Tag Archives: IAEA

The Obama Administration Races to Finalize a Bad Nuclear Deal

January 13, 2016Fred Fleitz

Despite the victory lap President Obama took in last night’s State of the Union address on his nuclear diplomacy with Iran, Democrats and Republicans are worried about Iran’s increasingly belligerent behavior and the Obama administration’s refusal to do anything about it.

This concern was worsened yesterday by Iran’s reported “temporary” seizure of two small U.S. Navy ships and their crews yesterday, an issue that the president did not address in his speech. Iran released the ships and their crews early today after the U.S. government apologized for their accidental straying into Iranian waters.

The president said the nuclear deal with Iran (the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is a great success, and that Iran has complied with its agreement to roll back its nuclear program by sending enriched uranium out of the country and disassembling centrifuges.

Mr. Obama’s remarks tracked with similar statements by Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani that Iran has met the requirements for “Implementation Day,” an important benchmark of the nuclear agreement when most sanctions against Iran worth up to $150 billion will be lifted. According to Kerry and Rouhani, the U.S. could lift sanctions in a few days.

For Iran to reach Implementation Day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must verify that Iran has taken a series of steps to roll back its nuclear program. These include disassembling and storing all but about 6,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges, diluting or sending out of the country all but 300 kg of enriched uranium in exchange for an equivalent amount of uranium ore, and removing the core of the Arak heavy-water reactor. This reactor is to be redesigned with Chinese assistance so that it will produce less plutonium than its original design.

There are some uncertainties that Iran has reached the Implementation Day requirements. First, the IAEA has not yet verified Iran’s actions.

Second, there are discrepancies in figures cited on how much enriched uranium Iran has sent out of the country. Kerry said over 25,000 pounds. An Iranian official said 8.5 metric tons, which equals 18,740 pounds. Further complicating this, the IAEA said in a November report that Iran had 12,639 kg of enriched uranium, equivalent to 27,864 pounds.

Third, an Iranian official yesterday denied reports that Iranian technicians had dismantled the core of the Arak heavy-water reactor and filled it with concrete. The official said he expected this to be done soon.

Even if Iran meets all of the Implementation Day requirements, there are many in Congress — including some Democrats — who are worried about lifting sanctions when Iran has not complied with all the commitments it made during the nuclear talks, amid growing indications of belligerent Iranian behavior.

Iran’s test of two ballistic missiles last fall sparked new bipartisan concern on the Hill about the nuclear deal. While President Obama and Secretary Kerry claimed last July that under the nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions barring missile tests for up to eight years, it turned out this was not true. There is nothing in the nuclear deal’s text barring Iranian missile tests. The only language concerning missile tests is in an annex to a Security Council resolution that endorsed the deal. Iranian officials have said they will not comply with this language.

The Iranian missile tests especially alarmed Congress after the Obama administration notified the Hill on December 29 that it was sanctioning Tehran over these tests, then backtracked two days later because Iran threatened to retaliate by ramping up its missile program if the sanctions were implemented. Making things worse, the sanctions announcement came days after Iran fired rockets in the Strait of Hormuz that came within 1,500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The ballistic-missile tests rattled Congress so much that some Democratic supporters of the Iran deal called on President Obama to impose sanctions. Last week, seven House Democrats — Nita Lowey (N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Fla.), Eliot Engel (N.Y.), Albio Sires (N.J.), Gerald Connolly (Va.), Susan Davis (Calif.), and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) urged President Barack Obama in a letter to sanction Iran for the missile tests. Lowey, Engel, and Sires voted against approving the Iran deal in September. The others probably signed this letter because many of their constituents opposed their votes supporting the nuclear deal and are angry about Iran’s behavior over the last few months.

House Republicans are moving to respond to Iran’s missile launches with a bill scheduled to be voted on today (Wednesday), the Iran Terror Finance Transparency Act, authored by Republican congressman Steve Russell of Oklahoma, that will bar the president from lifting sanctions against Iranian persons and entities unless the administration can certify that the person or entity is not a terror financier or human-rights abuser or involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Yesterday, a group of six Senate Democrats took the floor of the Senate to defend the Iran nuclear deal. Three of them, Senators Cory Booker (N.J.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), called for sanctions in response to the missile tests. All six senators voted to support the Iran deal last September and seemed concerned about growing criticism of the agreement due to Iran’s recent behavior.

The White House said the president will veto the House bill because it would prevent implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, since it changes the terms of the nuclear agreement by linking the nuclear deal with unrelated issues. But even if Congress passed narrow sanctions that addressed only Iran’s missile tests, President Obama will veto them because Iran has threatened to back out of the nuclear deal if any new sanctions are imposed on it. This adds up to an agreement that restricts America’s policy more than Iran’s.

It’s ironic that the Obama administration is threatening to veto Congressman Russell’s bill for supposedly altering the terms of the nuclear deal when the Iranian parliament already did this when it ratified an amended version of the deal last October containing new language on dismantling Israel’s nuclear-weapons program, requiring that sanctions under the agreement be canceled and not suspended, forbidding IAEA inspections of military installations, and barring IAEA interviews of Iranian military officers and scientists.

Verification of the nuclear deal’s terms under the agreed text would have been difficult enough because of a convoluted process allowing Iran to appeal IAEA requests to inspect suspect nuclear sites. The changes to the nuclear deal made by the Iranian parliament will make reliable verification impossible. Although these changes would seem to violate what the Iranian government agreed to when it acceded to the nuclear deal last July and prevent Iran from reaching Implementation Day, the United States, its European allies, and the IAEA have been silent on the Iranian parliament’s action.

