Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (60192)	10/13/2004 3:20:00 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

Fears Bombmakers May Get Iraq Nuke Items-Diplomats By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog is worried the U.S.-led war aimed at disarming Iraq (news - web sites) may have unleashed a proliferation crisis if looters have sold equipment that can be used to make atomic weapons, Western diplomats said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitored Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s nuclear sites before last year's Iraq war, said on Monday equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons have been disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington had noticed. "If some of this stuff were to end up in Iran, some people would be very concerned," a diplomat close to the IAEA told Reuters. "The IAEA's big concern would be profiteering, people who would sell this stuff with no regard for who is buying it." The profiteers could have sold the items on to groups or countries interested in weapons, the diplomat added. The United States believes Iraq's neighbor, Iran, is secretly developing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran denies this, insisting its nuclear ambitions are limited to generating electricity. Pre-war U.S. allegations that Saddam had revived his atomic weapons program from the early 1990s have never been proven. But the IAEA has warned countries to keep a close eye on all their nuclear sites due to multiple warnings from Western intelligence agencies that terrorist organizations are interested in getting their hands on a nuclear device. AUTHORIZED OR UNAUTHORIZED REMOVAL? Satellite imagery shows entire buildings in Iraq that once housed high-precision equipment have been dismantled, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he believed most of the removal of materials and equipment took place in the chaos that reigned shortly after the invasion last spring. "It is not clear, but it appears, and I'm seeking more details after receipt of the IAEA report overnight, that most of the unauthorized removal took place in the immediate aftermath of the major conflict in March and April last year," Straw told parliament. The diplomat close to the IAEA said Straw's comment implied the removal of materials and equipment that took place after April 2003 had been authorized. "If that is the case, the IAEA would like to know," he said, adding that the U.N. watchdog had received no response so far from the Iraqi, U.S. or British authorities in this matter. In 1991, the IAEA detected Saddam's clandestine nuclear weapons program and spent the next seven years investigating and dismantling it. By the time U.N. inspectors fled the country in December 1998, Iraq's covert atom bomb program was gone. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said that before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, all of the nuclear materials, equipment and facilities that have disappeared from satellite photos were accounted for and were not being used in a weapons program. "This is dual-use stuff of which -- when we were there -- we were certain was not being misused," he said, adding that everything had been tagged or sealed and was closely monitored. "It was systematically removed," Gwozdecky said.