US probe into missing Iraqi nuclear equipment

The US has said that it will conduct “a full investigation” along with the Iraqi government of the reported disappearance from Iraq’s nuclear facilities of high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

In a letter to the Security Council on Monday, UN nuclear chief Mohamed El Baradei said satellite photos and follow-up investigations show “widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement” at sites related to Iraq’s nuclear program which had been subject to monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

While some industrial material that Iraq sent overseas has been located in other countries, he said no high-precision items – including milling machines and electron beam welders that can be used commercially and in nuclear weapons - have been found.

Since the missing equipment and material “may be of proliferation significance”, he asked any country with information about the items to inform the IAEA.

Anne Patterson, the US’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said yesterday that the US Mission to the UN had not yet received ElBaradei’s letter.

“We’re anxious to see what he has to say and we’ll do a full investigation,” she said, adding: “I mean, we’ll work with the government of Iraq on a full investigation.”

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency’s assumption is that “this was organised looting” by people trying “to make a buck” and sell equipment and material to the highest bidder.

A diplomat familiar with the IAEA, speaking on condition of anonymity, discounted suggestions that the Americans might have carted off the equipment - most of it under IAEA seals – without informing the agency.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC - which is responsible for overseeing the elimination of any banned Iraqi missile, chemical and biological weapons programs – said Iraqi authorities, for over a year, have been shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal out of the country.

The UNMOVIC report said the export was handled by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, which was under the direct supervision of US occupation authorities until June 28, when the Americans handed power to Iraq’s interim government.

It said the shipments included at least 42 engines from banned missiles and other equipment that could be used to produce banned weapons.

UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the March 2003 US-led war. US President George Bush’s administration then barred UN weapons inspectors from returning, deploying US teams in an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.