Conventional explosives missing from Iraqi nuclear site

Several hundred tons of conventional explosives are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that once played a key role in Saddam Hussein’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed today.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will report the materials’ disappearance to the UN Security Council today, said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

“On October 10, the IAEA received a declaration from the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology informing us that approximately 350 tons of high explosive material had gone missing,” Fleming said.

The Iraqis told the agency the materials had been stolen and looted because of a lack of security at governmental installations, Fleming said.

“We do not know what happened to the explosives or when they were looted,” she added.

Nearly 380 tons of powerful explosives that could be used to build large conventional bombs are missing from the former Al Qaqaa military installation, The New York Times reported today.

The explosives included HMX and RDX, which can be used to demolish buildings but also produce warheads for missiles and detonate nuclear weaponry, the newspaper said. It said they disappeared after the US led invasion of Iraq last year.

Al Qaqaa, a sprawling former military installation 30 miles south of Baghdad, was placed under U.S. military control but has been repeatedly looted, raising troubling questions about whether the missing explosives have fallen into the hands of insurgents battling coalition forces.

Saddam was known to have used the site to make conventional warheads, and IAEA inspectors dismantled parts of his nuclear programme there before the 1991 Gulf War. The experts also oversaw the destruction of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons.