United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War

After reviewing the document, UN weapons inspectors, the US, France, United Kingdom, and other countries thought that this declaration failed to account for all of Iraq's chemical and biological agents.

Blix has complained that, to this day, the United States and Britain have not presented him with the evidence that they claim to possess regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

He also stated that the Iraqis have in fact never received early warning of the inspectors visiting any sites (an allegation made by Powell during his presentation).

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei also said that he did not believe the Iraqis have a nuclear weapons program, unlike what Powell had claimed.

[8] The Institute for Policy Studies published a report[9] analyzing what it called the "arm-twisting offensive" by the United States government to get nations to support it.

The techniques used to pressure nations to support the United States included a variety of incentives including: In addition to the above tactics, the British newspaper The Observer published an investigative report revealing that the National Security Agency of the United States was conducting a secret surveillance operation directed at intercepting the telephone and email communications of several Security Council diplomats, both in their offices and in their homes.

This campaign, the result of a directive by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, was aimed primarily at the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan.

The investigative report cited an NSA memo which advised senior agency officials that it was "'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'.

"[10] The story was carried by the European and Australian press, and served as a further embarrassment to the Bush administration's efforts to rally support for an invasion of Iraq.

A member or Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Katharine Gun was charged under the Official Secrets Act 1989 in connection with the leaking of the memo.

In 2004 and 2005 Colin Powell acknowledged that much of his 2003 UN presentation was inaccurate: I looked at the four [sources] that [the CIA] gave me for [the mobile bio-labs], and they stood behind them, ... Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid.