Funny how the IAEA made a u-turn after Mohamed ElBaradei

it took 'em almost 24 months to move the iaea from a respected, objective watchdog to a shill for u.s. propaganda...

see jim white at emptywheel...

Two Years After ElBaradei’s Departure, IAEA Joins Anti-Iran Drumbeat

and, sure enough...

U.N. Finds Signs of Work by Iran Toward Nuclear Device

United Nations weapons inspectors released a trove of new evidence on Tuesday that they say makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way.

The long-awaited report relies on evidence whose scope and depth is far greater than any the agency has made public before, and represents the harshest judgment that the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever issued in its decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program. The findings have already rekindled a debate among the Western allies and Israel about whether increased diplomatic pressure, sanctions, sabotage or military action could stop Iran’s program.

robert parry offers a rapid response as well as some context on the bogus "authority" behind this equally bogus return bout of u.s. and media hyperventilation on iran, the same guy who sold us a bill of goods on iraq's non-existent wmd...

An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?

The American public is about to be inundated with another flood of “expert analysis” about a dangerous Middle Eastern country presumably hiding a secret nuclear weapons program that may require a military strike, although this time it is Iran, not Iraq.

In the near future, you will be seeing more satellite photos of non-descript buildings that experts will say are housing elements of a nuclear bomb factory. There will be more diagrams of supposed nuclear devices. Some of the same talking heads will reappear to interpret this new “evidence.”

You might even recognize some of those familiar faces from the more innocent days of 2002-2003 when they explained, with unnerving confidence, how Iraq’s Saddam Hussein surely had chemical and biological weapons and likely a nuclear weapons program, too.

For instance, back then, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright was all over the news channels, reinforcing the alarmist claims about Iraq’s WMD that were coming from President George W. Bush and his neocon-dominated administration.

Today, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is issuing a flurry of alarmist reports about Iran’s nuclear bomb progress, often accompanied by the same kind of satellite photos and diagrams that helped persuade many Americans that Iraq must possess unconventional weapons that turned out to be fictitious.

imho, this is nothing more and nothing less than another fabricated diversion to get us to stop focusing on real issues and keep us cowering under the bed in fear of yet another boogeyman... (pay no attention to ows... look over here at what iran's doing...!)

what's particularly disturbing about this turn of events isn't the patently propagandistic nature of the breathless revelations, it's the leaking scuttlebutt about israel's plans for attacking iran which would be ever so much worse than iran actually having the bomb...

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If the U.S. mindset wasn't irretrievably fixated on the demonization of Iran, this development might be seen as uniformly positive [UPDATE]

but, since that's not the case, the rest of this article goes on to wax pessimistic about previous iranian "duplicity" and the concern that there are secret stockpiles of enriched uranium that would make this step "hollow"...

Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside Iran to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said.

we shall see what we shall see, now won't we...?

[UPDATE]

i just knew juan cole would have something to say lickety-split...

Barack Obama pwned Bush-Cheney in one day, and got more concessions from Iran in 7 1/2 hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling.

good point...

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Juan Cole: Israel's original sin

leave it to professor cole to put the iran nuclear hoo-ha in perspective...

There is no good evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. It has offered to allow regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the newly announced facility near Qom, which would effectively prevent it from being used for weapons production.

There is a secret nuclear facility in the Middle East, however, producing plutonium and not just enriched uranium, which has the capacity to make 10 nuclear warheads a year.

Here is a 3-D reconstruction of the most dangerous weapons plant in the Middle East, at Dimona in Israel.

It is Israel's ongoing nuclear weapon production that drives the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Saddam wanted a bomb because Israel had one. The Iranians were then worried both about an Iraqi and an Israeli bomb. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others are annoyed at their geostrategic helplessness in the face of Israeli nukes.

Israel's nuclear arsenal is the region's Original Sin.

funny how israel's nuclear capability and arsenal mysteriously never get mentioned in our esteemed news media...

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Rewriting the history of the Iraq invasion

thanks to thom hartmann...



lest we forget...

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Totally absurd U.S. statements to kick off the long holiday weekend

evidently, u.s. ridiculousness knows no bounds...

first, we want iran to "confess"...

Iran must "confess" to running a past nuclear weapons program or its claims of cooperating with a U.N. investigation will not be credible, the chief U.S. envoy to the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Friday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said in Washington that if Iran wants U.N. sanctions lifted and avoid new ones, it must halt uranium enrichment and related activities that could make the ingredients for an atomic bomb.

