IAEA: US Iran Report Matches UN Agency

Source: Associated Press Writer

A new U.S. intelligence review that concludes Iran stopped developing a nuclear weapons program in 2003 is consistent with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency's own findings and ``should help to defuse the current crisis,'' the organization's chief said Tuesday.

``Although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran,'' International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.

ElBaradei said he viewed ``with great interest'' Monday's release of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that said Tehran halted nuclear weapons development in late 2003 under international pressure.

The chief U.S. envoy to the IAEA, Gregory L. Schulte, said the U.S. assessment contained ``some positive news'' and raised hopes of a peaceful and diplomatic end to the standoff.

``It does make us more hopeful that diplomacy can succeed, but for diplomacy to succeed, we still need to keep the pressure on while giving Iran a negotiated way out,'' Schulte told reporters in Vienna.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7126061,00.html

If you listen to Bush's response to the NIE, he now says that the "knowledge to build a nuclear weapon" is what we must prevent Iran from having (he repeated this phrase as is common for the proper "catapulting" of lies). Not actual weapons, materials, or programs, but simply the knowledge itself is what he is setting up as justification for another war. This is a preemptive version of the lowering of the Iraq WMD claims that was performed after evidence failed to turn up of Saddam's "mushroom cloud" ability. Before the war it was actual WMD, then it was WMD programs, then it was (I still love the wording) WMD "related program activities." Not even actual programs, just related activities - whatever the hell that means.

And further, if anyone thinks this NIE will stop Bush and Cheney from bombing or invading Iran, you're wrong I'm afraid. Bush is a dangerous and violent child who sees himself on a mission from God to transform the Middle East, and Cheney is simply the intellectual murderer-from-afar who considers the Middle East worthless unless it's a profit center for Halliburton and their corporate cousins. Nothing short of mutiny within the administration itself will prevent another war. But the good news is - that might be exactly what we have, this NIE being evidence of it.

Welcome to DU!

:hi:

Welcome to DU :toast:

But for me, though, my suspicions were confirmed a few years ago when he declared that democracy was "the Almighty's gift" to the world. I believe he thinks that God is acting through him. And if you're taking orders from God, what does a little intelligence estimate matter?

:toast:

These guys wrote the book on word parsing.. it must be taught at Repug schools.

Did *crew think we would not notice the extra word "knowledge"?

How typically arrogant.

Had been denying that they had a NWP and then said that Armadinajhan(sp) had said that when he was first elected that he start back up their NWP.

with these islamofascists.

Bush should think about bombing the universities that produce the physicists who will eventually build the Bomb.

Or bomb the kindergartens that produce the students that go to universities to become physicists who will build the Bomb.


:sarcasm: