Working to rein in the atomic age

VIENNA -- It was a bold response to a fearsome menace: erasing the threat of nuclear annihilation by establishing a global agency to keep nations from abusing the power of the atom.

But 50 years after President Eisenhower's landmark "Atoms for Peace" speech on Dec. 8, 1953, the United Nations nuclear agency born of his address is still struggling to contain the threat and move the world "out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light."

Nuclear weaponry poses even more of a danger than it did during the arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in an interview marking today's anniversary of the speech.

When Eisenhower addressed the UN General Assembly, there were only two nuclear powers. Today, there are at least seven: the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, and Pakistan. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, and North Korea says it has them, an assertion that has not been verified.

Washington accuses Iran of covertly developing atomic arms, a charge Tehran denies.

"I'd like us to see nuclear weapons the way we perceive slavery or genocide, that it's taboo," ElBaradei told a small group of reporters at his agency's sprawling headquarters overlooking the Danube River. "I would not be surprised if we see more countries acquire nuclear weapons," he said. "We need to change that environment, to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons, which have no place in our defense arsenals of the future."

This year alone, the IAEA has convened emergency meetings on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, nations that President Bush last year said constituted "an axis of evil."

Not that ElBaradei, an Egyptian, caters to Washington. His inspectors angered US officials before the war in Iraq by declaring they had found no signs of an active nuclear weapons program.

Coalition troops have not found weapons of mass destruction since toppling Saddam Hussein, although ElBaradei is pressing for the return of his UN inspection teams.

The IAEA also has clashed with Washington over how best to deal with Iran.

Convinced that keeping Iran engaged is better than driving it back underground with an explicit threat of UN sanctions, the agency withstood American attempts last month to toughen a resolution demanding greater Iranian openness to inspections.

ElBaradei also has criticized Congress for releasing $6 million for US research into so-called mini-nuke weapons. "Far from aiming for nuclear disarmament, the United States is looking to improve its arsenal," he told the Paris newspaper Le Figaro.

Eisenhower contended the best way to deal with the nuclear threat was to get countries to commit to using atomic technology for purely peaceful purposes. ElBaradei said in the interview that the IAEA is supporting efforts to develop a new proliferation-free fuel cycle that would produce waste unfit for reprocessing for weapons use.

The IAEA also is focusing on ways to minimize the risk that terrorists will acquire nuclear material that could be used to make dirty bombs, conventional explosives that would scatter radioactive material.

ElBaradei said the IAEA had not considered this menace until after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Now we're spending a great deal of time working on this threat," ElBaradei said.

Eisenhower's speech, anchored in his belief that "if a danger exists in the world, it is a danger shared by all," envisioned a UN nuclear agency that would control the world's atomic stockpile by putting it "into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace."

The IAEA, created four years later, did not turn out that way. It does not have the world's uranium and plutonium under lock and key. Instead, the agency polices more than 900 facilities in 70 countries to ensure they comply with their commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other international accords.

IAEA inspectors regularly visit nuclear facilities to check records on the whereabouts and inventories of nuclear materials, looking for signs that uranium and plutonium at reactors or laboratories might be diverted to military uses.

"The vision is still as valid today as it was 50 years ago," ElBaradei said. "We're working diligently to rid ourselves of the destructive force of nuclear weaponry. But we're not there yet. `Atoms for Peace' is still a work in progress. We need to do better."