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Iran warns US against sanctions over missile program

Press TV – December 31, 2015

Iran has warned the US against imposing any fresh sanctions on international companies and individuals over the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, saying Tehran will respond to such meddlesome measures.

“Such measures are unilateral, arbitrary and illegal and the Islamic Republic of Iran has [already] served notice to the US government [in this regard],” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said on Thursday.

Jaberi Ansari was reacting to reports that the US government is planning new sanctions targeting about 12 companies and individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates for their alleged involvement in Iran’s missile program.

“The Islamic Republic will respond to any meddlesome action against its defense program by strengthening its defense might,” he said.

The planned sanctions, reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, come as the US prepares to lift restrictions on Iran over its nuclear program within the framework of Iran’s July nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Jaberi Ansari reiterated that Iran’s missile program is solely for defense purposes and in line with national security interests.

“No measure can deny the Islamic Republic of Iran its legitimate and legal rights to boost its defense might and national security,” he said.

Iran has already said that any fresh sanctions on the country would be a flagrant violation of the JCPOA, whose implementation is expected in January.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Iran denies firing rockets near US aircraft carrier in Gulf, brands claim ‘psychological warfare’

RT | December 31, 2015

Tehran has officially denied that its Revolutionary Guards’ patrol vessel launched rockets in imminent proximity to the USS Harry S. Truman and its convoy entering the Persian Gulf, calling the allegation an act of “psychological warfare.”

On Tuesday, reports emerged that last Saturday the US aircraft carrier was intimidated after missiles were launched by an Iranian patrol vessel on a parallel course with the American naval convoy.

“The naval forces of the Guards have not had any exercises in the Strait of Hormuz during the past week and the period claimed by the Americans, for them to have launched missiles and rockets,” Reuters quoted Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif as saying.

The alleged dangerous missile launch was reported by NBC News, which cited two unnamed US military officials as saying that the USS Harry S. Truman was about 1,400 meters away from the Iranian vessels, which launched two missiles as part of naval exercises.

“The publication of such false news under the present circumstances is akin to psychological warfare,” Sharif said.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Iran MPs introduce US compensation bill

Press TV – December 28, 2015

Iran’s lawmakers introduce an urgent bill, demanding compensation from the US for “the damages which it has inflicted” on the country since 1953.

The MPs, irked by recent moves in the US for appropriation of Iran’s frozen assets, presented the bill Monday with a single urgency status, meaning it will be discussed immediately in parliament.

“In order to redeem the rights of the Iranian nation, the Administration is obliged to take necessary legal measures on receiving compensations and damages from the American government in proportion to its role in the following cases,” the draft bill said, listing the cases in 11 entries.

On top of the list, the bill demands restitution from the US over loss of lives and property damage resulting from the CIA-led 1953 coup which toppled the government of Mohammad Mosaddeq and restored the shah as an absolute dictator.

The US should also pay compensation for more than 223,000 Iranians killed and about 600,000 others injured “due to American intelligence, political and military cooperation” with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his 1980-1988 war on Iran, it said.

The bill further seeks damages over US support for MKO and other terrorist groups in assassinating and kidnapping Iranians and hijacking the country’s flights as well as Washington’s sanctions on Tehran and blockade of its assets.

The MPs have also cited the US government complicit in Saudi killing of Iranian pilgrims in 1987 and deaths of several hundred others during the Hajj stampede in Mina in September and demanded compensation.

‘American theft’

The motion comes in the wake of recent measures taken in the US to appropriate Iranian assets frozen in bank accounts in the country.

The US Supreme Court is reportedly considering a case filed by over 1,300 Americans pressing to receive billions of dollars of the Iranian money in awarded damages over two bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in 1983 and 1996.

The Obama administration has reportedly urged the court not to overturn the decisions of US circuit and appeals courts to award the plaintiffs.

In 2012, President Barack Obama issued an executive order blocking all of the Central Bank of Iran’s assets held in the US in order to prevent Tehran from repatriating them.

At the same time, Congress passed a law which included a provision making it easier for the Americans to use Iranian funds frozen in the US.

“The American government’s move to lay hands on Iran’s blockaded assets amounts to theft and we are working to answer it,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Monday.

