Libya Years Away From Nuke Weapon

The U.N. nuclear chief said Monday that his visits to four once-secret nuclear sites proved that Libya was in the early stages of a weapons program before it dismantled its efforts.

Mohammed ElBaradei and a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency found equipment had been taken apart and boxed up in the sites around the capital, Tripoli.

An IAEA official said ElBaradei's team found that Libya's program was "years away from a nuclear weapon. … There wasn't any weaponization."

Iran's nuclear program "was far more advanced," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The inspections follow Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's admission that his country had been seeking to produce weapons of mass destruction and his decision to abandon the program.

Iran has also allowed IAEA inspections of its facilities, though it insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. So far, the IAEA has said it has no evidence Tehran was producing weapons — though parts of Iran's program were kept secret for years, raising suspicions in the United States and elsewhere.

ElBaradei said Libya's equipment and technology had come from a number of countries.

"What we have seen is a program in the very initial stages of development," ElBaradei told reporters. "We haven't seen any industrial-scale facility to produce highly enriched uranium; we haven't seen any enriched uranium" — the material needed for developing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA official speaking on condition of anonymity said the inspectors found Libya had built "a pilot-scale centrifuge cascade and uranium conversion unit." Such equipment would be used to enrich uranium on an experimental scale, smaller than the industrial scale needed to produce weapons-grade material.

Much of the equipment had been packed up in shipping crates, the official said.

ElBaradei said the origins of Libya's technology would easily be identified "as they were of a familiar design."

He suggested a "sophisticated network" was behind the technology, including "a number of different people in a number of different places, a network which you can call a cartel but not necessarily with the knowledge of a particular country or countries."

"It has been across many countries in the world," he said.

ElBaradei had said earlier that Libya received its weapons equipment "through the black market and middle people."

On Monday, he declined to reveal the number or names of Libyan scientists or where they received training, but said they were "well competent scientists."

"That is good for Libya … to work on the peaceful development in nuclear program for civilian purposes," he said.

ElBaradei, who was to leave Libya later Monday, met with Matouq Mohammed Matouq, a Libyan deputy prime minister and head of the country's nuclear program, to develop a plan for future inspections.

The visit by the U.N. team is part of an international effort to ensure the North African state has no weapons of mass destruction. Six inspectors will be in Libya until Thursday.

Libya, long on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism, has promised full transparency and cooperation with the IAEA and said it would sign a protocol allowing wide-ranging inspections on short notice.

Gadhafi said he hoped Libya's action would pressure Israel to disarm. Israel, the only Mideast nation believed to possess nuclear arms, refuses to confirm or deny a weapons program.

According to ElBaradei's spokesman, Mark Gwozdecky, the sites visited Sunday were new facilities that "have never been mentioned in the media before."

As a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Libya is required to declare all sensitive nuclear installations to the United Nations.

Some of the inspectors on Sunday met with Libyan officials on "technical matters concerning the history of (Libya's) entire program" related to weapons of mass destruction, the U.N. spokesman said. ElBaradei did not take part in this meeting, he said, providing no further details.

Gadhafi's pledge to scrap Libya's weapons programs is the latest in a series of moves to end his country's international isolation and shed its image as a rogue nation. It followed eight months of covert negotiations and inspections by British and U.S. intelligence officials.

The United Nations lifted sanctions against Libya after it accepted responsibility in September for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims' families.

The United States imposed sanctions against Libya in 1986, claiming it supported terrorist groups. It continues its embargoes but after Gadhafi's nuclear promise hinted at improved economic relations.