Israel influenced IAEA report on Iran
Press TV – November 10, 2011
Interview with Gareth Porter, historian and investigative journalist
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano has released his latest report on Iran’s nuclear activities to the 35 members of the Board of Governors of the agency.
Iran dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”
The US and its allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and used the false charge as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.
Press TV has interviewed historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter from Washington to discuss Amano’s latest report.
Press TV: How do you see this whole scenario, why would the IAEA release a report based on what it calls foreign intelligence agencies’ reports at this point in time?
Porter: First of all of course, this is a secrete annex –so called– that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei refused to publish in 2008 and was subjected to a concentrated attack on the part of the European and Israeli ambassadors and governments at that point, charging him with hiding relevant intelligence information about an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei made it clear the reason he didn’t publish it when he was the Director General was because the information did not pass the level of scrutiny that was required to ascertain that it was genuine. In other words, he had serious doubts that this was genuine evidence rather than fabrication and there is indeed every reason to believe that he was right, that much of the evidence that has been submitted by the Israelis, particularly, and I am talking about the ‘alleged studies’ documents which are the heart and soul of this secrete annex and that I have written about extensively that these are, I am quite convinced, fabrications. So this is still the same story that we have been talking about for years now, it goes back to 2005 when the US turned over these ‘alleged studies’ documents to the IAEA and the IAEA was then encouraged to go after Iran on the basis of these documents.
Press TV: Who are these foreign spy agencies that are providing the IAEA with the so-called information on Iran and would these reports be of any legal value?
Porter: Well this material, of course, will not stand up in any legal process that had any due process or fairness about it, simply because of the serious inconsistencies, the serious contradictions that are built into them –that I have talked about in my coverage of ‘alleged studies’ documents, particularly with regard to the so-called effort to integrate a nuclear payload into the Shahab-3 missile. This was a set of drawings that I pointed out where about the wromg missile
So the question is who had the opportunity and the motive to fake these kinds of documents. As I asserted in the past, Israelis are the ones who had the motive and the opportunity. They had a part of Mossad –which is known and is written about in main stream journals coverage of this– as a specific office to basically disseminate coverage or documents that are supposed to have come from Iran about the nuclear weapons program.
So they were fixed, they were prepared to put out documentation which would accomplish exactly what these ‘alleged studies’ documents have accomplished. So there was no doubt in my mind and I think that the evidence speaks for itself that Israel was the source of most of this intelligence.
Press TV: Where does this leave the credibility of this nuclear watchdog agency as this report is seriously raising questions on its impartiality?
Porter: This agency, during the period when Mohamed ElBaradei was Director General, was deeply divided between a group of people led by ElBaradei who were trying, I think, to achieve a degree of fairness and balance and a second group which was the group that Olli Heinonen in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 which was really not dedicated to any objective view or presentation of the evidence but was interested in putting Iran in the dock and making a case that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons regardless of what it took.
I have interviewed Olli Heinonen a couple of times, once in person once on the phone, and what I got from Olli Heinonen was a series of “I don’t knows”, “I don’t remembers” and basically inability to respond to the inconsistencies –which I pointed out in the reports that he has been responsible for.
Despite major rebuke, Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin endorses slaughtering Palestinians
By Max Blumenthal | Al-Ahkbar | 2011-11-09
On October 25, here at Al Akhbar, I drew attention to Washington Post “Right Turn” columnist Jennifer Rubin’s re-tweet of a call by professional neocon Rachel Abrams for the mass murder of Palestinians. In my post, I urged readers to write Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton and inquire if the Post has a policy regarding staffers who promote mass murder, ethnic violence, and hate speech. Yesterday, Pexton weighed in on the matter in his “Post Roast” column, crediting my post at Al Akhbar with exposing Rubin’s re-tweet.
Pexton asked Rubin if her re-tweet was simply an innocent gesture intended to direct her followers to a widely discussed piece of inflammatory writing, or if it was an explicit endorsement of Abrams’ call for murdering Palestinians, whom she described as “unmanned animals” and “child-sacrificing savages.” Rubin replied matter-of-factly that it was the latter: she supported Abrams’ message. According to Pexton, “But in this case Rubin told me that she did agree with Abrams. Rubin said that she admires Abrams, has quoted her a lot, thinks she’s an excellent writer and endorsed the sentiment behind the Abrams blog post.”
Though Pexton stopped short of calling for Rubin to be fired, he concluded that by endorsing what amounted to a call for mass murder, if not genocide, “Rubin did damage to The Post and the credibility that keeps it afloat.”
Pexton (who has been compelled to protect Rubin before) added in Rubin’s defense that “The Post needs conservative voices to balance its many liberal ones.” However, Rubin is not seen by political conservatives as a standard bearer of their views. Erick Erickson, a prominent right-wing blogger, accurately characterized Rubin as “Likud rather than Republican.” She described herself to Pexton simply as “a pro-Israel blogger.” The only bumper sticker on her car reads: “JERUSALEM IS NOT A SETTLEMENT. It’s Israel’s Eternal And Undivided Capital.” Rubin is nothing more than a Greater Israel fanatic committed above all to the extremist colonies forcibly implanted in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Perhaps the only thing she shares with Tea Party-style conservatives like Erickson is the tendency to exalt American and Israeli violence against Muslims, or those they might call “child sacrificing savages.”
So how does Rubin provide the Washington Post with “balance?” None of the paper’s supposedly liberal columnists are willing to raise a peep in favor of Palestinian rights, and even if they were, they could face harsh reprisals for doing so. Moreover, the Post op-ed page is dominated by neoconservatives and torture enthusiasts whose views on Israel-Palestine are practically identical to Rubin’s. Instead of balancing out the “many liberal” voices at the Post, Rubin simply injects elements of vitriol and Jewish extremism into a droning chorus of ultra-Zionist cant.
To be sure, it is rare for any newspaper ombudsman to call for the termination of a writer. Usually, a withering criticism like the one Pexton published about Rubin would be followed by swift punitive action by the editorial board. At least, that is what would happen inside a decent newsroom where mass murder and hate speech is frowned upon. However, when he was queried by Politico’s Ben Smith about Rubin’s endorsement of Abrams’ genocidal rant, Washington Post op-ed page editor Fred Hiatt rushed to his columnist’s defense.
