David Albright of ISIS has published a post entitled "Misconceptions about Iran’s Nuclear Program" which mainly consists of several half-truths and outright falsehoods. I thought it would be fun to take them apart. [I, and others including Dr Sahimi and Scott Ritters, have written about David Albright before]
But before we get started, lets remember what an IAEA official recently said about these allegations that Iran has a nuclear weapons program:
ALBRIGHT:
Misconception 1. Iran’s IAEA safeguards violations were minor breaches and fully in the past
Iran’s safeguards violations have been detailed in numerous IAEA reports, which can be found here, starting in June 2003. The November 2003 report states that “based on all information currently available to the Agency, it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material and its processing and use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material has been processed and stored….” Iran’s development of its enrichment capability took place over 18 years and in secrecy. This places Iran’s actions outside the category of “minor.”
MY COMMENTS: First of all, on the supposed "secrecy" of Iran's enrichment program, go read my post on Iran's not-so-hidden enrichment program, and note how Iran announced plans to develop the program on national radio in the early 1980s, and how IAEA inspectors were invited to visit Iran's uranium mines in the 1990s, long before the dramatic exposure of Iran's supposed "secret" enrichment program in 2002.
Here, Albright forgets to mention several facts -- for example, that even in the November 2003 IAEA report that he repeatedly cites, the IAEA itself said that that the unreported activities by Iran had no relation to a weapons program, and later, that all of Iran's nuclear material had been accounted for, and none had been diverted to make weapons:
ElBaradei confirmed in Paragraph 52 of the November 2003 IAEA report that "to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons programme." And again, after extensive inspections, ElBaradei wrote Paragraph 112 of the November 2004 IAEA report that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."
This statement by the IAEA is very significant, legally, because IT MEANS THAT IRAN DID NOT VIOLATE THE NPT.
Safeguards violations are often (deliberately) confused with violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, though they are separate things. As Michael Spies of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy has written:
"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 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."
And while Albright keeps mentioning the November 2003 report by the IAEA, he conveniently forgets to mention the later Sept 2008 report, by which time Iran had cleared up all the allegations against it to the IAEA's satisfaction, with no evidence of any nuclear weapons program found, and had Iran therefore been vindicated. In fact, IAEA Director ElBaradei specifically declared that all the remaining issues had been cleared up:
"We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran´s enrichment programme" with the exception of a single issue, "and that is the alleged weaponization studies that supposedly Iran has conducted in the past."
(more on what the IAEA itself calls "alleged studies" which were "supposedly conducted" by Iran later)
Now we come to Albright's second alleged "misconception" over Iran's nuclear program. which actually consists of two parts, and I'm going to take them apart in great detail so hang in there with me:
Misconception 2. All of Iran’s nuclear facilities are under safeguards or monitoring, or alternatively the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has any secret nuclear facilities
This is not the case. In fact, many key nuclear activities and facilities are not under any type of IAEA monitoring. This lack of Iranian transparency poses one of the most difficult challenges to determining whether Iran has undeclared nuclear activities and materials and is conducting nuclear weapons work...The [Additional] Protocol aimed to significantly strengthen the IAEA’s ability to detect undeclared nuclear materials and facilities, and ensure that a state’s declaration is complete. Although Iran initially agreed to allow this agreement in 2003, it then decided to no longer do so in 2006. Since then, the IAEA has reported that it is unable to determine if Iran has undeclared nuclear materials or activities. In the past, the IAEA has found evidence of secret nuclear sites. Now, the IAEA is limited in its ability to look for any such sites because of the weakened inspections and Iran’s interpretation of its obligations to the IAEA under that agreement...
Under INFCIRC/153, the IAEA does not safeguard or inspect several Iranian nuclear facilities and activities, in particular those involved in the research, development, and manufacture of gas centrifuges. Currently, the IAEA does not know the location of many of these sites. The IAEA also does not inspect the Arak heavy water production facility, which is outside the scope of inspections under INFCIRC/153...
As a general matter, a more accurate title for this alleged "misconception" should be: "Iran is fully abiding by its safeguards agreement, and we don't like that", because if you notice, in every paragraph his real complaint is of the alleged "inadequacy" of the safeguards agreement that Iran has, according to Albright, "strictly interpretted" -- meaning "abided by." In short, Iran has permitted all the inspections the IAEA legally requires of Iran in accordance with the applicable safeguards agreement, and no evidence of any weapons program has been found, but Albright is not happy anyway because he thinks the safeguards agreements applicable to Iran (which is identical to the safeguards originally applicable to all the NPT signatories) is not tough enough. But whether Albright likes it or not, not only has Iran abided by its safeguards agreement and done everything it is required to do by that agreement. In the past, Iran had even allowed more inspections than what the safeguards agreement legally requires, with no evidence of any nuclear weapons program found there -- which is precisely why the IAEA publicly complained about the inadequacy of US intelligence on Iran's supposed "secret" nuclear sites. According to the LA Times:
Despite growing international concern about Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions, most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate, and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran, diplomats here said.
