Whoopsi-Daisy

13 October 2004


Iraqi Nuclear Equipment Missing

The Keystone Kops occupation of Iraq reached a new low yesterday when the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Iraqi equipment and material that could be used to produce nuclear weaponry has gone missing. The attack on Iraq was supposed to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (at least, that is what the White House said, though today’s pretext could be different, and tomorrow’s different yet again). Yet, Reuters quoted one diplomat as saying, “If some of this stuff were to end up in Iran, some people would be very concerned." Shouldn’t Tom Ridge change the Crayola terror threat warning color to puce or mauve?

The most amazing thing about this incident is the inability of the Bush administration to point out the obvious. There are, according the IAEA and US sources, some 500 tons (not a misprint – 100,000 pounds) of low-grade nuclear material at Iraq’s Tuwaitha nuclear energy site. The Saddamite regime had tested rockets with a range of around 100 kilometers. Although the former bunch of murdering thugs who ran Iraq doesn’t seem to have done it, putting radioactive material on the tip of such a rocket makes a radiological bomb. Could this be termed a weapon of mass destruction? Drop 50 kilos of such isotopes on Kuwait City or Jerusalem and listen to the White House describe is as such. But alas, even when thrown a straw by reality, the Bush White House is too busy coming up with feeble alternate realities to justify what is charitably called “a strategic disaster” to clutch them.

Part of the problem for the IAEA is the inability of its inspectors to visit Iraqi installations and examine the state of conditions there. Indeed, the Saddamites gave greater access than the occupation regime or its Iraqi successor. The IAEA has had to rely on satellite imagery for months because it has no one on the ground doing the rather important job of keeping. The Allawi government has just announced that the IAEA may inspect anything it likes any time it wants. That is laudable, and too late to do much good.

Under international law, the change of regime does not void the agreements into which the initial government entered, nor does it eliminate the obligations placed on that state. Iraq, under whatever government, is still bound to submit to inspections of its nuclear sights under the world’s non-proliferation regime and UN resolutions. According to a letter sent by its top man Mohamed El Baradei to the UN, the IAEA “has received no such notifications or declarations from any state since March 2003,” when the war began.

The Bush administration has taken it on the chin for going to war with too little cause, and rightly so. However, even its supporters must doubt the efficacy of the occupation/liberation. Even if the policy were right, the execution after the fall of Baghdad has been appallingly bad. And if Iran, or someone even less favorably disposed toward the US, manages to buy any of the “dual-use” items that are missing (e.g., milling machines, electron beam welders and high strength aluminum), the world will be that much more dangerous.

© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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