U.S. still pushing to oust ElBaradei

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The United States still is hoping to remove Mohammed ElBaradei, the Egyptian head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, as it prepares for a showdown over Iran's nuclear program, a senior Bush administration official said.

"It cannot be good for an organization when the biggest contributor and its director-general are at odds with each other," said the official, who is at the heart of policy-making in Washington.

Mr. ElBaradei has just completed his second four-year term at the helm of the IAEA, the usual limit for any chief of a U.N. body.

Washington views him as soft on Iran's ruling clerics and suspects that he was behind the embarrassing leak about missing explosives in Iraq in the final week of last year's U.S. presidential campaign.

"There are gracious ways to leave the stage," the official said. "ElBaradei has not chosen the gracious way, but that has not changed our view that we need a new IAEA head."

U.S. officials are trying to gain support for a no-confidence vote, possibly at the next IAEA meeting on Feb. 28, though as yet no other country publicly has backed the effort.

As President Bush prepares for a four-day European trip to mend diplomatic fences after disputes over the Iraq war, the official said he thought Washington and its European detractors were ready to "turn the page" on those disputes.

The official said, however, that there was no significant shift in American foreign policy at the start of the president's second term.

In a sign of the deep trans-Atlantic divide over how to handle Tehran's nuclear ambitions, he effectively accused Britain and its European allies of double standards for opposing U.S. efforts to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

"We get all this criticism for being unilateralist American cowboys, but it is the U.S. that wants to take this to the Security Council," the official said. "Who's been opposing that? Britain, France and Germany -- two permanent members of the Security Council and one that wants to be. So who's in favor of using the U.N. system and who's against it?"

Britain, France and Germany -- reached an agreement with Tehran in December under which the Iranians, who say their nuclear program is civil, not military, agreed to suspend uranium enrichment in return for trade accords and technical assistance.

The United States thinks the deal will fail because of Iran's track record of duplicity about its nuclear activities and wants to refer Tehran directly to the Security Council.

The official warned the European nations that their opposition to referring Iran to the Security Council "will not be forgotten in Washington" adding, "Next time we hear their views on the importance of the U.N., we'll be reviewing previous comments by Europe on Iran."