Nuclear watchdog agency says Iran not cooperating
Source: CNN
Iran is not cooperating, making it difficult for the UN's nuclear watchdog agency to provide "credible assurance" that the country doesn't possess undeclared nuclear material, the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said Monday.
Speaking to the IAEA's board of governors, Amano said Iran should grant access "without further delay" to the Parchin military complex, where the Islamic Republic is believed to have tested rockets.
Since Iran has not provided such access to date, "The Agency therefore cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," Amano said.
<snip>
Amano noted that Iran has recently begun installing IR-2m centrifuges at its fuel enrichment plant at Natanz, and that those high-speed devices that rotate to enrich uranium are more advanced than the previously-installed centrifuges.
<snip>
Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/04/world/meast/iran-nuclear-stalemate/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Tempest
(14,591 posts)I wouldn't cooperate either under the conditions that keep getting placed on them.
Nor would I cooperate until the UN investigates Israel's nuclear program and weapons.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Tempest
(14,591 posts)Last year it was "yeah, we'll talk", now it's "you will or else no talks".
cstanleytech
(28,143 posts)believe are so intolerable that Iran cannot meet them?
Plus we "are" talking about nuclear reactors and when you consider the long term issues with the storage of spent fuel and or issues with their safety like Chernobyl and Fukushima I would think discouraging their use as much as possible would be a good thing.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I would really like to know. What is our stance with Iran?
Just what we are asking other than non-proliferation and UN visits to sites where nuclear weapons may be being tested is unclear to me.
I often see that we assume that Israel has nuclear weapons. What is the evidence for that other than the fact that some of the developers of nuclear weapons supported Israel?
I doubt that Israel has its own uranium. If it were buying uranium on the international market, we would probably know who much it is buying and what weapons, what capacity it has.
I think the issue is non-proliferation, trying to prevent additional countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. We are not asking countries that have long had the weapons, like Pakistan or India, the USSR or the US, to abolish them. One step at a time.
Do you know any specifics or just have general information? I'd like the specifics on this if you have them. Thanks.
cstanleytech
(28,143 posts)I mean WTF does them having or not having nukes matter? The issues isnt about Israel its about trying to keep the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide down and not "Ya know what, since Israel has them so why shouldn't everyone have them."
Edit: And that doesnt take into account the environmental problems that nuclear reactors can (and at times do) cause.
reorg
(3,317 posts)so, the double standard applies when they can't see that others may have the exact same reason to want them.
I believe Israel can understand all too well that people in Iran might feel a little safer if Iran actually had nuclear weapons.
Perhaps it explains why some Israeli politicians are so convinced that Iran is developing this capability.
Even though there is not the slightest evidence whatsoever that Iran's nuclear program is not peaceful.
reorg
(3,317 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2013, 02:34 PM - Edit history (1)
under the NPT. I'm no expert and haven't followed this closely in the last years, but this is what I found:
Iran does not violate the NPT Safeguards Agreement as it was agreed upon, signed and ratified, if they don't allow inspection of certain military sites.
The IAEA has always verified the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used. That is the original purpose of the NPT: to enable the export of nuclear materials and facilities (Siemens export promotion in the case of Iran when the Shah didn't know what to do with all the money coming in after the first oil crisis) while making sure that none of that material is used for weapons.
However, as stated in the OP, the IAEA now bemoans not to be able to "provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities" in Iran, which supposedly is only possible, if at all, once they go further than what was agreed upon in the seventies, namely if Iran signs the so-called "Additional Protocol" which allows for things like spontaneous inspections. Apparently it was only in the early nineties that it occurred to various experts that an inventory of declared material is not enough. They were suprised that Iraq had been able to work on a secret nuclear program in the late eighties despite being a signatory to the NPT, so they conceived of additional measures to be added to existing Safeguard Agreements, lined out in the "Additional Protocol".
Some of these additional measures could be seen as intrusive, though. That's why not all states with a Safeguard Agreement have agreed to sign such an Additional Protocol, I suppose.