The United States and its allies also turned a blind eye to another blatant violation of Iran’s commitments in the nuclear talks: Tehran’s failure to fully cooperate with an IAEA investigation of its past nuclear-weapons activities. This investigation was crucial to verifying the nuclear deal, since it was supposed to provide information on what types of nuclear-weapons research Iran was engaged in and where this research was being conducted. However, as I explained in a December 2 National Review article, an IAEA report issued in December found that Iran refused to fully cooperate with this investigation and provided some answers to inspectors that the IAEA determined were false.

The IAEA report also concluded that some Iranian nuclear-weapons work continued until 2009 and said there were no “credible indications” of nuclear-weapons-related activities in Iran after 2009. I have spoken with a knowledgeable congressman who found this language so troubling that he asked the IAEA for clarification as to whether it has unconfirmed indications that Iranian nuclear weapons work continued after 2009.

While Iran’s failure to cooperate in the IAEA investigation of its past nuclear-weapons work would appear to be a serious violation of the nuclear deal, this turned out not to be the case. The reason is because, like the ballistic-missile issue, this issue is not addressed in the text of the nuclear deal — it was dealt with in secret side deals between Iran and the IAEA. (Click here, here, and here to read National Review articles I wrote on the secret side deals last summer.)

Despite Iran’s failure to fully cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation of its past nuclear-weapons work and an IAEA report that clearly did not resolve this issue, the United States joined with other IAEA members last month to unanimously vote to close the IAEA file on it.

The developments leading up to the Iran nuclear deal’s Implementation Day bode poorly for this pact’s limited ability to slow or stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and Iranian behavior.

The refusal by the United States and its allies to hold Iran accountable for launching ballistic missiles, failing to cooperate with the investigation, and amending the nuclear deal is a clear sign that they plan to ignore any Iranian noncompliance to protect the agreement. This means the nuclear agreement is essentially meaningless and puts Iran in the driver’s seat. Iran also knows that the president and his Democratic supporters in Congress will never allow new sanctions to be imposed.

This fecklessness has already been interpreted by Tehran as American weakness. This is why Iran has expanded its support to Syrian president Assad since July. This is why Iran continues to hold four innocent Americans prisoner and arrested another one plus a U.S. green-card holder last fall. This is why Iran has tested ballistic missiles and appears to be harassing U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf.

The profound damage the nuclear deal is causing to international security by emboldening Iran, increasing its profile in the Middle East as a regional hegemon, and severely undermining American influence and credibility is now becoming clear.

This is a truly disastrous legacy Mr. Obama is leaving for the next president that will likely take many years to fix.

2015 Ends With Another Obama Surrender to Iran

January 4, 2016Fred Fleitz

Washington was surprised last week when the Wall Street Journal reported on December 30 that the U.S. Treasury Department, in response to Iranian missiles tests last fall, notified Congress that it was planning to sanction about a dozen companies and individuals in Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong for their suspected role in Iran’s missile program.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the sanctions notification to Congress said: “Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security.”

The sanctions announcement came days after Iran fired rockets in the Strait of Hormuz on December 26 that came within 1,500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

New U.S. sanctions against Iran would be a significant policy shift by the Obama administration, which has been criticized for making too many concessions to Iran to get the nuclear deal and not holding Iran accountable for its behavior during and after the nuclear talks. Iran’s ballistic missile tests in October and November violated UN Security Council resolutions and contradicted claims by Obama officials that under the nuclear deal Iran would comply with these resolutions for eight years.

The sanctions were abruptly cancelled on December 31 when the Obama administration notified Congress they would be indefinitely delayed due to “evolving diplomatic work.”

This stunning reversal came after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister to speed up the country’s missile program in response to reports of new U.S. sanctions over its missile tests.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes defended the decision to call off the new sanctions on Iran by saying “We just have additional work that needs to be done” with Iran and “they [the Iranian government] don’t get a say on who we impose sanctions on.”

Congressional supporters of opponents of President Obama didn’t buy Rhodes’ explanation and strongly criticized the indefinite delay of the new sanctions.

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said: “I believe in the power of vigorous enforcement that pushes back on Iran’s bad behavior. If we don’t do that, we invite Iran to cheat.”

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) said: “I fear that pressure from our ‘partners’– or threats from the Iranian government that it will walk away from the deal or threaten the US in other ways — have caused the administration to rethink imposing sanctions for Iran’s violations of the testing ban.”

Coons and Corker are right. This embarrassing reversal by the Obama administration shows that the Iran nuclear deal is restricting U.S. policy more than it restricts Iran’s. The reason is that President Obama is so desperate to protect his legacy nuclear deal with Iran that he will not agree to any U.S. policy initiative that could cause Tehran to back out of this deal. Iranian leaders know this and it has emboldened them to engage in increasingly belligerent policies since the nuclear agreement was announced last July.

The sanctions reversal came two weeks after the United States and other members of the IAEA Board of Governors voted unanimously to close the IAEA’s file on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons even though a December 2, 2015 IAEA report on this issue said Iran failed to fully cooperate with an IAEA investigation and Iranian nuclear weapons work continued at least until 2009. The report also said it did not have conclusive evidence that Iranian nuclear weapons work continued after 2009; language that some Republican congressmen interpreted as meaning the IAEA may have unconfirmed information that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was never halted.

