quote:VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors, barred from most of Iraq since last year's invasion, are ready to return to probe the disappearance of equipment that could be used in atomic weapons, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.
"We are ready, subject to Security Council guidance and the prevailing security situation, to resume our Security Council mandated verification activities in Iraq," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
The IAEA, which monitored Saddam Hussein's nuclear sites before last year's Iraq war, informed the U.N. Security Council this week that equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons have been vanishing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington had noticed.
"This is another screw-up by the U.S.," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, told Reuters. "They should have let the IAEA inspectors go in long ago."
Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, whom Washington had harshly criticized before the Iraq invasion for suggesting Saddam might not have any banned weapons programs, said the entire Iraq project had ended in "tragedy and failure." Iraq's Science and Technology Minister Rashad Omar said everything at the nuclear sites belonging to his ministry was accounted for and that there had been no recent disappearances.
He said nothing had gone missing since a looting spree after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, which the United States and Britain said was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Both countries now admit Saddam had no caches of banned weapons.
But a Western diplomat close to the IAEA said Omar's comments did not appear to apply to the sites the IAEA was really worried about -- which may belong to Iraq's defense ministry.
So, what happens if they find out terrorists are getting weapons materials from Iraq under U.S. control, while they were not under Saddam? Do we preemptively strike ourselves?
quote:"This is another screw-up by the U.S.," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, told Reuters. "They should have let the IAEA inspectors go in long ago."
That's a very serious charge. Would the IAEA inspectors have done a better job? I need to see more evidence before making up my mind on this issue.
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What happens if the UN inspectors discover WMD stockpiles that the US inspectors missed, and then try to cover it up, but the US finds out about the cover up, and exposes the UN for the liberal-pinko-commie-toadie organization it really is? Would anyone care, since most of the world is liberal-pinko-commies?
Hey, that'd make a pretty good spy thriller.
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