Reply #5: The New York Times’ ‘fit to print’ version of the IAEA in Iran [View All]

[Ghost Dog]

August 31, 2009
by Jeremy R. Hammond

The New York Times is putting out its standard fare on Iran’s nuclear program as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) releases its latest report. Under the headline “Atomic Agency is Pressed on Iran Records”, the Times reported last week that the U.S. is “pressing” the IAEA “to make public evidence that they believe points toward an Iranian drive to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon, part of a broad effort to build a case for far more punishing sanctions against the country.”

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So, you see, in the version of reality fit for print, the IAEA is keeping credible evidence from the public that shows that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The U.S. itself has admittedly kept this information under wraps in the past, but now there is a change of course under the Obama administration, which wants this information made public. The head of the IAEA, on the other hand, supports Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium, despite having knowledge of this evidence that they are trying to build the bomb.

And so, if we draw the proper conclusion (which is to say, the conclusion we are supposed to arrive at), when the IAEA’s report doesn’t find Iran in breach of its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), we will know that it is because the IAEA is engaged in a cover up.

This is a truly remarkable version of events, given the actual facts, which are uncontroversial and acknowledged by the Times either here or elsewhere. The “evidence” in question is information purported to have come from a laptop computer that was purportedly smuggled out of Iran and obtained by U.S. intelligence. The U.S. insists the laptop documents show strong evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. The IAEA refers to them in their reports as “the alleged studies”, appropriately (if we disbelieve the new official version, that is).

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The updated version, despite its numerous holes, serves a purpose. We learn elsewhere in the U.S. media that the IAEA’s latest report “finds evidence of slowed uranium enrichment” on the part of Iran “and of increased cooperation on the monitoring of known nuclear installations”, both findings that “could throw a wrench in President Obama’s plans to seek tougher international sanctions on Iran”.

These, the expected findings of the IAEA, are unsuitable for U.S. policy, and so an alternate reality was necessary to make the IAEA report more amenable, in anticipation of the report’s release. If the report doesn’t provide support for U.S. policy, the reason is because the IAEA is involved in a cover-up.

Flipping reality on its head, the Times parrots the line from the Obama administration, presented anonymously, for reasons unknown (other than that it relates to “intelligence data” that was long ago declassified). The fact that the administration’s version is contradicted by the known and admitted facts is a matter of no concern to the Times, which relays the new official line dutifully, without scrutiny or even the slightest attempt to reconcile glaring contradictions in its story.

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ElBaradei’s “successor, Japan’s veteran IAEA envoy Yukiya Amano, has said he has not seen any evidence in the agency’s files that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.” This is a point that has been repeatedly reiterated by the outgoing Director General, such as his remark at the World Economic Forum last year that “We haven’t seen indications or any concrete evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and I’ve been saying that consistently for the last five years.”

This is an inconvenient truth for the Obama administration, which must therefore fabricate its own alternate reality to present to the public in its effort to garner support for its policy of punishing Iran for daring to defy Washington by insisting on the terms of the NPT, which states that nothing may prejudice the right of member nations to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

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Among other inconvenient facts, we must forget that we’ve seen this kind of demonization of ElBaradei before, when he was saying that Iraq had no nuclear program, or when he informed the world that documents the U.S. had touted as proving that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Africa were in fact not authentic. We must put aside that the IAEA was correct in its assessment that Iraq had no such program, that the aluminum tubes the U.S. insisted were for enrichment centrifuges were in fact for a conventional rocket program, and so on. This must all go down the memory hole—with the help of the familiar “change of course” doctrine—so we can be made to believe that ElBaradei is a sympathizer with the Iranian regime and its efforts to obtain the bomb.

And so it goes.

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