The Obama administration’s reversal on missile sanctions against Iran is the latest indication that the nuclear agreement with Iran is national security fraud. The seriousness of this fraud likely will worsen through 2016 as Iran continues to engage in belligerent behavior and ignores its commitments under the nuclear agreement while the Obama administration defiantly looks the other way to protect President Obama’s legacy nuclear agreement with Iran.

January 20, 2017 cannot come soon enough for a new Republican president to tear up the disastrous ObamaBomb nuclear deal with Iran.

Santa’s Reindeer and The ObamaBomb Deal

December 24, 2015Fred Fleitz

I received a tweet this week from a friend of mine who works for an arms control think tank. It read, “Merry X-Mas. Here’s to seeing Iran’s “breakout” time expand to >1 yr thru JCPOA in ’16.”

While my friend means well, like many on the left he is in denial about the dangers of the nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA), an Obama administration initiative that is best described as the “ObamaBomb” deal.

This agreement has gotten worse and worse since it was announced last July. I recently wrote in Newsmax how the U.S. voted with other states to close the file on Iran’s past nuclear weapons work even though a recent IAEA report found that this work continued until 2009. The IAEA report also said the agency has no “credible indications” of nuclear-weapons-related activities in Iran after 2009. Although some media stories portrayed this as meaning the IAEA did not find “any” indications of Iranian nuclear weapons work after 2009, the IAEA’s choice of wording on this issue probably indicates it has unconfirmed reports that Iranian nuclear weapons activities continue today.

The ObamaBomb deal falls far short of the main requirement that Obama officials claim it will meet: reducing the “breakout” time of an Iranian nuclear bomb to a year or more. Given Iran’s record of secret nuclear work in violation of its treaty obligations and Tehran’s insistence that it will not allow IAEA inspectors access to all suspect nuclear sites, it is very unlikely the international community will know a year in advance of an Iranian decision to make a “dash” toward a nuclear weapon. I also believe leaving Iran one year away from making a nuclear weapon was an extremely unwise concession since this leaves Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure in place and will allow Tehran to build an industrial-scale nuclear program capable of making many nuclear bombs when the deal expires.

We have a tough road ahead on the Iran nuclear issue in 2016. Obama officials are determined to ignore growing signs of Iran’s noncompliance with the agreement, including ballistic missile tests. Five innocent U.S. citizens and one U.S. green card holder are being held prisoner by Iran with no prospects of being released. The nuclear deal’s Implementation Day” — when most sanctions against an will be lifted — may come as soon as late January. Iran has expanded its support to the Assad regime and is likely to use the $150 billion it will receive in sanctions relief to expand its efforts to destabilize the Middle East and fund terrorism.

My response to my naïve arms control friend on the nuclear deal expanding the breakout time to an Iranian nuclear bomb to one year in 2016 was: “That would be nice, but I’m afraid its as likely as seeing reindeer on my roof Thursday night.”

Merry Christmas!

James Schlesinger and Alan Dershowitz Were Right About ‘Stupid’ Iran Intelligence

December 22, 2015Fred Fleitz

Eight years ago, the late James Schlesinger, who served as CIA Director, Secretary of Energy, and Secretary of Defense, denounced in a Wall Street Journal editorial one of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s most controversial intelligence assessments on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as “stupid intelligence.”

In addition to calling this assessment stupid intelligence, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz referred to it in a December 6, 2007 Huffington Post op-ed as “one of the most dangerous, misguided and counterproductive intelligence assessments in history.”

A December 2 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was formally released on December 15, proved Schlesinger and Dershowitz were right.

The Iran intelligence assessment was a national intelligence estimate (NIE) which is supposed to be the U.S. Intelligence Community’s most authoritative analysis of a national security issue. Issued in November 2007, this NIE found that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The IAEA’s new report found that Iran continued its nuclear weapons research at least until 2009.

A December 5, 2007 Wall Street Journal editorial cited an intelligence source who said the NIE’s main authors included three former State Department officials with previous reputations as “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials:” Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA.

Many experts rejected the 2007 Iran NIE as biased and politicized because it found Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program even though it continued to enrich uranium, continued work on a heavy-water reactor, and refused to explain over a dozen instances of likely nuclear weapons-related activities. I had similar criticisms of this NIE after reading the full classified version while I was a member of the House Intelligence Committee staff in 2007.

Despite its shortcomings, the NIE fit neatly into a liberal narrative at the time that the Bush administration lied about intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs to justify the war with Iraq. It therefore was quickly portrayed by President Bush’s critics and the news media as an instance of intelligence analysts “speaking truth to power” against the Bush administration’s exaggerated claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

As a result, Mr. Bush’s Iran policy was severely undermined for the rest of his presidency — exactly the outcome the hyper partisan authors of this politicized NIE hoped for.

Schlesinger condemned the Iran NIE because he said it reached its controversial conclusion due to a policy by intelligence agencies not to get beyond “hard evidence” in analysis and to shy away from drawing conclusions and “connecting the dots.” This “gun shy” style of intelligence analysis began in the mid-2000s after U.S. intelligence agencies were burned for erroneous analysis of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

This meant U.S. intelligence agencies stopped taking risks in intelligence analysis and avoided imaginative, outside-the box thinking.

This was Dershowitz’s view who also slammed the NIE as a “peace in our time intelligence fiasco.”

