- An alarming report that nuclear material had disappeared
from Iraq under the noses of the US-led Allies and Iraqi authorities yesterday
prompted calls for the return of UN weapons inspectors.
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- The UN nuclear watchdog said in a letter to the UN Security
Council that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remained concerned
about the "widespread and apparently systematic" dismantling
of Iraqi nuclear sites.
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- It is not the first time that the IAEA has expressed
such concern, prompting fears that the equipment could be sold by looters
to countries such as Iran. But the timing of the report is politically
sensitive. Coming less than three weeks before the US presidential election,
it could cause further criticism of policies in Iraq.
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- The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, played down the IAEA
report in Parliament, saying that he believed that most of the looting
had taken place amid the chaos that followed the Iraq war in spring last
year.
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- But IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said that the systematic
looting had now been going on "for more than a year." The IAEA
was first alerted to the problem last December when a steel vessel contaminated
with uranium turned up in a Rotterdam scrapyard. The shipment was traced
back to Iraq via Jordan. Other nuclear-related material has shown up in
Turkey.
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- In his 1 October letter to the UN Security Council, the
IAEA director general, Mohamed El Baradei, said that satellite pictures
had in some cases shown "the dismantling of entire buildings that
housed high precision equipment". The nuclear-related material had
been looted from sites which had been monitored by the IAEA until the Iraq
war, to guard against Iraq resuming its clandestine nuclear activities.
Since then, the sites were supposed to have been guarded by coalition forces
and by Iraqi authorities.
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- The Iraqi interim Science and Technology Minister, Rashad
Omar, said that if the nuclear inspectors wanted to return to Iraq to check
for the missing equipment and materials they were welcome.
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- * The Bush administration, which has opposed deals with
what it branded "axis of evil" states such as Iran, is working
with Europe on a plan to use threats and incentives to persuade Tehran
to end its nuclear activities.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=571577
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