IAEA confirms Iranian nuclear weapons program - By Anne Bayefsky

IAEA reports Iran sought nuclear bomb and is still lying.
Yet Obama prepares to drop Iran sanctions on December 15, 2015 "Implementation Day"

By Anne Bayefsky
Human Rights Voices
December 4, 2015

On December 2, 2015 the UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued its final report required under the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). It determines that Iran actively pursued a nuclear weapon, deliberately covered up its activities and continues to lie about it.

Its conclusions ought to be disturbing. In particular, the report indicates that the Agency does not have the facts necessary to establish a baseline for knowing how close Iran is to the acquisition of a nuclear explosive device (due directly to Iran's non-cooperation and clandestine behavior). The Iranian nuclear deal - and the massive sanctions relief it provides - is therefore poised to go into effect without the facts necessary to guarantee Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons.

In the IAEA report, entitled "Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran's Nuclear Programme," the Agency finds that Iran

1. engaged in "clandestine" procurements for its nuclear fuel cycle activities, (paras 25, 26, 35)
2. has been and continues to be dishonest about multiple dimensions of its past nuclear program, (paras 22, 23, 27, 34, 37, 61)
3. engaged in a cover-up of its activities at the Parchin military complex, (paras 57, 80)
4. denied the Agency requested access to one of three workshops for designing a missile delivery vehicle after claiming that it was "no longer in business," (a request made as part of the probe mandated by the nuclear deal itself), ( paras 70, 71, 72) and
5. had indeed engaged in "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device..." (paras 85, 87)

The report, therefore, has two main conclusions.

"¢ First, "The Agency's overall assessment is that a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place after 2003..." (para 87)
"¢ Second, "the Agency has no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009" (para 87) – with the caveat that its "overall assessment" is "based on all the information available to the Agency."

Click here for key excerpts of the "Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran's Nuclear Programme."

Click here for a full timeline of Iran's steady march towards the acquisition of a nuclear weapon and its interaction with the United Nations. The organization sworn "to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace" is actually watching the clock run out on the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism acquiring the world's most dangerous weapon.

Anne Bayefsky is the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices. Follow her @AnneBayefsky.