I explained in a December 2 National Review article that this month’s IAEA report on Iran’s past nuclear weapons-related work found that Iran engaged in “coordinated” nuclear weapons activities until 2003 and that some nuclear-weapons work continued until 2009.

The IAEA report said there were no “credible indications” of nuclear-weapons-related activities in Iran after 2009 which was not the same as positive evidence that they stopped. The IAEA report also said some of the answers provided to the agency by Iran during its investigation were not credible and were contradicted by other information.

Even though the IAEA’s report did not resolve all of the outstanding questions about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the IAEA Board of Governors unanimously voted on December 15 to close the book on this issue. The Obama administration was not about to let this issue detail its legacy nuclear agreement with Tehran.

I believe the IAEA has no credible indications of Iranian nuclear weapons work after 2009 because the Obama administration stopped sharing intelligence with the IAEA on this issue soon after Mr. Obama became president. Congress needs to look into this and ask the IAEA about unconfirmed information it may have indicating that Iranian nuclear weapons research continued after 2009.

The congressional intelligence oversight committees currently are investigating allegations that analysis of ISIS by Defense Department intelligence analysts was politicized to reflect favorably on Obama administration. While this is an important investigation, Congress and the Republican presidential candidates need to recognize that politicization of intelligence analysis often occurs from within intelligence agencies to influence policy or to curry favor with government officials.

Schlesinger and Dershowitz identified this serious problem with U.S. intelligence analysis in 2007 which continues today. Over the past seven years, we’ve seen a sharp increase in politicized, consensus-based, and unimaginative intelligence analysis written to promote Obama foreign-policy objectives. The next president must understand that objective, “outside the box” intelligence analysis is crucial to protecting our nation from new and evolving national-security threats, and she or he must exercise the leadership to ensure that America’s intelligence community starts producing it.

Iran Continues Nuclear Weapons Work Despite Deal

December 17, 2015Fred Fleitz

On Dec. 15, despite a new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that said Iran failed to fully cooperate with an investigation into its past nuclear weapons related work, the United States and the other members of the IAEA Board of Governors voted to close the book on this matter.

Iran went through the motions of answering questions posed by IAEA investigators, but many of its answers provided no new information. Some answers were even false — others contradicted information the IAEA had acquired.

Incredibly, even though Iran self-inspected its Parchin military base under a controversial secret side deal agreement with the IAEA, the agency says Iran still tried to mislead it about this facility.

Iran claimed a building on the Parchin base suspected of being the site of nuclear weapon-related work was used for chemical storage. The IAEA said this explanation was not credible since it was contradicted by environmental samples and satellite imagery.

The most significant finding of the IAEA report was that Iran engaged in “coordinated” nuclear weapons activities until 2003 and that some nuclear-weapons work continued until 2009. This was a bombshell and contradicts a controversial 2007 intelligence estimate that Iran had given up nuclear-weapons work completely in 2003.

The IAEA report also says the agency has no “credible indications” of nuclear-weapons-related activities in Iran after 2009. Although some media stories have portrayed this as meaning the IAEA did not find “any” indications of Iranian nuclear weapons work after 2009, the IAEA’s choice of wording on this issue probably indicates it has unconfirmed reports that Iranian nuclear weapons activities continue today.

I believe the IAEA may have not have “credible” information about Iranian nuclear weapons work after 2009 because the Obama administration stopped sharing intelligence on this issue with the IAEA after Obama became president.

For this reason, a member of Congress has told me he has written to the IAEA to ask about any unconfirmed information it may have indicating that Iran’s nuclear weapons program continued after 2009.

The decision of the Obama administration to vote at the IAEA to close the book on Iran’s nuclear weapons research reflected a significant policy change. Obama officials have said for years that Tehran would need to explain all outstanding questions about nuclear weapons-related work before sanctions could be lifted under a nuclear agreement. Secretary of State John Kerry said this as recently as July.

The reason Iran needs to resolve unanswered questions about nuclear weapons-related work is because this information is needed as a baseline for IAEA inspectors to verify the nuclear agreement by providing important information on what types of nuclear research Iran was engaged in and where this research was taking place.

However, in October the Obama administration shifted its position when State Department officials said Iran merely had to go through the motions of cooperating with the IAEA’s investigation and that the quality of the information Iran provided in its answers did not matter.

The Obama administration also in October confirmed that it agreed with Iran that the investigation of its past nuclear weapons related work was not part of the nuclear agreement announced last July.

So how could the United States vote to close the book on Iran’s past nuclear weapons work when the IAEA’s recent report did not close the book on this issue and hinted that this work may be continuing?

The reason is that the nuclear deal is national security fraud. Iran is already violating this agreement in other ways – such as by testing ballistic missiles. U.S. diplomats made so many one-sided compromises to get the deal that there is no chance it will stop Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb.

The bottom line is that the way the U.S. responded to the IAEA inconclusive investigation of Iran’s nuclear weapons work reflects how the nuclear deal is not a serious agreement. It is a legacy agreement for Obama that his administration will defend regardless of how badly Iran violates it.

Outrage — Obama Caves on Key Elements of Iran Deal

November 30, 2015Fred Fleitz

Next month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is scheduled to address one of the most important elements of the July 2015 Iran nuclear deal: Iran’s possible past nuclear weapons work, which the IAEA refers to as the “possible military dimensions” or the PMD of Iran’s nuclear program.

