UN closes Iraq WMD inspectorate

UN teams oversaw the destruction of much of Iraq's arsenal

The UN Security Council has voted to close down the weapons inspections programme set up to monitor former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) was set up in 1999 to check Iraq no longer had any weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Its inspectors permanently quit Iraq just before the US invasion in 2003.

The US cited the presence of WMDs in Iraq as justification for its invasion though no such weapons were ever found.

Following the invasion, the task of hunting for the weapons on the ground was taken over by a US-led body, the Iraq Survey Group.

Unmovic's monitoring role was largely reduced to studying weapons sites by satellite.

Neither body found the secret arsenal of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or long-range missiles that the US and UK had claimed Iraq possessed.

'Historic day'

Fourteen members in the 15-seat UN Security Council voted on Friday in favour of the resolution immediately terminating Unmovic's mandate.

Only Russia abstained from the vote.

Russia's envoy to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, complained that the resolution "does not provide for certification regarding the closing of the Iraqi file".

He said it was not apparent what had happened to several dozen Iraqi missiles that the UN inspectors had failed to destroy.

"The adoption of this resolution does not give any clear answers to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Mr Churkin said.

The US envoy to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, welcomed the Security Council vote.

"It's a historic day because it opens a new chapter with regard to Iraq and WMDs," he said.

Iraqi officials also welcomed the Security Council vote, which will enable some $60m (£30m; 44m euros) of unallocated funds in the UN's oil-for-food programme to be transferred to a development fund for Iraq.