Daily Times

Former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei’s has released his book, The Age of Deception. It is an insider’s account on all major fronts against nuclear proliferation in the last decade. He actively opposed the US going to war in Iraq, also opposed American inclination to attack Iran on account of nuclear weapons charges and consequently became exceedingly unpopular with US hardliners. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, and now seems to be gearing for a political role in Egypt’s future.

In his no holds barred account, Baradei still refuses to stop his outright defiance of the US role. He goes on record on all small, explicit and major incidents, battles and scandals in the top echelons of global nuclear diplomacy. His book deals with Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea. He seems to view the US both as a major protagonist against and antagonist for nuclear proliferation at the same time.

Describing the period before the US invasion of Iraq, he recounts several attempts at inspections and nuclear diplomacy including the famous “parking lot” confrontation lasting three days and nights. Allegedly, members of the inspection team had seized some documents that the Iraqis did not give them, thus the inspectors were not being allowed to exit the parking lot of the building. What may be read by some as the pinnacle of nuclear diplomacy, members of the inspection team “appeared nude in the yard of the building in full view of the surrounding residential apartments” (p 25). Out of the 42 member team, only three were IAEA inspectors and the rest were individuals with “very, very special skills”.

Some of the descriptions of the modus operandi of inspections are indeed rather interesting. Recalling how a US-backed inspector on the IAEA team felt one of the senior Iraqi scientists should be interrogated on the spot he raised his arm melodramatically and shouted, “Let the investigation begin!”(p 22) as an empire would open a football match. But the stories get even more acute where inspectors (including non-IAEA members) break down fences and cut telephones lines, throw official documents on the floor treading on them, threaten to call in US warplanes and as described above, use ‘very special’ methods.

ElBaradei’s account on “The Nuclear Bazaar of A Q Khan” where Pakistan’s national hero is described at length as the Don of the global illicit nuclear trade mafia, have less amusement value for Pakistanis, and given where the narration is coming from, cannot be dismissed as easily either. Pakistan’s response, as with the recent incidents in the country, is to distance the state from the major mishaps that emanate from such cases, yet the repercussions for the state remain palpable and undeniable. However, ElBaradei’s three lessons from the A Q Khan story are worth noting. He draws attention to the Indian role in generating proliferation in South Asia; finds nuclear export controls of little use, and finally, predicts further proliferation under the current global order.

His book has not won him accolades from his western audiences who still find him quite unpalatable. His negative relationship with the US, where his book has been widely reviewed, has again opened up several areas of attack and counterattack on paper. Even the more placid and academically oriented western reviewers have poked holes in his anti-US account in this book.

Renowned US scholar on proliferation issues, George Perkovich, finds areas in his account particularly selective. Perkovich points out that A Q Khan’s network was not detected by the IAEA but by British and American intelligence, which assisted the Libyan nuclear programme also. Furthermore, he finds ElBaradei’s account biased because according to him, ElBaradei finds “the genesis of the Libyan nuclear weapon programme — and Gaddafi’s other WMD programmes — was in retaliation for the April 1986 US bombing raids during which Gaddafi’s adopted daughter, Hannah, was killed.” Perkovich raises the question “whether he [ElBaradei] thought the Libyan terrorist attacks weeks earlier that killed Americans on TWA flight 840 and in the La Belle disco in Berlin were irrelevant, for he does not mention them. He does describe meeting Gaddafi who ‘spoke earnestly of his desire to develop Libya’.”

Indeed, at this point it does become a little difficult to defend the author (ElBaradei) as one reads the account, but by this time in the book ElBaradei’s compass reading is amply clear anyway.

ElBaradei has certainly kept himself on the favourable side of his voters as a possible candidate for the presidency in Egypt, though clearly this book is a valuable source of material for all those who support non-proliferation; even more by those who want to lay the blame at the American doorstep.

According to ElBaradei, the way forward is persistent and effective nuclear diplomacy and not antagonism or military war against states interested in nuclear weapons. As he points out the flaws in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), he clearly denounces the fact that there is “no mechanism to verify the pledged progress on disarmament negotiations, nor a designated oversight body, nor a penalty for failure to comply” pointing towards the five “haves” states of the NPT.

Even if it the allegations levelled against ElBaradei were to be accepted to an extent (especially with regards to an anti-American bias) the value of the details, and his perspective as the top nuclear diplomat, in the narrative that remains significant. In publishing this account he has done a milestone service to the cause of non-proliferation. As acknowledged by the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, ElBaradei has been one of the most influential diplomats who deserve credit for making a leading contribution towards non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and prevention of war in recent times. It is important that he has kept up this fight by penning down his account as the chief of that global organisation that is entrusted with leading the way towards non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and suggesting an equitable way forward.

The writer is a Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She can be reached at defence.analyst@gmail.com