ElBaradei Regrets Not Doing More to Stop Iraq War

"Hundreds of Thousands of People Lost Their Lives on the Basis of Fiction"

by Jason Ditz, August 10, 2009

In an interview with Time Magazine, outgoing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that his most disappointing moment of his life was the US invasion of Iraq, and says that “I should probably, before the Iraq war, have screamed and howled harder and louder to prevent people from misusing the information that was made available by us.”

Mohamed ElBaradei

ElBaradei said the fact “that hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives on the basis of fiction, not facts, makes me shudder.” The US invasion was based on claims that the Iraqi government was working on the creation of nuclear weapons, a fact that was not supported by information at the time and has since been proven to be completely false.

In the interview ElBaradei also claimed “the jury is still out” on whether or not Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. He did however say that he “fully supports” President Obama’s attempts at establishing a dialogue with the Iranian government.

ElBaradei is to be replaced by Yukiya Amano, a candidate supported by Western nations including the US, which often condemned ElBaradei. Amano has noted, however, that there is no evidence Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

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