Although Obama officials had said Iran’s full cooperation with the PMD investigation was a prerequisite for the lifting of sanctions, this is no longer the case.

Resolving the PMD issue is important because this information is necessary to set a baseline for verifying the nuclear agreement. Secretary of State John Kerry made this clear in a July 24, 2015 speech when he said: “PMD has to be resolved before they get one ounce of sanctions relief. Now that could take six months, it could take a year. I don’t know how long. But the IAEA has to certify that all of that has been done and we have received our one- year breakout before they get a dime.”

Although Iran complied with an Oct. 15, 2015, deadline to reply to the IAEA’s PMD investigation questions, IAEA Director Genera Yukiya Amano indicated in a Nov. 26 speech that Iran did not adequately answer all outstanding questions about possible past nuclear weapons-related work.

Amano said: “As my latest report on safeguards implementation in Iran shows, the agency continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. But we are not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

Amano also told reporters that his PMD report, which will be issued on Dec. 1, “won’t be black and white” and described it as a jigsaw puzzle for which the IAEA has gathered “pieces.”

Amano’s comments weren’t surprising since his agency was trying to investigate a complex set of PMD-related issues in 11 areas in just a few months that Iran has refused to answer for years.

Moreover, the reliability of the IAEA’s investigation also has been called into question since it partly relied on Iranians collecting samples on possible nuclear weapons-related work for the IAEA under secret agreements between the IAEA and Iran.

Based on statements made by U.S. official a few months ago, an inconclusive IAEA PMD report should prevent the lifting of sanctions against Iran until it provides answers to outstanding PMD questions. However, in October the Obama administration began to downplay the significance of the PMD investigation.

An unnamed senior U.S. official said during a State Department briefing on Oct. 17, 2015 that Iran only had to perform a series of procedural steps to demonstrate its cooperation with the PMD investigation.

The official said that the quality of the data Iran provides to the IAEA was not important because “the U.S. government has already made its assessment on Iran’s past [nuclear] programs.”

This official also said the PMD investigation is not part of the nuclear agreement text and thus has no bearing on whether sanctions against Iran will be lifted.

What this means, one — that Obama administration officials have backtracked on the statements they made before Congress voted on the nuclear deal that Iran would be required to conclusively answer questions about its past nuclear weapons-related work, and two — the Obama administration is prepared to ignore an inconclusive or negative IAEA report on the PMD issue.

Iran’s position on the PMD investigation is that it will cease implementing the nuclear agreement unless the IAEA closes the book on all PMD questions in its December report.

Although it appears the IAEA will not do this, the Obama administration is certain to do so and will probably convince the UK, France, and Germany to do the same. As a result, I believe Iran will probably treat West’s reaction to the IAEA PMD report as closing the book on this issue regardless of what the report says.

Dropping the PMD issue makes the dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran even more so because Tehran will not be required to tell the IAEA the types and locations of its nuclear weapons-related activities.

The likely dropping of the PMD question also bodes poorly for an objective evaluation of the requirements for Iran to reach the nuclear deal’s “implementation day” — when most sanctions against Iran will be lifted after the IAEA certifies that Tehran has met certain requirements to cut back its nuclear program.

Iran wants implementation day to occur by the end of December;; most Western experts do not expect this to happen before February and possibly later next year.

The Obama administration’s reversal on the PMD issue probably means it will not let any failure by Iran to meet implementation day requirements get in the way of lifting sanctions regardless of what the IAEA says.

It also is the latest indication that Obama officials will not let anything get in the way of President Obama’s legacy nuclear deal with Iran.

Hey, Reuters, Where’s Your Retraction on Iran Inspecting Itself?

September 21, 2015Fred Fleitz

On September 11, 2015 — the same day the House was scheduled to vote on the nuclear deal with Iran — Reuters, citing two unnamed diplomats, reported that IAEA inspectors will be present when Iranians collect samples from their country’s past nuclear-weapons-related work at the Parchin military base. The Reuters report contradicted a principal Republican criticism of the Iran deal: secret side deals to the nuclear agreement that would allow Iranians to collect their own samples at Parchin and other locations to resolve questions about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.

Supporters of the Iran deal cited the Reuters report as disproving this criticism of the nuclear agreement. I thought the Reuters story was fishy, since it contradicted briefings by the Obama administration to Congress on the side deals as well as the Associated Press, which published a transcript of one of the side deals. (The Obama administration and its supporters tried to discredit the AP story, including the claim that it was based on a forgery.)

It now turns out the Reuters report was false. Iranians collected samples at Parchin over the weekend with no IAEA officials present.

Spin on this development has already begun. CNN ran a story this morning with the misleading title “IAEA inspects Parchin for first time.” However, this article cites an Iranian official who said, “Iranian technicians took the samples and handed them to the IAEA.” CNN also quoted an IAEA statement that said, “in the case of Parchin, the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples” and “authentication by the agency of the samples was achieved through use of an established verification process.”

Further muddying the waters, IAEA director general Yukiya Amano made a ceremonial visit to Parchin over the weekend. According to Amano, “We entered a building which the agency had previously only been able to observe using satellite imagery. Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work. There was no equipment in the building.”

The “ceremonial” Amano visit to Parchin to enter an empty building does not constitute an IAEA inspection but will probably be portrayed as one by supporters of the Iran deal.

