UN nuclear experts have so far found no trace of banned nuclear arms activities in Iraq, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency has told the UN Security Council.
"To date, no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities has been detected, although not all of the laboratory results of sample analysis are yet available," Mohamed El-Baradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said on today.
In a blow to US hopes that inspectors would uncover a "smoking gun" showing Iraq was trying to make nuclear arms in violation of council resolutions, El-Baradei said aluminium tubes suspected of being sought by Iraq to enrich uranium for weapons were actually intended for a rocket engine program, as Iraq had claimed all along.
Centrifuges that rely on specially milled aluminium tubes are crucial to the process of separating weapons-grade nuclear material from non-enriched uranium. But the tubes sought by Iraq were not suited for this purpose, he said in a closed-door council session.
"While it would be possible to modify such tubes for the manufacture of centrifuges, they are not directly suitable for it," El-Baradei told the council, according to his speaking notes, obtained by Reuters.
Iraq tried unsuccessfully to buy the high-strength aluminium tubes in 2001 and 2002, saying it needed them for a program aimed at "reverse-engineering 81-mm rockets," he said.
El-Baradei said his agency was still looking into a missing 32 tonnes of a high explosive known as HMX, which could be used in a nuclear weapons program but also has civilian uses.
Iraq had declared to the council in 1998 that it had 228 tonnes of HMX, but inspectors found only 196 tonnes remaining when they returned to Baghdad in November after a four-year hiatus.
The returning inspectors found that the seal they had placed on the 228 tonnes in 1998 had been broken, and the whereabouts of the missing 32 tonnes was "currently being investigated," he said.
Iraq declared it blended the missing explosive with sulphur to create 45.6 tonnes of "industrial explosive" provided to cement plants mainly for mining, he said.
Concerning reports - denied by Baghdad - that Iraq had been trying seeking to import uranium since 1991, El-Baradei said the agency had been unable to verify that and would continue to pursue the matter.
"It would be useful to receive from (UN-member-)states any specific information they may have in that regard," he told the council.
El-Baradei said that in all 109 inspections conducted by the IAEA in Iraq since its return in late November, Baghdad had "consistently provided access without conditions and without delay."
But while they had also made original documents available in response to IAEA questions, none had shed any light on outstanding concerns about Iraq's activities in the nuclear field since 1998, he said.