UN watchdog asks US to secure Iraq nuclear site
Date: 15-Apr-03
Country: AUSTRIA
Author: Marcus Kabel
U.S. forces are reported to have entered the Tuwaitha nuclear research site that U.N. inspectors had previously identified as part of Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme that inspectrs dismantled after the 1991 Gulf war.
In a letter to Washington, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) said American forces must secure the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre to ensure nuclear materials were not removed until U.N. inspectors could resume verification work.
"I have written yesterday to the United States Government asking that it ensure the security and safety of all the nuclear material there, which has been under IAEA seal since 1991," Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.
"The IAEA has subsequently received such assurances," the statement said.
ElBaradei has said that his inspectors alone, not the United States, have the authority under U.N. Security Council decisions to inspect and disarm Iraq if weapons or weapons programmes are found.
He has also urged that the inspectors be permitted to return to Iraq as soon as conditions permit to resume their hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
Before the war started last month, IAEA inspectors reported finding no trace of banned nuclear arms activities in Iraq since resuming inspections late last year after a four-year hiatus.
Iraq launched a crash programme to test its first nuclear bomb using highly enriched uranium after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The target date was April, 1991, but bombing by U.S. planes in the Gulf War earlier that year stopped testing.
Other equipment was destroyed by inspectors in subsequent years.
Nuclear experts familiar with the IAEA inspection history said the U.N. was well aware of nuclear materials stockpiled at a Tuwaitha, a research facility where U.S. troops this week registered high radiation readings, according to some reports.
Iraq was allowed to keep some non-weapons grade nuclear materials after the 1991 war, including tonnes of raw uranium and uranium enriched only slightly. To be used in a bomb, uranium must be highly enriched.