If Bush wins re-election, Washington will “move from urging him to [leave the IAEA] to active opposition” to his reappointment, a senior U.S. official told Reuters.
The official “said U.S. officials see ElBaradei’s hand in this week’s disclosure about the explosives missing from the al Qaqaa complex south of Baghdad.”
This sounds like spin to me. Rumours were swirling in advance of the disclosure; now the Bush people have an excuse.
[Update: This is totally spin. Gertz is now flogging the story. “Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said they believe Mr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian,” Gertz reports ominously, “sought to influence the outcome of the presidential election when his agency called on the new Iraqi government to account for the stored high explosives at Al-Qaqaa.” “There’s no question that most people here think the whole thing was cooked up,” one official reportedly told Gertz. Even later update: uber-hack Cliff May is now flogging the story.]
ElBaradei was nonplussed about the allegations he had conspired to undermine Bush’s re-election prospects.
“It’s total junk,” he told AP. “The timing probably is unfortunate, but there is a world out there other than the American election.” He said the timing “was driven” by a letter from Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology to the IAEA.