Posted on 12/15/2002 3:41:40 AM PST by Tripleplay
Edited on 12/15/2002 3:52:13 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON -- Disarmament by weapons inspectors was not going well.
The defeated nation had agreed to disarmament verified by the victors, even though it had not been occupied or its capital captured. Especially destructive weapons were proscribed. But the nation had experience evading compulsory disarmament. It mounted guileful resistance to inspectors, and citizens tempted to be helpful were intimidated. Plant inspections were denounced as commercial espionage, and impeded. The resisting government insisted that potential "dual use" technologies, and materials that could be precursor elements for proscribed weapons, were merely for civilian uses. (An explosion that killed 11 in a chemical factory revealed the continuing production of chemical weapons.) There were endless controversies about what war materials had existed at the time of the armistice. (Six hundred 105-millimeter gun barrels were found behind a factory's secret walls.) The government's liaison officers gave advance warnings to people at sites to be inspected. Arms were secretly shuffled from one depot to another.
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