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U.N. Wants to Investigate Iraq Nuclear Looting

Monday, April 5, 2003
(7:18AM)
By Louis Charbonneau
Reuters Writer

The mission ElBaradei wants to send to Iraq would be separate from the teams who hunted for signs Baghdad renewed its ambitious atomic weapons program, as Washington had alleged, before the U.S. decided to use military force to disarm Iraq. "This would be an investigative mission to find out what has happened at the facilities," Fleming said.

Regimental Combat Team Five 1st battalion 5th Marines secure an abandon trailer with two al-Samoud 2 missiles Tuesday April 1, 2003 south of Baghdad, Iraq. UN weapons inspectors had ordered the destruction of these missiles, because the exceeded the 94-mile range set under U.N. resolutions imposing controls on Iraqi arms since the 1991 Gulf War. The battalion is deployed conducting combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Image Credit: Gunnery Sgt. Matthew M. Smith
AP Photo/ U.S. Marine Corps

VIENNA, Austria -- Reuters
The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday it had asked the United States to let it send a mission to Iraq to investigate reports of widespread looting at the country's nuclear facilities.

"(International Atomic Energy Agency chief) Mohamed ElBaradei has written to the U.S. with a request to send a mission to Iraq...to investigate the state of the facilities there," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters.

"We have not yet received a response," she said. "We have been assured by the U.S. that they would secure these facilities, but the agency finds these reports (of looting) disturbing."

Last month the IAEA asked the U.S. to secure Iraq's nuclear facilities to protect them from looters in the post-war chaos. Washington assured the U.N. it would prevent the removal of material from these sites.

But on Sunday the Washington Post reported that sites housing large amounts of highly radioactive material appeared to have been looted and that it was impossible to say whether nuclear materials were missing.
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