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Politics : Proof that John Kerry is Unfit for Command -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (21960)	10/25/2004 1:02:23 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 27181

U.N.: Hundreds of Tons of Explosives Missing in Iraq By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA (Reuters) - Nearly 380 tons of explosives are missing from a site near Baghdad that was part of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s dismantled atom bomb program but was never secured by the U.S. military, the United Nations (news - web sites) said Monday. The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, will immediately report the matter to the U.N. Security Council, a spokeswoman for the agency said. The missing explosives could potentially be used to detonate a nuclear weapon or in conventional weapons, the agency said. "ElBaradei has decided to inform the Security Council today," spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. The New York Times, which broke the story Monday, said U.S. weapons experts feared the explosives could be used in bombing attacks against U.S. or Iraqi forces, which have come under increasing fire ahead of Iraq (news - web sites)'s elections due in January. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been barred from most of Iraq since the war and has watched from afar as its former nuclear sites have been systematically stripped by looters. Fleming said ElBaradei informed Washington of the seriousness of the matter on Oct. 15 after learning about the disappearance of the explosives on Oct. 10. One substance found in large quantities at the Al Qaqaa facility was the explosive HMX, which Fleming said had "a potential use in a nuclear explosive device as a detonator." Prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the HMX had been sealed and tagged with the IAEA emblem while being stored at Al Qaqaa. Iraq was permitted to keep some of its explosives for mining purposes after the IAEA completed its dismantling of Saddam's covert nuclear weapons program after the 1991 Gulf war. Fleming said HMX also had civilian and conventional military applications. In the months prior to the second Gulf war, the IAEA was certain that none of the dual-use materials were being used in a nuclear weapons program. Diplomats at the IAEA have warned that materials useable in nuclear weapons could easily be shipped out of Iraq and sold to countries like Iran or terrorist groups believed to be interested in acquiring nuclear weapons. U.S. FAILED TO SECURE KNOWN NUCLEAR SITE The New York Times report cited White House and Pentagon (news - web sites) officials -- as well as at least one Iraqi minister -- as acknowledging that the explosives vanished from the site shortly after the U.S.-led invasion amid widespread looting. The minister of science and technology, Rashad M. Omar, confirmed the explosives were missing in an interview with The Times and CBS Television in Baghdad. A Western diplomat close to the IAEA, who declined to be named, said it was difficult to understand why the U.S. military had failed to secure the facility despite knowing how sensitive the site was. "This was a very well known site. If you could have picked a few sites that you would have to secure then ... Al Qaqaa would certainly be one of the main ones," the diplomat said. U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) was informed about the missing explosives only within the last month, the Times said, adding that it was unclear whether President Bush (news - web sites) was aware. U.S. administration officials said Sunday the Iraq Survey Group, the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) task force that searched for unconventional weapons, had been ordered to investigate the disappearance, the newspaper said. Vienna diplomats said the IAEA had cautioned the United States about the danger of the explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told U.S. officials about the need to keep the them secured.