More specifically, as I said, this "second misconception" by Albright actually consists of two parts:
First-part of the alleged misconception: Albright claims that all of Iran's nuclear sites are not under IAEA safeguards, because non-nuclear sites, such as the facilities in which the centrifuges used in Iran's enrichment program are designed and made, are not inspected by the IAEA. That is true -- these facilities are in fact not inspected by the IAEA. But Albright doesn't clearly say why: not because they are "secret" as Albright claims, but because they simply fall outside of the scope of the IAEA's inspection authority as specificed by Iran's safeguards agreement, since they don't contain any nuclear material to be inspected in the first place. The centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, but they don't contain any nuclear material themselves when they are designed and built, and therefore they are not subject to the IAEA's inspection authority. By referring to these centrifuge design and manufacture sites as "secret" sites, Albright implies that Iran's refusal to disclose their location is some sort of breach of Iran's obligations to the IAEA, which is simply not true.
So in short, Iran has allowed all the inspections of sites it is REQUIRED to allow (and had in the past allowed inspections beyond its legal requirements as a good faith gesture only to be cheated) but is no longer allowing inspections BEYOND its legal obligations in places such as centrifuge design/manufacture facilities. Darn those Iranians for doing what they're supposed to do!
Here, you may be wondering "So why won't Iran 'voluntarily' allow the inspections of the centrifuge design/manufacturing facilities, even if it is not required to do so, just to shut this guy up?" Well, first because whenever Iran allowed inspections beyond its legal requirements, at places such as Parchin, where no evidence of nuclear weapons program were found (despite Albright's baseless scaremongering), the claims against Iran continued without change. Second, legally, because Iran would be agreeing to being treated as a defacto second-class member of the NPT which is required to make concessions that are not part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty itself, and which no other country is required to do. Third, Albright himself has explained a more practical reason for why the US is trying to get Iran to disclose the locations of the centifuge manufacturing facilities, and why Iran would refuse: because they are potential bombing targets, and disclosing their locations makes an attack on Iran more likely:
Considering the modular, replicable nature of centrifuge plants, we conclude that an attack on Iran’s nuclear program is unlikely to significantly degrade Iran’s ability to reconstitute its gas centrifuge program.
Right now, as long as Iran can design and manufacture centrifuges, then any bombing campaign against Iran would be useless since Iran could always manufacture replacement centrifuges and then continue to operate its nuclear program -- which explains why the US is pushing Iran to disclose their location of the centrifuge design/manufacture sites to IAEA inspectors, even though they fall outside of the IAEA inspection authority. THe US will then get the targetting info from the inspectors, so these facilities too could be bombed. Naturally, the Iranians object to this.
So, again, contrary to Albright's alleged "misconceptions," the fact remains that Iran is doing everything it is legally required to do in accordance with its legal obligations to the IAEA (and in the fact it had even allowed more inspections than it was legally required - see below.)
Second-part of the alleged misconception: Albright also complains that Iran has not agreed to the Additional Protocol, which implements more stringent inspections process. He says:
"Although Iran initially agreed to allow this agreement in 2003, it then decided to no longer do so in 2006"
He than claims that as a result,
"IAEA has reported that it is unable to determine if Iran has undeclared nuclear materials or activities."
Well, several things are missing from Albright's decription. First of all, as Albright states himself, Iran DID voluntarily implement the Additional Protocol for more than 2 years (even though it was not required to do so), and was subject to the more stringent inspections --- and no weapons program was found. A confidential "update brief" prepared by IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen specifically stated:
"Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency, and to act as if the Additional Protocol is in force, including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access to locations."
Note that Albright also claims that Iran mysteriously "decided to no longer do so in 2006" -- without mentioning the reason WHY in Iran backed out of implementing the Additional Protocol: because it was made clear to Iran that even if Iran abides by the Additional Protocol, the US would still insist that Iran give up enrichment. I have written about this before (how the EU-3, pushed by the US, tried to cheat Iran under the Paris Agreement by making an offer to Iran that analysts described as an "empty box in pretty wrapping".) So in short, it was proven that even if Iran does abide by the Additional Protocol, the demands on Iran would not change -- because the US does not want Iran to have any enrichment capability, whether subject to the Additional Protocol or not. David Albright knows this well enough; he knows perfectly well that the Additional Protocol is simply a convenient excuse.
