Clarification

I have been advised by Robert Kelley of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that some of the American-based sources on whom I relied for information used in my Commentary piece “Cat Is Creeping Out of the Bag,” (Sept. 22) may have been in error, and I would like to add some information.

It appears that those manifests that were made available to the IAEA of centrifuge materials delivered to Iraq do appear to agree in almost all respects with the numbers of centrifuge parts and the materials for manufacturing more devices that have been located and destroyed by the agency. In addition, the agency informs me that, in the opinion of some experts in the classification of nuclear weapons data, the records seized from Iraq do not fall into the category of “restricted data,” the U.S. term for the secrets of nuclear weapons design--although other American experts argue that even some of the publicly released information uncovered during the “parking lot standoff” last year fit the legal definition. Unless that information has been declassified; on this matter the IAEA should err, if at all, on the side of caution. Finally, the experts in nuclear weapons design used by the IAEA were cleared personnel seconded by their governments, all of which are nuclear weapons states.

Members of the IAEA Action Team still seek more information about the Iraqi program, and the team is using its best sources and technology to find the rocks that must be lifted in order to ensure that the Iraqi nuclear program will, one day, truly be “at zero” and remain there. PETER D. ZIMMERMAN

Washington