Earlier this month, a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran is meeting its commitments under a temporary deal. But Western diplomats say Iran has refused to provide information about alleged experiments on high explosives intended to produce a nuclear weapon. Information on the experiments is reportedly contained in an intelligence document the IAEA is investigating, but the document itself remains unverified, and at least one member of the IAEA community has raised concerns about its authenticity.
According to Reuters, a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, earlier this month makes clear Iran is meeting its commitments under the temporary deal. But Western diplomats say Iran has refused to provide information about alleged experiments on high explosives intended to produce a nuclear weapon. Information on the experiments is reportedly contained in an intelligence document the IAEA is investigating, but the document itself remains unverified, and at least one member of the IAEA community has raised concerns about its authenticity.
Robert Kelley talking:
I was in Iraq in 1991, as well, following up on the first war, when we had some very cooperative activities with the U.S. and with other agencies in Europe. So it goes back a long ways. And what I see is that in 1995 people tried to derail the work IAEA was doing in Iraq by producing forged documents. And they were extremely good forgeries. They spent a lot of time trying to make them look like real Iraqi documents, the problem being that they were forgeries. And at that time, the action team went to Iraq and, with the Iraqis’ help, pointed out what the problems were. When I look at the documents that were being discussed now, both IAEA’s weapons report and the leaks that have come out, they look just the same. It looks like the same pattern of forgeries. Furthermore, in 2002, we were given forgeries on aluminum tubes—well, we were given bad information on aluminum tubes, shoddy analysis, forged documents that supposedly came from Niger. It all proved not to be true. So before we jump off the cliff again, I think we ought to know if this stuff is genuine.
there’s certainly a pattern in bad information being provided, and it’s coming from a few sources, though one really thing that bothers me at this point is that in 2002 it was the U.S. that was cheerleading to start a war, and this time around the IAEA has signed on and they’re part of this innuendo and sloppy information that looks like they are also advocating for war.
there was no connection between what we were seeing, because we were told from the U.S. mission, the people that we dealt with, that they really didn’t want to hear what we had to say. And it was clear to us, as we carried out the inspections from November until March, 2002 to 2003, that nobody was listening. We were going around and saying, “We’ve solved the problem with the aluminum tubes: They’re for rockets.” We find these forgeries of Iranian documents. And no one was listening. So, what I saw being presented to the American people by, say, Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N., it was completely at odds with the truth.
In my position, I wouldn’t have ever dealt with Bush administration officials. But lower-level people came a few times. And, for example, in the area of the aluminum tubes, we had lots of experts who said, “These are not for gas centrifuges, nothing to do with nuclear. These are small rockets.” And the person that they sent said, “Well, if you knew what I knew, then you’d know I’m right.” And we got a lot of that kind of attitude from people who didn’t know what they were taking about.
I think there are two things going on. The talks that are going on between Kerry, the P5+1 and Iran primarily concern the enrichment of uranium. And this is a case where the IAEA is on very solid ground. They know exactly what they’re doing. They are monitoring the facilities that are producing uranium. And I think they have an excellent handle on it. It’s what they do well. If you look at the agreement that’s going to be talked about, the weaponization is not even in that agreement. So, when people say that IAEA—I’m sorry, that Iran is not being forthcoming in discussing what they’re doing on weaponization, it’s not part of the agreement. So, those people are very poorly informed. And we see that all the time.
there are people who believe that Iran is a threat to the entire region, and any evidence they can develop against them is for that purpose. But I think if you’re coming back to nuclear weapons, are they actually developing nuclear weapons? It’s hard to say.
One is that the IAEA is on top of the enrichment issue. And so, the question that’s really going on in Vienna in the next few weeks is: How much uranium will they be allowed to make? And IAEA is not even at the table, because everybody assumes they can do their job. And they will. They’re very good at that.
But the second part is about finding facilities to build bombs and things like that. IAEA is not capable of that. You need an intelligence network to do that. You need good analysts to do that. And we haven’t seen any sign, at this point, that IAEA’s work is up to snuff. That’s a separate agreement, and it should just be thrown in the trash.
I think, in the case of the U.S., you have this multi-headed Hydra, that maybe the administration wants to do one thing, but the Congress wants to do another. I don’t know who’s pushing the politics, because it’s so opaque. It’s the same thing in Iran itself. Who is on the receiving end of the U.S. overtures? Is it the Rouhani people? Or is it the Khameneis? Who is it? So, I think you’re not really sure in these cases how many people are talking to how many other people and where the connections are.
P5+1 on the uranium is very important, because it will establish what Iran is allowed to do in the view of the rest of the world. If they agree that they’re limited to those things and they say they have the right to peaceful nuclear energy, then I think you’ll have a very important agreement on uranium enrichment and also this reactor that they’re building, that’s not too important. But on the weaponization, the talks don’t concern that. And people who say that the talks include that are wrong, and they’re muddying the waters, probably to try to derail the negotiations.
they say things like Iran is not cooperating. And Iran is cooperating fully in the area of nuclear materials. When the U.S. asks to go to a military base or to go to a factory that’s producing missiles, Iran says, “Wait a minute. You know, that’s not part of our agreement with you.” And people are misconstruing that to say they’re not cooperating in nuclear. Simply not true.
I feel very bad about what happened in 2003. It’s extremely embarrassing that the country ignored the people who were in Iraq making the observations and didn’t take us into account. And when the U.S. sent this team in, two months after the war or so, the leader of the team, after two months, quit. And his statement was: “We were all wrong. They had no weapons of mass destruction.” Well, we weren’t all wrong. The people who were in the field were saying there’s nothing there. And then they left it to bureaucrats to twist that around and get it wrong.
— source democracynow.org
Robert Kelley, associated senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. A former director at the IAEA for the Iraq Action Team. Prior to that, Kelley was a nuclear weapons analyst based at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.