On Thursday, US media said each of the 53 hostages held during the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students would receive compensation under a spending bill passed last Friday.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US court mulls appropriation of Iran assets

Press TV – December 25, 2015

The US Supreme Court is mulling a case on appropriating $2 billion of Iranian assets frozen in a bank in New York.

Over 1,300 Americans are reportedly pressing the US government, judiciary and Congress to pay them billions of dollars in awarded damages over two bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in 1983 and 1996.

Iran has dismissed any role in the attacks and rejected the US judicial system’s ruling to let the purported plaintiffs use Bank Markazi’s almost $2 billion held in Citibank accounts.

The case has reportedly moved to the Supreme Court, with the Obama administration urging it not to overturn the decisions of US circuit and appeals courts to award the plaintiffs.

The White House and US congressional Republicans and Democrats reportedly agree on the case.

In 2012, President Barack Obama issued an executive order blocking all of Bank Markazi’s assets held in the US in order to prevent Tehran from repatriating them.

At the same time, Congress passed a law which included a provision making it easier for the Americans to use Iranian funds frozen in the US.

Iran says the action was unconstitutional because Congress was encroaching on the power of the judiciary.

Iran’s Bank Markazi says the US Congress passed the law to change the outcome of the case. It has asked the US federal courts to decide whether that violates the constitutional separation of powers.

With the case moved to the US Supreme Court now, the outcome is set to affect a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the West.

Tehran is already disappointed by Obama’s signing of a Congress bill aimed at limiting tourist travels to Iran, saying it violates the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as the nuclear accord is called.

On Thursday, US media said each of the 53 hostages held during the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students would receive compensation under a spending bill passed last Friday.

The budget bill reportedly includes a provision authorizing each of the 53 hostages to receive $10,000 for each day of the 444 spell they were held captive.

In addition, spouses and children would separately receive a one-time payment of $600,000. Thirty-eight of the former hostages are still alive, US media said.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

IAEA Intelligence Acquisition Practices

By Peter Jenkins | LobeLog | December 16, 2015

Tariq Rauf, a former Canadian diplomat, and Robert Kelley, a former US nuclear weapon scientist, have published an assessment of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) handling of the Iranian case on the website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Both were working in the IAEA secretariat during the years that followed Iran’s 2003 admission that it had failed to declare certain nuclear material and activities, Rauf in the external relations division and Kelley in the safeguards department. So their assessment benefits from first-hand knowledge gained on the inside.

The following passage concludes their assessment:

A structural weakness of the IAEA is that there is no transparent process for the supply of intelligence information and confirmation of its authenticity. The usual process is for a Member State(s) to provide the intelligence information either in documentation or electronic form to a special assistant in the Director General’s office and/or to the Deputy Director General for Safeguards, alternatively to give a closed briefing in its embassy/mission. The IAEA then deals with the information as described in an earlier section above. There is no established process to share such information with the accused State or with the Board of Governors….

The supply and use of intelligence information is a sensitive yet complex issue…. The IAEA cannot serve as a feedback loop to intelligence agencies on the veracity of information provided by them…. Nor can or should the IAEA rely on such information without confirming its authenticity. This obviously leaves the IAEA in a difficult position as is clearly evidenced by the Iran PMD file where the Agency seems to have been  caught short. 

The authors recommend that the Board put in place a methodology for the acceptance and use of intelligence information drawing from the practices of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). In these two organizations, allegations of non-compliance can be raised by any State Party which provides information to the Director General, who in turn shares it with the Executive Council. The Executive Council is convened; the Accuser State puts forward its case on allegations of non-compliance or suspicious activities in another State along with supporting information/evidence. The Accused State has the opportunity to present its defence. Following deliberations, the Executive Council can stop a challenge inspection in the case of the OPCW or authorize an on-site inspection in the case of the CTBTO. Such a practice could serve the IAEA well…. In fact, the JCPOA contains a somewhat similar provision for the Joint Commission in paragraph 36 on dispute resolution…

It is essential that the IAEA Board expeditiously come up with a mechanism governing the provision and handling of intelligence information to the IAEA Secretariat. There is great potential for misuse of such information and of suborning the independence of the Agency in the absence of such a mechanism, as abundantly demonstrated by the cases of Iraq, Iran and Syria in recent times.”

A Lack of Confidence

This passage contains echoes of an intervention by the Russian Federation’s governor to the IAEA, Grigory Berdennikov, at an IAEA safeguards symposium in October 2014:

The Secretariat has the right to use for safeguards implementation all safeguards relevant information available to the Agency about a State. This information includes, inter alia, data from open sources and data provided by third parties. It should be noted that third parties include not only States that provide information with regard to another State but also organizations and even private individuals.

No  proper  mechanism  that  could  guarantee  the accuracy and  authenticity  of information  used for safeguards purposes  is  provided for [in the report under consideration].  In essence it  is suggested that  all analysis  should  be done by the Secretariat as decisions on whether certain  data  can  be  used  for  safeguards purposes are left entirely with the Secretariat. Member States, according to this approach, should simply trust the Secretariat’s choice of information.

The risk here is obvious. False allegations generated by interested parties in order to exercise political pressure on a State unfortunately remain part of the current international landscape.  They  are  quite  common  in  many  areas, including  non-proliferation,  and  one  should  admit  could  be  very  important,  sometimes involving issues of war and peace.

We think that if the Secretariat decides to use any information, except for data obtained through its own inspection activity, it should duly disclose its origin and be ready to defend its credibility in an open discussion at the Board of Governors. Every State should have the right  to  publicly  defend  itself  against  false  allegations  and accusations generated by interested  third  parties  or  by  the  media.”

These passages reflect a lack of confidence in the authenticity of some of the intelligence material on Iran submitted to the Agency by member states. There is no proof that any of this information was fabricated. But that lack of confidence is not unreasonable, because motives for fabrication can be imagined without straying far into the thickets of conspiracy theory.

Grounds for Doubt

Gareth Porter has written in A Manufactured Crisis that, according to a former German foreign ministry official, German intelligence obtained the “alleged studies” that underpinned the PMD case against Iran from a member of the Mujahideen E-Khalq (MEK) in 2004. MEK hostility to the Islamic Republic is well-documented. Is it inconceivable that this source forged or fabricated that material? The material was never shown to Iran in full and it contains factual inaccuracies and anomalies for which a satisfactory explanation has never been offered.

In autumn 2007, the US, UK, France, and Israel were furious with the Agency’s then Director General Mohamad El Baradei because he had agreed to a work-plan with Iran and was well on his way to clearing the Agency’s last remaining “issues of concern.” Those issues cleared, these states would be bereft of sources of pressure on Iran to submit to their demands.

In that situation there could have been a temptation to produce information that would appear to corroborate aspects of the “alleged studies.” Initially El Baradei and some of his advisers had doubted the authenticity of these studies. But in early 2008 the studies, apparently corroborated by fresh information, metamorphosed into a “possible military dimension.” From then on they were the West’s instrument of choice for keeping Iran under international pressure. In November 2011, they formed the core of an IAEA assessment that persuaded EU member states to adopt harsh economic sanctions against Iran, and Asian states to comply with US secondary sanctions.

Was any temptation to fabricate resisted? One would like to think so. But, given the Stuxnet program to sabotage Iran’s centrifuge machines, and hints that a hostile intelligence agency commissioned the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, one has to wonder whether certain states would have hesitated to resort to fabrication to get themselves out of a spot of difficulty in autumn 2007.

Such speculations explain the lack of confidence implicit in the recommendations of Rauf and Kelley, and the intervention of Berdennikov. The IAEA Board of Governors can ignore that lack of confidence—and may well choose to do so. But that will be short-sighted. Over time allowing distrust in the Agency’s intelligence-acquisition practices to fester can weaken international acceptance of the Agency as an impartial and objective verifier of compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Rauf and Kelley recommend drawing lessons from OPCW and CTBT practices and provisions. No doubt there are other options. Reconciling source protection with transparency and due process may not be easy. But a collective Board effort to find a solution can heal some of the divisions within the IAEA membership that perceptions of Western lack of scruples in prosecuting the case against Iran have helped to cause.

Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years, following studies at the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard. He served in Vienna (twice), Washington, Paris, Brasilia and Geneva. He specialized in global economic and security issues. His last assignment (2001-06) was that of UK Ambassador to the IAEA and UN (Vienna). Since 2006 he has represented the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, advised the Director of IIASA and set up a partnership, ADRgAmbassadors, with former diplomatic colleagues, to offer the corporate sector dispute resolution and solutions to cross-border problems. He was an associate fellow of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy from 2010 to 2012. He writes and speaks on nuclear and trade policy issues.

