U.N. Experts to Inspect Nuclear Site in Iraq

The Bush administration has agreed to allow United Nations experts to return to Iraq to inspect its leading nuclear research center, Pentagon and State Department officials said Tuesday.

The decision follows several sharp warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency that theft and destruction at nuclear sites could spread contamination or allow radioactive material to fall into the hands of extremist groups outside the country.

The immediate concern is the Tuwaitha nuclear research center outside Baghdad, the only center where U.N. inspectors will be allowed for now, U.S. officials said.

A senior administration official emphasized the step was not part of the resolution to lift U.N. sanctions against Iraq being pushed for a vote this week in the Security Council, but would “help us get the resolution.”

Diplomats from the United States and Britain are confident a majority of the council’s 15 members will support the resolution to lift sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But after more than three hours of closed-door negotiations Tuesday, U.S. officials said more discussions would be needed before a vote would take place and predicted that vote would occur on Thursday.

The return of the nuclear experts to Tuwaitha would be separate from any resumption of U.N. inspections for weapons of mass destruction, which were halted prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

As it now stands, the U.S. resolution before the Security Council reaffirms the importance of disarming Iraq but does not address the question of when or if U.N. inspectors would return to the country.

The IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, has been scrutinizing Iraq’s nuclear sites since well before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. U.S. officials say they are concerned about IAEA reports that claim Iraq’s nuclear sites have been looted, with uranium being emptied from containers and radioactive sources removed from their shielding and stolen.

“We have no problem with [temporary IAEA involvement],” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. “The reason I think it might not be a bad idea for them to come in is that they probably have inventories of all of that and would be in a position to know what was there. We do know there’s been some looting in some of those sites.”

U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte, after closed-door consultations among council members, said he expected a vote on the lifting of sanctions to take place “in all likelihood” on Thursday morning.

“I think there is strong support for this resolution. It is quite long. It has 25 operative paragraphs. A lot of them are rather legal and technical in nature, and some questions have arisen that just require just a little bit more work, and that’s what we are going to do now,” the U.S. ambassador said.

“I believe the atmosphere remains constructive,” said Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s U.N. ambassador. “There is wide acknowledgment that we have made a number of concessions already ... that have been received positively.”

For more than a month, the Bush administration has called on the U.N. to lift the sanctions, saying the move is necessary so a new government can be eventually formed in Iraq and oil can flow again.

The U.S. and Britain, as occupying powers, want to retain authority over reconstruction efforts, oil revenue and other matters central to Iraq’s future. But some U.N. members, including those who opposed the war, have been hesitant to lift sanctions without a stronger role for the U.N. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made calls to Russia, France, Germany, Pakistan, Spain and other key Security Council members to urge support of the latest U.S. draft.

“The gist of what the secretary’s telling members is that we have made changes that go in the direction of many of the issues that these various members had raised. We have a good resolution now that could form the basis of consensus or broad support within the council,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

To address demands for a stronger U.N. role, changes include naming a U.N. special representative rather than a less powerful coordinator mentioned in an earlier draft. New language also calls for a collaborative U.N. role in Iraq’s political transition. It pledges an eventual role in Iraq for U.N. weapons inspectors, which Washington has rejected, would be addressed.

The compromise also allows a six-month time frame to phase out the U.N. “oil-for-food” program, which has channeled all Iraqi oil revenue through the U.N. to pay for imports restricted to humanitarian items.

The draft resolution continues to make clear that the U.S. and Britain have broad powers to decide how to spend Iraq’s oil revenues, and as the occupying powers, guide the process designed to help the Iraqi people form a representative government that will be recognized internationally.

Greenstock said some nations were asking for further concessions, “which I don’t think the co-sponsors are willing to make.”

Washington hinted, however, there still might be last-minute changes.

“We’ll just have to see if there’s some last-minute intervention that would cause us to change that [resolution]. But at this point we think this is a substantially complete and a fair and balanced text,” Boucher told reporters.

The State Department said achieving a unanimous 15-0 vote was still its goal. “It’s always possible to get 15. We’re still working on it,” Boucher said.

Other administration officials said the resolution drafted by the U.S. and Britain may get only the nine votes needed for passage. The U.S. does not expect any vetoes from France, Russia or China, the three other permanent Security Council members besides Britain.

“There will still be a lot of public commentary and a period of discussion when a lot of people grouse. But we’ll get the nine votes and that may be all, with a boatload of abstentions,” said one administration official.

After Powell’s talks in Germany on Friday, the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder may vote with the United States, some U.S. officials predicted.

When the latest draft of the resolution was given to council members on Monday, a German diplomat told reporters, “We are surprised in a positive way. It is more than we expected.”

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Sergei V. Lavrov, said Tuesday that his nation was seeking greater clarity of the Security Council’s role in the reconstruction of Iraq as well as how to close the U.N. file on Iraq’s disarmament.

Other council members sought a timetable for the occupation by the U.S. and Britain and consideration of whether the council should consider the resolution again in a year.

“I believe the co-sponsors were acting in a constructive manner, and on those questions they didn’t have answers today, they promised to come back to us tomorrow,” Lavrov said.

In April, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, asked the U.S. to secure nuclear material kept under U.N. seal at the Tuwaitha research center and was assured that it would happen.

But after media reports that nuclear facilities in Iraq were looted, he asked the Bush administration on April 29 for permission to send a team to Iraq to investigate the looting.

On Monday, he said in a statement that he remained “deeply concerned.”

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Goldman reported from New York and Wright from Washington.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Draft resolution

Here are major points of the U.S. draft resolution to end United Nations sanctions against Iraq. The measure would:

* Phase out within six months U.N. trade and financial sanctions in place since 1990.

* Encourage the people of Iraq to establish a representative government but set no date for its formation.

* Call for an authority run by the United States and Britain to administer Iraq and foster conditions under which the Iraqi people could freely determine their political future.

* Support the formation of an interim administration run by Iraqis until an internationally recognized representative government was established.

* Set up a development fund for Iraq within the central bank of Iraq with an international advisory and monitoring board. Oil revenue would be deposited in the fund and disbursed at the direction of the U.S.-British authority in consultation with Iraq’s interim administration.

* Strengthen the role of the U.N. in Iraq, including the appointment of a U.N. representative there, and keep the door open to the return of U.N. inspectors to confirm that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

Los Angeles Times