PanARMENIAN.Net
Intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities turns out unfounded
23.02.2007 13:37 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Much of the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear
facilities provided to UN inspectors by American spy agencies has
turned out to be unfounded, The Guardian reports with a reference to
diplomatic sources in Vienna. The claims, reminiscent of the
intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp
increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council
ultimatum to freeze its nuclear program. That report, delivered to the
security council by the IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, sets
the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of
stricter sanctions on Iran, and raises the possibility that the US
might resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.
At the heart of the debate are accusations, spearheaded by the U.S.,
that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. However, most
of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the
CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when
investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in
Vienna.
"Most of it has turned out to be incorrect," said a diplomat at the
IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency’s investigations. "They
gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some
follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of
[banned nuclear] activities."
One particularly contentious issue concerned records of plans to build
a nuclear warhead, which the CIA said it found on a stolen laptop
computer supplied by an informant inside Iran. In July 2005, US
intelligence officials showed printed versions of the material to IAEA
officials, who judged it to be sufficiently specific to confront
Iran. Tehran rejected the material as forgeries and there are still
reservations about its authenticity in the IAEA, according to
officials with knowledge of the internal debate inside the
agency. "First of all, if you have a clandestine program, you don’t
put it on laptops which can walk away," one official said. "The data
is all in English which may be reasonable for some of the technical
matters, but at some point you’d have thought there would be at least
some notes in Farsi. So there is some doubt over the provenance of
the computer."
IAEA officials do not comment on intelligence passed to the watchdog
agency by foreign governments, saying all such assistance is
confidential. A western counter-proliferation official accepted that
intelligence on Iran had sometimes been patchy but argued that the
essential point was Iran’s failure to live up to its obligations under
the non-proliferation treaty.
"I take on board on what they’re saying, but the bottom line is that
for nearly 20 years [the Iranians] were violating safeguards
agreements," the official said. "There is a confidence deficit here
about the regime’s true intentions."
That deficit will be deepened by yesterday’s IAEA report. It concluded
bluntly: "Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities",
in defiance of a December UN ultimatum to stop. The report noted that
Iran had continued with the operation of a pilot enrichment plant.
Furthermore, the report said that Iran had informed the agency of its
plan to install 18 arrays, or cascades, of 164 centrifuges in an
underground plant by May – a total of nearly 3,000. At the moment,
Iran’s centrifuges are being used to make low-enriched uranium, but if
they were switched to making highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium,
they could produce enough for a bomb in less than a year.
Dr ElBaradei’s report said that Iran had so far not agreed to the IAEA
installing remote monitoring devices in the enrichment plant to keep
constant tabs on what the Iranians were doing with them.
Furthermore, the IAEA still has a string of questions about the
Iranian program that remain unanswered. Until they are, the agency
will not give Iran a clear bill of health.
One of the "outstanding issues" listed in yesterday’s report involves
a 15-page document that appears to have been handed to IAEA inspectors
by mistake in October 2005. That document roughly describes how to
make hemispheres of enriched uranium, for which the only known use is
in nuclear warheads. Iran has yet to present a satisfactory
explanation of how and why it has the document.
Last night Iran, which says its nuclear fuel program is designed only
to produce electricity, remained defiant. "Regarding the suspension
mentioned in the report, because such a demand has no legal basis and
is against international treaties, naturally, it could not be accepted
by Iran," Muhammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy
Organisation, told Reuters in Tehran. Mr Saeedi said the report showed
that returning to talks was the best way to resolve the dispute.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he was "deeply
concerned". "I urge again that the Iranian government should fully
comply with the demands as soon as possible and engage in negotiations
with the international community so that we can resolve this issue
peacefully."