A team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts is scheduled to return to Iraq today to determine the extent of looting of radioactive materials from the Tuwaitha complex, the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program  (see GSN, June 3).

“Their job will be to do an inventory to see what’s missing and, if possible, to re-collect and reseal the material,” agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

The United States, however, has set a number of conditions on the IAEA team’s visit, according to the Los Angeles Times.  For example, the team is limited to only seven members and may only visit the Tuwaitha complex — they are barred from visiting six other looted Iraqi nuclear sites.  The team was also originally required to sleep in tents at the complex, but now will be able to stay in a hotel in Baghdad (Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, June 6).

The IAEA team will also be accompanied at all times by U.S. troops during the visit to the Tuwaitha complex, U.S. Defense Department officials said.  Fleming said, however, that the team would operate independently.

“We’re not going to conduct any activities with the military,” she said (Dafna Linzer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 6).

The IAEA team’s visit is a one-time event to help enforce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pentagon officials said, adding that the visit should not be seen as a type of weapons inspection (Betsy Pisik, Washington Times, June 6).

U.S. military commanders this week said they are unequipped to sufficiently monitor the Tuwaitha complex.

“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 troops in Iraq (Linzer, Associated Press).

Pentagon officials have also said they have found more radioactive material at the Tuwaitha complex than originally expected (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/London Guardian, June 6).

U.S. officials have so far recovered more than 100 containers believed to have been taken from the complex, according to the Washington Times.  None of the people who returned the containers, and were paid $3 per container, have shown elevated levels of radiation, officials said (Pisik, Washington Times).

U.N. Security Council Members Call for Return of Inspectors

Meanwhile, U.N. Security Council members yesterday called for the United States to allow experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission to return to Iraq to certify whether it possessed biological or chemical weapons.

The calls for the return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq appear to reflect a growing belief within the Security Council that inspectors should be allowed to test the U.S. and British claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to the war, according to the Washington Post.

“The disarmament of Iraq must be verified and confirmed by UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the ground and in conjunction with the (U.S.-led military) coalition,” French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told the Security Council, according to a copy of his speaking notes.

John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Iraq Survey Group, a Pentagon-established group of weapons experts, is capable of searching for evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs by itself, and that the United States is unlikely to permit U.N. inspectors to return anytime soon (Lynch/Graham, Washington Post, June 6).

“What we’ve said all along is that since March 17 or 18, the coalition has taken on responsibility for inspections and the search for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Negroponte said.  “But for the time being, we have undertaken this mission of searching for WMD and I would expect that situation to continue for the foreseeable future,” he added (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, June 6).

DIA Reported Last Year No Evidence of Chemical Weapons

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency reported in September — at the same time the Bush administration was building the case for war — that there was no reliable evidence that Iraq had chemical weapons, officials said today.

In its report, the DIA said there was no evidence that Iraq had deployable chemical weapons.  There was evidence, however, that Iraq had stockpiles of banned chemical agents, the agency said.

Two Pentagon officials who had read a summary of the report released yesterday by Bloomberg News said today that the report said the DIA had no solid evidence that Iraq possessed useable chemical weapons (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Boston Globe, June 6).

British Intelligence

British intelligence officers have said that the MI6 intelligence service inadequately evaluated information on Iraqi WMD efforts that was passed on to the British government, according to the London Independent (see GSN, June 5).

Most of the Iraq-related intelligence given to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office was from “raw” MI6 intelligence, according to senior government sources.  Other information came from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, according to security sources.

Officers in the British intelligence services said that MI6 wanted to please the prime minister’s office over Iraq to the point where “short cuts” were taken.  For example, MI6 officers are believed to have approached the prime minister’s office directly with information, without having first passed it through the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Independent reported.  While MI6 was allowed to do so, such actions resulted in a lack of filtering for the information (Kim Sengupta, London Independent, June 6).

A source described by the BBC as being  “close to British intelligence” has said the prime minister’s office asked intelligence services at least six times to rewrite a dossier released last year on Iraq’s WMD efforts, according to the Press Association.  Blair was personally involved at one point in the decision to have the dossier rewritten, the source said (Press Association, London Guardian, June 6).

Niger Claim Defended

British claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger prior to the war were not based on falsified information, according to the Financial Times.

The United States provided the IAEA with documents purporting to illustrate the attempted sale, but those documents were later revealed to have been forgeries.  The British government, however, never possessed those documents and did not base its claims about the attempted uranium purchase on them, the Times reported (Huband/Turner, Financial Times, June 6). 

Iraqi Officials — Dead or Alive?

Pentagon officials have said that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is probably alive and behind a recent series of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, according to ITAR-Tass.  The attacks, which have so far killed nine U.S. soldiers over the past month, may have been coordinated by former senior Iraqi officials, according to intelligence reports (ITAR-Tass, June 6).

In addition, Rumsfeld said yesterday that Ali Hassan al-Majid — known as “Chemical Ali” for ordering a 1998 chemical weapons attack on Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq — may still be alive (see GSN, April 24).

U.S. officials had previously believed that al-Majid was killed during a U.S. airstrike on the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April.

“There was some speculation afterwards that they thought that he had been killed.  Now there’s some speculation that he may be alive,” Rumsfeld said.  “But I just don’t know,” he added (New York Times, June 6).

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