Proliferation - the most serious threat

So, we were so worried about Saddam's burgeoning nuclear threat that, when we went in to Iraq, the first thing we did was secure all the nuclear facilities and get the IAEA back in to confirm that nothing was missing, right? We-e-ell, not quite.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq (news - web sites) but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday.

Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

...

The equipment -- including high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders -- and materials -- such as high-strength aluminum -- were tagged by the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's nuclear program. U.N. inspectors then monitored the sites until their evacuation from Iraq just before the war.

The United States barred the inspectors' return after the war, preventing the IAEA from keeping tabs on the equipment and materials up to the present day.

Under anti-proliferation agreements, the U.S. occupation authorities who administered Iraq until June, and then the Iraqi interim government that took power at the end of June, would have to inform the IAEA if they moved or exported any of that material or equipment.

But no such reports have been received since the invasion, officials of the watchdog agency said.

If we're lucky, it'll turn out that the US or Allawi's Iraqis have custody of this stuff, and just "forgot" to tell the IAEA. I really don't want the facts to be quite so partisan as this report appears.