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IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday it warned the
United States about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq's Al-
Qaqaa military installation after another facility — Iraq's main nuclear
complex — was looted in April 2003.

Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency,
told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about
what was stored at Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq.

Some 377 tons of high explosives — HMX and RDX and PETN — are now missing
from the facility, and questions have arisen about what the United States
knew about Al-Qaqaa and what it did to secure the site.

Iraqi officials say the materials were taken amid looting sometime after
the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces on April 9, 2003, though the Pentagon is
suggesting the ordnance could have been moved by Saddam Hussein's regime
before the United States invaded on March 20, 2003.

Fleming did not say which officials were notified or exactly when, but she
said the IAEA — which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal just
before the war — alerted the United States after the Tuwaitha nuclear
complex was looted.

"After we heard reports of looting at the Tuwaitha site in April 2003, the
agency's chief Iraq inspectors alerted American officials that we were
concerned about the security of the high explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa,"
she told the AP.

"It is also important to note that this was the main high explosives
storage facility in Iraq, and it was well-known through IAEA reports to the
Security Council," Fleming said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei informed the United Nations (news - web sites)
in February 2003, and again in April of that year, that he was concerned
about HMX explosives, which were stored at Al-Qaqaa.

The explosives' disappearance has become a flashpoint in the final week of
the U.S. presidential campaign, with Democratic nominee John Kerry accusing
the Bush administration of ignoring the threat.

IAEA inspectors last confirmed that the agency's seals on the explosives
were in place and intact in early to mid-March 2003, days before the
invasion began March 20.

The IAEA sought Thursday to clarify reports that the amount of missing
explosives may have been far less than what the Iraqis said in an Oct. 10
report to the nuclear agency.

ABC News, citing IAEA inspection documents, reported Wednesday night that
the Iraqis had declared 141 tons of RDX explosives at Al-Qaqaa in July
2002, but that the site held only three tons when it was checked in January
2003.

The network said that could suggest that 138 tons were removed from the
facility long before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

But Fleming said most of the RDX — about 125 tons — was kept at Al-
Mahaweel, a storage site under Al-Qaqaa's jurisdiction located outside the
main Al-Qaqaa site. She also said about 10 tons already had been reported
by Iraq as having been used for non-prohibited purposes between July 2002
and January 2003.

"IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX
inventory by weighing sampling," Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-
Mahaweel was not under seal but was subject to IAEA monitoring.

"IAEA inspectors were in the process of verifying this statement ... and
would have proceeded later had they stayed in Iraq," Fleming said. The
nuclear agency's inspectors pulled out of Iraq just before the U.S.-led
invasion and have not been allowed to return for general inspections
despite ElBaradei's requests that they be allowed to finish their work.

The agency became involved at Al-Qaqaa because of the presence of 214 tons
of HMX, which — like RDX — is a key component in plastic explosives but
also can be used as an ignitor on a nuclear weapon. Fleming said it was the
HMX that was the agency's main focus.

ABC said the inspection report noted that the seals at Al-Qaqaa may have
been useless because the storage bunkers had ventilation slats on the sides
that could have been removed to give looters access to the explosives.

But Fleming said the inspectors had also checked the ventilation slats to
ensure they had not been tampered with, and that they concluded "the
confinement was sufficient" as long as the site was regularly checked. They
could no longer do that once they pulled out just before the invasion.

IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an
inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers. Inspectors visited the
site again in March 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals
were not broken, she said.

Agency inspectors who have returned twice to Iraq since the war focused
only on Tuwaitha, a sprawling nuclear complex 12 miles south of Baghdad.

In June 2003, inspectors investigated reports of widespread looting of
storage rooms at Tuwaitha, and they returned in August 2003 to take
inventory of several tons of natural uranium that had been stored there.
They have not been allowed back to Al-Qaqaa.

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