If Iran complies, Rice said she was "prepared to meet my (Iranian) counterpart any place and anytime and anywhere, and we can talk about anything." But "as long as the Iranians are talking and practicing enrichment, we're not getting anywhere," she said.

Iran says it needs an enrichment program to produce fuel for civilian power plants, but Washington suspects it is part of its ultimate drive to possess nuclear weapons. Low enriched uranium generates power, but highly enriched, it has no use other than for the fissile payload of nuclear warheads.

Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment "violates Security Council resolutions and casts doubt on its leaders' ultimate intent."

and, THEN... (hold on, this is good...!)

the u.s. DENIES that the destroyed videotapes contained any evidence of torture...

US government lawyers flatly denied Friday that videotapes destroyed by the CIA contained any scenes of the torture of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay... .

"It is inconceivable that the destroyed tapes could have been about abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay," lawyer Jody Hunt, representing the White House, told the court.

laugh...? cry...? go pig out on some more vanilla wafers...? run screaming down the street...? make my bed with freshly-laundered sheets...? slit my wrists...? so many choices...

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El Baradei talks about Iran and Argentina's nuclear program - more news we never see from a source we can't access

mohamed el baradei, the head of the international atomic energy agency, was in buenos aires earlier this week to receive an honorary doctorate from the university of buenos aires... he also met with outgoing argentine president nestor kirchner and granted an interview to the largest argentine daily, clarín... the translation is courtesy of the open source center (see below) via juan cole...

"I hope that what was done in Iraq will not be repeated. We have all learned a lesson and I hope with all my strength that the situation in Iran will be resolved diplomatically." [emphasis in original] Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei, who is now in Buenos Aires and gave an exclusive interview to Clarin yesterday afternoon, is at the center of a storm and is working against the clock. ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is supervising the Iranian (nuclear development) plan, and he is also under pressure from the United States and its allies to harden his stance toward Tehran. Both the United States and Israel have sharply attacked the IAEA report on Iran.

el baradei continues...

I try to convince, argue, apply pressure, and use persuasion. Of course, my diplomacy is limited to dialogue, as there is no army behind it. I am indeed the target of pressures, but as long as you know that you have your feet on the ground and are sure of what you are doing, pressures are like Teflon; they do not stick. Moreover, I have gotten used to this, as we have been criticized by Saddam, by Korea, and now by Israel. We deal with extremely sensitive issues and we have to be very careful that we are not pushed in any direction. Everyone listens to us with great attention. This does seem rather schizophrenic, doesn't it? Governments hire us, but at times we make a judgment about them and it is difficult for them to accept the fact that, even though they are paying us, we can still judge them.

as much time as i spend there, i still have to remind myself that argentina's a nuclear nation... here, el baradei responds to a question about argentina's nuclear program...

Argentina is the only country in the region that has developed the complete nuclear fuel cycle and that is in a position to export nuclear technology, like the reactor that was sold to Australia, which is very pleased with it. Argentina may play a significant role as a possessor of this technology. It could be part of this possible rebirth of nuclear energy, and Argentina and Brazil may be in a position to cooperate by supplying nuclear fuel.

ok, back to the open source center... juan cole regularly posts excerpts in translation from media outlets around the world that he credits to the u.s. government "open source center"... this morning i was moved to go check it out... what i found is that it's definitely not "open..." here's what they say on their password-protected site (see screen shot below)...

Welcome to the website of the Open Source Center. OSC provides foreign media reporting and analysis to policymakers, government institutions and strategic partners. We deliver targeted, timely and authoritative open source intelligence for analysis, operations and policymaking. [...] This is a U.S. Government computer system. You have reached a United States Government computer system. Unauthorized access is prohibited by U.S. Public Law 99-474 (the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986) and can result in administrative, disciplinary, and/or criminal proceedings. If you are not an authorized user, exit this system immediately. Use of this system constitutes consent to monitoring at all times.

so, who CAN access the open source center (besides juan cole)... again, from their website...

