 |
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“However,
based on that information, we would agree that this is not
evidence of a smoking gun,” Gwozdecky
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VIENNA,
June 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - U.N. nuclear watchdog
insisted Thursday, June 26, that Iraq has not had a nuclear program
since 1991, fueling more controversy over the failure of the U.S. to
provide a hard evidence on Iraqi alleged WMDs.
The
U.N. nuclear arm said that evidence, documents and parts of a gas
centrifuge turned over by an ex-top Iraqi nuclear scientist to U.S.
authorities do not change such assessment, according to Agence-France
Presse (AFP).
"We
do not have any information other than that which is available to us in
press reports," International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark
Gwozdecky said at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
“However,
based on that information, we would agree that this is not evidence of a
smoking gun,”
he added referring to the expression used by the U.S. as indication of
the presence of banned weapons in Iraq, a pretext that was used to
invade an occupy the oil-rich country.
Former
Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi said that on orders from the Saddam Hussein
regime, he had hidden the material in his garden in Baghdad in 1991,
U.S. media reported Wednesday, June 25.
The
scientist has been given refuge in the United States and was cooperating
with U.S. authorities, according to CNN, which aired
videotaped images of the parts and documents, provided by Obeidi.
"The
findings and comments of Obeidi appear to confirm that there has been no
post-1991 nuclear weapons program in Iraq (after the first Gulf War),
and are consistent with our reports to the Security Council,"
Gwozdecky said.
"Yet,
without access to the actual findings, the IAEA is not in a position to
offer any final conclusion or further assessment," he added.
Gwozdecky
said the IAEA "has regularly reported our conclusion that Iraq had
successfully tested a single centrifuge prior to 1991."
A
ranking U.S. State Department expert on WMDs said he had been pressed to
"tailor"
his analysis on different issues to match the views of the U.S.
administration, a leading U.S. newspaper revealed Tuesday, June 24,
according to several Congressional officials.
The
analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research,
identified by several officials as Christian Westermann, became the
first member of the intelligence community on active service to make
this sort of admission to a House Intelligence Committee in closed-door
hearings, The New York Times reported.
Centrifuges
are used in enriching uranium, a step that can be part of making an
atomic weapon.
"We
knew that pre-1991 Iraq had been provided from foreign sources with a
large number of original centrifuge drawings --- the IAEA has only been
provided with a few of these of little technical significance," he
said.
Gwozdecky
said the U.N. nuclear Watchdog had never ruled out that small items
could still be found.
"Indeed,
during the period of recent inspections (before war began last March),
we regularly pressed the Iraqis to obtain the remaining centrifuge
drawings and other documentation and information about their enrichment
program."
The
disclosure indicated that Iraq's nuclear program was "in
hibernation and that the order to restart the program had not ever been
given to Obeidi," David Kay, a former U.N. arms inspector who now
heads the CIA-led search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said.
