Kay Claims About Iraq Nukes Lack Evidence -Diplomat
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - An expert close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday cast doubt on new U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq (news - web sites) had been planning to revive its atomic weapons program until the U.S. invasion in March.
Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the expert close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said David Kay's report was largely based on "statements and opinions by scientists and officials with no apparent supporting evidence."
Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in postwar Iraq, said Thursday his team had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was "evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons."
"The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons," Kay said of the interim report his team supplied to the U.S. Congress.
"They (said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons."
The allegation that Saddam Hussein had revived his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 was the main justification for the U.S.-led war to disarm Iraq.
But after returning to Iraq late in 2002 for four months of inspections in the buildup to the war, the IAEA said it had found no evidence that Saddam had revived his clandestine atomic weapons program, a program the IAEA detected in 1991 and says it had dismantled by 1995.
"The (Kay) report is filled with the use of the words 'belief' and 'may' and 'could have' and these sorts of things," the nuclear expert told Reuters.
"This is not how the IAEA operates," said the expert, who supported the agency's pre-war inspections in Iraq. "They would not have given credence to statements by individuals without having corroborating evidence to support their allegations. The IAEA only states what it can verify."
THE DEAD MAN SAID...
The source also questioned Kay's reliance on testimony from senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id, who was killed at a Baghdad roadblock by occupation forces on April 8.
In his statement to U.S. lawmakers, presented behind closed doors Thursday, Kay said: "Sa'id began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be applied to nuclear weapons development."
Calling that limited allegation "pretty pathetic," the nuclear expert close to the IAEA added that since Sa'id could no longer be questioned, his testimony should be treated with more than a grain of salt.
Thursday, Kay asked for Washington to provide $600 million for his team's work in Iraq in addition to the $300 million already allocated.
The source close to the IAEA said the agency's nuclear inspections, and those of the UNMOVIC inspection agency into Iraq's suspected chemical and biological weapons, together had a budget of only around $60 million for an entire year's work in Iraq.
The nuclear expert dismissed suggestions by Kay that Iraq's pre-war withholding from U.N. inspectors of documents about its pre-1991 nuclear weapons program indicated it had much left to hide.
"It's bad that they didn't report that to the IAEA, but that's about the program the IAEA knew inside out and had dismantled," the expert said. "Wasn't the whole idea to prove that Saddam had something ongoing? This seems to support the fact that he didn't."
story.news.yahoo.com |
