UN Inspectors go back to Iraq...

bonkey

Teh following is an article I pulled off a news-feed one of my client's has...which is where I'm working.

Its an interesting read. What I love is that the US are on one hand saying that they (the US military) dont have the resources themselves to do this job, while at the same time saying that they will allow seven (yes folx...count them....a whole weeks-worth of people) inspectors in who must be finished their study inside two weeks.

This really fills me with confidence in what the US is doing in Iraq. Either they are - once again - giving the UN a two-fingered salute by ensuring they (the UN) cannot do this job properly, or they believe that 7 man can achieve in 2 weeks what the entire US army doesnt have the resources to do in their place.

Lovely.

Oh yeah...here's the article...sorry about the formatting....call me a lazy git.

By DAFNA LINZER

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Under close American scrutiny, a
small team of U.N. nuclear experts arrived in Baghdad on
Friday to begin a damage assessment at Iraq's largest
nuclear facility, left unguarded by U.S. troops during the
early days of the war and then pillaged by villagers.
The arrival of the team _ whose members are not weapons inspectors _ marked the first time since the Iraq war began that representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear agency, returned to the country.
The IAEA had long monitored Iraq's nuclear programs.
Iraqi scientists who have surveyed the damage at the
Tuwaitha plant said looters left behind piles of uranium
and spilled radioactive materials. The scientists cemented over the spilled materials to prevent leakage or further exposure to residents in the area.
The United States tried to keep the IAEA out of postwar Iraq. But it reluctantly agreed to allow the agency's return under pressure from the arms-control community, which was concerned about Tuwaitha's safety and U.S. capability to secure the area and account for its contents.
«The IAEA can best tell what's missing, and they're fully prepared to do that pretty rapidly,» said David Albright, an American nuclear expert.
U.S. military commanders acknowledged this week that, after nearly three months on the ground, they remain unequipped to handle the nuclear site.
«I know that the Tuwaitha facility is larger than the
assets we have now in country to deal with it,» said Lt.
Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq.
For more than a decade, the IAEA monitored nearly two tons
(1.8 metric tons) of uranium and radioactive materials
tagged at the defunct facility. But the United States cut
U.N. inspectors out of the weapons hunt when it went to war
without U.N. backing.
On Friday, the IAEA team flew from Kuwait to Iraq on a
U.S. military plane and were then driven, with troop
escort, into a very different Iraq from the one the agency
last saw three months ago.
For this trip, the Pentagon limited the number of IAEA
staff to seven and said the assessment would have to be
completed within two weeks.
The team was originally told it would have to stay at the
site in tents set up by the army, but the IAEA said
Washington had since agreed to let the team stay at the
U.N. compound in Baghdad. On Friday, the plans changed
again and the team moved into the American-controlled
al-Rasheed Hotel in downtown Baghdad, where a U.S. nuclear
team is also staying.
The U.S. team, which has been conducting its own
assessment of Tuwaitha, will escort the IAEA to and from
Tuwaitha everyday.
But Fleming said the team would work independently.
«We're not going to conduct any activities with the
military,» she told The Associated Press.
The American and U.N. teams were to meet Saturday to
discuss the IAEA's mission. IAEA work at the site was not
expected to get underway before Sunday.
The Pentagon has also stressed that the IAEA visit would
be a one-time event to enforce the nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty _ and not a weapons inspection that might set a
precedent for future U.N. searches for weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq.
Team leader Brian Rens, who arrived in Kuwait on Thursday,
told Associated Press Television News that the IAEA mission
is to «determine what has been lost and any other material
which is in an unsafe condition, to repack it to the extent
possible, secure it, verify it and seal the building.»
Rens said the team's mission «has got nothing to do with
weapons of mass destruction. That is a different department
altogether.»
Whatever the team finds at Tuwaitha, it will probably be
messy.
Dr. Hamed Al-Bahili, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who helped
design and open Tuwaitha in 1968, was one of the first on
the scene after fleeing Iraqi troops abandoned the site.
Raising his hand 2 inches (5 centimeters) above the
linoleum floor in his living room, Al-Bahili said: «The
uranium was all over the floor _ all over the ground
outside. Piles of it. We poured cement over it inside the
rooms because there was no other way to handle it.»
Al-Bahili said he pleaded with impoverished villagers in
the area not to touch the blue barrels the IAEA had used to
store the uranium, «but there were thousands of people _
they just kept coming,» he said in an interview Thursday
at his Baghdad home.
Returning to Baghdad, he found Iraqi police who passed on
his description of the scene and dangers to advancing U.S.
troops.
Since then, Al-Bahili has met twice with U.S. military
officials, whom he described as eager to help resolve the
situation. «They sent troops,» he said, «but it was
already too late.»
U.S. troops involved in the hunt for weapons of mass
destruction said recently that at least 20 percent of the
barrels containing low-grade or natural uranium appeared to
be gone.
Fleming said some 3,000 barrels were stored there under
the agency's watch.
Last week, American troops accompanied by Iraqi health
workers ordered residents from surrounding villages to sell
back barrels for US$3 each. Pentagon officials said
Thursday that more than 100 barrels had been retrieved.
Fleming said the IAEA would be permitted to examine its
barrels. The rest of the mission, however, is restricted to
the Tuwaitha site.
U.S. President George W. Bush said he launched the war in
part to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,
although the U.N. teams found no evidence of the weapons
Saddam's regime said it no longer possessed. U.S. weapons
hunters, working from prewar intelligence assessments, also
have failed to find any chemical, biological or nuclear
weapons or unknown missile programs.

Sparks

Um, bonkey those guys aren't weapons inspectors, they're with the IAEA - they're only looking at the nuclear site that got looted to make sure the stuff they tagged last time is still there.

bonkey

They're UN representatives, performing an inspection of materials which could be used in making weapons.

So not weapons inspectors, but still inspectors of weapon-constituent materials, doing the same type of work that their predecessors (who were weapons inspectors) did.

Semantics.

You will notice, however, that I didnt use the words "weapons inspectors" at all - deliberately, and for this very reason.

The point I'm making is best highlighted by this :

The IAEA can best tell what's missing, and they're fully prepared to do that pretty rapidly,» said David Albright,

OK - if they are the best people for the job, and can do it the fastest, then why isnt the US welcoming them with open arms? Why is it "reluctantly" agreeing to let them in because of pressure from other nations? Why the stupid restrictions and timeframes?

«I know that the Tuwaitha facility is larger than the assets we have now in country to deal with it,» said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq.

Come on....the US told us it intended to start reducing its presence. It told us that it was better equipped to continue the process than the UN inspections teams. It told us that time was a critical factor.

3 months on, and they havent the resources to take care of one facility. Not all facilities. No, just one of them. Which was looted...because protecting the oilfields was more important that protecting the WMD materials that were ostensibly the reason for the war.

Yes, someone could have torched the oilfields, and that would have been bad. Instead, there's nuclear material spilled, scattered and stolen.

But thats not a problem because Dubya has told us that Saddam isnt giving weapons to terrorists any more, so the world is a better place.

Lets ignore that the terrorists could have looted the place themselves, or bought the radioactive material off those who did. (If the US can buy it back at 3$ a barrel, how hard will it be for some nutjob to buy himself a barrel of the stuff, slap some large explosive around it, and hey-presto, instant dirty bomb.)

Thats the point I was making. Squibbling over whether nuclear experts checking out a site should or should not be referred to as inspectors was not.

jc