The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said today its inspectors had found nothing suspicious in Iraq so far, but added that it was too early to draw conclusions.
"We haven't yet seen any smoking gun yet, if you like, that Iraq has lied in its declaration on the nuclear issue," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mr Mohamed El Baradei told Reuters in an exclusive interview.
"But we're still very much in the process of an inspection and it's too early for us to come to any conclusion," he said. "So far the results (of laboratory tests of samples taken in Iraq) have not raised any eyebrows."
Mr El Baradei is responsible for IAEA inspectors who are in Iraq to check for any signs of clandestine atomic weapons programmes. Other inspectors, from the UN Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), are searching for possible signs of any biological or chemical arms development.
Mr El Baradei also said his agency needed more nuclear intelligence from UN member states to help his inspectors hunt for evidence of Iraq's alleged secret nuclear weapons programme. "We've started to get some intelligence but not as much as we'd like to see. I hope in the next few weeks we will get some more," he said.
"We have not really got much actionable intelligence information and I'd like to see more for our inspectors to be able to proceed effectively."
He declined to say which countries had given intelligence.
Mr El Baradei said that he would be giving the Security Council a status report on Iraq on Thursday, when he and chief inspector Mr Hans Blix, whose UNMOVIC team is hunting for biological, chemical and ballistic weapons in Iraq, brief the Council. "We will report where we are today, what we will do in the next few weeks, some of the progress we have made in verifying some of the information we have received, some of our analysis of the (Iraqi) report," he said.
"But you will have to wait for our report on January 27th for a comprehensive analysis of our work so far."