IRAQ - FIRE 10 BAATHIST SENIOR ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, NEW AEA CHAIR URGED

Bassem Mroue (AP-Baghdad), "Illness reported after N-site looting", The Associated Press, May 22, 2003

At today's atomic energy agency meeting [Iraqi Agency for Atomic Energy], members called on their new chairman, Khodor Abdel-Abbas Hamza, to fire 10 senior scientists who worked directly under Saddam Hussein. In a letter addressed to Hamza, the scientists asked to step down were tied to Saddam's Baath Party. The letter suggested "ousting the previous administration and democratically electing a new qualified leadership that is able to raise the agency and follow up scientific development in addition to planning the future policy based on the peaceful use of atomic energy".