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Iran's Military Nuclear Program Lasted Longer Than We Thought (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Two articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists analyze the IAEA's December 2nd report (PDF) on the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. Ariane Tabatabai goes into what the report did (and did not) reveal: "According to U.S. intelligence, Iran ceased its nuclear-weapon-related activities in 2003 and did not subsequently make a political decision to resume them. The IAEA report unsurprisingly indicates that Tehran did have a “coordinated” nuclear weapon development program until 2003. Iran further engaged in some activities after 2003 but these were not coordinated, according to the report." Harvard's Martin Malin summarizes key takeaways from the process: "[T]he report points out that, unfortunately, Iran has taken steps that make it more difficult for the country to put the past behind it."
They are a better ally than Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
starvation & deception still #1 killers world wide....
...just longer than liberal morons thought. Anyone with any kind of sense of reality knows how the real world works. There will never be a rainbow-unicorn-we're-all-one world, ever, especially with Islamic radicals.
People are still dumb enough to believe Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program?
Payback is a bitch. The USA stopped Democracy in the Middle East.
You know, as I see the USA's real-politics (realpolitik) explode in our faces, our Middle East presence all for oil and nothing but for oil explode in our faces, I just have to wonder, wasn't there any hint of empathy when these policies were enacted?
None. Jimmy Carter in 1980 expressed the Carter Doctrine and every President since then used it.
I'm in Georgia and if it weren't for the SS - Secret Service - I'd give ex-President Jimmy Carter my piece of mind - I'd say mean and nasty things to him. But I don't want to be arrested or killed for using my rights.
It's all about Oil. And Im not getting a benefit from it.
Has Iran really finally given up on building a nuclear bomb (with which to attack Israel), or have they just moved it to some cave somewhere nobody has found yet, or maybe to another country, and this whole 'treaty' is just them buying time to complete the work? Guess we'll find out won't we? Sorry, but I have a hard time trusting the intentions of any country that teaches their schoolchildren to go around chanting 'death to America'.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
1. This IAEA report linked in TFS doesn't seem available yet IAEA's official website, www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iran/iaea-and-iran-iaea-reports. In addition the report has a "Restricted Distribution" and "For Official Use Only" classification. Is it leaked, or has the official website not been updated yet? Probably the latter, but its something to keep in mind if the report is actually the "final assessment".
2. A summary point listed in the "F. Overall Assessment" section:
85. The Agency’s overall assessment is that a range of activities relevant to the development of a
nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and
some activities took place after 2003. The Agency also assesses that these activities did not advance
beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences
and capabilities. The Agency has no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the
development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.
Under the section, "G. Summary:
87. The Agency assesses that a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear
explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some
activities took place after 2003. The Agency also assesses that these activities did not advance beyond
feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and
capabilities. The Agency has no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of
a nuclear explosive device after 2009. [Basically reiterating point 85 list above]
88. The Agency has found no credible indications of the diversion of nuclear material in connection
with the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Did Bush scare them?
They weren't able to really prove anything. They weren't able to rule that Iran *hadn't* been making nukes in 2003. Doesn't mean they had a real nuclear weapons program until 2003. Read carefully and don't just read some AP story somewhere.
Also, the main thing the US got out of the deal wasn't the uranium--it was the reactor that could make plutonium, and us (and other countries) rebuilding it into a non plutonium (or at least pu240 which is useless for bombs) making one.
Which means that the scientists report to a guy in regular clothes instead of a military uniform.
The world is made up of many diverse nations and peoples. Their singlemost linking aspect is their own sense of self importance. The nationalist ego, a vestige of primitive tribalism forms the core of most nation states. Combined with the visual classifications the homo sapiens species uses to acknowledge tribal lineage based on physical characteristics, the species has created culture that favours inbreeding. Characteristics favouring higher intelligence are easily recognisable in those with lower melanin content while physical strength is inversely proportionate albeit still lacking when compared to truly noble species such as Gorillas, Dolphins and Whales.
The homo sapiens species is truly destructive towards everything it encounters, neither prey nor predator it takes the niche of parasite, burdening the survival of all life around it. Culturally the species invokes imaginary deities to strengthen its cultures and form a perceived order and justification for non-nonsensical traditions. These include truly psychopathic tendencies such as mutilation of the sex organs, ritual starvation and self mutilation. Encouraged by elites formed through millennia of war and tribal rivalries, it is not competence or worth which indicates power, but rather adherence to these non-nonsensical beliefs. The single most important characteristic to occupying the highest echelons of the human hierarchies is the ability to ignore all fact and evidence even when truly undeniable.
High powered humans are frequently observed committing heinous atrocities against more vulnerable subsets of their social groups. Murder, torture and paedophilia are suspected of being prerequisite requirements to achieving social status. These behaviours are harboured by the institutions that favour denying fact the most.
The human species, on a macroscopic level is divided into approximately 186 grand-tribes, ruled by grand wizards who have many superstitions. The tribes have varying degrees of communication with each other and some interbreed and are even known to share habitats. Those that favour genital mutilation are consistently proven to fear other tribes the most and will frequently try to exterminate their neighbours. When conducting these micro genocides, authorities controlling these tribes will always claim victimhood.
