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[The Bobster]

Atomic Agency and Chief Win the Nobel Peace Prize

By CRAIG S. SMITH

OSLO, Oct. 7 - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, whom the Bush administration tried but failed to remove from his job just months ago.

The award was a vindication of a man and an agency long at odds with President Bush and his administration over how to confront Iraq and Iran. It could strengthen the agency's position as conflicts loom over preventing Iran from obtaining fuel it could use for nuclear weapons and disarming North Korea.

For most of the last year, the Bush administration had tried to block Dr. ElBaradei from assuming a third term as chief of the agency, a part of the United Nations, arguing that he would not be strong enough to face down Iran and the covert nuclear weapons program it is suspected of having. But the United States had no support from any of its allies, and ultimately had to withdraw its objections to Dr. ElBaradei's reappointment.

The roots of the disagreement stretch back before the invasion of Iraq, when Dr. ElBaradei was openly skeptical of the Bush administration's accusations that Saddam Hussein had rebuilt a nuclear program. No weapons of mass destruction have since been found in Iraq.

Tensions persisted as Dr. ElBaradei declined to join in the American claim that Iran is secretly attempting to build a nuclear weapon, insisting that so far he could report only that Iran had hidden, for 17 years, a series of nuclear programs from the agency's inspectors.

Speaking in Vienna on Friday after learning of the award, Dr. ElBaradei said, "The prize recognizes the role of multilateralism in resolving all of the challenges we are facing today. It will strengthen my resolve and that of my colleagues to continue to speak truth to power."

Sometimes people who tell the truth also get rewarded.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

The Times October 08, 2005

Gong for dubious level of achievement
By Bronwen Maddox
Foreign Editor's Briefing





GIVING the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohamed ElBaradei is a slap in the face for the US. That was perhaps the motivation; it is hard to see any other solid reason for giving the award to him, shared with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In the past eight years the agency and its director-general have failed to detect covert nuclear programmes in at least three countries — and failed to get diplomatic purchase on the problems when others have brought them to light. That does not amount to a contribution to world peace.

The single judgment that Dr ElBaradei has got right in his eight years at the IAEA is the one most provocative to the US: that Iraq, in 2003, had no significant nuclear programme.

But before the war, the US didn��t rate the Iraqi nuclear programme as a big threat, compared with that from chemical and biological weapons. It thought that the real nuclear threat lay in the future, in Saddam Hussein��s known interest in acquiring the capability.

The IAEA��s ��success�� in not exaggerating the threat of Iraq in 2003 is compromised by the number of times it has missed a threat entirely:



Before the 1991 Gulf War (before Dr ElBaradei��s appointment), the IAEA failed to detect Saddam��s nuclear programme. After the war, it was startled by the scale of his work to make fissile material.


Under Dr ElBaradei, the IAEA missed the Libyan nuclear programme, which Libya chose to reveal after the 2003 Iraq war.


It missed Iran��s 20-year covert nuclear research programme, exposed by Iranian dissidents three years ago.


It failed to detect the ��nuclear supermarket�� run by A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold plans and components to Libya, North Korea and Iran.


It was slow to sound the alarm about North Korea��s conversion of its civil nuclear power into a weapons programme. The US accused North Korea of weapons ambitions in 2002.
Nor, when those cases of proliferation have come to light, has Dr ElBaradei or the agency played a significant part in trying to get the regimes to desist. The stand-off between India and Pakistan after nuclear tests in 1998 was left to the US and Europe to tackle. In North Korea the IAEA has been sidelined as the US, China and Japan have taken the lead.

But it is Iran where the IAEA and Dr ElBaradei most need to justify their actions — or lack of them. In the past three years IAEA inspectors have repeatedly visited Iran to study the extent of its nuclear research. Dr ElBaradei��s quarterly reports to the IAEA board of directors have shown that Iran��s co-operation has been grudging, slow and sometimes incomplete. Inspectors have not found clear evidence of a weapons programme.

America��s quarrel with Dr ElBaradei is that these reports have been written in so measured a tone that they have not put much pressure on Iran.

British officials, who have been working with French and German counterparts, say that Dr ElBaradei has been less helpful than they wanted in trying to threaten Iran with referral to the UN Security Council. US officials have suggested that this is because he is Egyptian, Muslim and sympathetic to Islamic countries. European officials more often see his reserve as stemming from a distress at the failure of diplomacy that a referral would imply.

But certainly, in his public comments, Dr ElBaradei has sounded sympathetic to the aspirations of developing countries. He has attacked what he sees as double standards at the heart of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, by which acknowledged nuclear weapons powers seek to stop others getting them.

He has extensively promoted his own solution to the Iranian problem: to put uranium enrichment plants under shared, international ownership, so that everyone could rest assured that they were not used to make weapons-grade material.

It is a neat theoretical idea that has found no foothold in diplomatic reality. Dr ElBaradei��s defenders say that his critics wrongly blame him for problems that stem from the IAEA��s mixed mandate or their own muddled diplomacy. The twin roles of the IAEA have always given it an uncomfortable juggling act: to promote civil nuclear power but to deter the spread of weapons. Dr ElBaradei has argued that the agency must follow its remit in asking to inspect known sites. It cannot ask for impromtu inspections based on rumours. Even so, under his lead, the agency has widened the ��additional protocol��, giving it the right to make more intrusive inspections of more countries. He has also been caustic about the weakness of some European diplomacy. He was critical of one ��deal�� with Iran that ducked the key question of how to define the suspension of controversial work, handing this to the IAEA.

That defence is fair, as far as it goes. But it still seems a tepid answer to the challenge thrown up by the record of the past eight years, in which the IAEA failed to detect many cases of proliferation and then struggled to find itself a role.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1816612,00.html

[Pligganease]

What Joo said.

[Kuros]

Boo. It's not courageous to stand up against the U.S. when it is popular to do so. As per the article Joo posted, I agree that ElBaradei is weak with the Iranians, and he may be presiding over the IAEA at a time when more states are acquiring nuclear technology outside of NPT protocol than at any time before.

[The Bobster]

[Paji eh Wong]

Who was it who said "Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize has rendered political satire obsolete"?

[Bulsajo]

Unfortunately I think it's the Peace Prize itself that is obsolete... but I guess that's just saying the same thing in a less clever way.

[Kuros]

[bucheon bum]

While I respect the man, I certainly don't think he warrants a nobel peace prize. I'm positive there are more qualified people out there for the award.

[The Bobster]

[On the other hand]

[Summer Wine]

[The Bobster]

[bucheon bum]

like we both said, we respect the man. Hell, he might deserve some type of prize, reward, etc. but the nobel peace prize? No. standing up to dick cheney isn't exactly the same as standing up to a despot who has tried to kill you. It isn't ending a decades-long conflict; it isn't even encouraging democracy and freedom.

All he has done is run an organization that oversees nuclear programs throughout the world.

[The Bobster]