December 19, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

UN closes case into alleged Iranian quest for nukes

RT | December 15, 2015

Iran moved another step away from international isolation after the UN’s nuclear watchdog announced on Tuesday it was closing a probe into whether Tehran sought to obtain nuclear weapons.

The decision was made by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it looks to move forward with a nuclear deal signed by Iran and six world powers on July 14, which is supposed to see Tehran curb its nuclear program in return for economic sanctions being lifted.

IAEA official Yukiya Amano said his investigation could not “reconstruct all the details of activities conducted by Iran in the past.”

The decision means the 12-year investigation will now finally be closed, as the West had believed for over a decade that Tehran was striving to produce nuclear weapons. One diplomat who attended the meeting said the decision was reached by consensus, with all those attending in favor.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif applauded the move.

“We welcome the closure of the investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities … the resolution by the board of governors of the agency … shows the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” the Tasnim news agency quoted Zarif as saying.

Iran says it will start implementing restrictions concerning its nuclear activities within the next two-to-three weeks.

“We are intending to complete this process within two-to-three weeks, so accelerate the implementation day as soon as possible,” Iranian envoy to the IAEA Reza Najafi stated, as cited by Reuters.

Meanwhile, Iranian nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said he believes that economic sanctions against Tehran could be lifted within the next three weeks, following the decision made by the IAEA.

Iran issued a warning to the IAEA in November that if the nuclear probe was not closed, they risked Tehran abandoning the international atomic deal signed in July.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that the closure of the case was a necessary prerequisite for the full implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 nations.

Under the nuclear deal, Tehran agreed to put major curbs on its atomic program, particularly its enrichment of uranium to high purities. In return, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the US, the EU and the UN are to be lifted.

December 15, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan: Iran gas pipeline best option

Press TV – December 2, 2015

Pakistan says its import of gas from Iran through a pipeline is the best option as the stalled project is given new impetus with anticipated lifting of sanctions on Tehran.

The energy crisis in Pakistan which suffers about 12 hours of power cuts a day has worsened in recent years amid 4,000 megawatts of electricity shortfall which the Iran gas pipeline is being fostered to cover.

Iran has completed its part of the project with more than $2 billion of investment but Pakistan has fallen behind the target to take gas deliveries in the winter of 2014.

Addressing a seminar on business opportunities in the clean energy sector in Washington Tuesday, Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Khaqan Abbasi said he hoped sanctions on Iran would be removed soon.

“The Iran gas line project is the best option for Pakistan. But as long US sanctions are there, we cannot buy gas from Iran,” the website of the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

The remarks came as Turkmenistan’s leader last month ordered construction of a $10 billion rival pipeline to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan to begin despite questions about the project.

The US has long lobbied against the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, promoting Turkmen over Iranian natural gas even though the route requires the extra distance of more than 700 km across Afghanistan.

Western giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Total have held off on committing to the project all the more because of Afghanistan’s insecurity and the region’s complex geopolitics.

Contractually, Pakistan has to pay steep fines to Iran for failing to build and operate its section of the pipeline by the winter of 2014 but Abbasi shrugged off the postulation.

“Not our fault. We made several attempts in the last 18 months to complete the project on our side. But no investor, no builder came forward,” the minister claimed.

“Once the sanctions are lifted, we will work on this project. A pipeline is always more reliable than other options,” he added.

Besides the expected lifting of sanctions, the bolstered prospects of the Iran gas pipeline arise from China’s $46 billion investment project dubbed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Officials say up to $2 billion has been earmarked as part of the package for the Iran pipeline extension, running from Pakistan’s southern port of Gwadar to the Nawab Shah district.

The energy-starved country imports about 100 megawatts (MW) of Iranian electricity for to the areas near their border. The government has said it was in final stages of negotiations to increase electricity imports from Iran to 1,000 MW.

Trade between Iran and Pakistan plunged to $217 million in 2014 from its peak of more than $1.3 billion in 2009.

