Iraq forced to pay $10 billion per year for WMD search

Iraq has been forced to pay US$10 billion a year to the US-led team searching for weapon's of mass destruction, even after it emerged that such stockpiles did not exist, a US Congressional report has found.

The Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security report by the Congressional Report Service notes that The formal US-led WMD search ended December 2004 but the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) is still formally active.

A draft resolution was only circulated this month to end UNMOVIC's work, which costs US $10 billion per year drawn from Iraqi revenues.

The report notes that The primary theme in the Bush Administration’s public case for the need to confront Iraq was that Iraq posted a “grave and gathering” threat that should be blunted before the threat became urgent.