“I think Jennifer is an excellent journalist and a relentless reporter,” Hiatt declared. “I think because she has strong views, and because she is as willing to take on her home team, as it were, as the visitors, she comes under more scrutiny than many and is often the target of unjustified criticism. I think she brings enormous value to the Post.”
Leaving aside the fact that Rubin’s stated support for mass murdering Palestinians did not seem to trouble Hiatt at all, there are a number of problems with his statement. First of all, Rubin is not a journalist or a reporter, and she never has been. Before Hiatt hired her to blog for the Post, she was a former lawyer who churned out opinion pieces and blog posts expressing stock neoconservative views for movement outlets like the Weekly Standard and Commentary.
Further, Hiatt’s reference to “the home team” and “the visitors” was confusing. Presumably he was alluding to conservatives and liberals, since Rubin often criticizes the Republican opponents of Mitt Romney (Romney is the most pliant marionette the neocons could find among the Republican primary field). But Rubin’s real home team is not the conservative movement or the Republican Party. Her team is called “Judea and Samaria,” and it is comprised of visitors from Brooklyn who intend to displace as many indigenous Palestinians as they can. Contrary to Hiatt’s claim, Rubin is coming under scrutiny for being an advocate of violence and ethnic eliminationism, not for being fiercely independent.
If Rubin had brazenly supported a call for the mass killing of blacks, gays or Jews, the Washington Post would have probably become the target of a boycott campaign organized by a national coalition of civil rights groups. And if Hiatt leapt to her defense, the damage would have spread through the upper echelons of the paper, tainting him and everyone around him. But Rubin was promoting the killing of the Palestinian un-people. And inside the Washington media world, where going along to get along is rule number one, such views are apparently tolerated, if not accepted as legitimate.
But questions remain for the Washington Post editorial board. Does it have a policy on staff writers and opinion columnists promoting violence and hate speech? The editors must assess Rubin’s behavior based on the paper’s ethical guidelines, not the opinions of Hiatt. On the day that Pexton condemned Rubin’s behavior, Rubin retweeted a link to a new tirade by Rachel Abrams. Given her recidivist tendencies, the damage to the Post might only be beginning.
The New IAEA Report on Iran: An Initial Response to the Explosive Reactions… of the Press
Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | November 8, 2011
The leaking of the newest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program has predictably sent the media into a fear-mongering frenzy.
The Jerusalem Post giddily reports that the IAEA says “the Islamic Republic was working to develop a nuclear-weapon design and was conducting extensive research and tests that could only be relevant for such a weapon.”
The New York Times‘ Sanger and Broad published a story entitled “U.N. Agency Says Iran Data Points to A-Bomb Work,” The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick noted the exposure of “secret nuclear research by Iran,” Reuters‘ Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall reported that “Iran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research,” Ha’aretz‘s Yossi Melman declared that “Iran has been working toward building a nuclear weapon since 2003,” and Associated Press‘ George Jahn wrote that “the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency is its most unequivocal yet suggesting that Iran is using the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to produce atomic weaponry.”
The Guardian writes that Iran “may be researching nuclear warhead”, the BBC said Iran is “studying nuclear weapons”, the Financial Times got in on the action by stating that “Iran has sought to design a nuclear warhead and has continued to conduct research on an atomic weapons programme,” the Los Angeles Times reported that “credible evidence indicates Iran may be secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon,” while CNN posted headline “Iran developing nuclear bombs,” despite going on to report that the IAEA has “found no evidence that Iran has made a strategic decision to actually build a bomb.”
Curiously, as of this writing, Commentary‘s Michael Rubin has so far stayed away from actually commenting on the report, posting only some excerpts from the document instead, and The Weekly Standard has yet to weigh in at all.
Anyone familiar with the history of IAEA reports on Iran will find very little in the way of revelation in the 13-page “bombshell” that everyone seems to be freaking out about. It’s big on fluff, weak on substance.
Most of the allegations, described for the first time at great length and in minute detail, are resurrected claims, the so-called “alleged studies documentation” – long known to rest somewhere on the spectrum of dubious to fabricated – gleaned from a mysterious, stolen laptop. Because of its questionable origin and authenticity, the IAEA has consistently shied away from giving such information much credence.
As a result, the agency has in the past been accused by “senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials” of “hiding data on Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear arms.” In response, IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire issued this statement:
“Regrettably, time and again unidentified sources feed the media and Member States with misinformation or misinterpretation. This time around, there are articles claiming that the Secretariat is hiding information, and that there are sharp disagreements among staff members involved about the contents of the report. Needless to say, such allegations have no basis in fact.”
In 2009, the IAEA “admitted that some of the material in the now-infamous ‘secret annex’ about Iran’s nuclear program exists, but claims it wasn’t verifiable enough to release.” Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported that “the classified information…was collected as part of the IAEA’s annual volume on Iran but never made the final cut” due to the fact that IAEA authorities “decided they weren’t confident in the authenticity of the information contained in the extra document, and they couldn’t verify what that research had found.”
In October 2009, IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei explained, “The IAEA is not making any judgment at all whether Iran even had weaponisation studies before because there is a major question of authenticity of the documents.”
It appears that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, the U.S.’ man in Vienna, who in 2009 said, “I don’t see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this,” when asked whether he thought Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, has decided to change his mind.
For its part, the IAEA does its best to sound serious. By way of introducing the supposedly damning “Annex” section of its new report, the IAEA purports to having obtained “a large volume of documentation (including correspondence, reports, view graphs from presentations, videos and engineering drawings), amounting to over a thousand pages,” documentation “of a technically complex and interconnected nature, showing research, development and testing activities over time.”
The report concludes, “The information which serves as the basis for the Agency’s analysis and concerns, as identified in the Annex, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible.”
The insertion of the word “overall” and without going into specifics about which documents were verifiable and which were not is but one indication that the IAEA itself may not be wholly buying what it’s trying to sell.
