Rolf Ekéus

Rolf Ekéus
Ekéus in 2006.
Personal details
Born	(1935-07-07) 7 July 1935 (age 81) Kristinehamn, Sweden

Carl Rolf Ekéus (born 7 July 1935 in Kristinehamn, Sweden) is a Swedish diplomat. From 1978 to 1983, he was a representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and he has worked on various other disarmament committees and commissions.

Between 1991 and 1997 he was director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, the United Nations disarmament observers in Iraq after the Gulf War. In late July 2002 he reportedly said in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that during his time in this position he attempted to resist attempts by the United States to use the Commission to perform espionage. His successor as director was Richard Butler. Iraq suspended the inspections in 1998 after claiming that it was a cover for espionage.

Journalist Andrew Cockburn reported in Britain's The First Post that Ekéus told him how former U.S. President Bill Clinton attempted to prevent Saddam Hussein's Iraq from being certified as free of weapons of mass destruction. Despite Ekéus' belief that Iraq was nearly certifiable as being free of such weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced that United Nations sanctions would not be lifted until such time as Hussein was no longer in power. The Iraqi government responded by ending its previous cooperation with the U.N. weapons inspectors.