07/10/2005 - Oslo, Norway
— The Nobel Peace Prize, founded on a fortune
made from explosives, has gone to the agency
whose job it is to promote nuclear power without
promoting nuclear weapons, and the man who
heads it. Anybody with that job probably deserves
some kind of prize.
Mohammed ElBaradei is the head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), both winners
of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
The agency is tasked with policing the spread
of nuclear weapons at the same time it is
charged with promoting the very technologies
and materials used to make nuclear weapons.
It's a job worthy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In opposing the Iraq war and championing
a nuclear-free Middle East, ElBaradei has
in recent years been a voice of sanity in
the world of nuclear non-proliferation. Here's
what he had to say about nuclear weapons in
The Economist in October 2003:
"I worry that, in our collective memories,
the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have
begun to fade. I worry about nuclear weapons
falling into the hands of terrorists or ruthless
dictators. I worry about nuclear weapons already
in the arsenals of democracies - because as
long as these weapons exist, there is no absolute
guarantee against the disastrous consequences
of their theft, sabotage or accidental launch,
and even democracies are not immune to radical
shifts in their security anxieties and nuclear
policies. I worry, but I also hope. I hope
that a side-effect of globalisation will be
an enduring realisation that there is only
one human race, to which we all belong."
Spoken like a Peace Prize winner.
But the Mr. Hyde side of his job is to be
the UN's front man for the nuclear industry,
peddling more nuclear power to more countries.
That, Mr. ElBaradei, is the part of your
job that worries us. You see, we worry that,
in our collective memories, the horrors of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki have begun to fade.
We worry about nuclear materials falling into
the hands of terrorists or ruthless dictators.
We worry about nuclear materials that are
already in nuclear power plants and reprocessing
plants and storage facilities. Because as
long as these materials exist, there is no
absolute guarantee against the disastrous
consequences of their theft or sabotage, and
even democracies are not immune to radical
shifts in their security anxieties and nuclear
policies.
We hope that this award will spark a new
discussion around the fundamental contradiction
of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s
dual role as nuclear policeman and nuclear
salesman. Only once that duality is removed
can the IAEA truly focus on the pressing threat
of the global spread of nuclear weapons technology,
both civil and military.
