The U.S. attempted to oust Mohamed El Baradei as head of the IAEA.


The Bush administration has been on another campaign, this time to oust the
UN's nuclear watchdog agency's head Mohamed El Baradei.

The campaign however hit a snag when all 15 countries approached by
Washington, including Britain, Canada and Australia, refused to back the
plan as the U.S. did not propose any other candidate.

The White House had hoped that at least one of the three English-speaking
allies would agree to block El Baradei from running for a third term as
director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

But with the lack of a substitute candidate, none of the countries
approached were willing to turn against the 62-year-old Egyptian who is very
much admired from within the agency for his outspokenness and willingness to
challenge the Bush administration assertions on Iraq and Iran.

It is El Baradei's willingness to challenge the U.S. that has put him on the
'to oust' list and the driving factor behind the administration's efforts to
replace him.

"It's on hold right now," said one U.S. policy-maker who was involved in
lobbying against El Baradei. "Everyone turned us down, even the Brits."

A British official confirmed that account, saying, "We can certainly live
with another El Baradei term."

Publicly, Washington has stated that its efforts to have El Baradei replaced
are purely based on the desire to see UN executives adopt a two-term limit.

However, most of the US's allies see this strategy as a retaliatory campaign
against someone who questioned American intelligence on Iraq and is
currently adopting a cautious approach over Iran.

The Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security,
John Bolton, led the U.S. efforts in trying to dislodge El Baradei. This
included such measures as sifting though intercepts of El Baradei's phone
calls in the hope of finding any material to use against him.

Furthermore, there have been leaks orchestrated by unnamed U.S. or Western
officials to reporters that Iran was secretly improving its weapons program
and that El Baradei was trying to hide that information from the IAEA board.

For all of the U.S.'s efforts to dislodge El Baradei, he was asked by a
majority of the IAEA board members to stay on the job for another five
years.

_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger

いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい