Iran's nuclear weapons and the IAEA

Iran's Nuclear weapons and the IAEA

As the United States, Israel and Britain continue their sabre-rattling against Iran, Christopher King warns against taking at face value “evidence” presented against Iran by the USA, whose track record at forgeries is beyond doubt and whose president is a pathological liar.

You have possibly now read the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) May report. Nothing has changed since the February report. It said that the Iranians should be more forthcoming; they have not been helpful in explaining the evidence on the Americans’ smuggled computer and further items originating with other unidentified countries. There are some points of their own that they would like cleared up. From newspaper reports, the director-general of the IAEA, Dr Mohamed ElBardei, showed some public exasperation at this. He should bear in mind and understand the Iranians’ point of view – after all, he has had the Americans trying to get him fired for not saying what they want him to say.

There’s a problem with the evidence given to the IAEA by the Americans and their friends. It’s simply impossible to believe anything that the Americans say. The list of their lies about Iraq and Afghanistan is so well known now that I will not repeat it. It’s even official now that the president of the United States is a liar with the publication of the US Senate Intelligence Committee report of a few days ago. The president made “misstatements” apparently. I would have thought that a “misstatement” was a kind of minor error, a slip of the tongue perhaps, rather than the well publicized rationale for invading and devastating two countries, killing, maiming and making refugees of millions of people.

It’s perfectly credible that the evidence against Iran has been forged. Someone forged the documents that were cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger for a weapons programme, even though his security services knew that they were forgeries. Joseph C. Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson had their careers wrecked by the White House because Wilson exposed this deliberate lie. In view of the record of the United States’ past lies, forgery and violence based on them, if Dr Elbaradei should take an extremely cautious view of this material he would be entirely justified.

It appears that Iran has not given the IAEA inspectors full access to all its facilities. The Iranians might have in mind that the USA abused the neutral role of the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq by using them for military spying purposes. To show the IAEA inspectors the location of their facilities is to show them the USA’s bombing targets and to tempt the Americans to subversion of the inspectors.

There’s another problem too. If, as the Iranians say, the material has in fact been forged, it’s impossible for them to say anything more about it. The IAEA’s reports clearly expect them to produce evidence of their innocence from the allegations. That’s not the way legal guilt is proven. The IAEA should surely be looking for credible evidence from its own inspections that Iran has a weapons programme. The evidence given to it by the USA is not only tainted by its proven corrupt sources but has been selectively presented.

As I understand it, the evidence for a weapons programme is of two kinds. One is a paper document voluntarily given to the IAEA by Iran, which details means of preparing uranium for a weapon and which was almost certainly provided by Dr A.Q. Khan of Pakistan. The second kind is in electronic form, some from a computer that the United States held for two years before submitting the material to the IAEA. The IAEA has not been permitted to show the electronic evidence to Iran.

In the first case, Iran has said that it received the document on uranium weapons technology with a shipment of centrifuges and did not request it. Its surrender to the IAEA is evidence of Iran’s willingness to be open about what it has relating to weapons. In the second case, one must consider how simple it is to prepare and edit the electronic evidence submitted, I understand, by the United States. The fact that the IAEA is not authorized to show this evidence to the Iranians makes it worthless. The IAEA can surely do no more than accept what the Iranians say about it. This type of evidence is now familiar to us as a United States innovation at Guantanamo Bay Prison where prisoners are not permitted to be informed at their trials what the evidence against them is. I doubt that President Bush has read Kafka’s “The Trial”, which until now has shocked its readers by its bizarre irrationality. No longer. It has become reality.

We might also recall the case on 6 September last year when Israel bombed a building in Syria which was alleged to contain a nuclear facility. The IAEA has now been called in to examine the site only after the Syrians have cleared away the rubble and rebuilt the building, which some reports say was a pumping station. Calling in the IAEA at this stage is absurd, a waste of time, a propaganda stunt. Even if traces of weapons-grade uranium are found there, the Syrians can claim that it was left by the Israelis who bombed the site.

Let us also note from the London Times a Jewish/American item entitled “Israelis blew apart Syrian nuclear cache”. Really? Well, Rupert Murdoch, a Jewish supporter of Israel, owns the Times. The article, written in heroic vein, also quotes John R. Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, who is currently involved in a number of organizations, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Bolton said about this incident, “I’ve been worried for some time about North Korea and Iran outsourcing their nuclear programmes.” This is puerile fantasy – but it gets into print. Americans and doubtless UK readers believe it.