IAEA officials and the Obama administration have tried to downplay the significance of the Iranians’ collecting samples with no IAEA officials present by claiming that this process would be closely monitored and did not undermine the agency’s standards for collection of nuclear samples. I disagree. As I explained in National Review on August 20, this is

“a preposterous and unserious plan to investigate past and ongoing Iranian nuclear-weapons-related activities. A fair and objective arms-control investigation tries to uncover evidence that a host country is trying to hide by collecting samples from unexpected locations using equipment of the investigators’ choosing. The current process appears carefully scripted so that Iran controls what is collected to ensure that no evidence is found indicating covert nuclear or other WMD activities.”

Former IAEA official Olli Heinonen has also questioned the practice of Iranians’ collecting samples at Parchin. He said in an August 2015 op-ed:

“If the reporting is accurate, these procedures appear to be risky, departing significantly from well-established and proven safeguards practices. At a broader level, if verification standards have been diluted for Parchin (or elsewhere) and limits imposed, the ramification is significant as it will affect the IAEA’s ability to draw definitive conclusions with the requisite level of assurances and without undue hampering of the verification process.”

So why are IAEA officials endorsing Iranians’ self-inspection at Parchin? The reason is that the IAEA is not supposed to be an independent actor — it is an international organization that works for its members. The permanent members of the UN Security Council instructed the IAEA to implement this arrangement. IAEA officials are complying with and publicly supporting this order.

The bottom line here is that the September 11 Reuters report was not just false; its timing suggests it was planted by the Obama administration to influence congressional consideration of the Iran deal. Reuters should have been skeptical about claims on how Iranians would collect samples that differed so starkly from most other reports and surfaced just before the House was scheduled to vote on the Iran deal.

The news that Iranians collected samples at Parchin without IAEA officials present vindicates criticism of the secret side deals by congressional Republicans. Reuters should issue a retraction and tell the American public the names of the two anonymous diplomats who were behind its false story.

Can the Nuclear Deal With Iran Be Fixed?

September 8, 2015Frank Gaffney Jr and Fred Fleitz

President Obama’s main arguments in defense of the controversial nuclear agreement with Iran have been that the only alternative to the agreement is war and that the idea of a better deal is a fantasy. We believe both of these arguments are false.

First, we dismiss the president’s stark dichotomy of this deal versus war as a false choice. No deal would be far better than this dangerous pact which will bolster Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, provide billions of dollars in sanctions relief that Iran will likely use to fund terrorism, and will allow Iran to collect its own samples for the IAEA to disprove allegations of past nuclear weapons work.

A better alternative would be a bona fide good deal that fully addresses the threat from Iran’s nuclear program and addresses its history of cheating on nuclear treaty obligations with an airtight inspections process to ensure compliance. Such a deal would need to meet all of the below requirements.

1. Actually close off all pathways to an Iranian nuclear weapon. This is the fatal flaw of the Iran deal. Contrary to the Obama administration’s claims, the nuclear deal does not come close to addressing this requirement since Iran will continue to enrich uranium during the deal and will be allowed to test and develop advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges. Iran also will be allowed to complete construction of a heavy-water reactor that still will produce plutonium even after it is redesigned. These provisions will allow Iran to continue to make advances in its efforts to produce nuclear fuel. As a result, Iran will develop an industrial-scale nuclear program while this deal is in effect and the timeline to an Iranian nuclear weapon will fall throughout the agreement.

A credible nuclear agreement with Iran is impossible unless all uranium enrichment ceases and centrifuge equipment is dismantled. Construction of Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor must be halted permanently. We agree with Senator Robert Menendez who believes that to close off all Iranian pathways to a nuclear bomb, there must also be a ban on centrifuge R&D for the duration of any nuclear agreement with Tehran.

2. Sanctions must be lifted gradually in response to Iranian compliance with a nuclear agreement and be tied to an improvement in its behavior. The current deal lifts almost all sanctions late this year or early next year if Iran complies with several easy to meet requirements. This is the wrong approach: once EU and UN sanctions are lifted, they will never “snap back” in the event of Iranian noncompliance. Gradual sanctions relief must be conditioned on Iranian compliance with the nuclear pact and a pledge by Tehran that it will not spend sanctions relief funds on terrorism and or destabilizing the Middle East. Sanctions relief would be suspended if Iran does not fully comply with these requirements.

3. No lifting of sanctions against Iranian terrorist organizations and individuals. We find it incomprehensible that the nuclear agreement lifts UN sanctions against notorious Iranian terrorists and terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Air Force, the IRGC Air Force Al-Ghadir Missile Command, and the IRGC Qods Force, IRGC commander Qassm Suleimani who provided weapons responsible for killing hundreds of U.S. troops during the war in Iraq, and Ahmad Vahidi, a former defense minister and IRGC commander, participated in the 1994 bombing attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. These sanctions have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program. The United States should not be a party to an agreement that lifts sanctions on Iranian terrorists.

4. A truly robust and intrusive verification regime that does not allow Iran to inspect itself. Under the nuclear agreement, 24/7 monitoring will only be conducted of declared nuclear sites, locations where Iran will not be engaged in covert nuclear weapons activities. For undeclared sites, there is a convoluted 24-day appeals process to arrange IAEA inspections. This is far short of the anyplace, anytime inspections promised by the Obama White House during the nuclear talks. Former IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards Olli Heinonen has said 24 days would be more than enough time to remove evidence of many nuclear weapons-related activities. We believe Iran will refuse to allow the IAEA access to sites where it cannot conceal evidence of nuclear weapons work or will conduct such work in another country, probably North Korea.

