Nikita Smidovich has had a long and distinguished career contributing to global chemical and biological warfare disarmament. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO-University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1975 and joined the USSR Ministry for Foreign Affairs where he stayed until 1991. For the last two years of this time (1989-1991), he was Head of the Division of Chemical and Biological Weapons Disarmament Issues. Smidovich was one of the first people recruited into UNSCOM in 1991, serving as UNSCOM’s Deputy Director for Operations and Coordinator for Missile and Biological Weapons Issues. He later served as UNMOVIC’s Chief of Training, and he has held a range of positions at the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, including Senior Political Officer dealing with non-state actors and WMD proliferation (UNSCR 1540) and the UN Secretary-General Mechanism for investigation of alleged use of chemical and biological weapons.

In this interview with Henrietta Wilson, a researcher at SOAS University of London, Smidovich details the lessons that the UNSCOM experience can teach those who undertake weapons of mass destruction verification efforts today.

Henrietta Wilson: How did you first become involved in UNSCOM?

Nikita Smidovich: Before UNSCOM was established in April 1991, I was a member of the Soviet delegations to the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in Geneva, which is where Ambassador Rolf Ekéus and I first got to know each other. Once Ekéus was appointed as the UNSCOM Executive Chair, he asked me to join UNSCOM, and I arrived in New York in June 1991. Ambassador Ekéus initially tasked me with drafting the provisions of the UNSCOM Long-term Monitoring Plan which dealt with chemical weapons and inspection activities.

It now seems that I am the only person to be part of the Iraq disarmament and verification processes right the way through; I was at UNSCOM from the very beginning and worked continuously there until it ended. I then stayed on at UNMOVIC, and was the last person to leave UNMOVIC.

Henrietta Wilson: As well as your involvement in UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, you have a long-standing contribution to other international efforts in chemical and biological non-proliferation and disarmament. What are your perceptions on how UNSCOM and UNMOVIC differed from typical multilateral weapons of mass destruction (WMD) disarmament regimes?

Nikita Smidovich: UNSCOM and UNMOVIC provide a rare experience of an international WMD verification regime not restricted by a negotiated treaty. This regime was imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council as part of the ceasefire conditions that ended the first Gulf War, and Iraq did not have a say about what needed to be done to verify its compliance with the terms of the UNSC resolutions. This does not happen in verification regimes which arise from a negotiated arrangement, like those under international WMD treaties and conventions.

In my view, one major and often overlooked difference between UNSCOM/UNMOVIC and other disarmament and verification regimes is their requirements for declarations about past prohibited activities. At the time UNSCOM started, it was thought essential that verification efforts include extensive disclosures about past activities. However, the CWC negotiations were already finding it difficult and painful to reach agreement on this, as delegations to the negotiations did not want a system which, if approved, would compel their countries to make revelations about former chemical weapons (CW)-related activities. More than this, it was doubted whether including “full” past activities declarations would even be a useful measure, as they could never be completely and reliably verified, and which could then cause major problems to implementation assessments.

As a result, with respect to “past activities”, the CWC only includes legal obligations for member states to declare the mere existence of former chemical weapons production facilities, not their past activities or other aspects of former CW programs. By contrast, under the terms of UNSC resolutions, Iraq was obliged to make a “full final and complete disclosure” of all aspects of its prohibited programs and accept verification of such declarations through inspections and information collection from other sources, together with long-term monitoring. It turned out to be very challenging to achieve satisfactory results from such investigations.

UNSCOM and UNMOVIC also differ from typical multilateral verification in that they only dealt with one country—Iraq—so they could focus their resources on a limited area. By contrast, other regimes monitor multiple countries, and as a result their verification and monitoring activities are more diffuse.

Henrietta Wilson: Given these differences, can UNSCOM and UNMOVIC inform the development of other international disarmament and verification efforts, now and in the future?

Nikita Smidovich: Yes. By comparing UNSCOM and UNMOVIC’s experiences with those of other arms control/disarmament regimes, it is possible to identify useful guidelines for designing verification activities. First, it should be clearly understood that verification activities can achieve different objectives, and, in designing or adjusting verification regimes, you should first think about its purpose—what you expect from it and which tools can best achieve the desired objectives.

There are a number of different options. For example, you might want a verification system to be able to definitively uncover any and all non-compliance. This would require high levels of intrusion. Verification systems with different aims would not require extensive intrusiveness. For example, you might want a verification regime to limit itself to a “fact-finding” exercise, rather than arrive at a compliance judgement. Or perhaps you want a verification system which more simply exerts pressure on states to honor their wider agreements, which would not require extensive intrusiveness. Another alternative is a verification system which basically amounts to a “confidence building measure,” an information exchange with some limited verification of the accuracy of the information provided. This approach (which is similar to the original IAEA safeguards and current status of BWC) can generate good feeling between member states, but no-one really trusts that it would detect non-compliance. As well as the overall purpose and inspector access levels, you also need to think about conditions for participation in verification regimes—considering, for example, whether participation could be linked to some sort of favor or benefit, such as lifting potential sanctions.

