How IAEA 'improves' nuclear data from Iran to fit their conception

Here is a detailed analysis of how the IAEA has been busy carefully hiding and obscuring evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. (see  Claim - IAEA hides evidence of Iranian Nuke activity).

 

Last update - 06:34 19/08/2009       
ANALYSIS / Israel, U.S. lost faith in IAEA long ago
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

 

If the International Atomic Energy Agency is indeed concealing information obtained by its inspectors about a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, it would come as no big surprise. In recent years, IAEA headquarters in Vienna has been flooded with rumors and hints about the inspectors having obtained evidence that would embarrass Iran. But the IAEA repeatedly either excluded this evidence from its reports or downplayed it by using vague language and barely comprehensible jargon intending more to conceal than to reveal.

 

The IAEA reports on Iran, which have been published quarterly for six years now, repeatedly detailed Tehran's efforts to hide information, impede the inspectors' work and deny them access to nuclear sites, in defiance of its agreements with the agency. Nevertheless, the reports never state that these actions might indicate an attempt to hide a nuclear weapons program.

 

The report-writing process is essentially bureaucratic. Inspectors examine any sites to which they are granted access, take soil, water or plant samples and bring them back to Vienna, where the samples undergo laboratory analysis. The inspectors then write a report and submit it to the head of the IAEA's inspection department, known as the Department of Safeguards, who passes it on to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

 

Then, the editing begins, with ElBaradei and his legal advisors playing a key role. They seek to blur the inspectors' harsher findings and conclusions and smooth any sharp edges. Ultimately, he has the last word, and the ambiguous, conciliatory reports on Iran reflect his management style and worldview.

 

The Department of Safeguards is headed by a Finn, Olli Heinonen, who is ElBaradei's deputy. It is no secret that Heinonen does not see eye to eye with his boss. There have been many cases in which he would have preferred the reports use to clear, unequivocal language, and he has said so periodically.

 

But like any good diplomat, he accepts the ElBaradei's decisions, even if with gritted teeth.

 

Israel and other Western countries lost confidence in ElBaradei years ago. As a result, Israel, the United States and Britain have all refused to give the IAEA sensitive intelligence, for fear that ElBaradei would leak it to Iran, thereby exposing their intelligence gathering methods and their sources.

 

For years, Israel sought to avoid escalating its conflict with ElBaradei, and therefore refrained from criticizing him in public. Over the last year, however, it has removed the gloves, and its Atomic Energy Commission has issued several harshly critical public statements.

 

Nevertheless, it is not clear that Israel will be happy with his replacement, either. A few weeks ago, in one of his first public statements after being chosen to succeed ElBaradei, Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano reiterated ElBaradei's stance that the IAEA has no evidence to support the claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.