- The US is tapping the phone of Mohamed ElBaradei, hoping
to gather information that would help Washington remove him as head of
the UN nuclear watchdog, and hasten an all-out effort to force Iran to
give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
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- The State Department, the CIA and the NSA, the secretive
agency that does electronic surveillance and eavesdropping, all declined
to comment yesterday on the report in The Washington Post.
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- But officials at the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), which Dr ElBaradei leads, said they assumed that
such practices went on. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq it emerged
that Britain and the US had tapped the phones of Kofi Annan, the UN secretary
seneral, and of Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector.
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- Dr ElBaradei is a respected and popular figure but has
fallen foul of the administration of President George Bush, first for denouncing
fake documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy
uranium in Niger, and now over Iran's nuclear programme.
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- The leader of the campaign to get rid of him is understood
to be John Bolton, the hardline under-secretary of state for arms control,
whose admirers would like to see him promoted to be the deputy to Condoleezza
Rice, the incoming Secretary of State. The eavesdropping is part of an
apparent effort to persuade a blocking minority of the IAEA's 35-member
board to oppose Dr ElBaradei's appointment to a third term when his current
one expires next summer, on the grounds that he has been too soft on Iran.
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- The Post report, quoting three unnamed US officials,
said that the intercepts had produced no evidence of improper conduct by
Dr ElBaradei in his efforts to secure a diplomatic solution to Iran's suspected
nuclear programme, or that he has tried to cover up evidence confirming
that Tehran is out to acquire a nuclear weapon.
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- Outside the US, the general view is that Dr ElBaradei
has served the international community well. Even Britain, one of the three
European countries trying to broker a deal with Iran, is said to be opposed
to his replacement.
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- Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, is
Washington's preferred candidate. But he has let it be known he will not
challenge Dr ElBaradei, according to the Post.
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- That leaves the Bush administration in a tricky position.
If it pursues what is widely seen as a vendetta, Washington risks provoking
another rift with its allies.
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- At one level, the ElBaradei affair is a sign of mounting
US frustration over Iran, a founder member of Mr Bush's "axis of evil".
But most analysts believe that no good military option exists against Iran,
and that the US has no alternative but to negotiate.
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- But the episode also shows the level of anti-UN feeling
in parts of the US administration. "These guys just cannot stand the
UN getting in the way of what they want to do," a US diplomat said
of Mr Bolton and his fellow neo-conservatives.
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- * Iran acknowledged for the first time yesterday that
it has convicted up to four Iranian nationals of supporting al-Qa'ida.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=592531
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