UNSCRs 686, 687 and others require Saddam Hussein to release immediately any Gulf War prisoners and to cooperate in accounting for missing and dead Kuwaitis and others from the Gulf War. Saddam has continued to violate these resolutions.

• Saddam Hussein has failed to return, or account for, a large number of Kuwaiti citizens and citizens of other countries who were detained during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and continues to refuse to cooperate with the Tripartite Commission to resolve the cases.

• Of 609 cases of missing Gulf War POWs/MIAs representing 14 nationalities - including one American pilot - under review by the Tripartite Commission on Gulf War Missing, only 4 have been resolved. Because of continued Iraqi obfuscation and concealment, very few cases have been resolved since the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein denies having any knowledge of the others and claims that any relevant records were lost in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

• In a December 2001 report to the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary-General criticized the Iraqi Government's refusal to cooperate with the U.N. on the issue of the missing POWs/MIAs citizens. Iran reports that the Iraqi Government still has not accounted for 5,000 Iranian POW's missing since the Iran-Iraq War.

• "Secretary General reiterates little progress on the issue of repatriation or return of all Kuwaiti and third country nationals or their remains, as Iraq refused to cooperate with the Tripartite Commission."

• In August 2001, Amnesty International reported that Saddam Hussein has the world's worst record for numbers of persons who have disappeared and remain unaccounted for.

• The Iraqi Government continued to ignore the more than 16,000 cases conveyed to it in 1994 and 1995 by the UN, as well as requests from the Governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to account for the whereabouts of those who had disappeared during Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait, and from Iran regarding the whereabouts of prisoners of war that Iraq captured in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

• "Security Council regrets that no progress made on return of Kuwaiti national archives, reiterate need for Iraq to immediately fulfill all requirements under the relevant resolutions, including repatriation or return of all Kuwaiti and third country nationals or their remains."

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