the US-led occupation force had not protected sites or items that inspectors tagged before the war because of their potential use in weapons of mass destruction.
"A number of sites which contained dual-use equipment that was previously monitored by UN inspectors has been systematically taken apart," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the inspectors. "The question this raises is what happened to equipment known to have been there."
The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), sidelined by the US since the invasion of Iraq, did not say all the disappeared materials were banned weapons.
But it showed before-and-after satellite pictures of a denuded missile-related site, the Shumokh stores, northwest of Baghdad, and photos of a missile engine discovered in a scrapyard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
The report said an engine of SA-2 surface-to-air missiles also used by Iraq for its Al Samoud 2 missile program was found in Rotterdam. The engine had been tagged by the United Nations Special Commission in 1996.
Last year, UNMOVIC declared the Al Samoud 2 banned as it had a range of more than 150km, the limit set by the Security Council. The inspectors destroyed two-thirds of Iraq's Al Samoud missiles before they were withdrawn from Iraq on the eve of the Iraq war, but some 25 of the missiles remained in mid-March last year.
"The existence of missile engines originating in Iraq among scrap in Europe may affect the accounting of proscribed engines known to have been in Iraq's possession," UNMOVIC said.
The report said the UN inspectors also found papers showing illegal contracts by Iraq for a missile guidance system, laser-ring gyroscopes and a variety of production and testing equipment not previously disclosed.
UNMOVIC also complained it had no access to the reports of the US-organized Iraq Survey Group (ISG) which continues to search for unconventional arms in Iraq.
It said that testimony the ISG presented to the US Senate on unmanned aerial-vehicles programs and long-range missiles was not detailed enough for the commission's experts to determine whether the data had been known to UNMOVIC.
UNMOVIC said it was trying to determine to what extent the contracts had been fulfilled and items delivered to Iraq.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the