Additionally, at the beginning of certain subcategories of the detailed “Annex”, the report gives brief explanations of various aspects of nuclear weaponization, information that one would expect any member of the IAEA Board of Governors to already know. For example, the section about “Nuclear components for an explosive device,” opens with this tutorial: “For use in a nuclear device, HEU retrieved from the enrichment process is first converted to metal. The metal is then cast and machined into suitable components for a nuclear core.” The next section, labeled “Detonator development,” begins, “The development of safe, fast-acting detonators, and equipment suitable for firing the detonators, is an integral part of a programme to develop an implosion type nuclear device.” The section marked, “Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments,” explains that “Detonators provide point source initiation of explosives, generating a naturally diverging detonation wave. In an implosion type nuclear explosive device, an additional component, known as a multipoint initiation system, can be used to reshape the detonation wave into a converging smooth implosion to ensure uniform compression of the core fissile material to supercritical density,” while the “Hydrodynamic experiments” section begins, “One necessary step in a nuclear weapon development programme is determining whether a theoretical design of an implosion device, the behaviour of which can be studied through computer simulations, will work in practice.”
Introductions like these to sections heavy on technicalities and minutiae give the impression that the intended audience for this report is not a panel of experts and Agency ambassadors familiar with nuclear physics, but rather a malleable media and a gullibly alarmist public.
Whereas a lot of ground already covered regarding allegations of weapons research before 2003 is rehashed in the report, there is little in the way of new charges. In fact, the IAEA admits, “The Agency’s ability to construct an equally good understanding of activities in Iran after the end of 2003 is reduced due to the more limited information available to the Agency.”
The report cites information provided by two unnamed member states (Palau and Vanuatu, perhaps?) claiming that in 2008 and 2009, conducted studies involving “the modelling of spherical geometries, consisting of components of the core of an HEU nuclear device subjected to shock compression, for their neutronic behaviour at high density, and a determination of the subsequent nuclear explosive yield.” The IAEA says “[t]he application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the Agency.”
Furthermore, one paragraph of the report states, “In an interview in 2007 with a member of the clandestine nuclear supply network, the Agency was told that Iran had been provided with nuclear explosive design information. From information provided to the Agency during that interview, the Agency is concerned that Iran may have obtained more advanced design information than the information identified in 2004 as having been provided to Libya by the nuclear supply network.” (GOV/2011/65 C4.35)
If true (there are is no source material or footnoted reference available for this particular claim), it’s curious to note that the same year, IAEA head Mohammad ElBaradei told the press in Washington D.C., “I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now.” Shortly thereafter, in February 2008, ElBaradei told the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors, “We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment programme.”
In September 2009, the IAEA “reiterated that the body has no concrete proof that Iran has or has ever had a nuclear weapons programme,” and a month later, ElBaradei said, “I have been making it very clear that with regard to these alleged studies, we have not seen any use of nuclear material, we have not received any information that Iran has manufactured any part of a nuclear weapon or component. That’s why I say, to present the Iran threat as imminent is hype.”
One wonders what makes the 2007 interview with the “member of the clandestine nuclear supply network” so compelling now.
Despite all the allegations and supposed evidence found in the latest report, the IAEA still “continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities, all of which are situated within hospitals] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement,” as it has numerous times a year for nearly a decade. This verification, as affirmed in Article 2 of the IAEA’s 1974 Safeguards Agreement with Iran, is the agency’s “exclusive purpose” with respect to the Iranian nuclear program.
Overall, the release and subsequent fallout of this report, as has been the case so many years now with similar attempts to stoke fear about Iran, feels a lot like this scene from the brilliant 1983 John Landis film Trading Places, with the United States and Israel playing the part of Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and Iran as Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy).
Unfortunately, it appears IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, whose independence and credibility may be irreparably damaged due to his decision to kowtow to Western demands and provide ample fuel to the warmongers’ fire, is unaware that “it ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.”
Livni demands ‘proactive action’ on Iran
Press TV – November 9, 2011
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has demanded that the international community be proactive and stop Iran’s nuclear program.
Livni, leader of Kadima – the largest political party in the Israeli parliament – on Wednesday called for international intervention to halt Iran’s nuclear activities in the wake of the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the Islamic Republic, Jerusalem Post reported.
“A lot of countries used the excuse we don’t have enough information [in order to take action],” Livni said.
She added, “Now it’s official. The world has the information and must act to halt Tehran’s nuclear program.”
“The threat of a nuclear Iran is far more dangerous than the economic implications of upholding sanctions on Iran,” Livni commented.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear activities was distributed to the 35 members of the Board of Governors on Tuesday evening, ahead of the seasonal meeting of the board, which is scheduled to be held in Vienna from November 17 to 18.
Iran dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”
Israel, which is widely believed to possess over 300 atomic warheads, also test fired a new long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This three-stage Jericho-3 missile which is capable of delivering a 750-kilo warhead to a distance, is estimated to have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers.
Paradoxically, the new nuke-capable missile, which can target many parts of the globe, is not considered a threat in the eyes of the West.
The Unites States — the first and only country to have used nuclear weapons against another nation — has also allocated a new budget to its military nuclear program, despite alleged commitment to a nuclear-free world and promises to reduce its nuclear stockpile.
While Israel refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities or to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty based on its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Iran is a signatory to the NPT and has been subjected to snap International Atomic Energy Agency inspections due to its policy of nuclear transparency.
Iranian officials have promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.
Warmongering Jeffrey Goldberg calls on Obama to use missile strikes against Iran
By Philip Weiss on November 8, 2011
We can now say for sure that after Jeffrey Goldberg smashed the New Yorker’s credibility to bits by publishing a bogus story about Saddam Hussein getting nuclear weapons, paving the liberals’ path to that disastrous war, he smashed the Atlantic Magazine’s credibility to bits last year by using the magazine to hysterically push an American attack on Iran– “The point of no return… who if anyone will stop Iran?” We can say as much because Goldberg is now plain about his agenda at Bloomberg News.
Here he is personally advocating what he covertly advocated in the Atlantic, in the earlier instance putting the argument on Netnayahu et al: America must act, so that Israel doesn’t have to. And once again, he cites an olio of anonymous Holocaust-inflected sources saying Israel has no choice but to go to war against Iran, and so America must do the job because it will do it better. So, Obama should be prepared to use missile strikes.
I believe, based on interviews inside and outside the White House, that he would consider using force — missile strikes, mainly — to stop the Iranians from crossing the nuclear threshold. ..
