Well, the New York Times warmongering capability has apparently not been much diminished by the loss of Judith Miller, who, in intimate association with the Cheney Cabal, did so much on the Times‘ front-pages to enable the Bush-Cheney War of Aggression against Iraq (still in progress).
You see, the NYT still has William Broad and David Sanger.
Last week Broad and Sanger apparently somehow obtained access to the confidential report Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei had just submitted to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which included – among other things – its quarterly report on Iran’s compliance with its NPT-related IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Broad and Sanger also apparently somehow obtained access to the confidential report ElBaradei had just submitted on Syria’s compliance with its NPT-related IAEA Safeguards Agreement
Perhaps coincidentally, David Albright – "The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was" – who is quoted by Broad and Sanger in their latest report, had apparently also obtained what appears to be authentic copies of both confidential reports and had posted them [.pdf], apparently with impunity, last week on his Website.
Now, the IAEA report on possible Syrian noncompliance with its Safeguards Agreement hinges upon the alleged failure of Syria to ‘explain’ the presence of particles of "anthropogenic natural uranium" (a contradiction in terms; there can be no such thing) of a "type not declared," on a "swipe," taken at the Chinese-supplied Miniature Neutron Source Reactor in Damascus.
But warmongers Broad and Sanger claim that "discovery" of those oxymoronic particles – and their "possible connection" to uranium traces already "discovered" by the IAEA in the soil near the complex that Israel bombed in the Syrian desert in 2007 – supports the Israeli claim that the complex was, in fact, a clandestine nuclear reactor.
Okay, now let’s turn to ElBaradei’s confidential report to the IAEA Board on Iran.
It’s important to note the quarterly report on Iran’s compliance with its NPT-related IAEA Safeguards Agreement also includes reports requested of ElBaradei by the UN Security Council on Iran’s compliance – or lack thereof – with several resolutions, invoking sanctions, passed by the Security Council in contravention of the procedures set forth in the UN Charter.
Needless to say, warmongers Broad and Sanger don’t want you to know that.
They want you to think that Iran’s refusal to comply with certain demands – made illegally by the IAEA Board and by the Security Council – is tantamount to Iran being in noncompliance with the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Wrong!
First, let’s take ElBaradei’s quarterly report on Iran’s compliance with its IAEA Safeguards Agreement, entered into in 1974 (as a condition of becoming a non-nuke NPT-signatory) for the "exclusive purpose" of verifying to other NPT-signatories that no amounts of certain NPT-proscribed materials had been "diverted" to a military purpose.
Quoth ElBaradei:
"As has been reported in previous reports, the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran."
Okay, so much for Iran being in complete compliance with its NPT-related IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Next, how about that Additional Protocol to Iran’s Safeguards Agreement, which the Iranians signed back in 2003 and immediately began to comply with, in anticipation that the Iranian Parliament would ratify it?
Well, as a consequence of the deliberate refusal by Bush-Cheney-Bolton to allow the Brits-French-Germans to even acknowledge – much less accept — the March 23, 2005 confidential offer by the Iranians to go far beyond even the terms of the Additional Protocol in return for security guarantees by the Brits-French-Germans that Bush-Cheney-Bolton wouldn’t be allowed do unto Iran what they had been allowed to do to Iraq, the Iranian Parliament not only refused to ratify the Additional Protocol, but directed Iranian authorities to henceforth comply strictly with only the provisions of the original NPT-related Safeguards Agreement.
Hence, ElBaradei’s frequent lament that Iran is no longer implementing provisions of the Additional Protocol, including the "early provision of design information." Your quarrel, ElBaradei, is with Bush-Cheney-Bolton and the Brits-French-Germans, not the Iranians.
Finally, let’s take a look at all those demands made by the Security Council (in contravention of the UN Charter) at the request of the IAEA Board of Governors (in contravention of the IAEA Statute).
Quoth ElBaradei:
"Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities or its work on heavy water related projects as required by the Security Council."
As an NPT-signatory and IAEA-member, Iran has an "inalienable right" to pursue many IAEA-Safeguarded activities, involving the chemical and physical transformation of certain NPT-proscribed materials, such as uranium-enrichment. When the Iranians finally get their heavy-water nuclear-reactor completed, then a few months before they actually introduce certain NPT-proscribed materials into that reactor, they are required to make subject to their Safeguards Agreement that facility and its activities.
However, the Iranians will never be required to make the heavy-water production plant and related facilities subject to their Safeguards Agreement, and, contrary to Broad and Sanger, neither the IAEA Board or the Security Council has any authority to demand that they do.
Quoth ElBaradei:
"Contrary to the request of the Board of Governors and the requirements of the Security Council, Iran has neither implemented the Additional Protocol nor cooperated with the Agency in connection with the remaining issues which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program."
Needless to say, not only does the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council not have the authority to request or require a sovereign state to enter into what amounts to an international treaty, but the UN Charter specifically prohibitssuch meddling in its internal affairs
Finally, what’s all this about ElBaradei needing more "cooperation" by the Iranians before he can "exclude" the possibility of "military dimensions" to Iran’s Safeguarded programs?
Well, according to warmongers Broad and Sanger;
"The report also said Tehran had refused to give access to ‘relevant Iranian authorities’ who could address allegations surrounding Iran’s research on the design of nuclear warheads."
Well, as Broad and Sanger must know, the charge that Iran was secretly pursuing the "design" of a "nuclear warhead" – made by "an intelligence official of a foreign country," supposedly based upon the contents of a stolen "Iranian" laptop computer, which were supplied the CIA in 2004 and the IAEA in 2006, but have never been supplied to the Iranians – was totally refuted in May by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
According to Gareth Porter, the unnamed intelligence official was "seeking to conflate the blueprints for the re-entry vehicle of the Iranian Shehab missile, which were among the alleged Iranian ‘laptop’ documents, with blueprints for nuclear weapons."
Warmongers Broad and Sanger must have known that, because David Albright, himself, sharply criticized them for making that mistake – if it was a mistake – in a NYT "report" they wrote back in 2005 about the "smoking laptop."
If you want to see a "reentry vehicle," the one Astronaut Alan Shepard came back to earth in is on display at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.