Iran and the bomb: The legal standards of the IAEA
IAEA SAFEGUARDS ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL
The IAEA Applies Incorrect Standards, Exceeding its Legal Mandate and Acting Ultra Vires Regarding Iran
Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)Until Israel joins the NPT, it isn't a "condition" for Iran to ignore their obligations.
Tempest
(14,591 posts)Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)No matter how much they or you want to pretend it does.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)to do. Until then, Israel's bombs are hardly irrelevant, and the double-standard applied is appalling.
Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)Again, you and those like you expect Israel to follow a contract it hasn't signed, but don't expect Iran to live up to its obligations of said contract until Israel does, though, as already said, is not a member of the NPT. Bold hypocrisy on the parts of the people expecting Israel to uphold the NPT, but not Iran. You are the one espousing double standards!
leveymg
(36,418 posts)the United States, the first of which became operational just before Israel launched the '67 War. The Israelis later threatened to use these weapons on Egypt and Syria during the '73 war, when the conventional forces of those countries nearly overran Israeli positions in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. After the Israelis issued their threat of first-use, the US reluctantly resupplied lost F-4s and TOW missiles from NATO stocks in Europe, tipping the balance in that war back in favor of Israel. That was nuclear blackmail.
Yet, Americans are supposed to be worked up to the point of starting another optional Mideast war against Iran. which has no nuclear weapons, stolen from us or otherwise, a country that that has never realistically threatened to use nuclear weapons?
I'd say, it's Israel's nuclear weapons that pose the actual threat to world peace and US national security. We tolerate that only because we have to, and our position with regard to Iran is largely due to Israel's continued nuclear blackmail and repeated threats of first-use if we don't act against Iran in their stead. Americans have grown tired of being blackmailed by Israel's criminal threats of first-use of nuclear weapons.
Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)'Israel's nuclear bombs are outside the NPT," Commit that statement to memory. It is something some often and routinely ignore. Given the "key jingling" you demonstrated, I find it almost interesting, because it shows the determination level some will go to distract from the actual situation: Iran, not Israel must comply with the NPT and the inspections. I also "enjoy" how this another example of "Israel runs our government" without being so in your face about it.
Double standard: Wanting Israel to comply to a contract it hasn't signed, but not a country which is actually a signatory, nor other countries that are similar to Israel in their possession of nuclear weapons and not signatories to the NPT (India, Pakistan, and North Korea).
ETA: Where did you get your information about Israel stealing US plutonium? I would like to see this information.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)NUMEC, in Pennsylvania during the 1960s. Here are the first seven items that appear on GOOGLE on the topic of "Israeli theft of US nuclear materials":
Nuclear weapons and Israel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
Estimates as to the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal vary between 75 and 400 ..... from the U.S. Navy nuclear fuel plant operated by the Nuclear Materials and ... Corporation, where sloppy material accounting would have masked the theft.
Development history - Nuclear testing - Revelations - Stockpile
IRMEP Documents on Israeli theft of nuclear materials - Sic Semper ...
turcopolier.typepad.com/.../irmep-documents-on-israeli-theft-...
Aug 11, 2012 – IRMEP Documents on Israeli theft of nuclear materials ... "How Israel Received Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material from a US Company by ...
Nixon papers suggest israel stole nuclear material from US in 1965
wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4817
Nov 29, 2007 – Nixon papers suggest israel stole nuclear material from US in 1965 ... deceived us,” Mr. Kissinger said, “and may even have stolen from us.” ...
Declassified GAO Report Exposes Fatally Flawed Israel Investigations
original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/.../declassified-gao-report/
May 10, 2010 – The GAO revealed that the DOE's nuclear materials safeguards, which ... 1968, was later revealed as the top Israeli spy targeting U.S. nuclear, ...
Israel diverted US uranium using a front in Pennsylvania to establish ...
mondoweiss.net/.../secrecy-pact-over-israels-nukes-reached-by...
