Elbaradei wins the "peace prize" ! Is this a new short story from Fanz Kafka? No, it's true....from DEBKAfile October 7, 2005, 3:43 PM (GMT+02:00) ...
In 2002, the United States, Britain and Israel strongly suspected the new Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradai, of employing secret delaying tactics to help three Muslim nations get their nuclear weapons programs off the ground. The nations were Libya, Iran and Egypt. Intelligence data showed those programs as being nourished by the technology, experience and expertise of Pakistan and North Korea, both motivated by their dire cash shortage. The assumption therefore in Washington, Jerusalem and London - later proved correct - was that the necessary funding was put up by Tehran, Tripoli and Cairo.
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was also busy at the time preparing to go into nuclear weapons production. But, whenever the UN Security Council asked ElBaradei to go to Iraq and see what the Saddam regime was up to, he always came back denying any signs of prohibited activity but always adding that more checks were needed.
By mid-2004, a year after the US invaded Iraq - by which time Saddam was under lock and key, most people had come to terms with the conclusion that the Iraqi dictator was innocent of any nuclear aspirations, or even chemical and biological programs. It was then that the IAEA in Vienna began releasing highly-suggestive reports. Complete installations and equipment capable of use in nuclear weapons production were suddenly found to have been dismantled and removed from Iraq by a hidden hand.
Satellite photos, commissioned by the UN watchdog, were attached to the reports. They showed those same installations still standing in January and February 2003, weeks before the US invasion. A second set of photos were taken in May and June, just after Baghdad had fallen, showed the same installations stripped to the ground, their former sites flat and bare.
The IEAE director then came forward to voice concern lest the nuclear equipment concerned fall into the wrong hands. He was equally a Johnny-come-lately in the cases of the nuclear activities of Libya, Pakistan and Egypt.
By means of delicate diplomacy during 2003 and 2004, the Bush administration persuaded Libya to relinquish its nuclear weapons industry. US military planes flew the centrifuges Pakistan supplied Libya for uranium enrichment and its yellow cake out of the country to the United States. Pakistan, prodded by Washington, “uncovered” a nuclear black market ring headed by Dr Qader Khan, the father of the Pakistan nuclear bomb, and Egypt confessed to possessing a supply of enriched uranium for military purposes. While this was going on, Dr. ElBaradei and the IAEA teams stood on the sidelines in a supportive role.
These episodes demonstrate that the prime mover in dismantling the most dangerous focii of nuclear weapons production was the Bush administration rather than the UN nuclear watchdog and its director. It was only after these episodes were successfully concluded that ElBaradei realized that Washington had drawn up new rules for the international nuclear game. He began cooperating in earnest with America’s effort to disarm North Korea.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has never been known for its objective, impartial justice in making its prestigious awards. Israelis will not forget that the Palestinian master terrorist Yasser Arafat was honored with the Peace Prize in 1995 at a time that he was preparing the most extensive suicide terrorism campaign against civilians ever seen before. Al Qaeda learned much from this Palestinian terror innovator.
The late Israeli prime minister Yizhak Rabin and the incumbent vice premier Shimon Peres were co-recipients of the same prize. They were genuinely under the illusion that Middle East peace was around the corner.
It may be said therefore, that President Bush and Vice president Dick Cheney, who rolled up their sleeves and got down to the job of defusing dangerous nuclear arms projects, will have to watch ElBaradei and his agency walking off with the credit for their efforts at a grand ceremony in Oslo.
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