Tense Over Iran's Nuclear Program?

By Cernig

Michael Goldfarb's playing with tense to try to ratchet up his reader's tension over the Iranian nuclear program. He headlines his post at the Weekly Standard today "Iran Working on Nukes? No Way!" and then quotes some "senior official close to the Agency" as saying that "There are certain parts of their nuclear program where the military seems to have played a role." From the past tense of the official's statement to the present tense of fearmongering in one easy step.

Even there, we can see another bit of fearmongering behind Goldfarb's. Those "senior officials" - from the US, French or UK delegations, most likely - are quite happy leaking to the media portions of a report meant to be embargoed until presented to the full IAEA Board of Governors on June 2nd...and even so are reduced to talking about events from 2003 to spin their message of fear and tension. The LA Times does the best job of unspinning what's being presented to the media:

A report released Monday by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog organization presents the clearest indication yet that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon through 2003. But there is no evidence that the weapons program continued after 2004, it says, echoing a U.S. intelligence assessment in December.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said its investigation was based on questions raised by its inspections and on allegations from intelligence reports provided by the U.S. and other countries. The IAEA recently presented Iran with documents that depict a clandestine program including uranium enrichment, missile development and plans for fitting missiles with nuclear warheads.

Iran declared that it had answered all of the agency's questions and insisted that the documents were fabricated, but the report scolds Tehran for stonewalling investigators on key issues. The agency said it believes Iran may have additional information, in particular on high-explosives tests and missile-related activities.

The agency also questioned the military's role in manufacturing and procuring parts for the nuclear program, which Iran has declared is for peaceful energy production.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said the report points to work on a nuclear weapon, but there are elements missing that one would expect to see in such a program.

However even the LAT misses a couple of important points that can only be gleaned from reading several different versions of reporting on the leaks from "officials close to the IAEA".

- There has been no evidence found of redirection of nuclear material from civilian programs.

- The IAEA has not detected any actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies from 2003.

- Iran has replied to many of the questions the IAEA has about its past activities - in an 11 page answer - but that document was received too late to be assessed in time for this report.

- Iran is still behind on its centrifuge installation program and still behind on running those it has installed at anything like peak efficiency, multiplying the time it would take to enrich material to bomb grade by a factor of five or so.

- Iran still couldn't use those centrifuges to make bomb-grade material without the IAEA's knowledge as all the equipment and material involved are under strict IAEA monitoring and surveillance.

- Iran has offered - instead of ceasing enrichment - to make it's enrichment facilities part of an international cartel. That would ensure that worried Western nations would have direct monitoring of activities at the Nanantz enrichment facility.

In other words, while the IAEA has legitimate concerns about Iran's truculence in admitting it once had a nuclear weapons program and in revealing all aspects of that program, other data show that Iran is exactly where the last US intelligence NIE said it was - with no military program currently in operation and no material signs it still wishes to have one.

So the "bomb Iran" crowd are reduced to playing with tense to try to make Americans feel tense.

Update So much for "restricted" release - ISIS has the PDF of the IAEA's report. Now for some light reading.