| Sumario: | Part of a special section on the implications of the UN's Iraqi experience for biological arms control. The writer reviews the experience of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) with remote video monitoring of high-risk biological facilities in Iraq. He notes that under the ongoing monitoring and verification program mandated by Security Council Resolution 715, UNSCOM has installed over a hundred remote-controlled video cameras at Iraqi “dual-capable” facilities—facilities with legitimate commercial applications that could be misused to produce nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. He discusses the strengths and weaknesses of this approach and examines its relevance to a negotiated regime to strengthen compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention and concludes with a consideration of trade-offs in applying remote monitoring.
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