This isn’t to say that Obama has decided to use whatever means necessary to stop Iran. (He faces opposition in the Pentagon, for one thing, though the U.S. military has much greater capabilities than Israel.) Nor is a U.S. strike something desirable, even if done in concert with Western allies. …
But numerous Israeli officials have told me that they are much less likely to recommend a preemptive strike of their own if they were reasonably sure that Obama was willing to use force. And if Iran’s leaders feared there was a real chance of a U.S. attack, they might actually modify their behavior. I believe Obama would use force — and that he should make that perfectly clear to the Iranians.
“Nuclear Iran” Allegations: The Scary “R265 generator” Is Just Old Stuff
Moon of Alabama | November 8, 2011
Yesterday we looked at a The Washington Post piece on Iran’s alleged nuclear activities and found that two pieces of alleged “evidence” for illegitimate nuclear work, the cooperation with the Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko and the reported pictures of a detonation tank in Iran fit much better with Iran’s program to create nanodiamonds by detonation than with anything nuclear.
There is another scary bit of “evidence” mentioned in that Washington Post article and I will show below that this is not only old information but also quite murky stuff:
According to Albright, one key breakthrough that has not been publicly described was Iran’s success in obtaining design information for a device known as an R265 generator. The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.Creating such a device is a formidable technical challenge, and Iran needed outside assistance in designing the generator and testing its performance, Albright said.
1. What is specifically an “R265 generator”? Can it kill me?
2. Iran “obtained design information” is one issue but did Iran actually build such a thing? From the second paragraph one might assume that because testing something would probably necessitate having the object available. But why then is the first paragraph quoted only about “obtained design information” not about producing it?
In a Guardian story Julian Borger today confirms at least some part of yesterdays analysis here and now points out the relation of nanodiamonds to Danilenko. Funny how that didn’t occur in Borger’s piece yesterday or any earlier pieces by him. He claims to have known Danielenko’s name since 2009 but only today, after I published on it, he mentions nanodiamonds. Doesn’t he know how to use Google or did he keep that information from his readers only to weasel it out now?
But today he also adds, like Washington Post based on Albright, a bit about that scary “R265 generator”:
One of the biggest areas of concern for the IAEA is evidence that Iranian scientists have conducted research on hemispherical arrays of explosives, of a type used in the construction of nuclear weapons to crush a spherical core of fissile material and thereby trigger a chain reaction.The central evidence for the research is a five-page document outlining experiments with the device, codenamed the R265 because it has a 265mm radius, but the UN inspectors are said to have gathered other corroborating evidence.
1. The “R262” name seems to be more of a joke than a specific type like the Washington Post piece lets one assume. It simply has a radius of 265mm and that is what gives the name. Still we are left with the “generator” part and the question of what it is supposed to “generate”.
2. There is nothing about a “a hemispherical aluminum shell” in Borger’s piece, just “hemispherical arrays of explosives”. Where does that aluminum in the Washington Post story come from? Is that the “corroborating evidence” Borger mentions?
3. Borger says the document is “outlining experiments with the device” and is not only “design information”. Which is it?
In a 2009 piece (as we already said – nothing new here) Borger described the device about the same way he does today. He also points to an older IAEA report as the real description.
The IAEA described (pdf) the five-page document even earlier in its May 26 2008 report on Iran:
A. Documents shown to Iran in connection with the alleged studies
…
A.2. High Explosives Testing
…
Document 3: Five page document in English describing experimentation undertaken with a complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosive in hemispherical geometry and to monitor the development of the detonation wave in that high explosive using a considerable number of diagnostic probes.
This is again mentioned in a September 2008 report by the agency:
[17] (d) With reference to the document describing experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device, Iran has stated that there have been no such activities in Iran. Since the Director General’s previous report, the Agency has obtained information indicating that the experimentation described in this document may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise. Iran has been informed of the details of this information and has been asked to clarify this matter.
So according to the IAEA Iran has not tested the hemispheric charge but the five-page document describes experimentation. The “corroborating evidence” mentioned in the second IAEA report is that it “may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise.” Could that “assistance of foreign expertise”that “may” have been involved be a hint to the expert for detonation nanodiamonds Vyacheslav Danilenko?
In late September 2008 Iran responded (pdf) to the “Alleged Studies” documents it had been shown:
An Assessment of So-called “Alleged Studies”Islamic
Republic of Iran – September 2008
…
In spite of the fact that the so called alleged studies documents had not been delivered to Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran carefully examined all the materials which have been prepared in power point presentations by the US and provided to the IAEA, and informed the Agency of its assessment.The Agency has not delivered to Iran any official and authentic document which contained documentary evidence related to Iran with regard to the alleged studies.
…
The document which the Agency is considering it as an important document regarding alleged studies and referring to it in paragraph 17D of the September 2008 report, is document 18 [in the power point presentation].There is no evidence or indication in this document regarding its linkage to Iran or its preparation by Iran.
It even does not contain one single word in Persian. The document does only contain some English words and 3 hand-drawn graphs drawn by the Agency.
The said document is shown in order to be judged by the public opinion whether it is fair to make accusation against a country merely on the basis of such a document?!
Iran requested the agency to publish the five-page document so it can be seen and judged by everyone. It may be Iran will get lucky tomorrow and the IAEA will publish it.
From the above I conclude:
There is nothing really new in the recent allegations in Washington Post or other media. They have been in IAEA reports all along and come from files on the dubious “laptop of death” which the U.S. got from somewhere, allegedly inside Iran, and showed to the IAEA even back in 2005. Iran rejects the documents on that laptop as false which they probably are.
There is one question that is still open in the above: Where does that “aluminum shell” in the recent Washington Post report come from? It is not in any other report I am aware of.
Rattling Sabers & Beating Drums: Fear-Mongering over Nuclear Iran Reaches a Fever-Pitch
Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | November 7, 2011
“Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
– Joseph C. Wilson IV, The New York Times, July 6, 2003
“Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”
– Oscar Wilde
[NOTE: It has been over ten months since I wrote, “The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran’s Nuclear Program“, a timeline of false U.S., Israeli, and European assertions regarding the supposed inevitability and immediacy of a nuclear-armed Iran, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past thirty years.
