This #ThrowbackThursday, we revisited the exchanges that unfolded within the Security Council.
On 5 February 2003, Mr. Powell addressed a packed Council Chamber, laying out the case for the US invasion of Iraq the next month.
“Each assertion I make at the moment is backed up by stable sources,” he mentioned. “What we’re giving you might be information and conclusions. Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will cease at nothing till one thing stops him.”
Through the hour-long multimedia presentation, the Secretary of State narrated an in depth video and slideshow of satellite tv for pc photos, audio recordings of intercepted telephone calls and illustrations exhibiting, amongst different issues, vehicles and practice vehicles allegedly serving as cell manufacturing services for organic brokers in Iraq.
On the coronary heart of the US’s arguments was the declare that Mr. Hussein was decided to maintain his WMDs and to make extra, together with anthrax, a organic agent.
Elevating a tiny vial containing a beige powder-like substance, Mr. Powell defined: “Lower than a teaspoon of dry anthrax…about this quantity… shut down the USA Senate within the fall of 2001.”
“Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this lethal materials,” he went on to say, nonetheless dangling the vial with an unknown substance from his fingertips. “Iraqis have by no means accounted for all the organic weapons they admitted they’d. That is proof, not conjecture.”
The Council didn’t act on what was offered, and there was no decision authorizing army motion in Iraq.
Just a little greater than a month after that assembly, the US invaded the Center Jap nation.
UN Photograph/Mark Garten
US Secretary of State Colin Powell makes a presentation to the Safety Council in February 2003 regarding his nation’s proof of Iraq’s weapons programme. (file)
Two months later, the Safety Council-mandated UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Fee (UNMOVIC) offered its personal findings on Iraq in a report. The Fee didn’t discover proof of the continuation or resumption of programmes of weapons of mass destruction or important portions of proscribed gadgets.
Mr. Powell later said that he regretted these remarks.
Watch UN Video’s newest Tales from the UN Archive episode here.
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For a full abstract of the presentation in addition to Iraq’s assertion, go to UN protection here.
Compensate for UN Video’s playlist here and our accompanying #ThrowbackThursday sequence here. Keep tuned subsequent week for one more dive into the previous.
