Looting at Iraq Weapons Plants After Invasion: NYT

Mar 12, 7:53 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Looters systematically removed tons of equipment from Iraqi weapons facilities, including some with components capable of making parts of nuclear arms, in the weeks after Baghdad fell in 2003, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing Iraq's deputy minister of industry, Sami al-Araji, the paper reported a highly organized operation apparently pinpointed specific plants in a quest for valuable equipment, some of which had both civilian and military applications.

"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," the Times quoted Araji as saying. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want; this was sophisticated looting."

The official based his account chiefly on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or lived nearby, the newspaper reported.

The facilities, cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, were left largely unguarded by troops in the months after Baghdad fell. Senior U.N. agency officials confirmed that satellite images confirmed that some of the sites said to have been looted did appear to be totally or partially stripped, the Times report said.

According to the newspaper, Araji said that equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from eight or 10 sites that were at the heart of Iraq's dormant unconventional weapons program.

The Iraqi official said he had no evidence of where the equipment had ended up, but the black market or foreign governments were possibilities, the Times said. He added that he believed the looters' primary motivation was making money, not weapons. The newspaper spoke with him on Wednesday and Friday.

The White House said in response to Araji's account that it was well known that many weapons sites were looted and had no other comment, the Times said.

The type of machinery at the looted sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs, the Times said. But the equipment also has peaceful applications.

Araji speculated that, if the equipment left the country, its most likely destination was a neighboring state.

David Albright, an authority on nuclear weapons who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said Syria and Iran were the most likely candidates for the kind of equipment purchased by Saddam Hussein when he was trying to build a nuclear weapon in the 1980s.

http://reuters.excite.com//article/20050313/2005-03-13T005349Z_01_N12493206_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-IRAQ-LOOTING-REPORT-DC.html

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