Making this inspection scheme worse, under secret side deals between the IAEA and Iran, Iranians will collect evidence of possible past nuclear weapons related work at the Parchin military base and other locations. This is an unacceptable arrangement that raises serious questions about whether the agreement will establish a baseline of Iran’s nuclear weapons related activities for verification purposes and a terrible precedent for future nonproliferation and arms control accords.

5. Drop offer of advanced nuclear technology and assistance from the West to protect its nuclear program. The nuclear agreement commits Western states to provide advanced nuclear technology to Iran, including light-water reactor and fusion technology. Western states also have pledged to help Iran protect its nuclear program from sabotage. The United States and its allies should not provide technology that Iran could use to shorten the timeline to a nuclear weapon or help it defend its nuclear program from future efforts by the U.S. intelligence to or milt disable this program if the United States determines it is being used to develop or produce nuclear weapons.

6. Add restrictions on Iran’s growing ballistic missile program. Although experts believe Iran is developing its ballistic missile program as a delivery system to carry nuclear warheads against the United States, Europe and Israel, there are no provisions in the agreement calling on Iran to curtail its missile program or join international agreements to limit missile proliferation. A credible nuclear agreement with Iran must require Tehran significantly to curtail its missile program and become a member in good standing of the Missile Technology Control Regime and the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation.

The rest of our requirements for a good nuclear agreement with Iran are drawn from proposals recently made by Senator Robert Menendez.

7. Immediate ratification by Iran of the Additional Protocol to ensure we have a permanent international arrangement with Iran for access to suspect sites. Although an Additional Protocol agreement between Iran and the IAEA is crucial to providing the IAEA with greater access to suspect nuclear sites, Iran has only agreed to provisionally implement this agreement and will seek ratification of it by the Iranian Parliament in eight years or when the IAEA has declared all nuclear activities in Iran are peaceful. This makes no sense since Iran will not make a binding commitment to the protocol until it will no longer matter.

8. The full resolution of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s program. A credible nuclear agreement must require Iran to answer the IAEA’s outstanding questions about possible past and ongoing nuclear weapons work to establish a baseline for verification. We categorically reject assertions by President Obama and Secretary Kerry that it is not necessary for the IAEA to resolve these issues because “we have perfect knowledge” of Iran’s nuclear program and that “we know what they did.” We instead call for Iran to provide a full accounting of its nuclear weapons-related work because of the poor track record of U.S. intelligence in monitoring and detecting WMD programs in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other states.

9. Extend the duration of the agreement. We agree with Senator Menendez that one of the single most concerning elements of the deal is its 10-15 year sunset of restrictions on Iran’s program, with off-ramps starting after year eight. The Obama administration promised an agreement of significant duration but failed to deliver. Iran should have to comply with a nuclear agreement for as long as they deceived the world, at least 20 years.

10. A clear agreement on penalties for Iranian non-compliance. Language on implementing sanctions for Iranian violations under paragraph 37 of the agreement is vague and provides an exemption for contracts with Iranian entities entered into before the implementation of new sanctions. A better formulation is needed to spell out how new sanctions against Iran will be implemented that does not include this exemption.

The Obama administration and its defenders contend the nuclear agreement with Iran is the best that could be negotiated. We disagree. This agreement does not reflect hardnosed American diplomacy, but rather the determination of a president so desperate to reach a deal that he agreed to almost any compromise to get one. We believe a future American negotiating team acting under the directions of a new president determined to strike a strong agreement that halts the threat from the Iranian nuclear program can achieve a more sound accord with Tehran that satisfies our security requirements.

AP Publishes Text of Secret Side Deal to Iran Nuclear Agreement

August 24, 2015Fred Fleitz

I wrote yesterday on NRO how Associated Press writer George Jahn was slammed by Iran-deal supporters for the accuracy of his August 19 article that provided details of a how Iran will collect nuclear samples for the IAEA under a secret side deal to the agreement. Supporters claimed the AP withdrew parts of the story because a statement by IAEA Director General proved it was false.

The AP initially responded by saying it published an abbreviated version of Jahn’s article for space reasons and reissued the full text of Jahn’s original story. Late yesterday, the AP went one step further by posting the below transcript of the side deal.

Separate arrangement II agreed by the Islamic State of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on 11 July 2015, regarding the Road-map, Paragraph 5

Iran and the Agency agreed on the following sequential arrangement with regard to the Parchin issue:

1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

2. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

3. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be agreed between Iran and the Agency.

4. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be carried out using Iran’s authenticated equipment, consistent with technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency’s containers and seals.

5. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.

6. Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.

For the International Atomic Energy Agency: Tero Varjoranta, Deputy Director General for Safeguards

For the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ali Hoseini Tash, Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs

The AP explained it was not allowed to have a copy of this side deal but was permitted to transcribe the entire text. AP said two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that this text does not differ from the final version agreed to between Iran and the IAEA.

Some reactions to the release of the text of the side deal:

First, the Associated Press deserves credit for taking this step to validate Jahn’s article. I assume there was strong pressure on the AP from the Obama administration and the IAEA to drop this story.

Second, the side-deal text confirms all the major points in Jahn’s article: Iran will collect samples at the Parchin military base, Iran will provide the IAEA with photos and videos of locations at Parchin, and it will use its own collection equipment authenticated by the IAEA.

