Seymour Hersh on Iran & the IAEA - Accusations of Iran's nuclear capability "fantasy land"

[Dover]

New Yorker Magazine:

November 18, 2011

Iran and the I.A.E.A.

Posted by Seymour M. Hersh

The first question in last Saturday night’s Republican debate on foreign policy dealt with Iran, and a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report, which raised renewed concern about the “possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran,” struck a darker tone than previous assessments. But it was carefully hedged. On the debate platform, however, any ambiguity was lost. One of the moderators said that the I.A.E.A. report had provided “additional credible evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon” and asked what various candidates, upon winning the Presidency, would do to stop Iran. Herman Cain said he would assist those who are trying to overthrow the government. Newt Gingrich said he would coördinate with the Israeli government and maximize covert operations to block the Iranian weapons program. Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s “greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint” and added, “Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon.” The Iranian bomb was a sure thing Saturday night.

I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeated inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a “smoking calutron,” as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.

The Times reported, in its lead story the day after the report came out, that I.A.E.A. investigators “have amassed a trove of new evidence that, they say, makes a ‘credible’ case” that Iran may be carrying out nuclear-weapons activities. The newspaper quoted a Western diplomat as declaring that “the level of detail is unbelievable…. The report describes virtually all the steps to make a nuclear warhead and the progress Iran has achieved in each of those steps. It reads likes a menu.” The Times set the tone for much of the coverage. (A second Times story that day on the I.A.E.A. report noted, more cautiously, that “it is true that the basic allegations in the report are not substantially new, and have been discussed by experts for years.”)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2011/11/iran-and-the-iaea.html#ixzz1eNafDh4A


Watch Video
Hersh speaks to Democracy Now about it:

Last week, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency expressed concern about the Iranian government’s nuclear program, claiming that there is evidence that Iran might be developing a nuclear weapon. This is the stuff of “fantasyland,” according to The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh. The investigative journalist appeared on Monday’s “Democracy Now!” broadcast to give his take on the IAEA’s agenda, which he said reminds him of a similar situation in our nation’s not-so-distant past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YVyNk5S4SHg

[Prometheus Bound]

1. The propaganda press have done a masterful job of pushing this nuke capability theme.

Thank you Seymour M. Hersh, and one more time: Fuck the warmongers!

[Prometheus Bound]

2. Ex-inspector rejects IAEA Iran bomb claim

Ex-inspector rejects IAEA Iran bomb claim
Nov 22, 2011

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist - identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko - had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published last Friday.

.....But former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley has denounced the agency's claims about such a containment chamber as "highly misleading".

Kelley, a nuclear engineer who was the IAEA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq and is now a senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, pointed out in an interview with the Real News Network that a cylindrical chamber designed to contain 70 kg of explosives, as claimed by the IAEA, could not possibly have been used for hydrodynamic testing of a nuclear weapon design, contrary to the IAEA claim.

.....Kelley rejected the IAEA claim that the alleged cylindrical chamber was new evidence of an Iranian weapons program. "We've been led by the nose to believe that this container is important, when in fact it's not important at all," Kelley said.

The IAEA report and unnamed "diplomats" implied that a "former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist", identified in the media as Danilenko, had helped build the alleged containment vessel at Parchin. But their claims conflict with one another as well as with readily documented facts about Danilenko's work in Iran......

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MK22Ak02.html

[stevenleser]

3. The IAEA always turns out to be right. They were proved right about Iraq when they said Iraq had no

nuclear program, and if they are saying Iran has one, I am sure they are right about that too.

If you are rejecting the IAEA's findings to satisfy whatever agenda you have no matter how beatific you think your agenda is, you are in the wrong.

[cpwm17]

4. Mohamed ElBaradei was likely right when he rejected this alleged evidence earlier.

Nothing has changed. New IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano now claims the old "evidence" is legitimate. Mohamed ElBaradei had a track record of being correct.

Yukiya Amano is a US puppet as shown in Wikileaks cable: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2010/nov/30/iaea-wikileaks

The US pushed for Amano's position as Director General.

[stevenleser]

7. The IAEA on Iran during ElBaradei's leadership also voiced concerns on several occasions...

Let me know if you need links.

[cpwm17]

8. US intelligence services are unanimous there is no evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

And that is the official position of the US Government. Everything else is just domestic politics. You better believe that the US has looked really hard for any evidence, and they always come up empty.