May 7, 2012 – And all the while the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, ... and frankly you allege by outright theft of U. S. uranium materials.
NUMEC- Zalman Shapiro - Uranium diversion to Israel, FBI, CIA files
www.irmep.org/ila/numec/
The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation received start-up capital ..... to Israel's brazen theft of American nuclear material before finally deciding to bury ...
Nuclear Diversion in the US? 13 Years of Contradiction and ... - IRmep
irmep.org/ila/nukes/NUMEC/default.asp
GAO Investigates Israeli theft of weapons grade uranium from the US ... security at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Pennsylvania.
Israel & Iran: Double standards on nuclear weapons
www.david-morrison.org.uk/.../iran-israel-double-standard.ht...
However, it is generally believed that nuclear material was stolen by Israeli agents from the US, the UK and France in the 1960s and transported to Israel by ...
Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)Basically, it is "believed" therefore it is "fact." OK. Thanks for the "facts".
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)And all the stuff posted that suggests anything to the contrary is a smoke screen. If there is evidence that Israel did steal it from us and our government had that info, it would have caused a massive rift between our two countries. It would be a big deal.
The simple answer is we gave it to them. Our gov't probably wont admit to it until long after you and I are both gone.
Behind the Aegis
(55,844 posts)"The simple answer is we gave it to them." Again, yup. Basically, it was "hey, don't take my money on the desk. Now, I have to go over here." Then, "Oh look, the money is gone! Wait, did I really have money on the desk? Maybe not, so maybe it wasn't stolen." This type of behavior is as old as countries.
"Our gov't probably wont admit to it until long after you and I are both gone." Can't say "yup" to this because I don't know it would ever come out, but anything is possible.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)US law and the NPT.
So, we're all in agreement, then - Israel's nuclear weapons program is in violation of the NPT.
Why are there no sanctions, unless of course the NPT is selectively applied, in which case, it's just a political smokescreen for the sort of real politik that led to the diversion of nuclear materials and technology to Israel to begin with?
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)of a treaty they never signed. And why do so many on this board find it impossible to stick to the story in the OP and instead constantly whine about what Israel does and does not do in order to distract? It makes you look like fools.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)and coordination of unlawful transfer of technology and militarily significant materials without lawful authorization, as are its nationals and U.S. agents involved in the scheme. The matter was extensively investigated by the FBI, the Naval Investigative Service, and other federal agencies. The decision to not prosecute was an exercise of discretion based in political considerations.
US Violation of NPT Non-proliferation (http://www.scujil.org/volumes/v2/3)
Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.[53]
Article II covers the duties of non-nuclear nations:
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.[54]
Attendant violations of US law (Espionage Act of 1917, Theft, Unlawful Conversion of U.S. Gov't property)
In 1988, Samuel Morison, an employee of the US Dept. of the Navy, unsuccessfully filed cert to remain free on bond after he was convicted of stealing classified U.S. satellite photos of a Soviet aircraft carrier under construction and selling the photos to Jane's Defense Weekly for $300. The magazine and its editors were not prosecuted. Morison was convicted of two charges, one related to conversion of gov't property and the second under Sec. 793 of the Espionage Act. See, http://supreme.justia.com/us/486/1306/case.html
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)But the worst part of your attempt at a point here is that because some other states might be in violation of NPT that Iran cannot be held accountable for violations of the NPT.
So you are going to have to decide a number of things that are major issues with what you have said in this thread.
#1 - Are you going to stand on the US plutonium ending up in Israel's hands being a theft or transfer.
#2 - Are you going to stick with the assertion that because party A may have gotten away with bad act X, that no one else can be prosecuted for bad act X?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Either way, it was illegal under US and international law.
I'm saying its unethical to threaten war on Iran now for lesser acts outside the NPT we tolerated (or encouraged) with Israel.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)only potential choice is to go after the US if you are now going to assert that the US knowingly made the transfer.
