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Iraq will not restart N-programme: Allawi

BAGHDAD: Iraq will not restart the nuclear weapons programme initiated by deposed President Saddam Hussein, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Thursday.

The programme, along with Iraq’s suspected chemical and biological weapons capability, was one of US President George W Bush’s stated reasons for invading Iraq last year. No evidence of an ongoing nonconventional weapons programme was ever discovered.

“Iraq has no intention and no will to resume these (nuclear) programmes in the future. These materials, which are potential weapons of mass murder, are not welcome in our country and their production is unacceptable,” Allawi said. “The Iraqi government will no longer spend the riches of its nation on these destructive and illegal weapons.”

Allawi made the announcement a few weeks after a pair of US government agencies secretly transported nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium and roughly 1,000 highly radioactive objects from a former Iraqi nuclear research facility to the United States.

Allawi’s office said the US departments of defence and energy completed a joint operation to remove radiological and nuclear materials that terrorists or Iraqi guerrillas could have used to build a “dirty bomb.” He said the materials also might have potentially been used by a future government that wished to resume the country’s stalled nuclear weapons programme.

The statement said less sensitive radioactive materials that will remain in Iraq have been repackaged according to international standards by the US Energy Department, and some radiological sources will continue to be used for medical, agricultural or industrial purposes.

Allawi’s statement confirmed a June operation disclosed by the Energy Department, which said the material was airlifted out of the country to an undisclosed Energy Department laboratory in the United States for further analysis.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham described the operation, which was concluded June 23, as “a major achievement” in an attempt to “keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.” ap

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