ElBaradei has voiced concerns in the past. But what does that really mean? - not much. His official position was that there was no evidence of any nuclear weapons program in Iran. Nobody has any evidence of any nuclear weapons program in Iran because likely there is no nuclear weapons program in Iran - none, nada, zilch.

[stevenleser]

9. Just like with Iraq, the US has inadequate intelligence assets on the ground to know either way

The IAEA is actually there, on site, with access to much of the country and many of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Just like Iraq. The IAEA is there, everyone else is basically guessing, with those who dont like the IAEA's findings for purely ideological reasons trying to sort out a justification to discredit them.

[Prometheus Bound]

10. Has the IAEA found anything illegal or firm evidence of nuclear bomb work?

I can't see anything like that in the report. It's just speculation.

[stevenleser]

11. These five IAEA documents contain the areas of concern over the past two years

Paragraphs G43 and G44 here: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-54.pdf

and Paragraph 35 here: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-29.pdf

and paragraph 33 here: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2010/gov2010-62.pdf

and paragraph 39 here: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2010/gov2010-46.pdf

and the attachment at the end of this:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-7.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Am researching 2009 and earlier now.

[Prometheus Bound]

15. "Possible this, possible that". As I said, just speculation.

That's your first link.

Don't have time to go to the others now.

[stevenleser]

16. That is not really an accurate description. n/t

[cpwm17]

12. You learned the wrong lesson from Iraq.

The alleged evidence of Iraq's WMD program was a complete fabrication. Intelligence wasn't the problem. There wasn't a grain of truth to most of the claims of the Bush administration - not even a tiny grain of truth.

I didn't fall for it the last time, and I plan to keep my good record.

Don't get fooled again.

[stevenleser]

13. No, YOU learned the wrong lesson. Independant UN agencies are the ones to trust, not ideologues

who have an agenda other than finding the truth.

[stevenleser]

14. You are behaving EXACTLY like Cheney and his crew. You are cherry-picking your information based on

what you want to hear, not what is more accurate.

[cpwm17]

17. So what do you want to do about Iran's apparently non-existent nuclear weapons program?

So what if Iran joins the US in acquiring nukes - what next?

Iran, unlike the US, is not an aggressive war-mongering nation. So if they get nukes that would then prevent other nations from conducting unprovoked aggression against them - oh the humanity!

But that is all moot, since there is no evidence of a nuke program.

Brazil and Turkey reached a deal in which Iran would ship much of its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad for further processing; the uranium would then return as fuel rods for a medical research reactor. This was originally proposed by the Obama administration. When Iran agreed to the deal, Obama became upset with Brazil and Turkey. Obama turned down the deal that he originally proposed himself!

The thing is: Obama didn't think Iran would agree with the deal. So Brazil and Turkey, thinking Obama was serious, used their own diplomatic influence to make it happen. But unfortunately the deal would deny Obama's chance to act tough against Iran. Obama's isn't concerned about Iran's non-existent nukes. It's all about domestic politics.


From the Wikileaks cable link I gave above:

...the US mission in Vienna goes as far as describing Amano as "DG of all states, but in agreement with us".

Amano reminded ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 , which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.

It sure sounds like Amano is a US puppet. That is why the US pressured the IAEA to put him in charge. I certainly wouldn't trust anyone that agrees with the US's handling of Iran's nuclear program.

[Martin Eden]

5. Does Judith Miller still work at the New York Times?

Given their misrepresentation of the evidence for an Iranian nuke, you'd think she does.

[Dover]

6. East-West split threatens nuclear unity on Iran

AP

...Israeli officials have suggested they could accept crippling Iran sanctions as an alternative to force. But despite four rounds of economic sanctions, the United Nations is being held back from tougher measures by Russia and China, both of them veto-wielding Security Council members and bound to Iran by strategic and economic interests. They've offered no sign of a change in posture since President Barack Obama's meetings Saturday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The West had hoped that an unprecedented detailing of Iran' alleged secret weapons work contained in a restricted Nov. 8 IAEA report could sway Moscow and Beijing. For the first time, the agency said Iran was suspected of clandestine work that is "specific to nuclear weapons."

Both Moscow and Beijing pressured IAEA chief Yukiya Amano not to publish that information. After Amano ignored them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying that the IAEA report "contains nothing new" and provides no further evidence that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons. He also repeated Russia's opposition to any new U.N. sanctions. Beijing has been less unequivocally opposed to tough measures but tends to follow Moscow's lead

cont'd

http://hosted2.ap.org/ALDEC/TDWorld/Article_2011-11-16-Iran-Nuclear/id-2bfd30b48ea149fa86b38aaccf9f373d