arranged under the Trilateral Agreement, concluded that, on the one hand, the agreement "was a significant achievement" in that it "provided evidence of Soviet non-compliance from 1975 to 1991"; on the other hand, Kelly noted that the Trilateral Agreement "failed dramatically" because Russia did not "acknowledge and fully account for either the former Soviet programme or the biological weapons activities that it had inherited and continued to engage in". Milton Leitenberg and Raymond Zilinskas, authors of the 2012 book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History, assert that Russia may still continue parts of the Soviet biological weapons program today. Similarly, as of 2021, the U.S. Department of State "assesses that the Russian Federation (Russia) maintains an offensive [biological weapons] program and is in violation of its obligation under Articles I and II of the BWC. The issue of compliance by Russia with the BWC has been of concern for many years". Iraq Starting around 1985 under Saddam Hussein's leadership, Iraq weaponized anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and other agents, and created delivery vehicles, including bombs, missile warheads, aerosol generators, and spray systems. Thereby, Iraq breached the provisions of the BWC, which it had signed in 1972, although it only ratified the Convention in 1991 as a condition of the cease-fire agreement that ended the 1991 Gulf War. The Iraqi biological weapons program—along with its chemical weapons program—was uncovered after the Gulf War through the investigations of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), which was responsible for disarmament in post-war Iraq. Iraq deliberately obstructed, delayed, and deceived the UNSCOM investigations and only admitted to having operated an offensive biological weapons program under significant pressure in 1995. While Iraq maintained that it ended its biological weapons program in 1991, many analysts believe that the country violated its BWC obligations by continuing the program until at least 1996. Other accusations of non-compliance In April 1997, Cuba invoked the provisions of Article V to request a formal consultative meeting to consider its allegations that the United States introduced the crop-eating insect Thrips palmi to Cuba via crop-spraying planes in October 1996. Cuba and the United States presented evidence for their diverging views on the incident in a formal consultation in August 1997. Having reviewed the evidence, twelve States Parties submitted reports, of which nine concluded that the evidence did not support the Cuban allegations, and two (China and Vietnam) maintained it was inconclusive. At