UN nuke chief: Learn from Iraq war

Jakarta: Countries should learn from the war in Iraq and refrain from using force whenever possible, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Friday.

Mohammad Al Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that countries must exhaust diplomatic efforts first before resulting to force.

Al Baradei said that although he is relieved that his agency was right in assessing that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq, he felt sad over the thousands who lost their lives in the war.

"I feel grief for any civilian loss of lives as a result of the war," he said after a lecture at Indonesia's ministry of research and technology. "We know that war does not resolve a conflict, [in] most of the cases it complicates the situation."

"I hope everybody learns from the Iraq situation," he said. "I hope that people will not jump the gun in the future, so to speak, and go and use arms ... unless you are absolutely sure that there's a clear and present danger."

The United States and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003 on the grounds that it had developed weapons of mass destruction, but so far no such weapons have been found.