But again, you seem to be shopping around for hypocrisy that may or may not exist.
So I take it you have a problem with the decision not to prosecute and I bet are all up in arms that nobody gives a shit.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Iran for its nuclear program (such as it is) are either ethical or justified.
I do think, to some extent, Israel has been engaging in nuclear blackmail against the US to compel us into threats of war and a sanctions regime against Iran that is otherwise neither necessary nor justified by US national security.
After all, we were party to the transfers in the 1960s that made the nuclear weapons programs of Israel possible along with that of Pakistan, the surrogate for Saudi Arabia, during the 1970s and 1980s. I fail to see why Iran is fundamentally different, except that the existing nuclear powers in the region don't want it to join their club.
I simply cannot take seriously anybody who thinks the US is being blackmailed by Israel.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Wiki:
According to The New York Times, Hersh relied on Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee who says he worked for Israeli intelligence, for much of his information on the state of the Israeli nuclear program. However, Hersh confirmed all of this information with at least one other source.[1]
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger both stated that Israel used its nuclear weapons to blackmailed the US, as actually occurred during the '73 War when the overrun scenario referenced above was a possibility, forcing the US to supply weapons to Israel in its war with Egypt and Syria. See, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/middleeast/29nixon.html?_r=0
By DAVID STOUT
Published: November 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — In July 1969, as the world was spellbound by the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, President Richard M. Nixon and his close advisers were quietly fretting about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Their main worry was not a potential enemy of the United States, but one of America’s closest friends.
Tensions over Israel’s nuclear weapons cast a shadow over talks between Richard M. Nixon and Golda Meir in 1969.
Related
Mandatory Review Documents (nixon.archives.gov)
Memo From Kissinger to Nixon on the Israeli Nuclear Program (July 19, 1969)
“The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons,” Henry A. Kissinger, the national security adviser, warned Mr. Nixon in a memorandum dated July 19, 1969 — part of a newly released trove of documents.
Israel’s nuclear arms program, which Israel has never officially conceded exists, was believed to have begun at least several years before, but it was causing special problems for the young Nixon administration.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)But perhaps the most interesting material in the 2007 release of materials from the Nixon library, accoording to the Times:
“This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us,” Mr. Kissinger said, “and may even have stolen from us.”
Although Israel has never publicly acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, scientists and arms experts have no doubt that it has them, and the United States’ reluctance to pressure Israel to disarm has made America vulnerable to accusations that it has a double standard when it comes to stopping the spread of weapons in the Middle East. Mr. Kissinger’s memo, written barely two years after the 1967 Middle East war and while memories of the Holocaust were still vivid among the first Israelis, implicitly acknowledged Israel’s right to defend itself, as subsequent American administrations have done.
But Mr. Kissinger reflected at length on the quandary faced by the United States. “Israel will not take us seriously on the nuclear issue unless they believe we are prepared to withhold something they very much need,” he wrote, referring to a pending sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel.
SNIP
But Avner Cohen, the author of “Israel and the Bomb,” (Columbia University Press, 1998) who is a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, said on Wednesday that there was enough historical evidence to indicate that the president and the prime minister had reached a secret understanding on at least one issue: Israel would keep its nuclear devices out of sight and not test them, and the United States would tolerate the situation and not press Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that has been embraced by scores of countries around the world. “That understanding remains to this day,” Mr. Cohen said.
If Mr. Cohen is correct, the reason that the US hasn't pressured Israel to sign the NPT is rooted in the same nuclear blackmail.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)your hat on? This guy:
But Nixon’s hard-wired anti-Semitism is an old story. What has caused many heads to swivel is a recording of Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser. Mr. Kissinger is heard telling Nixon in 1973 that helping Soviet Jews emigrate and thus escape oppression by a totalitarian regime — a huge issue at the time — was “not an objective of American foreign policy.”
“And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union,” he added, “it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
In New York, the epicenter of Jewish life in the United States, some jaws are still not back in place after dropping to the floor.
