(This is a newer version of a previous post since the Blip.tv video segment in the old one has gone missing and a new video has been posted in its place - I wonder why. If you can't see this video either, let me know and I'll try to find one that works.)
So it didn't take long before the "United Against Nuclear Iran" organization I mentioned in my last post showed what sort of organization it is. Of course I am not in the least bit surprised that they're lying through their teeth about Iran's nuclear program but I just wonder whether the media or ISIS and all the other media-appointed "expert think tanks" who have thus far made a living out of casting suspicion on Iran will step up to the plate and correct the claims promoted by "United Against Nuclear Iran" too -- but don't hold your breath.
Basically, the same people who lied to you about WMDs in Iraq have started lying about Iran's nuclear program. When you view the following video from "United Against Nuclear Iran", remember this:
"A senior official close to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei accused unnamed Western powers of using the same 'hype' tactics employed against Iraq before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to justify imposing further sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program."
Pretty much ever sentence in this video is a lie:
- The IAEA has never said that Iran produced "highly-enriched uranium" as repeatedly asserted in this video -- even now Iran can now barely manage to produce low-enriched uranium that cannot be used to make bombs. A previous reports issued in the US Congress which claimed (among other things) that Iran had produced highly-enriched uranium was branded as dishonest by the IAEA itself, as reported by the BBC:
Signed by a senior director at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vilmos Cserveny, the letter raises objections over the committee's report released on 23 August. It says the report was wrong to say that Iran had enriched uranium to weapons-grade level when the IAEA had only found small quantities of enrichment at far lower levels.
The few traces of highly-enriched uranium found in Iran were traced by IAEA and international scientists to contamination, thus vindicating Iran. The Washington Post reported this three years ago:
No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program
Uranium Traced to Pakistani EquipmentBy Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Page A01Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.
"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.
- Iran's nuclear enrichment program was not "hidden" nor a "secret" -- in fact it started in the 1970s with the cooperation of France. After the revolution, not only did Iran openly and repeatedly announce its enrichment plans on national radio, Iran had openly sought to cooperate with the IAEA in developing the program until the US blocked it:
U.S. in 1983 stopped IAEA from helping Iran make UF6
Nuclear Fuel August 4, 2003Four years after the Islamic revolution, and two years after Iran's new leaders dusted off the nuclear program of the deposed Reza Shah Pahlevi, IAEA officials were keen to assist Iran in reactivating a research program to learn how to process U3O8 into UO2 pellets and then set up a pilot plant to produce UF6, according to IAEA documents obtained by NuclearFuel.
Sources said that when in 1983 the recommendations of an IAEA mission to Iran were passed on to the IAEA's technical cooperation program, the U.S. government then ''directly intervened'' to discourage the IAEA from assisting Iran in production of UO2 and UF6. ''We stopped that in its tracks,'' said a former U.S. official.
Due to US interference, Iran did fail to report otherwise legal nuclear activity (such as importing uranium) but the IAEA has said that none of Iran's undeclared activity had any relationship to a nuclear weapons program.
- Iran has never "obstructed inspectors" as claimed and in fact it has allowed more inspections that its safeguards agreement requires. When the same sort of people issued a report making a similar claim about Iran "obstructing inspectors", the IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire replied:
"We have not been denied access at any time, including in the past few weeks. Normally we do not comment on such reports but this time we felt we had to clarify the matter...If we had a problem like that we would have to report to the [35-nation IAEA governing] board ... That has not happened because this alleged event did not take place."
- Iran's nuclear program makes perfect economic sense, which is why the US encouraged and supported Iran's nuclear program in the first place. As the Washington Post reported:
Lacking direct evidence, Bush administration officials argue that Iran's nuclear program must be a cover for bomb-making. Vice President Cheney recently said, "They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy."
Yet Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and outgoing Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held key national security posts when the Ford administration made the opposite argument 30 years ago.
- Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr is perfectly legal, operated under IAEA safeguards, and IAEA head ElBaradei himself has said that it poses no concern:
He denied US claims that the Bushehr reactor could be used to make weapons..."Bushehr is not apparently at the centre of international concern," Mr ElBaradei told reporters on Tuesday. The IAEA chief said the reactor was aimed at producing nuclear energy only, and there was an agreement to return spent fuel to Russia. "It is not something that is of any concern on our part," he added.
- Iran has never "violated" the Non-Proliferation Treaty (the accusation itself is quite ironic, considering that the US just violated its own obligations under the treaty with regard to India.) In fact, IAEA reports on Iran have consistently stated that there is no evidence that Iran diverted nuclear material for weapons use. As Michael Spies of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy has explained:
"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."
This was backed up by expert testimony presented to the Foreign Select Committee of the British Parliament:
"In the past four years that Iran's nuclear programme has been under close investigation by the IAEA, the Director General of the IAEA, as early as November 2003 reported to the IAEA Board of Governors that 'to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities ... were related to a nuclear weapons programme.' ... Although Iran has been found in non-compliance with some aspects of its IAEA safeguards obligations, Iran has not been in breach of its obligations under the terms of the NPT."
- Finally, note how long the video dedicates to scaremongering about how a nuclear Iran will "spawn" a nuclear Middle East by forcing other countries to develop nuclear weapons too. I dealt with this claim before:
[I]t is highly ironic that Iran's mere capability to build nuclear weapons can supposedly spark this uncontrollable cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Mideast, and yet Israel's existing nuclear weapons are not believed to have this effect. Indeed, if we are to accept, as the fallacious argument assumes, that one country's nuclear capability will force other countries to acquire their own nuclear deterrent, then the real regional culprit for proliferation must be the original nuclear power in the region: Israel. Note also that similar predictions of regional arms races have not been made when, for example, Brazil recently acquired the same nuclear technology that Iran is seeking to develop. Finally, the argument assumes that the other countries in the region aren't already working to develop their own nuclear programmes...
Anyway, these are just some of the blatant lies in the video that I've just debunked -- I have grown too bored to continue with the rst. I'm looking at for sale ads for sailboats.
Incidentally, I am sort of disappointed to see Holbrooke in bed with these liars. I once briefly knew his son, and frankly I never expected Holbrooke to mix in with human scum like these.
An interesting post, even one nuclear weapon is enough to lay waste and check-mate the world into trouble.
This is why it is a matter of trust. Do we trust Iran?
Should Iran have Nuclear Technology ?
Posted by: Murray | September 16, 2008 at 06:05 AM