Secondly, Albright leaves out that Iran has nevertheless offered to not only ratify and implement the Additional Protocol permanently, but to even impose additional restrictions on its nuclear program well in excess of any legal obligation, to address even hypothetical concerns that the program could be secretly used to make bombs (such as by opening the program to multinational participation) as long as Iran's right to enrich uranium is recognized -- and these offers by Iran have been simply ignored, because ultimately, the real goal of the US is to deprive Iran of any enrichment capability entirely (even if perfectly legal and overt) and not just to ensure that Iran does not make nuclear weapons, thus monopolizing nuclear fuel production in the hands of a few nations. That is the true agenda behind all these claims about "iranian nuclear weapons" as I have written before, and is a long-simmering conflict between developing and developed nations that the US media insists on ignoring.
Third, Iran's refusal to abide by the Additional Protocol is hardly unique in the world. Many other countries have not agreed to the Additional Protocol either. Examples include Argentina and Brazil, both of which have recently developed uranium enrichment technology. Another more egregious example is Egypt, which unlike Iran has flatly refused to sign the Additional Protocol, despite the fact that Egypt was caught violating its safeguards agreement and traces of high-enriched, bomb-grade nuclear material has been discovered there in the past and also quite recently.
Fourth, while it is true that the IAEA has reported that it is "unable to determine if Iran has undeclared nuclear materials or activities", that's simply because the IAEA does not technically certify the absence of undeclared activities for for ANY country unless they have signed and ratified the Additional Protocol - but failure to do so is no reason to suspect them of secretly building nukes as Albright implies. The Lawyer's Committee non Nuclear Policy has made this clear:
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.
Furthermore, in the particular case of Iran, while the IAEA has said that it cannot technically certify the absence of "undeclared activities" in Iran, the IAEA has also plainly stated that it has no evidence of any such undeclared activities there either. 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.
In fact, 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."
Finally, as for claims that Iran lacks "transparency" -- you will read in many places that the ElBaradei had complained of the "lack of transparency" by Iran in resolving the dispute over its nuclear program. Iran's "lack of transparency" is made to sound as if Iran was hiding something and not living up to its obligations. In fact, as we have seen above, Iran has "strictly interpretted" and abided by its safeguards obligation even according to Albright, and on occasion even exceeded its obligations by allowing more inspections than legally required. So what is all this about a "lack of transparency" in Iran? You have to understand the definition of "transparency" -- it means that Iran is demanded to do more than its existing legal obligations under its existing safeguards agreement, and even more than what the Additional Protocol would legally require of Iran if Iran had signed and ratified the agreement. The Feb 2006 IAEA report defined what it meant by "transparency" in paragraph 54:
Without full transparency that extends beyond the formal legal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol — transparency that could only be achieved through Iran’s active cooperation — the Agency’s ability to reconstruct the history of Iran’s past programme ...
Naturally, the Iranians object to such demands for "transparency" which have no legal basis. Nothing in the IAEA Statute, the Non-Proliferation Treaty or even customary international law require Iran to go beyond its existing safeguards and then beyond even the Additional Protocol (which is not binding on Iran anyway.) The IAEA has no legal authority to demand such "transparency". Nor is there any reason to assume that if Iran does show such "transparency" that the matter would be resolved, because the US has made it clear that it would not tolerate ANY enrichment in Iran at all, regardless of how transparent it may be. Remember, Iran had temporarily implemented these transparency measures in the past but to no avail.
Next we come to Albright's third alleged "misconception" about Iran's nuclear program, which is about the heavy water reactor that Iran is building in Arak:
Misconception 3. Iran is fully in compliance with its safeguards obligations
Even under the relatively minimal requirements agreed under INFCIRC/153 and its implementing agreements, Iran has refused multiple IAEA requests to verify design information for the Arak heavy water reactor and its associated facilities currently under construction. The IAEA has stated that this refusal is inconsistent with its obligations under INFCIRC/153.The IAEA also takes issue with Iran’s decision to stop providing information about new nuclear facilities when it makes a decision to construct them. Iran is insisting on adhering to a long outdated version of its safeguards undertakings by agreeing to provide such information only 180 days before the introduction of nuclear material into the facility...
