Monday, December 29, 2003
An official said the program was only at an experimental stage.
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- The U.N. nuclear chief said that his visits to four once-secret nuclear sites proved that Libya was in the early stages of a weapons program before it dismantled its efforts.
Mohammed ElBaradei and a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency found equipment had been taken apart and boxed up at the sites in the capital, Tripoli.
An IAEA official said today that ElBaradei's team found that Libya's program was "years away from a nuclear weapon. ... There wasn't any weaponization."
Iran's nuclear program "was far more advanced," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The inspections follow Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's admission that his country had been seeking to produce weapons of mass destruction and his decision to abandon the program. Iran has also allowed IAEA inspections of its facilities, though it insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. So far, the IAEA has said it has no evidence Tehran was producing weapons -- though parts of Iran's program were kept secret for years, raising suspicions in the United States and elsewhere.
Message to North Korea
ElBaradei said Libya's cooperation could help bring the issue of the country's nuclear program to a close "in the next few months," and he called on North Korea -- locked in a nuclear standoff with the United States -- to follow Libya's example.
"If a country was to show transparency and active cooperation, that can open the doors of lots of avenues for a complete change of face. ... It is a lesson for North Korea to observe," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei said Libya's equipment and technology had come from a "sophisticated network" or "cartel" operating in several countries -- though "not necessarily with the knowledge of a particular country or countries."
He said the origins of Libya's materials would easily be identified "as they were of a familiar design."
"What we have seen is a program in the very initial stages of development," ElBaradei told reporters. "We haven't seen any industrial-scale facility to produce highly enriched uranium; we haven't seen any enriched uranium" -- the material needed for developing nuclear weapons.
Experimental scale
The IAEA official speaking on condition of anonymity said the inspectors found Libya had built "a pilot-scale centrifuge cascade and uranium conversion unit. Such equipment would be used to enrich uranium on an experimental scale, smaller than the industrial scale needed to produce weapons-grade material.
Much of the equipment had been packed up in shipping crates, the official said.
He declined today to reveal the number or names of Libyan scientists or where they received training, but said they were "well competent scientists."
ElBaradei, who was to leave Libya later today, met with Shokri Ghanem, Libyan prime minister, and Matouq Mohammed Matouq, a Libyan deputy prime minister and head of the country's nuclear program, to develop a plan for future inspections.
Libya, long on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism, has promised full transparency and cooperation with the IAEA and said it would sign a protocol allowing wide-ranging inspections on short notice.