Word: iaea
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...Saddam could string inspectors along for some time, making a false show of compliance while diluting the world's will to take him on. Blix says UNMOVIC will need at least a year to complete a full accounting of Iraq's inventory. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the inspectors will present a "work plan" to the Security Council within 50 days of arriving. Any serious assessment is a year off, however. The U.S. and Britain want to stack the deck for exposing Saddam in noncompliance by giving inspectors explicit authority to conduct "anytime, anywhere" searches. British diplomats...
...Some items on the inspectors' checklist - like suspected nuclear workshops and long-range ballistic missiles that require large stationary facilities - are relatively easy to spot. The man charged with finding them, iaea chief inspector Jacques Baute, said last week his nuclear-inspections team is equipped to uncover any bombs: "If you have the right people and use the right techniques, your probability of catching the offender is high." Since 1998, the IAEA has been analyzing satellite photos for signs that Saddam is pursuing nukes. Last month those photos produced images of new buildings going up at a former Iraqi weapons...
...knowing Iraq had unconventional weapons they hadn't found. Anti-Iraq hawks have little confidence that Hans Blix, current chief of the U.N.'s inspection team, would have any greater success. When Blix ran the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq secretly developed nuclear weapons while supposedly under IAEA oversight...
...Kang had firmly committed the North to permit these inspections -- crucial to confirming whether Pyongyang already has obtained plutonium to make bombs -- before any components for the new reactors arrived. But this week Kang insisted the North would never permit special inspections, and would only start talking to the IAEA about its past nuclear program once the new reactors were more than 50% complete. Kang also said his government intended to keep the plutonium-rich fuel rods it removed from the Yongbyon reactor last May in North Korea instead of shipping them abroad...
Washington can afford to wait a few weeks. IAEA inspectors note that North Korea is finally taking better care of the fuel rods removed from the Yongbyon reactor; they can remain safely in their cooling ponds for several more months under present conditions and much longer if the water quality is improved. Bill Clinton has no interest in encouraging another big international crisis while American troops are deployed in Haiti. But the fear that Pyongyang is just buying time while it builds secret bombs weighs more heavily than ever on many minds in Washington. Clinton will need real results soon...