He also remarked that Syria is a member of the “axis of evil”, a term that includes Iran, that David Frum, a Jewish-Canadian speechwriter for George Bush, claims he invented. Five years ago, Frum and his mentor Richard Perle, a leading Jewish lobbyist in Washington, appeared on BBC television immediately before the Iraq invasion urging the UK to invade Iraq, without their ethnicity being mentioned. I complained about this to the BBC, which did everything possible to avoid dealing with the complaint.

The term “evil” is religious. If we are to use this term, we should examine the behaviour of the parties involved: the USA together with Israel contrasted with Iran, the country that they both now wish to bomb, invade or both. If evil is involved, it will show in actions rather than words. Much of this will be familiar to readers.

Israel, which now threatens to bomb Iran for an alleged nuclear weapons programme, itself has a nuclear arsenal of 150-200 warheads, developed under a secret programme. Nor is Israel a signatory of the Nuclear proliferation treaty (NPT). I understand that the unauthorized British sale of heavy water, which enabled Israel to manufacture plutonium and refine it by simple chemical means, was effected by a Jewish government official.

Israel was established on Palestinian territory by terrorism responsible for murdering nearly 300 British soldiers, assassinating Lord Moyne, the respected minister-resident in Cairo among others, bombing of the King David Hotel among other targets and the murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians whose property was taken over by the Jews. Until the present time Israel has initiated true massacres and assassinations, continuously stolen Palestinian land, murdered Palestinians with heavy military weaponry and is attempting to starve Gaza into submission. This is a terrorist state.

The United States has supported Israel in its crimes with military weaponry, finance and probably assistance to its nuclear weapons programme. Leaving aside the USA’s long record of subversion and intervention in other countries, it first became involved with Iran when the UK’s oil interests were nationalized by the secular, democratic Mossadeq government in 1951. The British government lied to the USA in presenting Mossadeq as a communist sympathizer and sought its assistance in removing him. The CIA obliged by formenting a coup against him and with the UK-installed the Shah who gave control of the oil industry to the UK and USA. This arrangement was overturned by the 1979 Islamic Revolution; the country has remained under control of its religious leaders ever since. The US objects to this but this state of affairs was brought about by its own subversion of Iran’s legitimate democratic government. The USA’s hatred of Iran, its continuous stream of lies about it and its sponsorship of United Nations sanctions is incomprehensible. Rather, it is Iran that has cause for complaint against the UK and USA.

The United States supplied conventional, chemical and biological weapons to Saddam Hussein for his use in his war against Iran. This was evidently in revenge for Iran’s renationalization of its oil resources as well as spite for the humiliation of a bungled attempt to rescue US personnel who were besieged by students in its Tehran embassy during the revolution (none of whom were harmed).

As readers will be familiar with them, I shall mention only briefly the USA’s and UK’s sponsorship of the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that have devastated those countries, led to the deaths of over a million persons and made millions refugees. Naturally, the USA has taken control of Iraq’s oil resources. Permanent occupation of these countries is envisaged.

Let us examine Iran’s behaviour. Iran has never invaded another country. It is a member of the NPT and the IAEA inspectors have declared that there is no evidence that it has a nuclear weapons programme. The Iranians’ great crime in the eyes of the UK and USA appears to have been taking control of their own oil resources as well as their opposition to Israel’s crimes. Their war with Saddam Hussein, possibly instigated by the USA/UK, who attempted to seize their oilfields, was entirely defensive. In short, they have minded their own business as much as possible despite foreign interference and subversion.

President Bush and John Bolton speak of evil; it is clearly evident where it lies. These are religious wars led by crazed men whose objective is to seize physical resources and are motivated and justified by the Jewish Torah, the biblical Old Testament. Anthony Blair has fled to Roman Catholicism where he has doubtless been assured of God’s infinite capacity for forgiveness; he appears to think that by rushing about the world lecturing on faith, peace and aid to the poor he can undo his part in the deaths of millions. It is rumoured that George Bush might also take refuge in Catholicism, as well he might after his appalling crimes which, from his continuing talk of war against Iran, are clearly not at an end. I look forward to seeing both these men on trial for war crimes.

I will not speak of God but believe that if any good comes out of these appalling events it will be to rid Christianity once and for all of the Jewish Torah.

To return to Dr ElBaradei and the IAEA’s inspection problems, I would suggest that, unless sound evidence against Iran or any other country is presented in a proper manner, it should simply be ignored. The UN has legal officers who can give an opinion on the validity that should be ascribed to the evidence that has been presented in relation to Iran. The USA and UK have succeeded in enlisting many other countries in their crimes. The IAEA must keep its integrity on behalf of the international community as a whole. It should also bear in mind the Iranian viewpoint in the context of a barrage of lies and threats of imminent war from Israel and the USA that give the Iranians every reason to be highly defensive, whether or not they intend to develop nuclear weapons.