Most humans are very primitive, unable to perform tasks necessary to prove critical thought. Their self awareness is even questionable. Research in the last five years has shown a tendency towards colony behaviour, previously only observed in insects and other parasites, whereby leaders of the group subconsciously arouse their peers into action forming aggressive mobs. These mobs like to fight any one who disagrees with their warped beliefs while maintaining they are the only true open minded individuals. This tendency to claim the moral high ground while enacting despicable behaviours is a truly interesting phenomenon in human evolution.
At the highest spectrum of this behaviour scale is action that is commonly referred to a terrorism. Here militant individuals act on behalf of their colonies with the sole aim of murdering as many other non-related tribal members as possible. The justification is usually based in superstition and imaginary beings.
Some of the most degenerate human beings live within the tribes that consider themselves more advanced. These lazy individuals are usually the most parasitic of all humans. In the past these cultures have favoured enslavement but are now too busy being occupied by electronic screens to notice much of what is happening around them. The most selfish in these sub groups spend hours at a time alone changing minute settings on their devices. For this ability they think of themselves very superior to others. Usually this individuals have large colonies of pro-biotic bacteria on their skins but also harbour many pathogens harmful to others towhich they have become immune. This tendency towards poor self hygiene and disease leads most others to ostracise them. The
...Iraq had WMD and the US had to invade them.
...the NSA did not collect any information on Americans.
...the Paris terrorists were using crypto to avoid surveilance, only thanks to Snowden. (even though they also said that in 2001, and Bin Laden, they were using crypto to avoid surveilance)
That's why I only believe US intelligence when the information was stolen.
Any up and coming country that is honestly interested in nuclear power as a way to shed commitment to fossil fuels would be researching Thorium based reactors instead. But this removes the path to fissionable materials used to make bombs... Kinda make their statements rather questionable at the least.
1. Kim Jong Un is still alive.
2. Mommar Khadafy is not.
Khadafy is dead precisely because he cooperated with the West and abandoned his programs. Now no tin horn dictator will EVER give up his weapons programs.
Heads: You're a Mullah in Tehran, or one of their rabid minions
Tails: Your name is Barack Obama, or you're one of his rabid minions
Let me flip a coin...
For anyone interested in this topic there's a great book by investigative journalist Gareth Porter that details the whole saga: Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare
It should be pointed out that the evidence which both the US intelligence estimate and the IAEA rely on to determine that there was an Iranian nuclear weapons program prior to 2003 is the so-called "laptop documents" which are fairly clearly forged but for which there are political reasons to ignore that fact.
These forged documents had been used as the basis for a number of inspections by the IAEA of Iranian military facilities. The IAEA's inspections never found any evidence to substantiate the forged documents. Iran permitted such inspections even though they went above and beyond what Iran was required to permit under its NPT agreement. However given that these sorts of inspections were used by the US used to gather detailed targeting data on Iraqi facilities for the Gulf War Iran chose not to allow even more non-required inspections. That's the sole basis of the IAEA's 'concern' and the reason they keep bringing these forged documents up even though they've not been substantiated at all.
As part of the recent nuclear talks Iran insisted that these forged documents be put to rest and not brought up again in the future, which is what this report is supposed to be about.
The linked article by Ariane Tabatabai makes it sound like Iran has now admitted the existence of a nuclear weapons program, but this is false. Instead what Tabatabai is doing is essentially repeating the same cycle of making accusations on the basis of these forged documents and using the previous unsubstantiated accusations as the only 'substantiation'. For example Tabatabai writes:
The IAEA report unsurprisingly indicates that Tehran did have a “coordinated” nuclear weapon development program until 2003.
The report in fact says:
Information available to the Agency prior to November 2011 (i.e., the forged "laptop documents") indicated that Iran had arranged, via a number of different and evolving management structures, for activities to be undertaken in support of a possible military dimension to its nuclear programme. According to this information, the organisational structures covered most of the areas of activity relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information indicated that activities commenced in the late 1980s within Departments of the Physics Research Centre (PHRC) and later, under the leadership of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, became focused in the early 2000s within projects in the AMAD Plan, allegedly managed through the ‘Orchid Office’. Information indicated that activities under the AMAD Plan were brought to a halt in late 2003 and that the work was fully recorded, equipment and work places were either cleaned or disposed of so that there would be little to identify the sensitive nature of the work that had been undertaken. Eventually, according to the information, a new organization known as the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research29 was established by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and based at the Mojdeh Site near Malek Ashtar University in Tehran.
The report goes on describing Iran's response:
In Iran’s submission of 15 August 2015 under the Road-map, Iran provided the Agency with information concerning a number of organisations described in the 2011 Annex (i.e., the forged "laptop documents") and on their relation and functions. In this regard, Iran, inter alia, denied the existence of a coordinated programme aimed at the development of a nuclear explosive device, and specifically denied the existence of the AMAD Plan and the ‘Orchid Office’ as elements of such a programme.
As far as I can tell the documents Iran submitted don't
Why don't we concentrate on regimes that are KNOWN to have active nuclear weapons programs, and are most likely to use these weapons against civilians. Top of the list would be the United States [the only regime that HAS used nuclear weapons against civilians] and, of course, the racist occupier white supremacist ethnic cleanser regime of Israel. We must disarm both of these regimes immediately. I don't see Iran threatening peace and stability in the world. The United States is quite obviously the largest threat to world peace.