Well, as regular as the return of cliff swallows to the San Juaan Capistrano mission in California, the International Atomic Energy Agency has issued its latest quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Predictably, administration officials try to see the worst. “”I think right now the Iranians have a lot of explaining to do about the IAEA report, which essentially sees them as not cooperating on some very important dark questions that the international community has about their programmes,” said  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 

It is true that the report states (in paragraph 23, page 4) that “Iran has not provided the agency with all the information, access to documents and access to individuals necessary to supports Iran’s statements and access to individuals necessary to support Iran’s statements.” But that is hardly a smoking gun. 

Remember that the IAEA’s investigative mandate means that every issue it looks into, which has not been settled one way or the other, must be regarded as un unresolved. But the absence of conclusive evidence does not mean that Iran is proceeding with a nuclear weapons program. It means exactly what it says; that there are issues yet to be resolved. 

In the meantime Iran is, to some substantial degree, continuing to cooperate with the IAEA, which is no small thing, considering the sheer amount of misreporting and deliberate distortion on its nuclear program. As the IAEA report states, “The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.  Iran  has  provided  the Agency with  access  to  declared  nuclear material  and  has  provided  the required  nuclear  material  accountancy  reports  in  connection  with  declared  nuclear  material  and activities.” 

One might recall that it was exactly this perverse logic, i.e., we haven’t conclusively proved the absence of a negative, that allowed the Bush administration to short circuit UN inspections of Iraq in 2002, allowing the United States to invade Iraq on a spurious weapons of mass destruction pretext in 2003.

And just as predictably the major media huffs and puffs about the alleged threat Iran presents to world peace and security.

One expects commentary that Iran is a “growing threat” from standard rightwing media such as the Wall Street Journal. More inexplicable are papers like the New York Times. 

After all, it was exactly three years and three days ago that in regard to its coverage of decisions that led the United States into Iraq the New York Times wrote:

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.

Yet as others have observed, according to the Times, the IAEA has accused Iran of a “willful lack of cooperation” — but the report contains no such accusation whatsoever. That’s the Times’ own editorial commentary, inserted as if it was news and falsely attributed to the IAEA. This is the second time that the NY Times has put words in the IAEA’s mouth – previously the NY Times falsely claimed that the IAEA had determined Iran’s disclosures were “inadequate” and that Iran had “missed a critical deadline.”

Another example is that the Times cites the IAEA’s supposed “frustration with Iran’s lack of openness.” The article points out that IAEA has said that Iran’s installation of new centrifuges were “significant, and as such should have been communicated to the agency.” 

But that’s not what the IAEA report says.  In paragraph 11 of the report, the IAEA states that the information should have been reported to the IAEA IF Iran had continued a policy of voluntarily disclosing this information within the 60 day deadline of the “Subsidiary Arrangements.” 

However, as the previous paragraph 10 in the same report makes clear, Iran had stopped its voluntary and non-obligatory policy of abiding by the Subsidiary Arrangements (back when Iran ended its voluntary suspension of enrichment).

So, according to the IAEA report, Iran had in fact informed the IAEA of the installation of the centrifuges, but just not within the full 60-day limit. Furthermore, the Times totally fails to mention the last sentence in paragraph 11 which states that the IAEA was nevertheless able to monitor the newly-installed centrifuges, and all the necessary safeguards were in place before the centrifuges were put into use.

According to the Times, Iran is using “more powerful centrifuges” too, and so “That means that the country may be producing enriched uranium” which can be used to make electricity or to produce bombs faster than expected.”

But  the Times fails to mention that according to paragraph 5 of the same IAEA report, the centrifuges are all operating under IAEA safeguards, “continue to be operated as declared”, and have been the subject of 14 surprise visits — and so there’s nothing particularly “unexpected” about Iran’s activities, nor can the centrifuges be used to make bombs since their under 24-hour monitoring by the IAEA.

The Times claims that the IAEA “was denied access to sites where centrifuge components were being manufactured and where research of uranium enrichment was being conducted” — totally leaving out that according to paragraph 13 the same IAEA report, these were “transparency measures” which is the IAEA’s way of referring to requests for inspections over and above what Iran is obligated to provide. Iran had a policy of allowing such transparency measures in the past but on an “ad hoc” basis, and is under no obligation to allow them at all since they exceed what the IAEA Safeguards Agreement require.

There is more in the article that could be critiqued but space limits prevent it. Let’s just say that in regard to the New York Times, and it is hardly the only offender, to paraphrase Yoggi Berra, it is mea culpa time, all over again.

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1. Next Steps on Iran
2. Should We Engage Iran Out of the NPT?
3. Winning Turkey’s Support on Iran
4. Russia: whose strategic partner?
5. Troubled Iranian elections may unify international community