US spies on ElBaradei
US wants IAEA head gone but can't find support for move.
The US has
listened in on dozens of phone calls between Iranian officials and Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in "a search for ammunition" to use against him,
The Washington Post reported on Sunday. The article says that the action is being spearheaded by
neocon hardliner John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control.
The State Department and the CIA
declined to comment on the
Post report.
The
Post also reported that the campaign against Mr. ElBaradei is proving to be a difficult one: the tapped phone calls have produced no evidence of any kind of misbehavior and the US can't generate enough support with the other IAEA members to oust its chief. Even Britain, the
Independent reports Monday, will not support the US move because British officials see the effort as little more than an attempt to "
pay back ElBaradei over Iraq."
At one level, the ElBaradei affair is a sign of mounting US frustration over Iran, a founder member of Mr Bush's 'axis of evil.' But most analysts believe that no good military option exists against Iran, and that the US has no alternative but to negotiate. But the episode also shows the level of anti-UN feeling in parts of the US administration. "These guys just cannot stand the UN getting in the way of what they want to do," a US diplomat said of Mr. Bolton and his fellow neo-conservatives.
ElBaradei and then-UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, expressed doubts about US claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The
Guardian reports that neoconservatives in the Bush administration have never forgiven ElBaradei for exposing "
the hollowness of Washington's claims about Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal during the run-up to the war on Iraq."
The officials interviewed by the
Post said that recent anonymous allegations made in the media against ElBaradei are part of the US plan to discredit him.
Al Jazeera had reported a little less than a week ago that ElBaradei
had denied "rumors" that he had collaborated with Iran before releasing reports about that country's nuclear program.
The US also cannot find anyone willing to run against ElBaradei. The candidate the US would like to run – Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, is
not willing to comment on the situation, according to
ABC Online.
Apparently the Bush administration approached Mr. Downer in September about taking on ElBaradei, but Downer was uninterested.
The Age reports that former chief weapons inspector Richard Butler said Downer was probably uncomfortable with the idea that he would do whatever
the US told him to do.
In fact, another former Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, who now heads a panel on UN reform, says that ElBaradei has done a great job and that
the US is making a mistake in trying to remove him.
"If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now."
In Vienna, the IAEA says it's not surprised by the
Post's report. "We've always assumed that this kind of thing goes on," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. "We wish it were otherwise, but we know the reality."
The
Guardian also reports Monday that at least one well known foreign policy expert argued that the US was wasting it's time going after ElBaradei and would better serve its own interests by backing the recently reached accord between European powers and Iran.
"I think we should be more wholeheartedly supporting the Europeans," Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for the first President Bush, told
CNN yesterday. "I think we have little to lose by reaching out, and trying to draw them [Iran] at least into freezing their program." For its part the US is trying to paint its campaign against ElBaradei as
a push for term limits, reports
Voice of America. ElBaradei is in his second five-year term, but many member countries of the IAEA have asked him to stay for a third.
Other experts interviewed by the
Post for the original article say the international community will only see the US tactics as an attempt to "blackball ElBaradei," and only increase global hostility to the US.
ABC Online reports that Joseph Cirincione, Director of proliferation studies at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, believes the US actions are
actually dangerous not only for the United States diplomatically, but for international nuclear security."
'Well this kind of campaign is very ill-considered and is likely to backfire on the United States. It's unfortunately become all too typical of a kind of aggressive, even bullying, style the Bush administration has in trying to get international organizations to agree with their points of view. I think it's directed at the wrong person at the wrong time.'
The Times of London reported Sunday on how that
hostility is causing problems for even the closest of US allies. The
Times reports that Bush will avoid Britain on his post-inaugural trip to Europe because his presence will cause problems for Prime Minister Tony Blair as he prepares to call an election.
'Downing Street was not exactly queueing up for the President to visit,' an official in Washington said. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush discussed the trip when the Prime Minister visited Washington last month. Mr. Blair did not suggest that Mr. Bush should include Britain on his itinerary, according to American and British officials. Instead, he encouraged Mr. Bush to visit countries where he needs to work on his image. Bush, however, only plans to visit Brussels and two other European countries during his trip.
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