Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Sep 2003

Vol. 571 No. 1

Written Answers. - Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Seán Crowe

Question:

408 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the accuracy of claims made in a speech to Dáil Éireann on 20 March 2003 regarding the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the former Iraqi Government; the source of this information; and if the Government still accepts this information to be accurate. [20338/03]

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Cowen)

The Government based its approach to this issue on Security Council resolutions going back to 1991, in which the Security Council stated that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Ireland, and every member of the UN, is bound to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.

As late as November 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441 which recognised the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles posed to international peace and security.

At the time the Security Council Resolution 1441 was adopted, the Security Council was acting in the belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This belief was widely shared in the international community. The General Affairs Council of the EU at its meeting of 18-19 November 2002 could not have been more clear in stating its belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was despite the fact that there was disagreement among many member states about how to deal with the situation.

In his report of 6 March to the Security Council, Dr. Blix, head of UNMOVIC, the arms inspection team mandated to investigate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, said that many questions relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction remained unanswered.

In his latest interview, Dr. Blix voiced the belief that Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction years ago. However, whether or not these weapons existed at the time, Iraq was still in material breach of its disarmament obligations through its failure to co-operate fully with the arms inspectors in carrying out their mandate of verifying that Iraq no longer held weapons of mass destruction.

Questions Nos. 409 and 410 answered with Question No. 407.