Whenever new predictions and claims about Iran’s nuclear program are released, I have added updates to my original piece. To read all past updates, click here. Culled from the past few months, here are some the latest.]
On June 17, 2011, U.S.News & World Report published a lengthy article by Purdue professor Louis René Beres and retired Air Force Gen. John T. Chain with the title “Israel’s Options for Dealing With a Nuclear Iran.” The writers claim that “Iran is closing in rapidly on full membership in the ‘nuclear club'” and that “probably in the next two years, such membership can be conclusively confirmed.” They then outline the various ways Israel could protect itself from an Iranian assault, completely ignoring the fact that Iran has never threatened Israel with attack, rather it’s the other way around.
On August 22, 2011, speaking at a luncheon at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, Republican Senator and second-ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee James Inhofe declared, “We know – and it is not even classified for me to tell you today – that Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015. I see that as the most imminent threat to this country right now. So that is a problem we are going to have deal with.”
On August 28, 2011, Reuters, in an article quoting a senior Israeli defense official as saying that “Israel would not be able to halt Iran’s reported quest for atomic weapons with a single strike,” also reported, “Recent Israeli estimates do not show Iran developing nuclear weapons before 2015.”
On September 6, 2011, the editors of The Washington Post hysterically claimed, “Iran has taken two more steps toward producing a nuclear weapon,” before completely misrepresenting a new IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program. The editorial says Iran has “begun to use a new, more advanced centrifuge to enrich uranium, which could allow it to produce bomb-grade material in a much shorter time period, should it choose to do so” and is “creating a stockpile for which Tehran has no plausible legitimate use.” It warns that, despite ongoing illegal actions (though not using those terms, of course) like industrial sabotage and assassinations, “the danger that Iran will become a nuclear power is growing, not diminishing,” before declaring that “the grim reality is that Iran’s leaders have not been deterred from their goal of producing a weapon, and the project is making steady progress.”
The Post also noted a study [PDF] by the Bipartisan Policy Center (a think tank established by U.S. senators) warned of Iran acquiring the ability to produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a mere 62 days, “a timeline that could fall to 12 days by the end of 2012.”
Writing in The New Republic, Iran hysteric Greg Jones estimated “Iran can produce enough HEU for a nuclear weapon in about eight weeks from the time it decided to do so,” a timeframe that would “shrink to only about four weeks by the end of next year, as Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles and enrichment capacity continue to increase.” Jones concluded, “The international community has no choice but to already treat the Islamic Republic as a de facto nuclear state.”
On September 14, 2011, Reuters reported that British Ambassador Simon Smith had told the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board in Vienna, “The absence of a plausible economic or commercial rationale for so many of the nuclear activities now being carried out in Iran, and the growing body of evidence of a military dimension to these activities, give grounds for grave concern about Iran’s intentions.”
The same day, Jim Garamone of American Forces Press Service wrote that Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told a gathering at the University of Miami, “Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and wants regional hegemony in the Middle East.”
On September 16, 2011, The New York Times published an editorial which warned that “Iran is still enriching uranium and refusing to come clean about its nuclear program.” The editorial claimed, Iran has “greatly increased production of uranium to 20 percent purity instead of the 3.5 percent purity normally used to fuel nuclear power plants” which represents “a significant step closer to the 90 percent threshold required to make nuclear weapons fuel.” The authors suggest the Obama administration should seek “even tougher punishments” than “sanctions and inducements” in order to get “Tehran’s attention.”
Barbara Slavin, writing for The Atlantic Council the same day in an article ominously entitled “As Iran Edges Closer to Nukes,” states that although “Iran has not exactly been sprinting toward a bomb…the Iranian program – which Washington helped start in 1957 – is finally getting close to providing the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons.” Slavin writes that Iran has amassed “enough material, if further enriched, for four or five nuclear weapons.”
The following day, on September 17, 2011, Reuters reporter Frederik Dahl wrote of U.S. fear that “Iran and North Korea might covertly trade know-how, material or technology that could be put to developing atomic bombs.” The report quotes Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying, “Were this traffic to be confirmed, that would deepen the suspicion that Iran is involved in nuclear activities which are clandestine and military in nature.”
Speaking on panel on September 19, 2011, Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of Nonproliferation and Disarmament at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, opined that Iran “won’t have [a nuclear weapon] tomorrow or next week or next month or a year from now,” but noted that once Iran produces enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, his assessment holds that it would take Iran “six months to weaponize.”
Also on September 19, 2011, Reuters reported that, during an IAEA meeting in Vienna, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu claimed, “Iran has continued to engage in a long-standing pattern of denial, deceit and evasion, in violation of its (nuclear) non-proliferation obligations,” continuing, “Expanding, and moving underground, its enrichment to this level marks a significant provocation and brings Iran still closer to having the capability to produce weapons grade uranium.” French Industry Minister Eric Besson was also quoted as telling the meeting that Iran’s nuclear program “poses an unacceptable threat to the regime of non-proliferation and to regional stability,” while the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, Shaul Chorev told member states, “Israel has no doubt that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.”
On September 21, 2011, in advance of Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, war-mongering walrus John Bolton lamented in The National Interest that Iran has “marched inexorably forward with its nuclear weapons program.”
David Albright of D.C. think tank Institute for Science and International Security and longtime Iran alarmist, was quoted in The Australian on September 26, 2011 as saying, “We believe if Iran broke out now they could have a bomb in six months,” continuing, “They’ve done this right in front of our faces.”
Reuters published an extensive analysis entitled “How close is Iran to the bomb?” on September 28, 2011 which noted, “Either Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months or it is unlikely to get such a weapon any time soon — depending on which Western expert you talk to.” In the article, Frederik Dahl writes that “Western-based analysts generally agree with their governments that Tehran is developing technology that could be used to make a bomb, but they disagree about just how close it is to success,” citing various estimates from Greg Jones’ two month timeline to Shannon Kile, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who said, “I just don’t see how you can credibly say they are going to be eight weeks away or even 18 months away.” The report states Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), estimates “Iran could make a nuclear weapon in less than two years’ time.”
