IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei on the Non-Proliferation Regime and Iraq

The following excerpts are from IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's keynote address at the 2002 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, November 14. 

Let me say how honored and privileged I am to be with you today. This is the annual reality check on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, and I am proud to be part of that.

The 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the NPT, with 188 states party, represents the cornerstone of the global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament effort. And despite recent challenges, it has never been more relevant than it is today. But if we are to move forward, I believe it is essential that we revisit a number of basic assumptions and features of the existing regime, and consider a number of new approaches.

The assumption at the core of the NPT was that the asymmetry between nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states would gradually disappear. Different interrelated commitments were undertaken by two distinct global states. But the record on upholding those commitments is mixed. Global access to the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology -- related to energy generation, human health, water management, food production and environmental restoration -- has indeed made significant progress through the technology transfer for the IAEA and others…Progress has also been made on the nuclear disarmament front, but much more remains to be done…

Correcting Inspection Problems

The discoveries of a clandestine nuclear program in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War made it painfully clear that the IAEA verification system, with its focus on declared nuclear activities and its limited rights of access to information and sites, was not adequate for the IAEA to provide the comprehensive peaceful-use assurance required under the NPT. This stark realization prompted the international community to significantly expand IAEA verification rights. These new rights were incorporated in a 1997 protocol, additional to safeguard agreements, with requests for all the states to subscribe to it.

Regrettably, however, many states have not taken the necessary steps to conclude the required safeguard agreements with the Agency, let alone the additional protocols. However, I should note that some non-nuclear weapon states are hedging on their willingness to conclude the required additional protocols to the safeguard agreement by pointing to the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament.

Naturally, without our safeguards agreement the Agency cannot perform any verification activities at all or provide any assurance of non-proliferation. And for a state without additional protocols, the IAEA's right of access remains essentially the same as in pre-Iraq days. For the IAEA to provide the required assurances, it must have the required authority…

Prerequisites for Success

With the adoption last Friday of Security Council Resolution 1441, we are now preparing to resume our inspection activities in Iraq as early as next Monday, when Hans Blix and I are expected to lead an advance team of inspectors to Baghdad. The success of an inspection in Iraq will, in my view, depend on five interrelated prerequisites:

-One, immediate, unfettered access to any location or site in Iraq, and full use of all the authority granted to us by the Security Council, including the additional authority provided for in the new resolution.

-Two, ready access to all sources of information, including timely intelligence information.

- Three, unified and unequivocal support from the Security Council throughout an inspection process, with the affirmed resolve to act promptly in case of noncompliance. This in my view is the best support that the inspectors could have, and the best deterrent against noncompliance.

- Fourth, active cooperation from Iraq with sustained demonstration of its stated willingness to be transparent and to enable the inspectors to fulfill their mission without any conditions attached.

- And, five, preservation of the integrity and impartiality of an inspection process, free from outside interference, to ensure that conclusions are accepted as objective and credible by all parties.

In my view, the use of force should clearly be the last resort, and not the first option.But, regardless of how events unfold in the foreseeable future, inspection will be the key in the long haul to ensuring that clandestine efforts to develop nuclear weapons in Iraq or elsewhere are detected and thwarted.

There is no certainty, for example, that a new regime in Iraq, democratic or otherwise, would automatically renounce unconventional weapons, if such a renunciation were perceived to be inconsistent with its threat perception. It is essential, therefore, that we make every effort to see to it that an inspection, which is central to the entire nuclear arms control efforts, succeeds in Iraq, and everywhere else. This requires that we continue to learn from our past experience, that we continue to refine this system, and that, above all, that we continue to work together towards that goal.