A July 2009 inspection conducted by the Air Force Audit Agency found that the wing put nuclear weapons-related materials at risk by not adequately controlling access to the secure storage area where the materials were kept.

Among the hundreds of tons of explosives - as the video shows - were some bearing the International Atomic Energy Agency seal, indicating nuclear weapons-related materials.

One Western official pointed out that while Dr. ElBaradei's group was responsible for nuclear weapons-related material, chemical weapons removal falls under a different treaty organization, and no international body has clearcut jurisdiction over Libya's long-range missiles and biological weapons.

Recognizing that the international embargo on trade with Iraq has become increasingly untenable, the United States and Britain will soon propose a reasonable narrowing of the sanctions to bar the shipment of arms and weapons-related material to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Intelligence officials said the Iranians rarely take possession of weapons-related material in Europe or Russia, having it delivered instead to a transit point they believe will be beyond the scrutiny of Western intelligence services.

Santesson said that no weapons-related material had been found but that the Iraqi side had refused to give details of the chemical weapons used in its 1980-88 war with Iran.

Sanctions sought by the United States include international inspections of all cargo moving in and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material.

A July 2009 inspection conducted by the Air Force Audit Agency found that 48 percent of the 711 unused nuclear weapons-related materials handled by the wing were incorrectly tracked or recorded.

As for the estimates the Bush administration presented regarding Iraq's holdings of weapons-related materials, they came from unchallenged evidence gathered by United Nations inspectors (in many cases, from records of the companies that sold the materials to Iraq in the first place).