The International Atomic Energy Agency has been monitoring potentially dangerous sites and materials in Iraq from before the war. Apparently, it’s recent findings are not exactly encouraging.
First, there’s this horrifying AP report:
Some Iraqi nuclear facilities appear to be unguarded, and radioactive materials are being taken out of the country, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency reported after reviewing satellite images and equipment that has turned up in European scrapyards.
The International Atomic Energy Agency sent a letter to U.S. officials three weeks ago informing them of the findings. The information was also sent to the U.N. Security Council in a letter from its director, Mohamed ElBaradei, that was circulated Thursday.
The IAEA is waiting for a reply from the United States, which is leading the coalition administering Iraq, officials said.
The United States has virtually cut off information-sharing with the IAEA since invading Iraq in March 2003 on the premise that the country was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Which looks even more ridiculous in light of this AFP report:
Contaminated metal, equipment and even entire buildings in Iraq that had been monitored by UN nuclear inspectors have disappeared since the war, the UN’s nuclear watchdog said.
Diplomats said the discovery, much of it from commercially available satellite pictures, raises concerns about whether the US occupation in Iraq has been able to effectively monitor sensitive Iraq sites.
“The imagery shows that there has been extensive removal of equipment and, in some instances, removal of entire buildings,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the UN Security Council.
“Other information available to the agency, confirmed through visits to other countries, indicates that large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq,” he said.
ElBaradei said it was unclear if the material had gone missing in the looting that engulfed Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s ouster or “as part of systematic efforts to rehabilitate some of the locations.”
How does one lose entire buildings?
(thanks to reader JF for the tip)