The Daily Background

Good news from Iraq. Well, not really from Iraq, but for Iraq. The United Nations Security Council has voted to make sure that Iraqi funds will cease being wasted on the totally useless search for weapons of mass destruction. The Associated Press reports:

The Security Council voted Friday to immediately close down the U.N. inspection bodies that played a pivotal role in monitoring Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs under Saddam Hussein.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 14-0, terminated the mandate of the U.N. bodies responsible for overseeing the dismantling of Hussein’s programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles.

Russia abstained, saying there was still “no clear answer to the existence of weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.
[…]
The resolution authorizes Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transfer all remaining unallocated funds in the oil-for-food account to Iraq’s Development Fund — about $60 million.

Washington had been trying to get the UN to end the search for WMD ever since the CIA made its own report concluding that there were none present in Iraq, after the invasion. Russia was dragging its heels, because it wanted the CIA to disclose its findings to the board responsible for overseeing the WMD hunt, but the White House refused to let the CIA share its secret findings (other than the obvious fact that there were no WMD in Iraq).

I wrote about this whole waste of Iraqi’s money fiasco earlier this month:

Shockingly enough, I actually agree partially with the Bush Administration on this one. Turns out this time, contrary to what you might think, Washington is calling for these pointless and wasteful inspections to end, and it’s Russia who is saying that they’ve got to continue- probably more to spite the US rather than because they actually believe there are still WMD hidden in Iraq.

Where I part ways with the Administration on this issue however is how to end the search. The White House seems to think that the way to wrap this whole thing up is to continue their cross-continental shouting match with Russia over the matter until they both get blue in the face.

I think the way to end the search would be to do what the inspectors actually say they need to finish the search– which is data that the US won’t hand over from inspections that the CIA finished back in 2004 and concluded that there were no weapons. The UN inspectors say that to declare “mission accomplished” with this matter, they need access to that data (or presumably they would have to get in land rovers and do the whole thing over again).

But for some reason the Administration is more interested in continuing their shouting match and accusing Russia of wanting to waste money (not an altogether unfair accusation in this case) than handing over the data and finish the matter. How stupid.

Well, the Security Council went over everybody’s heads I guess, and Russia deemed the matter not important enough to cast a veto upon. I’m glad to be proven wrong though, in that the remaining funding will be transfered to the Iraqis and the program will cease– the UN WMD team has worked in Iraq for more than years; before and after the invasion, and it’s shutting down about three years too late.

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