Bad enough that any senior White House official would, without prodding, raise the grotesque specter of Jews once again being herded into gas chambers. But it was unbearable for some to hear that language come from Mr. Kissinger, a Jew who as a teenager fled Nazi Germany with his family, in 1938. Had he not found refuge in this country and in this city — the Kissingers settled in Washington Heights — he might have ended up in a gas chamber himself.
“Despicable,” “callous,” “revulsion,” “hypocrite,” “chilling” and “shocking” were a few of the words used this week by some leaders of Jewish organizations and by newspapers that focus on Jewish matters.
Conspicuously, however, many groups and prominent individuals stayed silent. They include people who would have almost certainly spoken up had coldhearted talk of genocide come from the likes of Mel Gibson or Patrick J. Buchanan, neither a stranger to provocative comments about Jews.
Even some who deplored Mr. Kissinger’s remarks tempered their criticism. The Anti-Defamation League called the recorded statements “outrageous,” but said they did not undermine “the important contributions and ultimate legacy of Henry Kissinger,” including his support of Israel. The American Jewish Committee described the remarks as “truly chilling,” but suggested that anti-Semitism in the Nixon White House might have been at least partly to blame.
“Perhaps Kissinger felt that, as a Jew, he had to go the extra mile to prove to the president that there was no question as to where his loyalties lay,” the committee’s executive director, David Harris, said in a statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/nyregion/17nyc.html?_r=0
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 10:46 AM - Edit history (2)
that we are applying an unethical double standard by punishing Iran for something Israel has gotten way with because for decades that country has been using the threat of first-use of its illegally obtained nuclear weapons to blackmail the U.S.
BTW: Kissinger and Nixon are hardly the only source for this. Hersh can hardly be accused of either antisemitism or being a friend of Nixon's. There are dozens of others, but the burden is on you to source any authorities that might refute this.
P.S. - Israel has repeatedly used its threat of first-use against other nations in the region to blackmail the U.S. to take more aggressive action. According to Tony Blair's aide, Alistair Campbell, Ariel Sharon applied pressure on George Bush to invade Iraq. At a 2002 NATO meeting in Prague, Bush related to Blair that Sharon had made such a threat. An account in The Guardian reports: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/15/pakistan-boasted-nuclear-strike-pakistan?newsfeed=true
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)theft or you are accusing the US of breaking the rules. You have no proof other than the words of people I wouldn't trust to tell me if it were daytime or not. Not that it would matter as it has nothing to do with Iran whatsoever but congrats on veering the conversation away from the present to something from 40+ years ago. It's what some people on DU do best. It certainly isn't my fault the vast majority of Americans do trust Israel with the nukes and are leery of Iran.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)by the US. Israel (and its agents and confederates in the US) meanwhile violated US law.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)is the best way out of a recession? War.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)We got a metric shit-ton of weapons and troops waiting for an assignment ... Iran can't be seen as cooperating.
Blandocyte
(1,231 posts)Yikes!
cstanleytech
(28,143 posts)Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)I have no problem with us deciding who is and isn't allowed to have nukes.
I enjoy being a superpower and not ashamed about that.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 12:58 AM - Edit history (1)
for maintaining a military presence in a region of the world that contains an abundance of the most important key resource to human civilization: energy. Western leaders have never been vague about the motives for our interests there. Winston Churchill called Iranian oil, "a prize from fairyland" for the British Empire. The US State Department has, for decades, consistently referred to the region as "the most strategically important area of the world". Iran, as a regional power, represents a potential deterrent to the 'need' for the US empire to control global energy reserves. It's why the US and UK thwarted democracy in Iran and supported a brutal dictatorship there for 25 years, and the fear of losing control of the region has driven their economic/terrorist war against Iran since 1979.
How would you like it, if a foreign power decided that your country was no longer entitled to its sovereignty?
ripcord
(5,553 posts)Seems I have heard this song before. 
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Seems less sensationalist when you hear it from the horses mouth.