IAEA: Iran deal gutted agency's ability to monitor Iran

IAEA Director General Yukio Amano disclosed on Monday that the Obama-Kerry-Sherman sellout to a nuclear Iran effectively gutted his agency's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear activities. Here's an email from The Israel Project's Omri Ceren.

On February 26 the IAEA released its first report on Iran's nuclear activity since Implementation Day, when Iran was said to have met all of its nuclear requirements under United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, and the international community duly began dismantling the sanctions regime in response.

The IAEA report was supposed to confirm that Iran had indeed met all of its commitments and continued to be in compliance with the nuclear deal. Instead it had several gaps in places where the IAEA had - for years and years previously - reported precise details and numbers.

Nuclear verification experts immediately and heavily criticized the report. That same day - on February 26 - the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) published an assessment detailing how Iran might be cheating, given what was not reported by the IAEA [a]. The list is wonkish but includes: production of parts for advanced centrifuges, chemical conversion of 5% low enriched uranium (LEU) to put it temporarily beyond use for weapons, and stockpiling of 20% LEU. Then last Friday Olli Heinonen - a decades-long IAEA veteran and the former head of the Agency's verification shop - came out with another assessment of the IAEA report [b]. It listed additional underreported areas of potential Iranian noncompliance, including ways Iran might be resisting verification and monitoring commitments.

This morning IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano - who was giving a briefing in Vienna - got the question about the report gaps. He described the criticism as a "clear misunderstanding." He then declared that the nuclear deal significantly reduced what the IAEA is supposed to report publicly about Iran:

Question [16:07]: ... After this first report for the JCPOA is released, many international nuclear verification experts has made analysis and comment saying that the IAEA, compared to the past report, is not giving enough details for the international community to follow the process and review, and I think it'ss not only the JCPOA that the IAEA is responsible, because much of the money comes from the IAEA and will be funded in the future for the regulatory budget as well, so for that sake as well: how do your respond to that criticism that the IAEA this time did not provide enough information?

...

Amano [17:42]: Regarding the reporting. There is a clear misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that the basis of reporting is different. In the previous reports the bases were the previous UN Security Council Resolutions and Board of Governors. But now they are terminated. They are gone. The bases of our report is the resolution of the United Nations Security Council 2231 and the Board of Governors resolution adopted on the 15th of December. These two resolutions and the other resolutions of the Security Council and Board are very different. And as the basis is different, the consequences are different. What we are doing with that? We are requested by the Resolution 2231 and the Board of Governors resolution on the 15th of December to monitor and verify the nuclear related commitments under JCPOA and report to the Board of Governors and in parallel the Security Council. So I will continue to report based on these resolutions factually and objectively and including the details which the agency considers necessary. (http://iaea-archiv.streaming.at/download/20160307_720p.mp4)

When nuclear negotiations began in late 2013, the administration asked Congress to stand down on pressuring the Iranians, and promised to force the Iranians to dismantle significant parts of their nuclear program if Congress gave negotiators space. U.S. negotiators eventually caved on any demands that would have required the destruction of Iran's uranium infrastructure, and instead went all-in on verification and transparency: yes the Iranians would get to keep what they'd built, and yes their program would eventually be fully legal, but the international community would have full transparency into everything from uranium mining to centrifuge production to enriched stockpiles.
Now Amano has revealed that the nuclear deal gutted the ability of journalists and the public to have insight into Iran's nuclear activities. In critical areas it's even not clear that the IAEA has been granted the promised access.

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