The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
is a formal body of the United Nations created in 1999 as a replacement for the
UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) which preceded UNMOVIC. The mission of
both UNSCOM and UNMOVIC has been to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass
destruction; including chemical, biological weapons, and missiles with a range
of more than 150 km. UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were further charged with devising
and operating the current Iraqi weapons inspection program. The specific
mandates for UNSCOM and UNMOVIC are contained in a series of 16 UN Security
Council resolutions over the past 10 years.
UNMOVIC inspectors are the guys on the ground in Baghdad . If you are
looking at headlines lately, they're the folks in the pictures holding empty gas
shells, and pointing at missiles that violate the 150 km requirement and are thus
expressly proscribed for ownership by Iraq. I'm thinking that they've got
one of the hardest jobs on earth right now.
The UN Secretary General appointed Dr. Hans Blix of Sweden to be the Commission’s Executive
Chairman. As Chairman, Blix reports directly to
the UN Security Council on the current status and efficacy of the inspection
regime in Iraq. The transcript of Dr. Blix's most recent report can be
found in Hans Blix's report to the U.N. Security Council on February 14, 2003.
======================&======================
Reference materials courtesy United Nations Website: http://www.un.org/