This dispute is significant because Iran has built secret nuclear sites, including the Natanz gas centrifuge complex, exploiting this outdated arrangement. Iran confirmed its existence in early 2003 only after it was exposed publicly by groups such as ISIS.
There is an ongoing dispute between Iran and the IAEA over one issue: whether Iran is required to give the IAEA the design information on the Arak reactor now, or later. That's all. Dr Sahimi has explained the details behind this dispute:
The IAEA also stated that Iran did not allow it to visit and inspect Iran's under-construction research reactor in Arak. But, such visits are covered by the modified text of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, Code 3.1, of the Safeguards Agreement. Iran had agreed to the modified text, part of which states that Iran must allow inspection of the under-construction sites. However, because the EU3 reneged on its promises, Iran suspended the implementation of the modified text in February 2006, and went back to its original Safeguards Agreement, signed in 1974. The original Subsidiary Arrangements state that only 180 days prior to the introduction of any nuclear material into a nuclear facility does Iran have the obligation to allow visits to and inspection of the facility. Thus, once again, Iran has no legal obligations towards the [International Atomic Energy] Agency regarding the Arak reactor.
Nevertheless, David Albright has seized on this single dispute in order to characterize Iran as a proliferation threat -- conveniently forgetting to mention some more pertinent facts:
First, despite the ongoing dispute between Iran and the IAEA over this issue, the yet-unbuilt reactor at Arak has already been inspected twice by IAEA inspectors. It is not a secret site, and regardless of the current dispute between Iran and the IAEA, the reactor will operate under IAEA safeguards once nuclear material is introduced into the site and it becomes operational. Therefore it cannot be used to make bombs.
Second, while Albright characterizes Iran as having "exploited" an "outdated" safeguards agreement by not disclosing the Natanz facility, the fact remains that Iran acted in accordance with the legal requirements of its existing safeguards. Iran was not obligated under the terms of its safeguards to formally disclose the existence of the its enrichment facilities to the IAEA until 180 days prior to the introduction of nuclear material in the facilities. That's not "exploiting" the safeguards, that's abiding by it. As I have written before, even Albright himself conceeded this point in the past:
"Iran did not have to declare that it was building a pilot plant until 180 days before it expected to introduce nuclear material into the plant." (SOURCE: Furor over fuel; Iran. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May 1, 2003 Albright, David; Hinderstein, Corey)
I would only add one more point regarding Arak. The reactor is often characterized as a weapons proliferation threat because Iran could theoretically extract plutonium from the used reactor fuel in in a process known as reprocessing. However, leaving aside that the Arak reactor is well-known to the IAEA and so will operate under IAEA safeguards, reprocessing requires extensive infrastructure and so cannot be done in secret, away from the IAEA's sights. Furthermore, the Iranians have already offered to foresake reprocessing plutonium. In his article in the NY Times in April 2006, Iran's Ambassador Javad Zarif specifically and publicly mentioned this as part of Iran offer to:
"Refrain from reprocessing or producing plutonium".
And without reprocessing, the reactor at Arak cannot be used to make nukes. It is physically impossible. So ask yourself, why would Iran be willing to give up reprocessing if it is supposedly trying to build nukes as we are told?
Next we come to Albrights Fourth and Fifth alleged misconceptions, in which he claims that Iran has obtained "breakout capacity" which means that Iran as the capacity to use its nuclear program to build nukes quickly, if it decided to do so at some point:
Misconception 4. Producing HEU from LEU is a long and arduous process, and nuclear weapons breakout will take between one and three years
In fact, learning to produce enriched uranium by operating centrifuges in large numbers is the difficult part on the road to developing a viable gas centrifuge capability. Subsequently enriching low enriched uranium (LEU) to highly enriched uranium (HEU) is relatively straightforward and can be done quickly, in some cases within months. As a result, this process of enriching a stock of LEU to weapon-grade is called a nuclear weapons “break-out” capability.
Albright then goes on to provide some interesting facts and statistics and charts on how Iran has this capability to manufacture nukes in a matter of months.
