WMD inspectors were not expelled from Iraq

1998 President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, after having ceased to comply with UN weapons inspectors on October 31, sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan offering to facilitate the inspections. On December 16, Australian Richard Butler, head of the UN weapons inspection team (UNSCOM), withdrew the team from Iraq, to protect his staff from the air strikes that the US and UK governments were threatening.

From that day on, it became de rigeur for media and politicians to falsely assert that Iraq “expelled the weapons inspectors”, an important falsehood as it is still used as a main pretext for the illegally invasion of the country – the other main one, of course, being the similarly egregious WMDs argument ...

Tagged: un, usa, united+nations, iraq, disinfo, disinformation