On October 3, 2011, writing in the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz insisted, “As Iran continues its development of a nuclear weapon, Israel is growing more concerned that the Islamic Republic will embrace a policy of ambiguity, similar to the policy upheld in Israel regarding its own alleged nuclear capabilities.” He added, “General assessments are that if it so decides, it would take Iran just a number of months for it to enrich a sufficient quantity of uranium to over the 90% that would be required for one nuclear device.”
On October 4, 2011, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had told the Council for Peace and Security that “Iran’s nuclear program was still far from the point of no return.”
The same day, new U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was visiting Israel at the time, said during a press conference alongside his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak, “We are very concerned [about Iran] and the best approach for dealing with this threat is for all of us to make it clear to them that they cannot proceed on the path that they are on. We will work together to do whatever is necessary to make sure that they do not represent a threat to this region and it depends on countries working together.”
On October 16, 2011, a New York Times report by David Sanger and Lander stated, “President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology.”
Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy claiming to have intimate knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program, wrote in The Washington Times on October 27, 2011, “The pressure the United States and the West is bringing to bear on Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons is all for naught. Not only does the Islamic Republic already have nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union, but it has enough enriched uranium for more. What’s worse, it has a delivery system.”
Kahlili claimed that Mathew Nasuti, a former U.S. Air Force captain and State Department adviser, attended a March 2008 briefing in which a “Middle East expert” said “it was ‘common knowledge’ that Iran had acquired tactical nuclear weapons from one or more of the former Soviet republics” and also that “Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an experienced intelligence officer and recipient of a Bronze Star, told me that his sources say Iran has two workable nuclear warheads.” He also writes that Iran has “enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs,” before calling for a military strike on Iran “before it’s too late.”
In a bizarre article, published in Ha’aretz on October 28, 2011, Louis René Beres, Leon Edney, and Thomas G. McInerney advocate for a coordinated, unprovoked military attack on Iran as an act of preemptive self-defense from “the genuinely existential risks posed in the 21st century by a nuclear Iran.” The authors write that although “Israel is the country at greatest risk from Iranian nuclear weapons,” the U.S. “is presently the only country that has the operational capability to undertake a successful preemptive mission to remove Iran’s covert and illegal nuclear weapons program.” The spooky conclusion is simple: “[I]f there is not an American defensive strike on Iran…[there will] be a fully nuclear Iran, led by irrational Shiite clerics.” (Purdue professor Beres chaired Project Daniel in Israel, Edney was vice chief of U.S. naval operations, a NATO supreme allied commander and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, and McInerney served U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff, deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence and vice commander-in-chief at the U.S. Air Force headquarters in Europe.)
The same day, the English-language website of Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad told students at Ashkelon College, “At the moment, there is no immediate nuclear threat, but there is definitely a great deal of motivation and determination for it,” before noting, “Today the status is that they are at the starting point – they have uranium, they have the knowledge but they don’t create (missiles) because of media publicity which is not initiated by them.” Gilad declared, “The whole world is against the Iranians, the sanctions are effective, but it doesn’t change Iran’s strategic direction or their motivation. Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and that is a major threat to Israel. If they achieve their goal it would be major game changer,” as it would upset the current “balance of power” in the region.
During an October 30, 2011 interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann claimed, “Iran has also stated they would be willing to use a nuclear weapon against the United States of America,” despite the fact that fewer things could be further from the truth.
On October 31, 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again warned of an ongoing Iranian nuclear weapons program and told the Knesset, “A nuclear Iran poses a heavy threat to the entire world – and to Israel in particular.”
A report by Ha’aretz on Netanyahu’s push for an Israeli assault on Iran published on November 2, 2011, stated, “Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn’t made the decision yet ).”
The same day, Damien McElroy and Alex Spillius of The Daily Telegraph claimed, “Iran is on course to build nuclear weapons, according to evidence compiled by United Nations inspectors.” A new IAEA report, due out this week, “is likely to take the Middle East a step closer to a nuclear arms race,” the report stated. The article, entitled “Iran making nuclear arms,” included a quote from an unnamed Western diplomat declaring that the IAEA’s upcoming assessment “makes an inescapable case that Iran has ambitions to militarise the uranium it has been enriching at its production facilities.”
On November 3, 2011, Richard Norton-Taylor wrote in The Guardian, “The suggestion is that there is a ‘window’ now that would enable Israel on its own to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. Next year, the ‘window’ would be left open to the US (and the UK) before Iran’s nuclear weapons reached the point of no return.”
On November 5, 2011, a BBC report revealed that the IAEA “is planning to reveal evidence that Iran has been working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability, diplomats say,” and that “the evidence is said to include intelligence that Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead” along with “satellite images of what the IAEA believes is a large steel container used for high-explosives tests related to nuclear arms.”
The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick and Thomas Erdbrink wrote on November 6, 2011, “Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.” Warrick writes that according to ISIS‘s David Albright, “in 2003, Iranian scientists worked concurrently across multiple disciplines to obtain key skills needed to make and test a nuclear weapon that could fit inside the country’s long-range missiles.” Furthermore, during a PowerPoint presentation, “Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran ‘has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device.'”
Also on November 6, 2011, Israeli President Shimon Peres told AFP that “an attack on Iran” by Israel and other countries was “more and more likely,” and that “The intelligence services of the different countries that are keeping an eye on (Iran) are worried and putting pressure on their leaders to warn that Iran is ready to obtain the nuclear weapon.”
A report from Ha’aretz‘s Yossi Melman stated, “Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons program at the Parchin military base about 30 kilometers from Tehran, diplomatic sources in Vienna say.” The article continued, “According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons – weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments.”
The same day, November 6, 2011, The New York Times‘s resident fear-monger David Sanger published a lengthy article entitled “America’s Deadly Dynamics With Iran” in which he claimed that, despite the recent covert war against the Islamic Republic conducted via computer viruses and murder of Iranian scientists, “The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.’s own inventory, they have enough for at least four.” Additionally, he quotes an unnamed “American official” as saying, “And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months.” In what one can only hope is a ridiculously sloppy typo, Sanger also claims that the director of Iran’s atomic energy program Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt late last year, “travels the world offering assurances that Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful.”
The following day, November 7, 2011, Sanger was back, this time with fellow alarmist William Broad, to report, “Details leaking out about an imminent report by United Nations weapons inspectors suggest they have the strongest evidence yet that Iran has worked in recent years on a kind of sophisticated explosives technology that is primarily used to trigger a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials who have been briefed on the intelligence,” before adding, “But the case is hardly conclusive.”