Third, there is one minor factual difference between Jahn’s story and the side deal text: his article said no areas outside of a Parchin building would be sampled; the side-deal text says samples will be collected from two areas outside the building agreed to by Iran and the IAEA. I’m not troubled by this since Jahn apparently took notes on the side deal document but did not transcribe its full text.

Fourth, the text released by the IAEA only addresses Parchin, but Jahn said Iranians would collect samples for the IAEA at other sites as well. I assume Jahn wrote this based on congressional hearings on the Iran deal held last month.

Fifth, the Jahn story did not mention that IAEA Director General Amano and his Deputy for Safeguards will visit Parchin as a “dignitary guest” or that Iran and the IAEA will arrange a “one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.” These details are significant because they have nothing to do with the objective collection of samples at Parchin and appear to be public-relations stunts to close the IAEA’s file on Parchin.

The AP probably released the text of the side deal in response to an effort by supporters of the Iran nuclear agreement to discredit Jahn’s story by claiming it was revised because of inaccuracies and exaggerations. The text of the side deal confirms Jahn’s article and my Corner follow-up on it yesterday; it indicates a “preposterous and unserious plan to investigate past and ongoing Iranian nuclear-weapons-related activities.”

More Details on Secret Side Deal Allowing Iran to Inspect Itself

August 20, 2015Fred Fleitz

George Jahn, a respected reporter who covers the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna for The Associated Press, published an important story yesterday on details of a secret side agreement to the Iran nuclear deal in which Iran will collect samples of possible nuclear-weapons-related activity for the IAEA. He wrote his story after an unnamed diplomat allowed him to read a draft of one of the side deals. The side-deal documents reportedly have only been briefed to U.S. officials and will not be shared with the U.S. Congress.

I wrote on this website on July 22 that Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) learned about the existence of two secret side deals to the Iran agreement when they met with IAEA officials in Vienna on July 17. The congressmen were told these agreements concerned resolving the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program and the issue of access to the Parchin military base, where explosive testing related to nuclear-warhead development reportedly has taken place.

This story attracted more attention on July 23, when Senator James Risch (R., Idaho) revealed during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that one of the side deals allows Iran to collect samples for the IAEA. Risch learned about this from Obama-administration officials during a classified briefing the previous day and indicated he was told that the IAEA would, by video, remotely monitor the Iranians taking samples. Risch’s remarks created quite a stir at the hearing and led Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) to say that if this were true, it would amount to “the equivalent of the fox guarding the chicken coop.” Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), the committee’s chairman, likened this arrangement to NFL players’ mailing in their own urine samples for drug testing.

Jahn’s story is important because it provides previously unknown details of how Iran will collect samples for the IAEA. These details include the following:

Iran will provide photos and videos of sites linked to alleged nuclear-weapons work while, in the words of the document, “taking into account military concerns.” Jahn writes that this suggests that Iran will not give the IAEA photos or video information from areas Tehran says are off-limits because they have military significance. I agree, but there is another serious problem with this arrangement: Iran will be selecting the locations to photograph or film, and the IAEA will later use these images to request that Iran collect samples from them – in other words, Iran will be setting up the range of choices for the IAEA and will of course not give the IAEA the option of looking in places where actual nuclear-weapons work is going on.
At Parchin, Iranian inspectors will inspect seven sites within a building where alleged nuclear-related experiments took place. No collection will be done outside this building, although Iran will collect samples for the IAEA at locations other than Parchin. This U.S. concession is hard to believe, given years of reports of Iranian efforts to sanitize buildings and earth at the Parchin facility to remove evidence of WMD activities. Eli Lake and Josh Rogin wrote in an August 5 Bloomberg article that the U.S. intelligence community reported to Congress evidence that Iran began sanitizing the Parchin site “in broad daylight” just after the nuclear agreement was announced.
Iran will use its own equipment to collect samples for the IAEA. According to the side-deal document, this equipment will be consistent with technical specifications provided by the IAEA, and that the IAEA “will ensure the technical authenticity of Iran’s inspections.” Jahn added that the document did not explain how the IAEA would make these certifications.

The Jahn article provides the details of what can only be described as a preposterous and unserious plan to investigate past and ongoing Iranian nuclear-weapons-related activities. A fair and objective arms-control investigation tries to uncover evidence that a host country is trying to hide by collecting samples from unexpected locations using equipment of the investigators’ choosing. The current process appears carefully scripted so that Iran controls what is collected to ensure that no evidence is found indicating covert nuclear or other WMD activities.

Given the unprecedented nature of the side deals, it is not surprising that Iran, the IAEA, and the Obama administration want to keep them secret and prevent Congress from reading them. This story became more bizarre when the Washington Free Beacon reported on August 18 that Iran sent a letter to IAEA director general Yukiya Amano threatening him with physical harm if he revealed information about the side deals during his meetings this month in Washington with members of the U.S. Congress.

Iranian leaders know from prior IAEA and American inspections in North Korea in the late 2000s, U.S. investigations of the Libyan nuclear program, and IAEA inspections of Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility that it is extremely difficult to hide evidence of covert WMD activities from the IAEA and the U.S., owing to the advanced techniques they use to analyze physical samples. The Jahn article describes a rigged process to shield Iran from these techniques.

The nuclear deal with Iran seems to get worse by the day. Will the secret side deals, Iran’s collecting of its own nuclear samples, a rigged collection process, and Iranian threats to silence the head of the IAEA be enough to convince Congress to reject the terrible nuclear agreement with Iran?