Bush Administration Questions Timing of IAEA Weapons Letter
BY BENNY AVNI - Special to the Sun
October 26, 2004
UNITED NATIONS - Bush administration officials suspect political motivation behind a letter focused on the disappearance of 377 tons of explosives sent yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Security Council.
The letter, signed by the head of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei, addressed the disappearance of the highly explosive material from a deserted military base in Iraq. The non-nuclear explosives had been monitored by the Vienna-based watchdog agency because they could be used to detonate nuclear bombs.
The timing of this seems puzzling, the spokesman for the American U.N. mission, Richard Grenell, told The New York Sun yesterday.
The letter was brought to the attention of the council on the last full week before the American presidential elections, quickly becaming a campaign issue. It was also a week after Mr. ElBaradei announced that he would seek another term as the director general of IAEA, despite American opposition.
Bush administration officials say their opposition is not personal but in line with their demand to limit the term of the man at the helm of the agency.
We told ElBaradei that we are not going to support an extension beyond two terms, a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous told the Sun.
Aware of Washington's opposition, Mr. ElBaradei announced last week that he would seek a third term anyway.
The Egyptian-born nuclear inspection veteran clashed with Washington in the run up to the Iraq war, and more recently when his report on Iran's nuclear program seemed too timid to officials, such as the undersecretary of state John Bolton, the Bush administration point man on non-proliferation issues.
The 35-member IAEA is expected to close applications for candidacies to head the agency by December 31. A new director general will be elected next September. So far Mr. ElBaradei is the only one to announce his candidacy.
Senator Kerry's aides told Reuters recently that they, too, would like to see Mr. ElBaradei replaced, but they would be sensitive to the ruffled feelings in the Arab world and other political consequences.
Yesterday's letter was sent shortly after the IAEA delivered its October 1 semiannual report. It said that on October 10 the agency received a letter from an Iraqi official in the Ministry of Science and Technology informing of the missing explosives.
The loss, according to the Iraqi official quoted in the letter, Mohammed Abbas, occurred after [April 9] 2003, throughout the theft and looting of the governmental installations, due to lack of security.
But one U.N. official who is well versed with monitoring procedures told the Sun that there is no way for the Iraqis to know whether the material was looted at that date or was hustled out of Iraq earlier, during the war. We are talking about 40 trucks worth of this stuff, the official who asked not to be named told the Sun. It's a huge operation.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli, however, said that the disappeared material was of small quantities compared to the total number of explosives found in Iraq. Mr. Ereli said that the 377 tons that are unaccounted are out of the almost 400,000 tons of munitions that have been destroyed or secured. It's important, it's significant, but let's put it in the proper prospective.
The materials mentioned in Mr. El-Baradei's letter were 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX, and 6.39 tons of PETN - all explosives used in plastic bombs or in bombings of whole buildings and airplanes. They could also be used as nuclear detonation devices.
According to Mr. ElBaradei's letter, he informed the American-led coalition in Iraq of its content on October 15, in an attempt to allow the coalition to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.
The story, however, was leaked to the New York Times and CBS's 60 Minutes and it led the newspaper's front page yesterday. The fact that the matter has been given media coverage today, made the IAEA report it to the council, yesterday's letter said.
The story quickly became a campaign issue. The Bush administration must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq, Senator Kerry's spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said yesterday, according to the Associated Press.
An IAEA official noted that as part of its mandate in Iraq the agency is obligated to report such matters to the council. He could not explain, however, why the council was informed only after the story appeared in the press, rather than 10 days earlier.
What bothers me is why this is such a big issue, while when we reported that a whole building disappeared, no one cared, the official told the Sun. He was referring to the IAEA's early October report that said that a building that was under U.N. monitoring and which contained highly sensitive materials and sophisticated equipment was subject to systematic dismantlement.
The official noted that previous IAEA reports, as well as those of the U.N. Iraq monitoring agency Unmovic, warned of the disappearance of monitored materials that at times found their way into scrap yards in neighboring countries where they were sold to the highest bidder.