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Chief nuke inspector: Iraq knows there's no 'wiggle room'
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- Fresh from a trip to Baghdad, the world's top nuclear inspector said Friday that Iraqi authorities know they "don't have much wiggle room" and that they will face a united international community if they don't cooperate. "The meetings were very much constructive, businesslike, and the Iraqi authorities committed themselves to do whatever is humanly possible to cooperate with the inspectors," Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said from Vienna on PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." ElBaradei, who, along with chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, met with Iraqi government officials this week, said this verbal commitment will be put to the test Wednesday when U.N. inspectors begin their search for weapons of mass destruction. "We'll have to wait and see," he said. "We will see it on the ground when our inspectors start the process of doing the different complements required for inspecting Iraqi sites and facilities." ElBaradei added: "The Iraqi authorities are aware that they don't have much wiggle room, that the international community is united in its resolve that Iraq must prove that it has no weapons of mass destruction." In Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met, with Iraq at the top of their agenda. Afterward, both countries issued a joint statement saying, "We call on Iraq to comply fully and unconditionally in its disarmament obligations or face serious consequences." (Full story) With weapons inspections set to resume in Iraq next week for the first time since 1998, the United Nations is moving ahead with preparations. Technicians were in Baghdad Friday, with additional members on the way. The 33 technicians will be joined Saturday by five others bringing more communications equipment, laboratory supplies and computers, U.N. officials said. The first full team of 12 U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Committee inspectors and six IAEA inspectors are due to arrive Monday afternoon. The UNMOVIC inspectors will search for chemical and biological weapons, while the IAEA inspectors will hunt for nuclear components. Iraq has maintained it has no weapons of mass destruction. Blix, head of UNMOVIC, spent Friday briefing British Prime Minister Tony Blair on his visit to Baghdad. (Full story) In the PBS interview, ElBaradei, an Egyptian who has headed the IAEA since 1997, said weapons inspectors have learned from past mistakes when Iraq was less than forthcoming. "The international community was fooled but it is not surprising that we were fooled because we did not have adequate authority at that time to discover clandestine activities in a particular country," he said. "We learned our lessons." ElBaradei said the rules have since been changed: "We now have the right to have immediate, unfettered access to any site in Iraq and we have the right to interview people, both inside and outside Iraq." One of the biggest challenges for his team, ElBaradei said, will be if Iraq acquired enriched uranium or plutonium from abroad over the years, as opposed to processing such material within Iraq. "If they are into the process of refining material, we will be able to detect that through environmental sampling, for example, through gamma radiation areas survey," ElBaradei said. "But if the material is there or is stored, it will not send a signature. It will not leave fingerprints and that will be difficult to detect through technical means. We will have to rely on human intelligence." And that is why it's imperative that Iraq comply fully. "What Iraq has to do is to provide evidence, documents, other evidence to make a convincing case that they no longer have weapons of mass destruction, particularly, as I said, chemical and biological. In the area of nuclear they have to come to convince us also that nothing has happened."
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