Iraqi official: UN can send nuclear inspectors any time
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-13 11:00

An Iraqi official sought to play down a UN nuclear watchdog's worries about equipment missing from the country's nuclear facilities, saying the agency could send inspectors to Iraq whenever it wants.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a letter to the UN Security Council Monday that he was concerned about the disappearance of precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons from Iraq's nuclear facilities.

Iraqi Interim Technology Minister Rashad Omar told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the missing equipment was taken by looters shortly after the US-led invasion and the sites were then quickly secured.

Omar said Iraq would fulfil its responsibilities to the IAEA and inform it if any nuclear equipment is moved, the BBC said. He invited the agency to visit Iraq any time and promised free access for inspectors, the broadcaster reported.

IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei had said the equipment's disappearance "may be of proliferation significance".

IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the war began in March 2003. US President George W Bush's administration then barred UN weapons inspectors from returning, deploying US teams in an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Nonetheless, IAEA teams were allowed into Iraq in June 2003 to investigate reports of widespread looting of storage rooms at the main nuclear complex at Tuwaitha, and in August to take inventory of "several tons" of natural uranium in storage near Tuwaitha.

ElBaradei said a review of satellite photos showed "widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement" at some nuclear sites and even the dismantling of entire buildings that had held precision equipment.

Omar said he did not know of any buildings being demolished at Tuwaitha, Iraq's main nuclear site. Eight buildings there are being renovated to turn the facility into a science and technology park for peaceful research, he said.

"The location was looted - the buildings, the equipment - immediately after the collapse of the regime," he said. "Then afterwards it came under the control of the coalition forces and the area was well-protected until the transition of sovereignty."

"After the transition of sovereignty to us it is under our control and the location is well protected and there is no looting," he said.

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