# U.S. Government Employee
Select this option if you are an employee of a U.S. Federal Government agency.
# U.S. Government Contractor
Select this option if you are a U.S. contractor working under the terms of an active U.S. Federal Government contract, and if our material is required to support your work for the U.S. Federal Government.
# State and Local Government Employee
Select this option if you are an employee of a state or local government in the United States with Homeland Security responsibilities.
# State and Local Government Contractor
Select this option if you are working under the terms of an active contract with a state or local government in the United States with Homeland Security responsibilities.
# BBC Monitoring Employee
Select this option if you are an employee of the BBC Monitoring Service, and if our material is required to support your work for BBCM.
# Foreign Liaison with U.S. Government
Select this option if you are an officer of a government other than that of the United States, or if you are employed by a government-level international organization. Note that you should only apply for this account after having secured our explicit consent to do so. If you would like an account but have not secured such consent, please contact us at OSCinfo@rccb.osis.gov.

just a few more facts to file away for future reference... not that i don't have a head packed full already...

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Shilling for another war while discrediting a voice of reason and a Nobel Peace Prize winner

the bush administration simply cannot abide anyone who doesn't toe the line with its perpetual war agenda, and outlets like the wapo are only too happy to be one of its running dogs... beginning with both the headline and the teaser, this editorial takes a crack at mohamed el baradei, the iaea director, who, as he has since the run-up to the iraq war, tries to speak above the noise of the incessant beating of bushco's war drums...

Rogue Regulator
Mohamed ElBaradei pursues a separate peace with Iran.

FOR SOME time Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, has made it clear he considers himself above his position as a U.N. civil servant. Rather than carry out the policy of the Security Council or the IAEA board, for which he nominally works, Mr. ElBaradei behaves as if he were independent of them, free to ignore their decisions and to use his agency to thwart their leading members -- above all the United States.

it seems to me more than a tad disingenuous to call the u.s. one of the "leading members" of the u.n., somehow implying that the u.s. really supports the u.n.'s work rather than simply manipulating it for its own ends... even more blatantly disingenuous, however, is the wapo's pathetic attempt to distance itself from those drooling over the prospect of a new war...

Mr. ElBaradei was lionized by opponents of the Iraq war for debunking Bush administration charges that Saddam Hussein had restarted his nuclear program before the 2003 invasion. Emboldened, he has now set himself a new task: stopping what he considers to be the "crazies" in Washington who "want to say, 'Let us go and bomb Iran.' " We're not part of that camp, though we consider its members saner than many of the statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

so, the wapo considers the "let us go and bomb iran" crowd SANE...? that statement in itself renders the "we're not part of that camp" claim meaningless...

and conveniently, as per usual, the wapo omits any mention of the fact that the u.s. would have liked nothing better than to have prevented el baradei from serving another term as iaea director when his previous term was up back in early 2005...

from an interview with the arms control association in march 2005...

ACA: Speaking of your job, so far you’re running unopposed for a third term as director-general. As you know, the United States says it opposes another term for you because it’s opposed to third terms for the heads of international organizations in general. Do you believe the United States wants you replaced for any other reason?

ElBaradei: You should address that question to the United States. I really haven’t discussed it with them, and all I know is that the overwhelming majority of members-states have come to me and asked me to continue to serve. I was not necessarily planning to, if you had asked me a year ago, but they asked me to serve, and I think the reason for it is that we are in a very delicate phase in the nonproliferation regime, both the whole vitality of the regime as well as specific cases like Iran and North Korea, and that’s why I agreed to serve. I’d be happy to serve if people want me to; if not, again, I’ll be equally happy to do other stuff.

ACA: U.S. officials as well as some officials from other governments have indicated dissatisfaction with the fact that your reports to the IAEA Board of Governors did not say that Iran was in noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement. What is your reaction to that?

ElBaradei: Well, first, the only thing I saw publicly is that during the [confirmation] hearing of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, she said, from the U.S. perspective, I served with distinction. I think that’s the language she used, so that’s all I have seen publicly, and I’d be obviously happy, if there are any who have any qualms about any of our reports, to discuss them privately and publicly. But our reports on Iran have been characterized, at least from our perspective, by being factual and objective, and that’s what we’ll continue to do. We have no ax to grind, one way or another. Our role is to bring the facts out and, as I think I mentioned in Davos,[8] when Iran cheated I reported, when Iran cooperated I reported.

also conveniently omitted is this...

Mohamed El Baradei, together with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he heads, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week for working to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

but the most incredible statement of the editorial comes right at the end...

Moscow and Beijing could join Mr. ElBaradei in arguing that nothing should be done before the end of the year. By then, the options of the Bush administration and other governments that believe Iran's nuclear program must be stopped, and not accommodated, may be greatly attenuated -- thanks to a diplomat who apparently believes he need not represent anyone other than himself.

and this, my friends, is why u.s. citizens are among the most poorly informed people in the world...

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