United Nations Special Commission

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The United Nations Special Commission or English United Nations Special Commission ( UNSCOM ) was after the second Gulf War by Resolution 687 of the UN Security Council adopted on April 3 1,991th The aim was to monitor the destruction of all chemical and biological weapons in Iraq , as well as all missiles with a range of more than 150 km. The commission was headed from 1991 to 1997 by Rolf Ekéus , his successor was Richard Butler .

UNSCOM was active in Iraq until 1998, but even after seven years of petty checks, it was unable to write a final report that would have been a prerequisite for an end to the sanctions. Both the Iraqis and the French Foreign Ministry accused UNSCOM and its chairman Richard Butler of deliberate delaying tactics. Butler, in turn, at the urging of the US, finally withdrew UNSCOM and, for his part, accused Iraq of a lack of cooperation.

The career of US-American UNSCOM officer Scott Ritter is noteworthy , who initially rejected Iraqi allegations that he was working for the CIA under the guise of UNSCOM and resigned from his post due to lack of pressure from the UN on Iraq. He later made a name for himself as an early and harsh critic of the justification of the Iraq war by the Bush administration's alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction.

German contingent for UNSCOM

German helicopter in Iraq 1991

From August 1991 to September 30, 1996, the Bundeswehr also participated in the UN mission. The task of the contingent was to support the UN mission through transport assistance as well as medical evacuation and air transport for the UNSCOM inspectors.

The staff included 30 army soldiers and 7 soldiers from the air force . The army contingent was stationed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and was withdrawn on August 28, 1996. The Air Force contingent was based in Bahrain until September 30, 1996 .

The equipment included a Transall C-160 transport aircraft of the Luftwaffe, which made 4,452 flights with 4,071 flight hours. In addition, 2 to 3 medium-sized Sikorsky CH-53 transport helicopters of the Army were in service with 805 flights and 3,982 flight hours in the UN.

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