I am quite amused by the various spins that the media are putting on the new November 15th IAEA report on Iran. The AP reports that Iran has been "generally truthful" whilse CNN has - just as I predicted in my previous analysis of the IAEA report - seized upon the IAEA's statement that it cannot verify the absence of undeclared activities - nevermind what that really means... But perhaps the worst offender is article by Elaine Sciolino and William J Broad in the New York Times, with a headline that blares "Nuclear Report Finds Iran’s Disclosures Were Inadequate." (UPDATE: The article has disappeard from the NY Times website however you can see evidence of its existence here.)
In judging Iran's disclosures to be "inadequate", the NY Times article totally disregards the number of times that the report plainly stated that the information provided by Iran was "consistent" with IAEA findings. In fact, the word "inadequate" doesn't even appear anywhere in the body of the IAEA report. And why were Iran's disclosures supposedly "inadequate" according to the NY Times?
"The agreed timeline set November as a target date for Iran to answer all outstanding agency questions about the history of its program to build centrifuges... Today’s report said that Iran on Nov. 8 divulged some information about the P-2 program, adding that Iran would discuss the issue with the agency in December. That means Iran missed a reporting deadline to clear up the issue...”In fact, the Dec 2007 date specified in the IAEA report (para 33 on pages 7) is about a meeting where Iran will inform the IAEA of Iran's CURRENT work its new P2 centrifuge; it is NOT about Iran's PAST "history of its program to build centrifuges" which was supposed to to be cleared up by now. The NY Times simply has it all wrong when it claims that "Iran missed a reporting deadline to clear up the issue." The issue of Iran's P2 centrifuge activity was already cleared up - as indicated clearly in Paragraph 23 of the IAEA report:
"Based on visits made by Agency inspectors to the P-2 workshop in 2004, examination of the company owner’s contract, progress reports and logbooks, and information available on procurement enquiries, the Agency has concluded that Iran’s statements on the content of the declared P-2 R&D activities are consistent with the Agency’s findings."You would think that if Iran's disclosures about the centrifuges were "inadequate", or that it had "missed deadlines", then the IAEA report would actually say so - no? I am sorry to say that the NY Times seems to have quite deliberately disregarded that paragraph in a rather shameful and blatant attempt at misrepresenting the IAEA report to put the worst possible spin on it. The article goes on to conflate the issue of traces of uranium found in a lab with the centrifuge issue - disregarding the fact that according to Iran's agreed timetable with the IAEA (and as mentioned in the IAEA report itself) the issue of these traces is to be dealt with at a later date and so there isn't anything "inadequate" about Iran's disclosures there either.
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