Sorry for the title but I bet it caught your attention. The point is that the media has displayed a nasty habit of putting words in the mouth of the IAEA and attributing their own conclusions to the IAEA. Here are two recent examples, which are so blatantly false as to be obviously deliberate efforts to mislead:
IAEA Chief Inspector: Iran may be hiding secret nukes
VIENNA (AP) — The chief U.N nuclear inspector says Iran may be hiding secret nuclear activities.
Mohamed ElBaradei says it is impossible to guarantee that Iran is not hiding such activities unless it allows his inspectors much broader access and answers allegations that it hid past attempts to make nuclear arms.
ElBaradei's statements are being misrepresented - note the difference between the first and second sentences (one sugests that iran is hiding something, the other states that the IAEA cannot guarantee that Iran is not hiding something.) This is a deliberate obfuscation of the issue by the Associated Press, in order t0 falsely attribute suspicions to the IAEA.
The media has often treated the IAEA's refusal to verify that there are no "undeclared" nuclear activities in Iran as reason for suspicion of Iran. However, the truth is that the IAEA does not verify the absence of undeclared nuclear activities in any country (including Iran) unless that country signs on to the Additional Protocol. This is simply a legalistic standard adopted by the IAEA, not a basis for suspicion of Iran.
As Michael Spies of the Lawyer's Comittee for Nuclear Policy has explained:
For some it is tempting to declare, based on the inability of the IAEA to presently draw a conclusion on the absence of nuclear activities, that Iran continues to operate concealed facilities and that any such facilities must be for a military program. But the IAEA has cautioned that the lack of a conclusion does not imply suspicion of undeclared nuclear materials and activities, as the matter is frequently spun in the media and by some governments.
According to the IAEA's own Annual Safeguards Implementation Report of 2004, of the 61 states where both the NPT safeguards and the Additional protocol are implemented, the IAEA has certified the absence of undeclared nuclear activity for only 21 countries, leaving Iran in the same category as 40 other countries including Canada, the Czech Republic, and South Africa. Note especially the last sentence:
"With regard to 21 States with both CSAs [Comprehensive Safeguard Agreements] and AP [Additional Protocol] in force or otherwise applied, the Agency concluded that all nuclear material in those States remained in peaceful nuclear activities. For 40 other such States, the Agency had not yet completed the necessary evaluations, and could therefore only draw the conclusion that the nuclear material placed under safeguards remained in peaceful nuclear activities."
The IAEA itself has denied the suggestion that it suspects Iran of having undeclared nuclear activities. In reponse to the issuance of the 2007 NIE, ElBaradei specifically stated:
[A]lthough Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran.
To verify the purely peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, the IAEA would legally have to also verify that there are no undeclared activities in Iran. The IAEA can only do this for coutries which have ratified the Additional Protocol agreement and have a "Comprehensive Safeguards" in force, which allows more stringent inspections. Iran has signed the Additional Protocol, and did implement it for 2 years as a good faith gesture during the Paris Agreement negotiation -- at which time the IAEA found no evidence of undeclared activities in Iran in places such as Parchin despite all the hype. But Iran (along with many other countries) has not legally ratified the Additional Protocol and so is not technically bound by it -- and so the IAEA cannot legally conclude that there are no undeclared activities in Iran and therefore that Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceful. Iran has offered to ratify the AP once its legal rights are recognized.
In the case of countries such as Iran, which are no subject to the Additional Protocol, the IAEA's legal standard of compliance is set lower: non-diversion. In other words, under Iran existing safeguards, the job of the IAEA is to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear material for non-peaceful uses (which the IAEA has consistently verfied is the case for Iran in every report)
Read the text of Iran's safeguards agreement with the IAEA, specifically Article 19 which states that he IAEA may refer Iran to the UN Security Council ONLY if the IAEA is "not able to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear material required to be safeguarded under this Agreement, to nucle ar weapons or other nuclear explosive devices" and Art. 2 which states that the purpose of the safeguards agreement is for the "exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."
Again, as Michael Spies of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy has stated:
"The conclusion that no diversion has occurred certifies that the state in question is in compliance with its undertaking, under its safeguards agreement and Article III of the NPT, to not divert material to non-peaceful purposes. In the case of Iran, the IAEA was able to conclude, in its November 2004 report, that all declared nuclear materials had been accounted for and therefore none had been diverted to military purposes. The IAEA reached this same conclusion in September 2005."
All you have to do to verify all this is read the IAEA Safeguard Glossary which defines these two legal standards in paragraphs 2.8 and 2.9 on page 15.
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