Nuclear Agency Rejects U.S. Help in Libya
2 hours ago
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press writer
VIENNA, Austria - U.N. inspectors do not need American help in scrapping Libya's nascent nuclear program, the chief inspector told The Associated Press on Tuesday in comments that brought to mind earlier differences with Washington over Iraq and Iran.
The U.S. administration is convinced that Libya's nuclear program was far more extensive than assumed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Because of that, Washington has decided to send its own inspectors and British technical experts to Libya to help survey and dismantle weapons programs there.
But, while it's happy to receive U.S. and British intelligence that will assist it, the IAEA doesn't want help on the ground.
"I am not familiar with anything they plan to do on a bilateral basis," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview Tuesday, when asked about U.S. plans to police and scrap Libya's covert nuclear program. "But as far as I'm concerned, we have the mandate, and we intend to do it alone."
ElBaradei spoke after returning from a visit to Libya, where he and an IAEA team saw four formerly secret nuclear sites in the capital, Tripoli. They said that, from what they saw, Libya was still years away from developing nuclear weapons.
During the trip, ElBaradei also met with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who assured the IAEA chief that Libya would cooperate fully with inspections and eliminate its long-secret nuclear program, saying he wanted to turn Libya into a "mainstream" nation, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
The White House and ElBaradei's agency have had tensions during the past year over the extent of the nuclear weapons threat in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and in Iran.
The Americans invaded Iraq arguing that Saddam was trying to make nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. ElBaradei maintains that what his teams saw in the months preceding the war suggested the Iraqis were in no position to build a nuclear weapon. So far, after eight months of U.S. control over Iraq, no such weapons have been found.
U.S. officials also rankled at ElBaradei's assessment in November that IAEA inspectors had found "no evidence" of an arms program in Iran, though they noted suspicious findings and upbraided Tehran for hiding part of its nuclear program for years. The United States asserts that uranium enrichment and other Iranian activities point to attempts to make nuclear weapons.
Justifying the joint U.S.-British plans in Libya, a senior Bush administration official pointed to ElBaradei's visiting of only four nuclear sites. CIA and British intelligence have concluded there are 11 such sites, said the official, who asked for anonymity.
But ElBaradei said Tuesday there was no suggestion on his part that the four sites represented the total possessed by Libya.
"I think I made it very clear that our assessment was based and what we have been told and what we have seen," he said. "We're not saying, 'This is it, guys.'"
A diplomat familiar with the IAEA's information said the agency believes there around 10 nuclear sites in Libya, mostly warehoused centrifuge and conversion equipment acquired _ but never used _ for full programs of uranium enrichment.
Indirectly contradicting U.S. assertions of an extensive program, ElBaradei said that what he has seen suggests Libya did not go beyond "low-level, small-scale" testing of enrichment equipment.
ElBaradei described the equipment he saw as, "nothing really special," calling them, "components which had not been assembled .... mothballed and in containers."
"It was much more modest in comparison with the Iranian program, which is much more ambitious, large-scale industrial production" of enriching uranium, he said.
Suspicions about Iran's nuclear activities prompted ElBaradei to tour Iran's nuclear facilities last February, including an incomplete plant in Natanz, nearly 300 miles south of Tehran. Diplomats said he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project using thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Iran insists its program aims only to produce energy and signed an agreement in December allowing snap IAEA inspections of its facilities.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Libya seemed to posses far fewer centrifuges than Iran. While a few dozen were assembled, most were still in their original shipping crates and lined up along warehouse walls, as were crated uranium conversion units that were opened only for the visiting IAEA team, he said.
Libyan nuclear scientists interviewed by the IAEA team "swore up and down they never had any weapons activities," said the diplomat. "They said they were never told to develop a weapon, they were only told to develop enrichment capability."
Gadhafi's recently acknowledgment that Libya had been seeking nuclear weapons and his decision to renounce them _ made after months of secret negotiations with the United States and Britain _ came as a surprise to the IAEA, the U.N. body charged with keeping watch on nuclear programs.
Libya has promised to cooperate with the Vienna-based U.N. agency and said it would sign a protocol allowing intrusive inspections at short notice, similar to the one signed earlier this month by Iran.
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