PRAGUE
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director
general Mohamed ElBaradei, in a letter delivered on
Monday to the United Nations Security Council, expressed
concern at what he called the "widespread and apparently
systematic dismantlement" of sites previously relevant
to Iraq's nuclear program, adding that missing material
"may be of proliferation significance".
IAEA monitors
left Iraq shortly before the start of the US-led
war in March 2003 and were subsequently barred by the
United States from returning. Based on satellite photographs,
the IAEA now says entire buildings related to Iraq's
nuclear program prior to the 1991 Gulf War have been
dismantled - and the high-precision equipment stored
inside has vanished.
IAEA spokeswoman
Melissa Fleming said the letter was the latest in a series
of quarterly reports ElBaradei is required to deliver to
the Security Council. IAEA reports issued since the war
have repeatedly expressed concerns about the security of
Iraq's nuclear sites and materials. This time, Fleming
said, ElBaradei sought to stress that the problem has
broadened beyond a few limited sites.
"What has
caught everybody's attention is his report that
satellite imagery that we've been monitoring - because
we can't be on the ground [in Iraq] - has shown a
widespread and systematic dismantlement of sites that
previously were relevant to Iraq's nuclear program and
sites that were subject to IAEA inspections," Fleming
said. "Contained in these buildings are the things that
we're worried about. There was equipment of a 'dual-use'
nature - that is, they could be used in industry, but as
well they could, if they fell into the wrong hands, be
used in a nuclear-weapons program."
The development is likely to embarrass further the US
and British governments, which justified the war in
Iraq with the threat of weapons of mass
destruction, insisting that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear-bomb
program.
Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans
Blix described the loss of control of Iraq's nuclear
sites by the US as "scandalous". His comments were
echoed by former senior US weapons inspector David Kay.
Blix said, "I think what is somewhat scandalous is that
it's been sitting there under an occupation. It was
sitting there controlled when the inspections were
there. But when the occupation comes in, it disappears
..."
Similarly, Kay commented, "Exporters could
export almost all of this equipment today legally, for
example to Iran, without any control. But ... that's not
an excuse for what's happened to it. Losing control of
it really is inexcusable."
Some
relatively harmless military goods that disappeared from
Iraq after the 2003 invasion have since been found
in Europe and in the Middle East. By contrast, the IAEA
has been unable to locate dual-use equipment and
materials such as milling and turning machines and electron-beam
welders. Material such as high-strength aluminum has
also vanished from open storage areas.
These
items - which were monitored by the IAEA before the war
- could be sold on the black market to a government or
terrorist group seeking to build nuclear weapons or
radioactive "dirty bombs".
John Eldridge, editor
of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence, said
it is possible to speculate that the equipment listed in
the latest IAEA report was simply looted the way many
supplies and raw materials were stolen in the chaos and
lawlessness that followed the invasion. But he said
there is another, more sinister, possibility as well.
"The suspicious view, clearly, is that when you
put these pieces of equipment together in the same list,
that is suspicious," Eldridge said. "You have to
remember that the terrorist networks have a considerable
degree of technical expertise these days, and they're
able to deduce what's worth taking and keeping, and
what's worth ditching. There's a lot of collusion. It's
almost a commercial network between these terrorist
organizations. And quite often they're completely
different or have almost opposing ideological
viewpoints. But they are nevertheless sometimes in
support against a common enemy - normally the United
States, sadly - and therefore there's a commercial
benefit in getting hold of this stuff, and keeping it,
to sell it on if somebody actually wants to make
something nefarious."
In his letter, ElBaradei
noted that Iraq is still obligated to inform the IAEA
about any changes at those sites previously monitored by
the agency. But since March 2003, the agency has
received no such notifications - either from the US-led
occupation authorities, who administered Iraq until June
2004, or the interim Iraqi government that followed.
There has been no official response from
Washington to the latest IAEA report. But Iraq's science
and technology minister, Rashad Amr Mandan, told Reuters
that nothing had gone missing since the initial looting
that followed the US invasion. He invited the IAEA to
come to Iraq to conduct inspections.
Fleming
said the IAEA and the UN's Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) - tasked with overseeing
the elimination of any banned Iraqi weapons programs and
which has also been barred from Iraq - are both ready to
resume their work in the country.
"We've said
several times that we remain ready to go back to Iraq
and to resume our monitoring there. It is a decision
that is subject to the Security Council," Fleming said.
"And the Security Council has said in its resolution
that it adopted in June of this year that it plans to
revisit the mandates of the IAEA and UNMOVIC, so we've
just again expressed our readiness to go back."
Fleming also said the interim Iraqi government
has sought the agency's assistance in selling remaining
nuclear materials from its Tuwaitha nuclear plant and
dismantling and decontaminating other such sites.
A new report last week from the chief US
weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, said Saddam
stopped trying to build weapons of mass destruction in
1991 after the arrival of UN inspection teams. The report
found that Iraq did not possess chemical or biological
weapons at the time of the US-led invasion in March 2003
and was not trying to reconstitute its nuclear program.
Both US President George W Bush and his
presidential opponent, Senator John Kerry, have cited
nuclear proliferation as a major global concern.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.