December 2, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Close probe into past nuclear activities, or deal can’t go ahead – Iran

RT | November 29, 2015

Iran has called on the IAEA and world leaders to close the investigation of the so-called “Possible Military Dimensions” of its nuclear program – the PMD file. Otherwise they will have to choose between the case and the nuclear deal.

“What closes the PMD case is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors’ resolution. And the P5+1 is a part of the Board of Governors. So we hope that they act upon their responsibility and close the case,” Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said, as cited by the Fars news agency.

Shamkhani added that closure of the PMD case is a necessary prerequisite for the full implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1. The group includes the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, who are the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany.

Under the July 14 accord, Tehran agreed to major curbs on its atomic program, particularly its enrichment of uranium to high purities. In return all nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the US, the EU and the UN are to be lifted.

Shamkhani says now the P5+1 group “must choose” between the nuclear deal and the PMD file, according to ISNA.

The file concerns allegations that at least until 2003 Iran conducted research into how to make a nuclear weapon. These claims have been vehemently rejected by Tehran, which says its nuclear program serves peaceful purposes only. These include energy production and cancer treatment, and therefore the Iranians argue the program is Iran’s natural right.

“Iran wants to be exonerated from the PMD case and it should become clear that the PMD cases have been false, and during the negotiations we pressure the opposite side and insist that the fate of this case should come within the framework of the agreement,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi said on June 17, a month before the nuclear deal was concluded.

The final PMD report may reach the IAEA’s board of governors as early as Tuesday, according to AFP. If it closes the allegations, a day of the nuclear deal “implementation” is to be appointed, starting with which sanctions will be lifted.

Earlier this week, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said that while the UN watchdog has a “better understanding” of Iran’s past activities, the report will not be a “black-and-white assessment.”

“This is not an issue which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ” he said on Thursday.

November 29, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, Iran ‘sign S-300 delivery deal’

Press TV – November 9, 2015

A Russian official says Tehran and Moscow have signed a contract for the long-overdue delivery by Russia of 300 missile defense systems to Iran.

Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, was quoted by Ria Novosti as saying that the deal had been signed.

Russia committed to delivering the systems to Iran under a USD-800-million deal in 2007.

Moscow, however, refused to deliver the systems to Tehran in 2010 under the pretext that the agreement was covered by the fourth round of the United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The resolution bars hi-tech weapons sales to Tehran.

Following Moscow’s refusal to deliver the systems, Iran filed a complaint against the relevant Russian arms firm with the International Court of Arbitration in Geneva.

In April this year, President Vladimir Putin lifted a previous ban on the delivery of S-300 to Iran.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said in mid-August that “all changes” that have been made to the S-300 system by the Russians over the years will be implemented on the battalions that are going to be delivered to Iran.

November 9, 2015 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Deutsche Bank to pay $258mn in settlement

Press TV – November 4, 2015

Deutsche Bank will pay $258 million and fire six employees to resolve investigations by state and federal banking regulators into its dealings with countries like Iran and Syria in violation of United States sanctions laws.

Deutsche Bank, a German banking giant that has a big presence on Wall Street, will pay $200 million to the New York State Department of Financial Services and another $58 million to the Federal Reserve. It also agreed to appoint an independent monitor, the New York Times has reported.

It is the latest in a string of settlements over sanctions violations as regulators take aim at banks for doing business with blacklisted countries. Still, a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan are continuing, people briefed on the matter said.

In a statement, Deutsche Bank said: “We are pleased to have reached a resolution with the New York Department of Financial Services and the Federal Reserve. The conduct ceased several years ago, and since then we have terminated all business with parties from the countries involved.”

The activity under investigation occurred from 1999 to 2006, according to regulators. Deutsche Bank handled 27,200 dollar-clearing transactions valued at over $10.86 billion, for customers in Iran, Libya, Syria, Myanmar and Sudan.

Regulators said bank employees developed ways to hide the nature of the transactions from internal controls intended to flag problematic payments.

Several of the employees involved in the conduct have already left Deutsche Bank, regulators said Wednesday, but an additional six will be fired and three others will be banned from duties involving Deutsche Bank’s American operations.

Investigations and settlements of cases involving violations of United States sanctions are nearing their end just as Washington is easing its stance toward some foreign countries like Iran and Cuba.

