| |
|
-
Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake
U.N. Nuclear Inspector
Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged
Jo
Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer
March 8, 2003; Page A1
A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons
program appears to have been fabricated, the United Nations' chief
nuclear inspector said yesterday in a report that called into
question U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear
ambitions. Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials
shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed "not
authentic" after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts,
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), told the U.N. Security Council.
ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim --
made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday -- that Iraq had
tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in
centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Also, ElBaradei reported
finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an
extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors.
"There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities,"
ElBaradei said.
Knowledgeable sources familiar with the forgery
investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters
between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation
of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by
Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers
had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away --
including names and titles that did not match up with the
individuals who held office at the time the letters were
purportedly written, the officials said.
"We fell for it," said one U.S. official who reviewed the
documents.
A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency did not blame
either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents
"were shared with us in good faith," he said.
The discovery was a further setback to U.S. and British
efforts to convince reluctant U.N. Security Council members of the
urgency of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Powell, in his statement to the Security Council Friday,
acknowledged ElBaradei's findings but also cited "new information"
suggesting that Iraq continues to try to get nuclear weapons
components.
"It is not time to close the book on these tubes," a senior
State Department official said, adding that Iraq was prohibited
from importing sensitive parts, such as tubes, regardless of their
planned use.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein pursued an ambitious nuclear
agenda throughout the 1970s and 1980s and launched a crash program
to build a bomb in 1990 following his invasion of neighboring
Kuwait. But Iraq's nuclear infrastructure was heavily damaged by
allied bombing in 1991, and the country's known stocks of nuclear
fuel and equipment were removed or destroyed during the U.N.
inspections after the war.
However, Iraq never surrendered the blueprints for nuclear
weapons, and kept key teams of nuclear scientists intact after
U.N. inspectors were forced to leave in 1998. Despite
international sanctions intended to block Iraq from obtaining
weapons components, Western intelligence agencies and former
weapons inspectors were convinced the Iraqi president had resumed
his quest for the bomb in the late 1990s, citing defectors'
stories and satellite images that showed new construction at
facilities that were once part of Iraq's nuclear machinery.
Last September, the United States and Britain issued
reports accusing Iraq of renewing its quest for nuclear weapons.
In Britain's assessment, Iraq reportedly had "sought significant
amounts of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil
nuclear program that could require it."
Separately, President Bush, in his speech to the U.N.
Security Council on Sept. 12, said Iraq had made "several attempts
to buy-high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for
nuclear weapons."
Doubts about both claims began to emerge shortly after U.N.
inspectors returned to Iraq last November. In early December, the
IAEA began an intensive investigation of the aluminum tubes, which
Iraq had tried for two years to purchase by the tens of thousands
from China and at least one other country. Certain types of
high-strength aluminum tubes can be used to build centrifuges,
which enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial power
plants.
By early January, the IAEA had reached a preliminary
conclusion: The 81mm tubes sought by Iraq were "not directly
suitable" for centrifuges, but appeared intended for use as
conventional artillery rockets, as Iraq had claimed. The Bush
administration, meanwhile, stuck to its original position while
acknowledging disagreement among U.S. officials who had reviewed
the evidence.
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, Bush said
Iraq had "attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes
suitable for nuclear weapons production."
Last month, Powell likewise dismissed the IAEA's
conclusions, telling U.N. leaders that Iraq would not have ordered
tubes at such high prices and with such exacting performance
ratings if intended for use as ordinary rockets. Powell
specifically noted that Iraq had sought tubes that had been
"anodized," or coated with a thin outer film -- a procedure that
Powell said was required if the tubes were to be used in
centrifuges.
ElBaradei's report yesterday all but ruled out the use of
the tubes in a nuclear program. The IAEA chief said investigators
had unearthed extensive records that backed up Iraq's explanation.
The documents, which included blueprints, invoices and notes from
meetings, detailed a 14-year struggle by Iraq to make 81mm
conventional rockets that would perform well and resist corrosion.
Successive failures led Iraqi officials to revise their standards
and request increasingly higher and more expensive metals,
ElBaradei said.
Moreover, further work by the IAEA's team of centrifuge
experts -- two Americans, two Britons and a French citizen -- has
reinforced the IAEA's conclusion that the tubes were ill suited
for centrifuges. "It was highly unlikely that Iraq could have
achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived
centrifuge program," ElBaradei said.
A number of independent experts on uranium enrichment have
sided with IAEA's conclusion that the tubes were at best ill
suited for centrifuges. Several have said that the "anodized"
features mentioned by Powell are actually a strong argument for
use in rockets, not centrifuges, contrary to the administration's
statement.
The Institute for Science and International Security, a
Washington-based research organization that specializes in nuclear
issues, reported yesterday that Powell's staff had been briefed
about the implications of the anodized coatings before Powell's
address to the Security Council last month. "Despite being
presented with the falseness of this claim, the administration
persists in making misleading arguments about the significance of
the tubes," the institute's president, David Albright, wrote in
the report.
Powell's spokesman said the secretary of state had
consulted numerous experts and stood by his U.N. statement.
Return to Search
Results | |
