Augusto Santos Silva continua:

Este equilíbrio traduz-se hoje pela exigência da continuação das inspecções e da pressão política e militar sobre o Iraque, e, sobretudo, por fazer depender uma qualquer intervenção da verificação concludente da existência e potencial uso de armas de destruição maciça e de real ameaça à paz, verificação feita no quadro das Nações Unidas.

Mas a verdade é que deve ser o Iraque a demonstrar que destruiu as armas de destruição em massa. Isso torna-se mais claro quando se lê a carta que o presidente da UNSCOM escreveu em Dezembro de 1998 ao Secretário Geral das Nações Unidas. Um pequeno extracto:

From the inception of the Commission's work in Iraq, in 1991, Iraq's cooperation has been limited. Iraq acknowledges that, in that year, it decided to limit disclosure for the Purpose of retaining certain prohibited weapons capabilities. Three main Iraqi policies ensued:

(a) its disclosure statements have never been complete;

(b) contrary to the requirement that destruction of prohibited capabilities be conducted under international supervision, Iraq undertook extensive, unilateral, secret destruction: and

(c) it also pursued a practice of concealment of proscribed items, including weapons.

This situation, created by Iraq, in particular through the inadequacy of its disclosures, has meant that the Commission has been obliged to undertake a kind and degree of forensic work which was never intended to be the case, The work of the verification of Iraq's disc1osure should have been far easier and been able to be undertaken far more quickly than has proven to be the case.

In addition, these circumstances have meant that, in spite of the years that have passed and the extensive work that has been undertaken, it has not been possible to verify Iraq's claims with respect to the nature and magnitude of its proscribed weapons programme and their current disposition.