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Baghdad did not restart n-program: IAEA
Vienna, June 26: The UN nuclear agency today said the discovery of components from Baghdad`s original nuclear weapons program did not imply that Iraq had reactivated it.
Vienna, June 26: The UN nuclear agency today said the discovery of components from Baghdad's original nuclear weapons program did not imply that Iraq had reactivated it.
The comments reflected the ongoing dispute between the United Nations and Washington over whether Saddam Hussein was trying to make weapons of mass destruction. The US administration argued such programs existed in going to war against Baghdad, while UN inspectors said their searches on the ground turned up no evidence of such programs.
A US intelligence official said yesterday that American authorities were examining parts and documents from an Iraqi weapons program run in the early 1990s that were handed over by a former Iraqi nuclear scientist.
The scientist, Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, was quoted as saying he had kept the parts buried in his Baghdad garden on the orders of Saddam's government. Once sanctions against Iraq ended, the material was to be dug up and used to reconstitute a program to enrich uranium to make a nuclear weapon, Obeidi claimed to US officials.
The intelligence official acknowledged the find was not the "smoking gun" that could prove US claims that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons weapon.
The International Atomic Energy Agency suggested the revelations tended to prove the opposite.
"The findings and comments of Obeidi appear to confirm that there has been no post-1991 nuclear weapons program in Iraq and are consistent with our reports to the Security Council," said agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky.
The IAEA has long monitored Iraq's nuclear programs and has questioned US claims that Saddam was reviving his nuclear weapons program.
Bureau Report
A US intelligence official said yesterday that American authorities were examining parts and documents from an Iraqi weapons program run in the early 1990s that were handed over by a former Iraqi nuclear scientist.
The scientist, Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, was quoted as saying he had kept the parts buried in his Baghdad garden on the orders of Saddam's government. Once sanctions against Iraq ended, the material was to be dug up and used to reconstitute a program to enrich uranium to make a nuclear weapon, Obeidi claimed to US officials.
The intelligence official acknowledged the find was not the "smoking gun" that could prove US claims that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons weapon.
The International Atomic Energy Agency suggested the revelations tended to prove the opposite.
"The findings and comments of Obeidi appear to confirm that there has been no post-1991 nuclear weapons program in Iraq and are consistent with our reports to the Security Council," said agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky.
The IAEA has long monitored Iraq's nuclear programs and has questioned US claims that Saddam was reviving his nuclear weapons program.
Bureau Report