Free Republic

JID has learned that a report by the British-US led international team of experts who visited Ukraine last month to investigate the alleged sale of four Kolchuga radars systems to Iraq in the summer of 2000 will not openly accuse Ukraine of breaching UN sanctions. Instead, the report - to be issued this week - claims it was given 'insufficient evidence' to fully exonerate President Kuchma of breaching UN sanctions. The report concludes that the Ukrainian authorities have failed to persuade the team that Ukraine did not export Kolchuga systems to Iraq. Both the West and Ukraine agree that a...

On 20 September, US President George W Bush unveiled the new US national security strategy. It calls for a first strike against rogue states that possess weapons of mass destruction and strive to "acquire dangerous technologies". Three days later, Washington accused Ukraine of violating UN sanctions against Iraq by selling it four sophisticated Kolchuga radar system units. At the centre of the Iraqi arms scandal stand the hundreds of hours of tapes made illicitly in the office of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma by security guard Mykola Melnychenko. The portion of the tapes dealing with Iraq was only released in March...