Iran nuclear uranium media hype debunked

As a follow-up to my last post about how the media are hyping and spinning the latest IAEA report on Iran by claiming that Iran had "under reported" its uranium stocks which are now supposed sufficient "for the bomb", I think it is how the hyped media coverage has resulted in a concerted outcry by so many other writers and bloggers:

For example, the title of an article in Physics Today says that the IAEA report had led to "press confusion" - which is a charitable way of putting it. The body of the article more accurately describes the media's role in pushing hype:

A new report released yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the status of Iran's nuclear program is being hyped in the press as stating that Iran has enough enriched material to develop a nuclear weapon.

However, as Chemist Cheryl Rofer points out, the concentration of Iran's 1010 kg of enriched Uranium-235 is still too low to make an atomic bomb at 3.49% and would have to be re-processed for a number of months to reach the necessary enrichment level for military applications. The uranium enrichment facility would also have to be re-configured to reach higher concentration levels of U-235.

Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk describes the role of the media more succinctly accurately: Iran Panic Induced By Lousy Reporting:

Obviously, Iran would have to further enrich its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to make a bomb, which would be detected (at least at Natanz). We’ve been over this before.

The bigger misconception is that Iran has somehow misled the IAEA about its stockpile of low enriched uranium. The IAEA report does not suggest that Iran failed to declare material.

Other bloggers did a wonderful job of taking apart the media coverage, such as Cernig, Juan Cole, Rofer, Firedoglake, FAS and others.

And to set matters straight, IAEA spokesman Melissa Fleming corrected the record just yesterday:

"The (IAEA) has no reason at all to believe that the estimates of LEU produced in the (Natanz) facility were an intentional error by Iran. They are inherent in the early commissioning phases of such a facility when it is not known in advance how it will perform in practice," said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming...

"No nuclear material could have been removed from the facility without the agency's knowledge since the facility is subject to video surveillance and the nuclear material has been kept under seal."

Now, do you suppose the NY Times, after publishing screaming articles about how Iran had "under reported" its uranium and has accumulated enough uranium "for the bomb" -- and quoting war mongers who assured us that "Its worse than we thought!" -- will now give equal column space to Melissa Fleming's statement?

I doubt it.

[Interesting letter by Mr Fariborz Fatemi in the FT.com worth reading]

[Odd thought: the media are criticizing Iran for UNDER REPORTING its enriched uranium, suggesting that Iran had deliberately failed to declare its uranium uranium holdings. Had Iran made a mistake in its estimation by OVER REPORTING the amount of enriched uranium, the same media would claim that there was "missing Uranium!!!!" in Iran.]

Anyway, not satisfied with scaremongering about how Iran supposedly has enough uranium "for the bomb" (nevermind that it is low-enriched uranium which cannot possibly be used for weapons), David Albright who has made a mini-career out of obfuscating the difference between low-enriched and highly-enriched Iranian uranium, is back in the NY Times trying out a new scaremongering tactic by claiming that Iran supposedly doesn't have enough natural Uranium for a energy program, and so Iran must be planning to make nukes. This is what happens when you don't actually have any evidence to back your claims -- you promote BS speculation about "intentions" and "capabilities" instead and make tenuous connections between perfectly legitimate, legal activities and "bomb making". And of course,  not once is the Iranian response to such claims mentioned by the NY Times. 

So here's my question: was this all really just a case of "bad reporting"? That strains credulity. After all, how can the LA TImes, the NY TImes, the Guardian and the Financial TImes all suddenly make the same "bad reporting" mistake at the same time? No, sorry, I don't buy the "bad reporting" excuse. This "bad reporting" was obviously actually a concerted and deliberate propaganda campaign to mislead public opinion and try to put a negative spin on the IAEA report, and all the papers mentioned were knowingly complicit in it. We DO have media control mechanisms in this country just as effective (if not more so) than any Soviet-era police state. 

Comments

[mb]

Yes. Bad reporting!!! The bigger question: Who owns the media in this country? Where was the media when Israelis were savagely killing Palestinian children, bombing schools and hospitals? Aren't there media experts in US press who could write meaningful reports about killing innocent Arab children(labeled as terrorists in US media)? How come there are very few experts in the field of Genocide and too many experts in an extremely sophisticated field such as nuclear physics???? Any answers?