With so much hysteria and hype, the IAEA report to be released this week will surely be anti-climactic. Iran has long stated that these allegations of nuclear weapons work are fabricated, a claim bolstered by the fact that the United States – which supplied the IAEA with the supposedly damning documents – has long refused to show original copies to either the IAEA or Iran.
Fever-pitched reports of an imminent Israeli attack have been surfacing in the press for decades. And, while both NATO and Russia have declared its opposition to ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif military strike on Iran, recent reports still raise the specter of a coordinated assault by Israel, the US, Britain, and France, supported by Saudi Arabia.
As the U.S. Congress follows AIPAC’s lead to scuttle any chance for diplomacy in an ongoing effort to urge the Obama administration to attack Iran and a reported 41% of Israelis supportive of an assault by its own military, and the endless rhetoric declaring Iran an irrational, psychotic martyr state, bellicose aggressor and “existential threat,” it is instructive to recall – amidst the din of Western saber-rattling and beating Israel war drums – what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Al Jazeeracorrespondent during an interview in Tehran less than a month ago:
“We will never enter any war against the U.S. or against any other country. This is our policy…We have never attacked anybody. Why should we do that? Why should we start a war?”
Why indeed?
On “Nuclear Iran” Allegations: Nanodiamonds Ain’t Nuclear Bombs
Moon of Alabama | November 7, 2011
The Washington Posts alleges that the IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability. This is of course a lie. The IAEA says nothing like that. This is simply an assertion made by the reporter and some “nuclear Iran” scare propagandists.
And what would “to threshold of nuclear capability” actually mean? That Iran would be capable, like Japan, Brazil, the Netherlands or some 40 other countries, to build a nuclear bomb if it would choose to do so? What would be new, wrong or dangerous with that?
The piece goes into some details, provided mostly by chief nuclear scare monger David Albright, about allegedly “new” stuff some secret services handed to the IAEA. To see how misleading these allegations are lets look at just one detail. A Ukrainian expert for creating nanodiamands is described as “weapon scientist” and “nuclear scientist” even when all his published work is about the synthesizing of very small diamonds:
Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said.
…
According to the intelligence provided to the IAEA, key assistance in both areas was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Center, a facility linked to the country’s nuclear program. Documents provided to the U.N. officials showed that Danilenko offered assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosives package that the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design, according to two officials with access to the IAEA’s confidential files.
Dr. Vyacheslav Danilenko is a well known Ukrainian (“former Soviet”) scientist. But his specialties are not “weapon” or “nuclear” science, indeed there seems to be nothing to support that claim, but the production of nanodiamonds via detonations (ppt). According to the history of detonation nanodiamonds he describes in chapter 10 of Ultrananocrystalline Diamond – Synthesis, Properties, and Applications (pdf) he has worked in that field since 1962, invented new methods used in the process and is related with Alit, an Ukrainian company that produces nanodiamonds.
This is a detonation tank to create nanodiamonds, not a nuclear device.
Very small diamonds are useful for many purposes, like polishing optics or PC hard disks. That is why, for example, Drexel University in Philadelphia invited Danilenko for a talk at its Nanotechnology Institute:
On January 29, the AJ Drexel Nanotechnology Institute sponsored a Nanodiamond Lecture, “Nanodiamonds: Reactor Design and Synthesis,” by noted Ukrainian scientist Dr. Vyacheslav Danilenko. Dr. Danilenko was among the first to demonstrate detonation synthesis of diamonds and has more than 30 years experience in the design of reactors for the synthesis of nanodiamonds.
Some years ago Iran launched a big Nano Technology Initiative which includes Iranian research on detonation nanodiamonds (pdf). Iran is planing to produce them on industrial scale. It holds regular international conferences and invites experts on nanotechnology from all over the world. It is quite likely that famous international scientists in that field, like Dr. Danilenko, have been invited, gave talks in Iran and cooperate with its scientists.
Producing nanodiamonds via detonations uses large confined containers with water cooling, for which Danilenko seems to have a patent. The Ukrainian company he works with, Alit, shows such a detonation chamber on its webpage as does the picture above. The detonation nanodiamond explanation thereby also fits with another allegation from the IAEA report:
The Associated Press reported that U.N. officials have acquired satellite photos of a bus-size steel container used by Iran for some of the explosives testing.
See the picture above and the one on the Alit web page. Iran having a “bus-size steel container” for explosive testing and research cooperation with Danilenko both fit very well with Iran’s plans for nanodiamond production. They do not fit well with anything nuclear.
In his power-point presentation on detonation nanodiamonds on a bigger scale Danilenko recommends:
Use for industrial production of DND:
• charges ≥ 20 kg, explosion under water in close pool (in heavy metal cover), laser initiation;• utilization of old ammunition under water in close pool;
Use of old ammunition in a closed water pool? Does that sound sound like something that “the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design” as WaPo alleges? On what facts is that “apparently” innuendo based on?
But how or why should the production of detonation nanodiamonds relate to nuclear bombs at all? Why would someone even think they are related?
It may be because both use precise detonations. But they do so on a very different scales and in very different conditions. A sphere explosion for a nuclear device doesn’t use a confined container and water cooling. But a lot of other physics fields, for example seismological research, also use precise detonations. There is nothing especially “nuclear” about them.
Just because a certain method like precise detonations is used in Iran, does not imply that it is used for what Mr. Albright and some “western agencies” claim. Nanodiamonds ain’t nuclear weapons.
Danilenko’s lifelong expertise is with nanodiamonds, not with nuclear weapons. It is much more plausible, and fitting the evidence, that Iran is working with him in his original capacity than in a field outside his main expertise.
If this is the general quality of the “new evidence” on Iran then it is quite worthless. This seems to be just more innuendo and dirt thrown towards Iran with the hope that something, anything might stick.
‘WaPo’ columnist embraces Condi Rice’s peace process fiction
By Alex Kane | Mondoweiss | November 7, 2011
David Ignatius adds another chapter to the endless corporate media narrative of Palestinian rejectionism in a recent Washington Post column.
