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Iraqi official: UN can send nuclear inspectors any time
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-13 11:00
An Iraqi official sought to play down a UN nuclear watchdog's worries about
equipment missing from the country's nuclear facilities, saying the agency could
send inspectors to Iraq whenever it wants.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a letter to
the UN Security Council Monday that he was concerned about the disappearance of
precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons from Iraq's
nuclear facilities.
Iraqi Interim Technology Minister Rashad Omar told the British Broadcasting
Corporation that the missing equipment was taken by looters shortly after the
US-led invasion and the sites were then quickly secured.
Omar said Iraq would fulfil its responsibilities to the IAEA and inform it if
any nuclear equipment is moved, the BBC said. He invited the agency to visit
Iraq any time and promised free access for inspectors, the broadcaster reported.
IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei had said the equipment's
disappearance "may be of proliferation significance".
IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the war began in March 2003. US
President George W Bush's administration then barred UN weapons inspectors from
returning, deploying US teams in an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction.
Nonetheless, IAEA teams were allowed into Iraq in June 2003 to investigate
reports of widespread looting of storage rooms at the main nuclear complex at
Tuwaitha, and in August to take inventory of "several tons" of natural uranium
in storage near Tuwaitha.
ElBaradei said a review of satellite photos showed "widespread and apparently
systematic dismantlement" at some nuclear sites and even the dismantling of
entire buildings that had held precision equipment.
Omar said he did not know of any buildings being demolished at Tuwaitha,
Iraq's main nuclear site. Eight buildings there are being renovated to turn the
facility into a science and technology park for peaceful research, he said.
"The location was looted - the buildings, the equipment - immediately after
the collapse of the regime," he said. "Then afterwards it came under the control
of the coalition forces and the area was well-protected until the transition of
sovereignty."
"After the transition of sovereignty to us it is under our control and the
location is well protected and there is no looting," he said.
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