December 3, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 27,1423

SEIBERSDORF (Austria): It is hard to imagine that inside an innocuous cluster of buildings in the Austrian countryside scientists might find something worthy of igniting a war in Iraq.

But that is exactly the power the UN forensic laboratories located a half hour’s drive from the Austrian capital will hold when samples collected by weapons inspectors begin arriving from Baghdad next week.

The UN inspectors have returned to Iraq after a four-year hiatus to resume their hunt for weapons of mass destruction under threat of a United States-led military attack.

David Donohue, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Clean Laboratory Unit in the east Austrian town of Seibersdorf, said that technicians and scientists would make sure they deliver results to the UN Security Council inside the two-month deadline.

“The inspectors have a list of sites that they have to visit in this two-month period and the samples that come back have to be analysed in the same period,” Donohue said, referring to IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei’s deadline to brief the Security Council.

“It’s going to be a lot of stress to get the samples analysed before the end of this two-month period,” he added.

Donohue is confident that if inspectors have unlimited access to all the sites they want to see, the multi-million dollar lab that analyses environmental samples from Iraq will uncover even the most minute traces of illegal activity.

“Even if they paint the walls and completely change the floor to hide it, we’ll still find it,” said Donohue.

“If we’re in the right building or on the right site, we will find it. They can be quite clever at hiding things, but we have to be just as clever at finding it,” he said.

ARMED WITH COTTON SWABS: Experience from the very first inspection in May 1991, when UN experts found traces of a uranium enrichment programme indicating Iraqis were trying to make a bomb, shows results may come fast.

The nuclear inspectors’ principal tool is not a Geiger counter but a 10x10 cm (4x4 inch) cotton pad for swabbing buildings.

Armed with hundreds of sterile environmental sampling kits — which include swabs, medical gloves and polythene bags to protect the samples — dozens of IAEA inspectors in the field will meticulously examine suspicious buildings and sites all over Iraq.

Inspectors will be especially interested in areas around ventilation systems, where telltale dust particles tend to collect, Donohue said.

“What they’re trying to do is to collect very small traces of nuclear material that might be present at the site,” he said.

State-of-the art instruments, some of which are new since the inspectors fled Iraq in 1998, can detect the tiniest uranium particle, down to a trillionth of a gram.

A country needs 20 to 30 kg of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear programme, so it is virtually impossible to erase all traces, Donohue said.

The inspectors already had a pretty good idea of where to look before they arrived in Baghdad.

“They have been watching Iraq very closely by satellite, spy satellites, for the last couple of years,” said Donohue. “And if (the Iraqis) have built anything, I’m sure it will be found. Even an underground tunnel leaves a trace.”

TRIGGER FOR WAR: The scientists at the lab are well aware that their work could be the trigger for a war against Iraq.

The Iraqis are to provide a full and truthful declaration of any nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic weapons programmes by Dec 8. If they fail to meet this demand, Washington is expected to lead a coalition to forcefully disarm and topple Saddam Hussein.

IAEA lab director Gabriele Voigt said she feels the weight of responsibility that their findings could spark a bloody war thousands of miles away from peaceful Seibersdorf. That is why the lab must provide proof that is incontrovertible.

“All we can do is provide good data,” she said. “And if we find something we have to report it.”

To ensure their findings are solid, the lab sends swabs to other labs in IAEA member states like the US, Britain and Germany for confirmation.

“If there is an undeclared activity, we should find evidence of it in each laboratory,” Donohue said.

The inspectors would then extend their nuclear police work by interviewing scientists to find out what they have been doing for the last four years.

The inspectors’ right to carry out surprise inspections anytime and anywhere in Iraq have an important deterrent effect going forward and will put pressure on the Iraqis to keep clean.—Reuters