Relatedly, there are fundamental questions about the levels of access which are acceptable to contributing states and necessary to achieve different disarmament verification objectives. Such questions include: What access would a future regime give to international inspectors? Would it be any place, any time? Short notice or not? And what additional data would inspectors have access to? UNSCOM had direct access to people of interest, whereas other regimes do not, including that administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for the CWC. Would inspectors have access to documents, and if so, which documents? UNSCOM theoretically had access to all documentation—although Iraq attempted to hide much of this—but no other convention has encoded this right. What information from open sources and social media could be used by a verification regime, and how could this be incorporated within wider monitoring arrangements? The experiences from UNSCOM and UNMOVIC could provide many helpful tips for the best course of action in finding answers to these questions.

The UNSCOM/UNMOVIC experience definitely proves that the most essential part of designing a verification system is to consider what you really and honestly want it to achieve.

Weapons expert Nikita Smidovich of Russia (left) shakes hands with Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid on February 1, 1998 at a five-day forum in Baghdad to assess the UN’s elimination of banned Iraqi warheads since the 1991 Gulf War.

Henrietta Wilson: How important are specific technologies and tools to disarmament verification?

Nikita Smidovich: New technologies have dramatically enhanced possibilities for verification. There now are many more powerful technological tools that could be used for verification purposes than were available to UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, e.g. there are better forensics, sampling methods, sensor technologies, widely accessible overhead imagery, social media, and these all have potential applications to verification activities. For example, current surveillance technologies could possibly replace some of the functions of on-site inspections—after all, cameras are now everywhere, and there is a lot of information on past and on-going activities available on the internet.

Another lesson from UNSCOM is that it is much better to have multiple inspection tools than to rely on just one or two, even the most powerful ones. The most advanced negotiated WMD agreement to date is the CWC, but it has not proved possible to implement its verification provisions fully. During the CWC negotiations, a balance was achieved in the treaty text between relatively weak routine inspections, and the threat of strong challenge inspections as a “linchpin” which could be invoked when necessary. However, it is now clear that the challenge inspection tool is not working; states parties are not convinced that it is worth invoking a challenge inspection even under dire circumstances.

Henrietta Wilson: Finally, what do you think are the most important lessons we should take from UNSCOM and UNMOVIC?

Nikita Smidovich: UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were created and solidified in a particular environment. People should not feel they have to stick rigidly to the model, but instead should think of them as unique practical test cases and use them to evaluate the appropriateness and validity of various inspection principles and tools.

Emerging problems within current treaty regimes cannot be easily fixed within the regimes themselves, as doing so requires the agreement of all member states, and experience has shown that countries do not readily accept intrusive verification regimes and procedures. It was lucky that the international community could achieve the CWC, the last major multilateral WMD treaty to enter into force with strong verification provisions. This was partly made possible by the fact that the relevant industry accepted the treaty, which was because they felt some “historical guilt” about industry involvement with chemical weapons. This factor was not the case for the Biological Weapons Convention; industry did not support the development of verification for the convention and has never accepted proposals for intrusive inspections, especially for routine on-going monitoring.

Overall, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were successful in providing many useful lessons. Most important and revealing is the fact that their inspection efforts uncovered Iraq’s thoroughly concealed WMD programs and activities, providing a real-world example that international WMD verification is doable. UNSCOM/UNMOVIC also demonstrated creative and productive ways of putting available and emerging technologies to very good use. For example, their inspectors pioneered uses of overhead imagery, and of data collection through interviews and document/computer searches. UNSCOM/UNMOVIC inspectors also developed specific inspector skills for effective on-site inspections.

Specialized and dedicated inspector training is crucial to achieving inspection objectives. Most failures of inspection agencies can be linked to a lack of appropriate inspector skills, not deficiencies in their scientific or subject-matter specialism or in their education, background or experience. Unfortunately, there is no proper international WMD inspectors’ school today. I strongly believe that efforts should be made to set up and sustain activities to train future personnel to conduct effective international WMD investigations.

UNSCOM and UNMOVIC convincingly demonstrated that it is possible to set up an inspection regime that will fulfil its function—and from that point of view, they were remarkably successful. Before UNSCOM, there were strong doubts that intrusive international inspections could work, and this argument was used against concluding WMD-related agreements. UNSCOM and UNMOVIC illustrate that a thoughtfully and creatively designed verification regime, comprehensively implemented through inspections, can work in uncovering illicit and undeclared WMD activities, even in an adversarial environment.