So now Israeli officials are saying that Elbaradei was an Iranian agent and a "despicable" person. In fact, according to Ynet, he "defended" Iran's nuclear program - nevermind that Iran's file was sent to UN Security Council under his watch, and despite the fact that Iran had not violated the NPT, and had demanded that Iran only import nuclear fuel from Russia and to submit to inspections that exceeded even the Additional Protocol - what he termed "transparency measures" - even though Iran wasn't even a party to the Additional Protocol.
Under Bush, Sec of State Rice told him to "butt out" of interferring with Iran affairs since the IAEA was "just a technical body." This accusation of being an Iranian agent is of course not new - the Israelis similarly accused him of being an "Iranian agent" when the IAEA issued a report concluding that there were no weapons programs in Iran, and refused to issue the ridiculous "Secret Annex" that the IAEA has now issued, because it was unverified. Ironically, the US intelligence agencies and even Israeli intelligence agencies agreed with that conclusion but I suppose it only goes to show how sneaky them Iranian spies are.
And to further the irony, the current IAEA head Amano was appointed with strong US support and was reported by Wikileaks to have assured the US that he was 'solidly in the US corner'.
In fact what he defended was the last tatters of the NPT and IAEA's credibility, not least because of the violations of certain signatories in dealing with Israel, but which was shot to heck with the latest IAEA report that is being ridiculed as biased and politically-motivated by even weapons inspectors.
Ynet reports that Elbaradei responded to the charges on the website of the Egyptian daily al-Youm al-Saba'a. I would appreciate if an Arabic-speaker could dig that up for us. (UPDATE - link here)
It funny how whenever the US and Israel get caught in a lie, they accuse "Iranian agents" of having somehow misled them. Remember "Chalabi", the "Iranian agent" who somehow managed to mislead the poor, innocent and otherwise totally honest Bush into doing something foolish like invading another country based on fabrications? Darn those sneaky Iranian agents!
http://www.arab2.com/1/countries/egypt/newspapers/youm7.html
الأربعاء، 9 نوفمبر 2011 - 15:56
البرادعى: اتهامات إسرائيل لى بالعمالة لإيران مجرد أكاذيب
Posted by: wt | November 11, 2011 at 08:51 PM