Suchergebnisse

This article appeared in Strategic Insights, Volume II, Issue 5 (May 2003) ; After the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein conducted a systematic concealment operation to disrupt the mission of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), whose mandate was to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The second team of inspectors, reconstituted as the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) had the formidable task of uncovering the work of Iraq's concealment apparatus: a network of intelligence agencies, military units and government ministries assigned to procure, conceal and defend Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is important now to have a full understanding of this concealment apparatus, as this can help uncover where Iraq's weapons of destruction could have been hidden. At this juncture, the U.S. forces deployed in Iraq have to unravel the activities of a network that once consisted of thousands of people from Iraq's General Intelligence, Special Security Organization, Military Industry Commission and the Special Republican Guards.

Strategic Insights are authored monthly by analysts with the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC). The CCC is the research arm of the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. ; Do Iraqis believe that democracy can take root in their country? Interviews that I have conducted with recent Iraqi emigres shed light on the Iraqi people's perceptions of a post-Saddam future. Several compelling points emerged from these conversations.