ElBaradei's tenure has been marked by high-profile,
non-proliferation issues, which include the
inspections in
Iraq preceding the
March 2003 invasion, and tensions over the
nuclear program of Iran. ElBaradei began to serve as Director General of the
IAEA, which is based in
Vienna, on 1 December 1997, succeeding
Hans Blix of Sweden. The agency gradually came to take an active role in attempts to prevent nuclear proliferation, with its focus first centred on Iraq and Sudan, in which cases the agency claimed success, and later also on North Korea and Iran. In 2009 ElBaradei stated that Iran's nuclear threat had been exaggerated and there was no evidence the country was close to building a nuclear weapon. He also rejected accusations that he had concealed Iran's nuclear ambitions. His third and last term ended in November 2009. ElBaradei faced criticism from Washington, Israel, London, Berlin, and Paris, where officials saw his actions as attempts to block their efforts to intensify pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear program.
First term as Director General After being appointed by the IAEA
General Conference in 1997, ElBaradei said in his speech that, "for international organizations to enjoy the confidence and support of their members, they have to be responsive to [members'] needs; show concrete achievements; conduct their activities in a cost-effective manner; and respect a process of equitable representation, transparency, and open dialogue." Just a couple of months before ElBaradei took office, the
Model Additional Protocol was adopted, creating a new environment for IAEA verification by giving it greater authority to look for undeclared nuclear activities. When in office, ElBaradei launched a program to establish "integrated safeguards" combining the IAEA's comprehensive
safeguard agreements with the newly adopted Additional Protocol. In his statement to the General Conference in 1998, he called upon all states to conclude the Additional Protocol: "One of the main purposes of the strengthened-safeguards system can be better achieved with global adherence. I would, therefore, urge all states with outstanding-safeguards agreements to conclude them, and I would also urge all states to accelerate their consideration of the Model Additional Protocol and enter into consultations with the Agency at the earliest possible opportunity. We should work together to ensure that, by the year 2000, all states [will] have concluded outstanding-safeguards agreements and also the Additional Protocol." ElBaradei repeated this call through his years as the Director General of the IAEA. In November 2009, 93 countries had Additional Protocols in force. ElBaradei's first term ended in November 2001, just two months after the
terrorist attacks of
9/11. These attacks made clear that the more is needed to be done to protect
nuclear material and installations from theft or a terrorist attack. Consequently, ElBaradei established a nuclear security program to combat the risk of nuclear terrorism by assisting member states to strengthen the protection of their nuclear and radioactive material and installations, the Nuclear Security Fund . ElBaradei described the U.S. invasion of Iraq as "a glaring example of how, in many cases, the use of force exacerbates the problem rather than [solves] it." ElBaradei further stated that "we learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work," and that he had "been validated" in concluding that Saddam Hussein had not revived his
nuclear weapons program. In a 2004 op-ed piece on the dangers of nuclear proliferation, in the
New York Times (12 February 2004), ElBaradei stated that "[w]e must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use." He went on to say "If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction."
Third and final term as Director General The United States initially voiced opposition to his election to a third four-year term in 2005. In a May 2005 interview with the staff of the
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Lawrence Wilkerson,
the chief of staff to former
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, charged former
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton with an underhanded campaign to unseat ElBaradei. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the agency worked on "the assumption that one or more entities may be listening to our conversations." "It's not how we would prefer to work, but it is the reality. At the end of the day, we have nothing to hide," he said. Iran responded to the
Washington Post reports by accusing the U.S. of violating international law in intercepting the communications. The United States was the only country to oppose ElBaradei's reappointment and eventually failed to win enough support from other countries to oust ElBaradei. On 9 June 2005, after a meeting between
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ElBaradei, the United States dropped its objections. Among countries that supported ElBaradei were China, Russia, Germany, and France. China praised his leadership and objectivity, France, Germany, and some developing countries, have made clear their support for ElBaradei as well. Russia issued a strong statement in favor of re-electing him as soon as possible. ElBaradei was unanimously re-appointed by the IAEA board on 13 June 2005.
Comments on no fourth term In 2008, ElBaradei said that he would not be seeking a fourth term as director general. Moreover, he said, in an IAEA document, that he was "not available for a further term" in office. In its first five rounds of voting, the IAEA
Board of Governors was split in its decision regarding the next director general. ElBaradei said, "I just hope that the agency has a candidate acceptable to all—north, south, east, west—because that is what is needed." After several rounds of voting, on 3 July 2009, Mr.
Yukiya Amano, Japanese ambassador to the IAEA, was elected as the next IAEA director general.
ElBaradei and U.S. relations ElBaradei, leader of the National Coalition for Change, has been a major voice for democratic change in Egypt since 2009 and was a significant leader during the 2011 protests. However, he has a rocky history with the U.S. government and supports some policies that do not support current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. During his tenure as Director General of the IAEA (1997–2009), for instance, ElBaradei downplayed claims of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program, which undermined U.S. efforts to press Iran over its safeguards violations. According to a 3 July 2003 article in
Time magazine, ElBaradei also maintained that Iraq's nuclear program had not restarted before the 2003 Iraq War, contradicting claims by the Bush administration. He told the German news magazine
Der Spiegel on 12 July 2010 that he wanted to open the Gaza Strip – Egypt border and accused Israel of being the biggest threat to the Middle East because of their nuclear weapons. ElBaradei has called for international criminal investigation of former Bush administration officials for their roles in planning the
war on Iraq.
Multinational control of the nuclear fuel cycle In an op-ed that he wrote for the
Economist in 2003, ElBaradei outlined his idea for the future of the
nuclear fuel cycle. His suggestion was to "limit the processing of weapon-usable material in civilian nuclear programs, as well as the production of new material, by agreeing to restrict these operations exclusively to facilities under multinational control." Also, "nuclear-energy systems should be deployed that, by design, avoid the use of materials that may be applied directly to making nuclear weapons." He concluded by saying that "considerable advantages would be gained from international co-operation in these stages of the nuclear-fuel cycle. These initiatives would not simply add more non-proliferation controls, to limit access to weapon-usable nuclear material; they would also provide access to the benefits of nuclear technology for more people in more countries." Non-nuclear-weapon states have been reluctant to embrace these proposals due to a perception that the commercial or strategic interests of nuclear-weapon states motivate the proposals, a perception that the proposals produce a dependency on a limited number of nuclear fuel suppliers, and a concern that the proposal restricts their unalienable right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Technical cooperation and cancer control ElBaradei's work does not only concentrate on nuclear verification. Another very important aspect is development through nuclear technology. In 2004, ElBaradei sponsored a comprehensive global initiative—the
Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT)—to fight cancer. In one of his statements, ElBaradei said: "A silent crisis in cancer treatment persists in developing countries and is intensifying every year. At least 50 to 60 percent of cancer victims can benefit from radiotherapy, but most developing countries do not have enough radiotherapy machines or sufficient numbers of specialized doctors and other health professionals." In the first year of operation, PACT provided cancer-treatment capacity in seven member states, using the IAEA's share of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech to the 2008 General Conference, ElBaradei said that "development activities remain central to our work. Our resources have long been insufficient to keep pace with requests for support, and we have increasingly made use of partnerships with other organizations, regional collaborations and country-to-country support. I again emphasize that technical cooperation is not a bargaining chip, part of a political 'balance' between the development and safeguards activities of the agency." ==International Crisis Group==