Israel Matzav

Iran has a drawing of how to make an atomic weapon

Diplomats attending a closed briefing by the IAEA tonight said that IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen described Iran's possession of a drawing of how to make a nuclear weapon as "alarming" and said that the onus was on Iran to prove that it did not intend to make nuclear weapons. The US said that the evidence increased concern that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

"Today's briefing showed ... strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully at least until recently to build a bomb," Gregory L. Schulte, the chief US delegate to the agency, told reporters.

Rejecting the allegation, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Schulte's Iranian counterpart, again dismissed the evidence as "baseless and fabricated documents and papers."

So how dumb was that US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a few months ago? So dumb that even the IAEA is not accepting it.

Separately, a senior diplomat suggested the agency was not accepting as fact US intelligence estimates that the Islamic Republic stopped active pursuit of nuclear weapons five years ago.

Queried on documents in the agency's possession possibly linked to research in such weapons and bearing dates into early 2004, he told The Associated Press that the IAEA was reserving its judgment on whether they indicated nuclear weapons work past 2003 until it finished its own investigations.

The documents, outlined in an IAEA report forwarded Monday to the UN Security Council and agency board members, are part of evidence provided by board member nations to the agency for its investigation into allegations that Iran used the cover of peaceful nuclear activities to conduct research and testing on a nuclear arms program.

One, dated January-February 2004 is linked to high explosives testing of the kind that can be used to detonate a nuclear device. Others, dated into January 2004 - and one as late as March 14 of that year - are part of purported evidence that Iran worked on designs of a missile re-entry vehicle that is normally a part of a nuclear delivery system.

The senior diplomat, who is familiar with agency attempts to investigate the nuclear weapons allegations, said the dates could mean nothing more than a review of activities that ended before 2004 but added the IAEA could make a final judgment only if Iran was forthcoming on requests to explain these and other documents. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge confidential information.

Captain Ed points out the significance of these documents.

These documents serve no purpose in a peaceful nuclear-energy program. With the Iranians just months away from increasing their uranium enrichment centrifuge cascades to 6,000, they could produce enough fissile material for a weapon in less than two months. If they have continued design and manufacturing work on a device, they could have a nuclear weapon by Christmas, if not sooner.

Ed's concerned with why the plainly wrong National Intelligence Estimate was issued.

While the IAEA demands answers from Iran, perhaps we could get a few from the American intelligence community. Why were they so intent on dismissing the threat from Iran that they reversed three years of high-confidence assessments of an ongoing nuclear-weapons program to replace it with a moderate-confidence dismissal? How much did politics play in attempting to blunt the White House’s focus on a serious threat?

I believe that it was all politics. But at this point, that question can be left to later. Of more immediate concern to me is what the civilized nations of the world plan to do about Iran. I'm sitting at Ground Zero waiting to hear an answer to that question. Anyone have one?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:10 AM