Love of the Land: The IAEA's Iran Failure

The IAEA's Iran Failure

JINSA Report #: 920
September 1, 2009

The latest IAEA report on Iran has a short summary:

• Iran keeps its nuclear material neat and tidy

• Iran has not suspended enrichment as required by the UN Security Council

• Iran is not cooperating with the IAEA

No surprises, but an oddity. Mention is made in the body of the report of the "alleged green salt project." The IAEA appears to have shown Iran evidence of such a project and suggests a problem with Iranian honesty regarding both the project's existence and Iran's intentions. Noting its own inability to get answers, the report says:

With respect to the letter with handwritten annotations which was part of the documentation related to the alleged green salt project, Iran has confirmed the existence of the underlying letter, has shown the original to the Agency and has provided the Agency with a copy of it. The existence of this original demonstrates a direct link between the relevant documentation and Iran. As already requested of Iran, the Agency needs to see further related correspondence and to have access to the individuals named in the letter.

This is not a small matter. "Green salt" is uranium tetrafluoride, which can be used to make fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb. According to American sources, in 2004 the CIA came into possession of an Iranian laptop computer with data on tests for high explosives, a design for a missile re-entry vehicle and a diagram of a green-salt production line. Time magazine wrote at the time, "Separately, those areas of research could imply fairly benign intentions. But if an Iranian military agency has been coordinating all the research, the U.S. assessment is 'you're talking about a nuclear-tipped missile,' says a senior official with access to the intelligence reports."

Five long and unsatisfactory years later, during which Iran has presumably been working away on the "alleged" green salt project, the IAEA proposes the following:

The Agency believes that it has provided Iran with sufficient access...to enable Iran to respond substantively to questions...However, the Director General urges Member States which have provided documentation to the Agency to work out new modalities with the Agency so that it could share further documentation with Iran, as appropriate, since the Agency's inability to do so is rendering it difficult for the Agency to progress further in its verification process.

In other words, because the IAEA has failed to get the Iranians to cooperate, or even acknowledge the evidence in front of it, the United States (the "Member State") should share more ("new modalities") of its intelligence information, so the IAEA can share it with Iran.

The IAEA summary includes two final points:

• Iran must cooperate

• The Director General will continue to report

Love of the Land: The IAEA's Iran Failure