I won't argue about the boring technicalities of how much low-enriched uranium Iran could theoretically turn into bomb-grade highly-enriched uranium in what time period, and whether this is really a threat or not (as others have) since all of that distracts from a more fundamental problem with Albright's alleged "misconception": As I have written before, couching the "threat" of Iran in terms of what it "could" do with a perfectly legal, IAEA-inspected enrichment program is a deliberate conflation of a civilian nuclear energy program with a nuclear weapons program, and a rhetorical ploy intended to hide the fact that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program to start with:
[T]he absence of any actual evidence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons programme is being smoothed over through the use of ambiguities. This is usually done by conflating a nuclear-weapons programme with a nuclear-energy programme.... For example, in addition to overt references to a weapons programme, there may be references to Iran's nuclear "threat", or vague statements about Iran's nuclear "ambitions", or even more tenuously, allusions to Iran's "intentions" to obtain a nuclear-weapons "capability". In a paper entitled "Defusing Iran's Bomb", one pundit claims: "Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb ... and seems dead set on securing an option to do so." So, what is Iran months from acquiring: the bomb, or merely an "option" to obtain the bomb? What exactly is an "option" to acquire the bomb, anyway? Can't any country with a nuclear infrastructure be said to have the "option" of using it to build bombs? All these inconvenient issues are covered up by such use of ambiguous language. The ambiguity is useful precisely because such questions don't have to be answered, provided the implied "threat" is communicated.
The fact is that any country with a nuclear program -- even a fully open, IAEA monitored one -- can be similarly accused of seeking "breakout capacity". Japan, Argentina, Brazil... all of these countries (and more to come) could theoretically decide one day to use their nuclear program to build nukes, by further enriching the low-enriched uranium they have into highly-enriched uranium (in fact Japan is widely said to be one weekend away from making nukes.) But that's simply a truism - the fact that they "could" do something is no evidence that they plan on it. Should we start bombing them unless they agree to give up their nuclear programs, because theoretically one day in the indefinite future, they may (nor may not) decide to make nukes?
Indeed, the whole point and reason for the existence of the IAEA inspection process is to catch them if they do decide to build nukes -- and the IAEA has said repeatedly that it has no evidence Iran is seeking the ability to build nukes. The new IAEA head Amano most recently said:
The incoming head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday he did not see any hard evidence Iran was trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear arms.
"I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's atomic program since his election, when asked whether he believed Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons capability.
Albright himself conceeds that Iran would have to kick out international inspectors if it decided to use its nuclear program to build nukes. Of course Albright says that Iran could avoid kicking out inspectors by conducting the additional steps necessary to make nukes at "clandestine facilities" but first of all, there's no evidence of any such "clandestine facilities" in existence (and secondly, before the uranium can be enriched, it has to be converted, and the IAEA monitors that step too.) In short, to demand that Iran somehow prove that it cannot do something in the indefinite future is ridiculous (not to mention a breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which requires the sharing of civilian nuclear technology to the greatest extent possible and without discrimination.)
Finally, the Iranians have nevertheless offered to address any alleged threat of a "breakout" scenario by offering to impose additional limits on their nuclear program, well beyond their legal obligations, for example by opening the program to multinational participation -- an offer that has been endorsed by US and international experts. However, these offers were simply ignored by the US because really, the US is intent on depriving Iran of th right to uranium enrichment, and preventing nuclear weapons proliferation is simply a good cover and pretext for that hidden agenda. But ask yourself: if Iran was secretly intending to use its civilian nuclear energy program to make nukes, then why would it offer to agree to such additional restrictions on its nuclear program, beyond its legal obligations?
I won't deal with Albright's Misconception number 6 on whether Iran would have to actually conduct a nuclear test in order to make a nuke or not, since that is building supposition upon supposition -- there is no evidence of any Iranian nuke's existence or planned-existence, so whether Iran would have to test such a nuke or not is an irrelevant issue.
Finally, as to Albright's 7th alleged misconception, that the so-called "Laptop of Death" documents were not forgeries .... I'll have to deal with this quickly since this post has grown quite long and I am out of time. Look, the United States has NEVER made the laptop available to the IAEA for its review. It has selectively made some documents available to the IAEA, at the last minute in order to prevent the IAEA from giving Iran a clean bill of health in its Sept 2008 report. The IAEA itself has said that it has no evidence to back up what it calls the "alleged studies...supposedly conducted". If the documents are not forgeries, then the US is OBLIGATED under the terms of the IAEA statute to provide them to the IAEA in full. Iran cannot be expected to somehow refute the allegations in documents that it has not been allowed to see. Note that of all the claims against Iran, this is the ONLY one outstanding, and could be resolved one way or another if only the US made the damn thing available to the IAEA.
Below, I have produced a shortened version of each of Albrights claimed "misconceptions" in Italics, followed by my own comments on it. (read Albrights full claims on his site as I don't have the room to reproduce them in full here while keeping this post to a managable length.)