Fromwww. kentimmerman.com
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
U.N.Nuclear Watchdog Report Slams Iran
Kenneth R. Timmerman,NewsMax.com
Saturday, April 29,2006
Fromwww. kentimmerman.com
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
U.N.Nuclear Watchdog Report Slams Iran
Kenneth R. Timmerman,NewsMax.com
Saturday, April 29,2006
WASHINGTON -- A report releasedFriday to the U.N. Security Council from the International AtomicEnergy Agency in Vienna detailed Iran's failure to cooperate with theU.N. nuclear agency and paved the way for Security Council actionagainst Iran.
A copy of the 8-page report, obtained by Newsmax, found that Iran hadfailed to comply with the March 28 Security Council "presidentialstatement" that gave Iran a 30-day deadline to halt all uraniumenrichment activities.
Tehran reacted predictably by dismissing the report and the threat ofU.N. action: "The Iranian nation won't give a damn about such uselessresolutions," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd innorthwestern Iran.
A U.S. official familiar with the United Nations negotiations and thelatest report told Newsmax that despite the IAEA's clear finding thatIran had "not met the Agency's requirements," further action by theSecurity Council "could take three months or more."
"This is not our timetable," the official added. "But we recognizethat it could take that long. The United States will be pressing fora Security Council resolution with Chapter 7 authority withalacrity," the official said.
Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter deals with "threats to thepeace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression," and gives theSecurity Council authority to use force against a member state.
Iran tried to soften the IAEA report in an 11th hour meeting inVienna between its deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, and theIAEA safeguards director, Olli Heinonen on Thursday.
Saeedi delivered a letter to the IAEA in which Iran said it would"continue granting the Agency's inspection" of declared nuclearsites, and emphasized Iran's cooperation with the inspectors over thepast three years.
But IAEA officials and other diplomats aware of Iran's negotiatingtactics dismissed the letter, noting that Iran was "not beingforthcoming" and had "fallen way short" of meeting the Agency'sdemands.
Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph told reporters last week thatIran was "approaching the point of no return" in its nuclearprograms. He defined that as the moment when "Iran has acquired theconfidence and the capability of running [enrichment]centrifuges over a sustained period of time, allowing it to produceenriched uranium."
Once Iran has acquired that capability, it could replicate a uraniumcentrifuge cascade in a clandestine site, U.S. officials fear Iran.As NewsMax has previouslyreported, Iran is currentlybuilding such a site in northeastern Iran, citing Iranianintelligence sources.
Highlights from the latest IAEA report:
Iran continues to refuse to provide documents relating to a1987 offer by an intermediary for the A.Q. Khan nuclear black marketnetwork for centrifuge enrichment equipment. "The document related tothe possible supply of: a disassembled centrifuge; drawings,specifications and calculations for a "complete plant"; and materialsfor 2000 centrifuge machines," the report states. The document alsomade reference to "uranium re-conversion and casting capabilities,"which can be used for manufacturing nuclear weapons cores.
Iran also refuses to provide "any documentation or otherinformation about the meetings that led to its acquistion of 500 setsof P-1 centrifuge components in the mid-1990s" from the Khan network.Iran claims it never any of the centrifuges obtained from the blackmarket network.
Iran continues to stonewall the agency on its success inmanufacturing the more advanced P-2 centrifuge in Iran, despiterecent claims in the press by "high level Iranian officialsconcerning R&D and testing of P-2 centrifuges in Iran."
Iran continues to refuse IAEA demands that it provide acomplete copy of a 15-page technical document received from the Khannetwork that describes uranium casting and manufacturing proceses of"hemispherical" shapes of highly-enriched uranium. Officialsacknowledge there is no other purpose of HEU hemispheres other thanas bomb cores.
Iran continues work on a Plutonium-breeder reactor in Arak,despite an IAEA demand that it suspend work on the project until fullsafeguards can be applied.
Iran refused AEA demands to provide information relating to the"Green Salt Project," a secret, parallel program to make nuclearmaterials exempt from IAEA inspections.
In addition, "Iran has yet to address the other topics of highexplosives testing and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle."Earlier IAEA reports and information from Western diplomats indicatedthat the re-entry vehicle had been specially designed to carry anuclear warhead.
While the low-key IAEA report was both factual and technical, itspolitical implications were immediately clear.
"We are ready to take action in the Security Council," U.S.Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told reporters in New York. "We'reconcerned about Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons."