Nuclear experts reject IAEA Iran report  Several nuclear experts have repudiated the recent ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran's nuclear program, saying it is misinformed, misleading and merely a hype created by the media, Press TV reports.In its November 8 report, the IAEA accused Tehran of activities aimed at developing nuclear weapons before 2003 and speculated that these activities "may still be ongoing". Robert Kelley, former IAEA director and nuclear engineer, says he was "quite surprised" by the lack of new information in the report, further stressing that the report is "highly misleading." Kelley says the IAEA report draws its material from a single source, a laptop computer. The laptop, he says, was allegedly supplied to the IAEA by a Western intelligence agency, "whose provenance could not be established." Tehran has rejected the report as "unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States." "There is nothing (in the IAEA report) that indicates that Iran is really building a bomb," says Greg Thielmann, former State Department and Senate Intelligence Committee analyst. "Those who want to drum up support for a bombing attack on Iran sort of aggressively misrepresented the report," Thielmann adds. On Saturday, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said the IAEA report bore greater resemblance to a "PR exercise than a serious nuclear effort." Churkin cited the manner in which the report "was played up in the media and then leaked to the press, containing very little information," about Iran's nuclear program, as proof of this public relations maneuver. In its November 18 resolution against the Islamic Theocratic Republic, the IAEA Board of Governors voiced "deep and increasing concern" about Tehran's nuclear program, and called on Iran and the IAEA to intensify dialogue to resolve the dispute over the Iranian nuclear energy program. The resolution, however, stopped short of reporting Iran to the UN Security Council or setting Tehran a deadline to comply. The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to push for the imposition of sanctions as well as to call for an attack on the country. Iran, however, refutes such allegations as "baseless" and maintains that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has every right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence indicating that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production. Posted by: Fred 2011-12-07 |
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