December 19, 2002: UN Reviews Iraq Declaration; US Redacted 8,500 Pages

The non-permanent members of the UN Security Council receive the edited version of Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002). Almost 8,500 pages of the original 12,000 supplied by Baghdad are removed or blacked out, including sections on the designs for the production of nuclear weapons, plans for converting short-range missiles into long-range rockets, and a list of foreign countries and companies that provided Iraq with the materials used in Iraq’s former chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. [Newsday, 12/13/2002; Washington Post, 12/19/2002; Straits Times, 12/20/2002; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 12/22/2002; New York Times, 12/12/2003] The reason offered by UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix for removing the names of the suppliers is that if he “were to give the names publicly, then they would never get another foreign supplier to give them any information.” [New York Times, 12/12/2003] Some of the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council are upset by the extensive editing of the documents. “How are we to judge this on such short notice, and with so many black lines running through it?” asks one annoyed envoy. [Straits Times, 12/20/2002]