The column relies on former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s description in her memoir of a proposed Israeli peace offer to Mahmoud Abbas that was presented in the summer of 2008, an offer Ignatius calls “the Mideast deal that could have been.” But Ignatius’ sole reliance on Rice’s telling of the deal ignores evidence that Olmert’s offer was highly problematic for a potential state of Palestine. A closer look at the column is needed, especially because the narrative Ignatius advances has been getting a lot of play lately; the excerpts of the memoir that Ignatius relies on were published with the laughable title “Best. Deal. Ever” in Newsweek magazine last month.
Ignatius, an associate editor at the Post, writes:
As Rice tells the story, Olmert developed a comprehensive plan, which he presented secretly to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, in the summer of 2008. By September, the details of Olmert’s offer included:
● Israeli transfer of sovereignty of 94.2 percent of the West Bank to the new Palestinian state. He offered additional swaps of land, and a corridor linking the West Bank and Gaza, that would bring the total Palestinian land area to 100 percent of the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank.
● A formula for dividing Jerusalem that would give Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians and Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, with negotiators working out the status of mixed neighborhoods. Each country would have Jerusalem as its capital; there would be a joint city council with an Israeli mayor and a Palestinian deputy mayor.
● The Old City would be administered by an international committee with representatives from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the European Union and the United States. Questions of sovereignty in Jerusalem would be fudged, with each side rejecting the other’s claims.
● The “right of return” for Palestinians would be limited to about 5,000. To compensate other Palestinian refugees, a fund of several billion dollars would be created, under Norwegian administration.
● The United States would protect Israel’s security not just with U.S. power but by training a reliable Palestinian security force
He concludes the column by writing: “Olmert’s map, now dust in the wind, may be the best formula we’ll ever get for the peaceful creation of the Palestinian state that will cement Israel’s own security.” But the devil is in the details–and a close look at Olmert and his team’s offer shows that it was far from being a credible offer that the Palestinian leadership could bring back to its people. […]
The Institute for Middle East Understanding has a useful list of big problems with Olmert’s deal:
-According to Ha’aretz, much of the land Olmert reportedly offered Abbas in exchange for crucial areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank was carved out of the barren Judean Desert, south of the West Bank.
-Olmert reportedly offered to allow the return of only 5,000 Palestinian refugees, a tiny fraction of the 4.3 million who are registered with the UN. This issue alone would have made it nearly impossible for Abbas to gain support for the plan among the Palestinian people.
-According to Rice’s account, Olmert demanded that Abbas sign his map without consulting his own advisors and legal experts, and refused to allow Abbas to take a copy of the map to the Palestinian negotiators. It would have been unusual and irresponsible for Abbas to unilaterally sign an agreement in secret and without first consulting his team.
-The negotiations brokered by Rice, which began at the 2007 Annapolis conference, were not designed to produce a final peace agreement. Rather, these talks had the less ambitious goal of a “shelf agreement,” to be implemented at a later date.
-By the time Olmert made his offer, he had been under investigation for corruption for months and was fending off calls for his resignation. Olmert’s political weakness at the time casts into doubt his ability to conclude a peace agreement.
Clearly, this was not “the Mideast deal that could have been.” The narrative that Ignatius and Rice are pushing is just peace process fiction. – Full article w/map at Mondoweiss
Haaretz Lies About IAEA Inspections In Parchin
Moon of Alabama | November 6, 2011
Repeating the last piece of U.S. propaganda about a “nuclear Iran”, Haaretz lies about the history of IAEA inspections in Iran:
Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons program at the Parchin military base about 30 kilometers from Tehran, diplomatic sources in Vienna say.
…
According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons – weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments. Parchin serves as a base for research and development of missile weaponry and explosive material.
…
As far back as eight years ago, U.S. intelligence sources received information indicating that the bunkers would also be suitable to develop nuclear weapons.
…
The Iranians rejected an IAEA request to visit Parchin, saying that IAEA rules permitted the organization’s member states to deny such visits to military bases.
The last sentence is false and pure propaganda. Iran allowed two IAEA visit to Parchin in January 2005 and again in November 2005. The IAEA took environment samples there but found nothing that pointed to nuclear weapon research. Globalsecurity.org kept the records:
On 17 September 2004 IAEA head Muhammad El Baradei said his organization had found no sign of nuclear-related activity at the Parchin site in Iran, which several US officials had said might be tied to secret nuclear weapons research. “We are aware of this new site that has been referred to,” he said. “We do not have any indication that this site has any nuclear-related activities. However, we will continue to investigate this and other sites, we’ll continue to have a dialogue with Iran.” El Baradei also dismissed allegations that he had supressed information about Parchin in his latest report on inspections in Iran.On 5 January 2005 Mohamed El Baradei said “we expect to visit Parchin within the next days or a few weeks.” Iran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the Parchin military site in January 2005 in the interests of transparency following the allegations of secret nuclear weapons related activity, but the visit was limited to only one of four areas identified as being of potential interest and to only five buildings in that area.
On 1 March 2005 Iran turned down a request by the IAEA to make a second visit to the Parchin military site, which has been linked in allegations to nuclear weapons testing. The IAEA was finally allowed access to the Parchin facility in November 2005. The IAEA reported in 2006 that they did not observe any unusual activities in the buildings visited at Parchin, and the results of the analysis of environmental samples did not indicate the presence of nuclear material at those locations. No further mention of Parchin as a suspected nuclear site had been made by the IAEA as of July 2008.
We can expect more such obvious lies in the coming weeks as the White House builds up its propaganda campaign for more sanctions on Iran.
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From the Archives
After all I am a Proper Zionist Jew
October 27, 2009 | Gilad Atzmon
I am a Holocaust survivor
Yes, I am a survivor, for I have managed to survive all the scary accounts of the Holocaust: the one about the soap (1), the one about the lamp shades, the one about the camps, the mass shooting, the one about the gas (2) and the one about the death march (3). I just managed to survive them all.
In spite of all these fear inflicting stories, that were purposely installed in my soul since I opened my eyes for the first time, I have become a functional and even a successful human being. I somehow survived the horror against all odds. I even manage to love my neighbour. In spite of all the fearful, traumatic indoctrination I miraculously managed to master my cheering alto saxophone rather than the sobbing violin. … continue
Blog Roll
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