IAEA Says Tons of Iraq Explosives Missing
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria - Several hundred tons of conventional explosives are
missing from a former Iraqi military facility that once played a key role
in Saddam Hussein's efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the U.N. nuclear
agency confirmed Monday.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will report the
materials' disappearance to the U.N. Security Council later Monday,
spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told The Associated Press.

"On Oct. 10, the IAEA received a declaration from the Iraqi Ministry of
Science and Technology informing us that approximately 350 (metric) tons of
high explosive material had gone missing," Fleming said.

"The most immediate concern here is that these explosives could have fallen
into the wrong hands."

In Washington, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's campaign said
the Bush administration "must answer for what may be the most grave and
catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq."

"How did they fail to secure ... tons of known, deadly explosives despite
clear warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency to do so?"
senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart said in a statement.

The Iraqis told the nuclear agency the materials had been stolen and looted
because of a lack of security at governmental installations, Fleming said.

"We do not know what happened to the explosives or when they were looted,"
she told AP.

Nearly 380 tons of powerful explosives that could be used to build large
conventional bombs are missing from the former Al Qaqaa military
installation, The New York Times reported Monday. The 380 tons is the U.S.
equivalent of the figure of 350 metric tons mentioned by the Iraqis, the
IAEA said.

The newspaper said they disappeared after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
last year.

The explosives included HMX and RDX, which can be used to demolish
buildings, down jetliners, produce warheads for missiles and detonate
nuclear weapons. HMX and RDX are key ingredients in plastic explosives such
as C-4 and Semtex — substances so powerful that Libyan terrorists needed
just 1 pound to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in
1988, killing 170 people.

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, was informed of the
missing explosives in the past month, the report said. It said Iraq's
interim government recently warned the United States and U.N. nuclear
inspectors that the explosives had vanished.

"Upon receiving the declaration on Oct. 10, we first took measures to
authenticate it," Fleming said. "Then on Oct. 15, we informed the
multinational forces through the U.S. government with the request for it to
take any appropriate action in cooperation with Iraq's interim government."

"Mr. ElBaradei wanted to give them some time to recover the explosives
before reporting this loss to the Security Council, but since it's now out,
ElBaradei plans to inform the Security Council today" in a letter to the
council president, she said.

Before the war, inspectors with the Vienna-based IAEA had kept tabs on the
so-called "dual use" explosives because they could have been used to
detonate a nuclear weapon. Experts say HMX can be used to create a highly
powerful explosion with enough intensity to ignite the fissile material in
an atomic bomb and set off a nuclear chain reaction.

IAEA inspectors pulled out of Iraq just before the 2003 invasion and have
not yet been able to return despite ElBaradei's repeated urging that the
experts be allowed back in to finish their work.

ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council before the war that Iraq's nuclear
program was in disarray and that there was no evidence to suggest it had
revived efforts to build atomic weaponry.

Al Qaqaa, a sprawling former military installation about 30 miles south of
Baghdad, was placed under U.S. military control but repeatedly has been
looted, raising troubling questions about whether the missing explosives
have fallen into the hands of insurgents battling coalition forces.

Saddam was known to have used the site to make conventional warheads, and
IAEA inspectors dismantled parts of his nuclear program there before the
1991 Gulf War. The experts also oversaw the destruction of Iraq's chemical
and biological weapons.

The nuclear agency pulled out of Iraq in 1998, and by the time it returned
in 2002, it confirmed that 35 tons of HMX that had been placed under IAEA
seal were missing. HMX and RDX are the key components in plastic
explosives, which insurgents have widely used in a series of bloody car
bombings in Iraq.

"These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level buildings, attack
our troops and detonate nuclear weapons," Lockhart said.

"The Bush administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action
to secure the site. They were urgently and specifically informed that
terrorists could be helping themselves to the most dangerous explosives
bonanza in history, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening," he
said.

"This material was monitored and controlled by U.N. inspectors before the
invasion of Iraq. Thanks to the stunning incompetence of the Bush
administration, we now have no idea where it is," Lockhart said. He
demanded the White House explain "why they failed to safeguard these
explosives and keep them out of the hands of our enemies."

ElBaradei told the United Nations in February 2003 that Iraq had declared
that "HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the
production of industrial explosives, primarily to cement plants as a
booster for explosives used in quarrying."

"However, given the nature of the use of high explosives, it may well be
that the IAEA will be unable to reach a final conclusion on the end use of
this material," ElBaradei warned at the time.

"A large quantity of these explosives were under IAEA seal because they do
have a nuclear application," Fleming said Monday.

The nuclear agency has no concrete evidence to suggest the seals were
broken, Fleming said, but a diplomat familiar with the agency's work in
Iraq said the seals must have been broken if the explosives were stolen.

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