Interview with Minister of Science and Technology

With a new mandate, Iraq's recently appointed minister of science and technology says he is now working hard to modernise a country still reeling from the effects of sanctions. In an interview with IRIN in Baghdad, Rashad Mendan Omar said although his ministry was once the focus of United Nations weapons inspectors, it was now working on problem solving in areas such as agriculture and the environment. For example, the former Military Industrialisation Commission and the Iraqi Atomic Authority offices will now undertake research for peaceful purposes, he said. In addition, the ministry will now supervise public health and safety standards at the newly established food and environmental safety laboratory. Scientists will collect and analyse samples of food, water, industrial waste, solid waste and pharmaceuticals. QUESTION: What is the ministry's focus now? ANSWER: We're involved in new projects. We established 10 directorates, including water technology, material science, information technology, control and communication, materials and petrochemicals, agricultural and food industry products, physics and the environment, and hazardous materials. As you can see, all of these are in peaceful directions to build a peaceful Iraq. We submit projects to donors to give us donations to carry out research in these fields. We also want to build our information technology infrastructure, including building an "electronic government". All the scientists here are directed to contribute to building a peaceful, modern, democratic Iraq. Q: We heard so much about nuclear scientists in Iraq when the United Nations inspectors were here before the US-led war. Are they still working in the ministry? A: I have in this ministry about 12 percent of those scientists who were involved in the research into weapons of mass destruction. After the liberation of Iraq, we directed the activities of all of the scientists involved in the weapons of mass destruction, and those instructions were to build a peaceful Iraq. Q: Where are the nuclear scientists working now? Are there any laboratories still involved in weapons research? A: They are working now on solving problems of agriculture and environment. We are facing many difficulties because the buildings we had were either damaged or looted. All our laboratories were damaged. We need to rebuild the laboratories to help us pass this critical stage. Q: What will the nuclear scientists do now? A: The CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] is helping us to train our scientists. Three were just in London. Five will go to America. Due to the wrong policy of our former government, our scientists are left behind in all technological advances except in weapons of mass destruction research. The assistance of the United States and England is to train our scientists so they can go to workshops to see [what is] state of the art, especially in the field of technology. Q: You said 12 percent of the nuclear scientists are in the ministry. Where are the rest? A: Other scientists are in universities or outside the ministry. We fired some of them and a few of them are in detention [by US-led forces]. We try to keep them inside Iraq. We need them because we have natural resources like water, oil and land. We don't want the scientists to go abroad, where they can succumb to [working with] terrorist interests. Q: Is there a radiation clean-up programme in Iraq headed by ministry officials? A: During the liberation of Iraq and the absence of control, there was looting at the Tuwaitha [nuclear power plant about 50 km from Baghdad] site. People looted the barrels containing uranium and other nuclear materials. They used the barrels to store milk and food. The risk was not because of radiation [from the barrels themselves] but because of the dust that came from emptying the barrels. They thought it was valuable material to be kept at their houses. Q: So are ministry officials cleaning up radiation? A: The people at the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Health and the [US-led] CPA collected the barrels. They did an intensive survey in the area in a 50-kilometre radius from the site to check people [for radiation contamination]. We have in the Ministry of Health with the Coalition Provisional Authority a full record of those people. Radiation effects are not [necessarily] short-term. We did not see anything remarkable in our work. Q: We know US troops currently guard the Tuwaitha complex. What do you expect to happen there after 30 June when a handover of sovereignty to Iraqi officials is scheduled to take place? A: [US contractor] Raytheon is still working with us in collecting the materials. Tuwaitha is under the full control of the Americans and is properly guarded. They are working on training Iraqis on how to protect the site [after the handover]. Q: What kind of development do you expect to do in the future? A: Our scientists from the first day [after the US-led invasion] are here happily working. It is my job to keep them happy here. There is no development in the world that does not happen without science and technology. We need them here. We had 600 nuclear scientists or so under Saddam Hussein, now we have 70 to 72.