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US won't oppose ElBaradei if he toughens on Iran

The US had decided to drop its opposition to the reelection of Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but wants the former Egyptian diplomat to change his stance on Iran, the Washington Post said yesterday.

"We're willing to lift our objections under certain conditions," a US official told the daily. "Namely, get tougher on Iran."

ElBaradei, 62, is due to arrive here Wednesday to meet the next day with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who invited him to Washington after European officials asked her to resolve the issue with the IAEA chief during her visit to London last week, US officials said.

They said that since none of the other 34 IAEA members backed Washington's determination to force ElBaradei out of a third term as head of the UN atomic agency when its board meets next week in Vienna, it would have been difficult for Washington to continue pressing the point.

"He is going to win either way, and if we went in opposing him, it would be ugly for us and for him," one official said. "So it's in everyone's interest to use the opportunity to work better together."

In return for an unproblematic re-election, the two US officials said, the US government wants ElBaradei to be more publicly skeptical on Iran.

The former Egyptian diplomat who has headed the IAEA with two four-year terms since 1997, has said the "jury is still out" on whether Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, even though IAEA inspectors have discovered that Iran hid sensitive atomic work for almost two decades until the agency's inspection of the Iranian program began in 2003.

ElBaradei first provoked US ire for questioning US intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction under now deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.
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