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HANS VON SPONECK: Well, let me first say, in addition to my role as the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Oil for Food Program, I was also the designated official for security of United Nations staff in Iraq, and in that context, of course, we paid attention to what was happening in the no-fly zones. And what was quite noticeable is that after Operation Desert Fox of December 1998, there was a very distinct increase in the number of incidents perpetrated by the U.S. and U.K. air forces involving civilian property, involving civilians, and we ascribed that at the time as a result of instructions given by the two governments in Washington and London to allow pilots to operate under what is known as “enlarged rules of engagement,” giving pilots more freedom to decide whether to attack an installation or whether to engage in other destabilization attempts in the two no-fly zones, and, by the way, at times also straying over into the fly zone. The fly zone was not entirely without incidents during the time since Operation Desert Fox in 1998.
And as a result of this development, we in Baghdad decided very quickly that we would begin to record these incidents, not as they affected the military -- that wasn't our business -- but as they affected the security of United Nations staff, and, of course, the civilian population in Iraq. And that meant that we started to issue air strike reports where we every three months issued such a report for the consumption of the U.N. Security Council, for the Office of the Secretary General and other officials at the U.N. in New York, and we made sure at the time to be discreet about this, not to give it to the press, but to give it to those who had something to do with these incidents. I, myself, would, when I visited New York, see the U.S. Ambassador, see the British Ambassador and hand to them these copies. And I remember on one occasion, I told both of them that, when I gave them a report with pictures, I said, your pilots see it from up there, 10,000 meters above, and this is how we see it on the ground, and it was striking to see the reaction, which was extremely angry and negative. I was told by a British official that all we were doing, we’re putting the imprint of legality, of legitimization on Iraqi propaganda, which was not at all the case.
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HANS VON SPONECK: Indeed. When I went there, I handed copies to Ambassador Burley at the time. He will remember, and I also gave the reports to the British mission, to Ambassador Eldon, who was the number two ambassador to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was particularly agitated over the fact that I was instrumental in having these documents prepared by my security office in Baghdad.
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HANS VON SPONECK: No, his deputy, who had been Deputy Manager, which he would always tell you with great pride, of the 1991 Gulf War arrangements, so it led to, in fact, a request to the Secretary General that I be removed because of -- one of the main reasons because I was issuing these reports, which the United Nations found quite useful, and I was encouraged to continue to write them.
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HANS VON SPONECK: Well, that, Amy, that I'm afraid is correct. It's one -- it's not the only, but it was one of the reasons why the two governments felt that I was unsuitable for that position in Iraq. And all I was doing as a civil servant was to relay the cold-blooded facts that arose as a result of these incursions, these illegal incursions, after all, and well, I continued with the full support of the U.N. Secretariat.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another U.N. official who was forced out. The Associated Press reporting John Bolton helped force out a top official at the U.N. ahead of the Iraq invasion because he feared the official could interfere with the Bush administration’s war plans. According to the Associated Press, “Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to personally demand that Jose Bustani resign his post as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. At the time, Bustani was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Iraq. If the inspectors had been sent then, they would have uncovered that there were no chemical weapons, a discovery that would undermine the Bush administration’s rationale for war.” Did you know about this at the time?
HANS VON SPONECK: Actually, Mr. Bustani is heading, or headed an organization that's not part of the U.N. system. That is, it's totally outside the gamut of the United Nations. But I think what agitated the U.S. and maybe John Bolton was the fact that he tried at the time to bring Iraq into signing the Chemical Weapons Prohibition Act. And I think that increased -- that led to the wrath of Washington and maybe contributed to the decision to remove this senior official of an important institution.
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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/06/1328247
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