'18 Years Of Lies' From Iran Over Its Nuclear Plans

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 11-12-2003 | Anton La Guardia

[blam]

'18 years of lies' from Iran over its nuclear plans

By Anton La Guardia in Vienna
(Filed: 12/11/2003)

Iran has systematically lied about its nuclear programme for 18 years, seeking to hide the development of key techniques needed to make fissile material for nuclear weapons, according to a report by the United Nations watchdog.

The document, made available to The Telegraph, discloses that Iran successfully enriched uranium and extracted plutonium on a laboratory scale - providing two possible routes to a nuclear weapon.

These admissions by Teheran were part of a series of violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty catalogued in the document.

The report by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: "Iran's policy of concealment continued until last month with co-operation being limited and reactive, and information being slow in coming, changing and contradictory."

But after nine months of investigations by international inspectors, in which Iran has been forced repeatedly to change its story, Mr ElBaradei said there was no evidence yet that Iran was pursuing a military programme.

He added: "Given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

The report listed nine separate counts of Iran's "failure" to comply with its safeguards agreement under the terms of the NPT. It disclosed that Iran had secretly developed a uranium centrifuge enrichment programme for the past 18 years, and a laser enrichment programme for the past 12.

The experiments in extracting of plutonium, explained by Iran as an attempt "to gain experience in reprocessing chemistry", were particularly worrying.

"The main use for plutonium is in nuclear weapons," said one diplomat. "Plutonium can be used in mixed fuel for power reactors, as is done in France, but there is no sign that Iran has been seeking to do this."

Iran tried to contain the political damage, with Ali Akbar Salehi, its ambassador to the IAEA, saying the breaches were trivial.

"The failures attributed to Iran are insignificant and are at the level of gram and microgram of nuclear materials," Iranian television quoted him as saying.

But a diplomat in Vienna said: "The report is damning. What are the Iranians doing producing plutonium when all they supposedly want is a light water reactor [using low enriched uranium]?"

The IAEA report will give ammunition to all sides in the debate on the Iran nuclear crisis.

America will view it as evidence that Teheran is aggressively seeking an atomic bomb while the Europeans will see it as proof that their diplomatic pressure has forced Iran to come clean. The IAEA will take it as vindication of the ability of inspections to extract the truth.

The United States wants Iran to be formally declared in "non-compliance" of the NPT and referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

This could embarrass Britain, France and Germany which persuaded Iran last month to co-operate more fully with the IAEA on the tacit understanding that the question would be kept out of the security council.

One compromise may be that the security council is merely "informed" of the findings and will take no further action.

The IAEA appears keen to avoid a confrontation in the hope of encouraging Teheran to keep up its newly declared policy of "active co-operation and openness".

One diplomat said: "The threat of referral to the security council has been very effective. But once you use it, you lose it."

Mr ElBaradei heaped praise on Iran's announcement that it was temporarily suspending its uranium enrichment programme, and had accepted the terms for intrusive inspections.

He said the IAEA still had to carry out extensive checks on Iran's latest claims that could take months to complete.

In particular, he has yet to track down the source of particles of weapons-grade high-enriched uranium found at two sites.Iran says this is the result of contamination of imported equipment, and insists that it has produced only low-enriched uranium.

[observer5]

Ohh, what a shock! Only those with less than 2 gramms of brain material in their head thought otherwise...

[USF]

Hmmmm... (Sneaky Mullah alert)

I seem to recall another article "U.N.: Iran's Secret Nuke Research Had Foreign Help" via good ole LGF: No Evidence of an Iranian nuclear program, Except for That, Uh, Plutonium... and a secret laser uranium enrichment plant... and “a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material.”

[af_vet_1981]

In particular, he has yet to track down the source of particles of weapons-grade high-enriched uranium found at two sites.Iran says this is the result of contamination of imported equipment, and insists that it has produced only low-enriched uranium.

1. The Iranian regime is a principal terrorist regime.
2. They will lie until they die. It is what they do.
3. They need to die for us to be safe.