November 5, 2015 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington Forces France to Pay $800Mln for Violation of US Sanctions

Sputnik – 20.10.2015

French bank Credit Agricole was accused by Washington of dealing with countries under US embargo and processing financial transactions for Sudan, Cuba and Iran through the United States. Several bank employees responsible for the transactions have already been fired, media reported.

The bank agreed to pay $800 million in fines for the illegal financial transactions carried out in the period from 2003 to 2008 on the territory of the United States, AFP reported, referring to a source familiar with the situation.

According to previous estimations, the bank had to pay US $900 million, but the amount was reduced through the course of negotiations.

The agreement may be announced this week, the source said. The bank is expected to fully recognize its guilt in violating US laws which would help it to avoid any prosecution. According to the source, some of the bankers responsible for the offense have already been dismissed.

Last year, French bank BNP Paribas agreed to pay $8.97 billion fine for violation of the sanctions regime against Cuba, Sudan and Iran.

The difference in the amount of the fines arises from the fact that the financial transactions carried out by Credit Agricole were smaller and that the bank agreed to cooperate with the authorities in a quicker manner.

October 21, 2015 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Elephant Not in the Room: Whither the Mythological Parchin Explosion Chamber?

Arms Control Law | October 2, 2015

Another great guest post by friend of ACL, Dr. Yousaf Butt, on the technical implications of the findings of the IAEA when Agency inspectors finally visited the site at Parchin that they’ve been angling to visit for years.

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Elephant Not in the Room: Whither the Mythological Parchin Explosion Chamber?

By Yousaf Butt

Many reporters and non-proliferation experts have been busy lately arguing over the protocols used for taking samples at the Parchin military site in Iran. They may have missed the elephant in the room. This might be excusable since there is no elephant in the room: the enormous explosion chamber that was supposed to be there was not seen by the IAEA in their latest visit to their latest building of interest at Parchin.

As all hardcore Parchin fans know, the IAEA had visited the site twice before and also found nothing suspicious in – or even around – the other buildings they had previously been interested in. Three strikes and you’re out? Well, not quite: one ought to wait for the results of the sampling before passing final judgment on whether nuclear materials were used at Parchin and whether possible safeguards violations may have occurred.

However, it seems fairly clear by now that the intel supplied to the IAEA regarding the chamber was flawed. Regardless of whether the sampling results end up being positive or not, there is no chamber at Parchin at any of the multiple locations deduced from the intel fed to the Agency by some unknown third-party.

Could the huge chamber have been cut-up and sneaked out as some people at a DC-based NGO have insisted? As Robert Kelley – a former head of the DoE Remote Sensing Laboratory at Nellis Air Force Base and a former IAEA inspections director – explains in a recent SIPRI release, the answer is a firm “No” — because of continuous satellite monitoring:

“A removal operation would be obvious to an observer using panchromatic satellite imaging, supplemented by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and many forms of multi-spectral imaging.”

To those of us who have been examining the scientific quality of some of the allegations against Iran the non-existence of the mythological chamber has not come as a big surprise: it may well be that the same country that fed the bogus and amateurishly-flawed Associated Press graphs to the IAEA, also fed the now-debunked Parchin chamber story.

As Robert Kelley recaps, there were multiple failures of competence in the 2011 IAEA Annex report that made the Parchin allegations in the first place. Most glaringly, there is no need for an explosion chamber if the aim of the chamber was nuclear-weapons related in the first place: “Claims about the purpose of the alleged experiments at Parchin are not consistent with the logic of nuclear weapons design and testing.”

Apart from the latest Parchin report, non-proliferation experts and reporters would be well-advised to do their due-diligence and read the compendium of expert SIPRI reports written by Robert Kelley and his colleague Tariq Rauf – the former Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination at the IAEA.

A puzzling question persists, however: If the chamber never existed and there’s no big nefarious deal at Parchin why then were the Iranians so insistent to lead the latest swipe-sampling inspections themselves? It’s uncertain of course, but it may be related to the reports that the IAEA mishandled the Syria investigation and so Iran perhaps wanted to ensure that that is not repeated at Parchin.

The upshot of all this is that the IAEA should stick to doing nuclear materials accountancy and not delve into nuclear weaponization investigations, until its mandate and expertise is broadened to include such activities.

Dr. Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, is senior scientific advisor to the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) in London. The views expressed here are his own.

October 4, 2015 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

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