[THS] Gareth Porter: U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesnt Add Up

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23594.htm

U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn't Add Up

By Analysis by Gareth Porter

September 30, 2009 "IPS" -- WASHINGTON, Sep 29 (IPS) - The story line that
dominated media coverage of the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility last
week was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to
conceal a "secret" nuclear facility.

But an analysis of the transcript of that briefing by senior administration officials that
was the sole basis for the news stories and other evidence reveals damaging
admissions, conflicts with the facts and unanswered questions that undermine its
credibility.

Iran's notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the second
enrichment facility in a letter on Sep. 21 was buried deep in most of the news stories
and explained as a response to being detected by U.S. intelligence. In reporting the
story in that way, journalists were relying entirely on the testimony of "senior
administration officials" who briefed them at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh Friday.

U.S. intelligence had "learned that the Iranians learned that the secrecy of the facility
was compromised", one of the officials said, according to the White House transcript.
The Iranians had informed the IAEA, he asserted, because "they came to believe that
the value of the facility as a secret facility was no longer valid..."

Later in the briefing, however, the official said "we believe", rather than "we
learned", in referring to that claim, indicating that it is only an inference rather than
being based on hard intelligence.

The official refused to explain how U.S. analysts had arrived at that conclusion, but
an analysis by the defence intelligence consulting firm IHS Jane's of a satellite photo
of the site taken Saturday said there is a surface-to-air missile system located at the
site.

Since surface-to-air missiles protect many Iranian military sites, however, their
presence at the Qom site doesn't necessarily mean that Iran believed that
Washington had just discovered the enrichment plant.

The official said the administration had organised an intelligence briefing on the
facility for the IAEA during the summer on the assumption that the Iranians might
"choose to disclose the facility themselves". But he offered no explanation for the fact
that there had been no briefing given to the IAEA or anyone else until Sep. 24 -
three days after the Iranians disclosed the existence of the facility.

A major question surrounding the official story is why the Barack Obama
administration had not done anything – and apparently had no plans to do anything
- with its intelligence on the Iranian facility at Qom prior to the Iranian letter to the
IAEA. When asked whether the administration had intended to keep the information
in its intelligence briefing secret even after the meeting with the Iranians on Oct. 1,
the senior official answered obliquely but revealingly, "I think it's impossible to turn
back the clock and say what might have been otherwise."

In effect, the answer was no, there had been no plan for briefing the IAEA or
anyone.

News media played up the statement by the senior administration official that U.S.
intelligence had been "aware of this facility for years".

But what was not reported was that he meant only that the U.S. was aware of a
possible nuclear site, not one whose function was known.

The official in question acknowledged the analysts had not been able to identify it as
an enrichment facility for a long time. In the "very early stage of construction," said
the official, "a facility like this could have multiple uses." Intelligence analysts had to
"wait until the facility had reached the stage of construction where it was undeniably
intended for use as a centrifuge facility," he explained.

The fact that the administration had made no move to brief the IAEA or other
governments on the site before Iran revealed its existence suggests that site had not
yet reached that stage where the evidence was unambiguous.

A former U.S. official who has seen the summary of the administration's intelligence
used to brief foreign governments told IPS he doubts the intelligence community had
hard evidence that the Qom site was an enrichment plant. "I think they didn't have
the goods on them," he said.

Also misleading was the official briefing's characterisation of the intelligence
assessment on the purpose of the enrichment plant. The briefing concluded that the
Qom facility must be for production of weapons-grade enriched uranium, because it
will accommodate only 3,000 centrifuges, which would be too few to provide fuel for
a nuclear power plant.

According to the former U.S. official who has read the briefing paper on the
intelligence assessment, however, the paper says explicitly that the Qom facility is "a
possible military facility". That language indicates that intelligence analysts have
suggested that the facility may be for making low-enriched rather than for high-
enriched, bomb-grade uranium.

It also implies that the senior administration official briefing the press was deliberately
portraying the new enrichment facility in more menacing terms than the actual
intelligence assessment.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's offer the day after the denunciation of
the site by U.S., British and French leaders to allow IAEA monitoring of the plant will
make it far more difficult to argue that it was meant to serve military purposes.

The circumstantial evidence suggests that Iran never intended to keep the Qom
facility secret from the IAEA but was waiting to make it public at a moment that
served its political-diplomatic objectives.

The Iranian government is well aware of U.S. capabilities for monitoring from satellite
photographs any site in Iran that exhibits certain characteristics.

Iran obviously wanted to make the existence of the Qom site public before
construction on the site would clearly indicate an enrichment purpose. But it gave the
IAEA no details in its initial announcement, evidently hoping to find out whether and
how much the United States already knew about it.

The specific timing of the Iranian letter, however, appears to be related to the
upcoming talks between Iran and the P5+1 - China, France, Britain, Russia, the
United States and Germany - and an emerging Iranian strategy of smaller back-up
nuclear facilities that would assure continuity if Natanz were attacked.

The Iranian announcement of that decision on Sep. 14 coincided with a statement by
the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, warning against
preemptive strikes against the country's nuclear facilities.

The day after the United States, Britain and France denounced the Qom facility as
part of a deception, Salehi said, "Considering the threats, our organisation decided to
do what is necessary to preserve and continue our nuclear activities. So we decided
to build new installations which will guarantee the continuation of our nuclear
activities which will never stop at any cost."

As satellite photos of the site show, the enrichment facility at Qom is being built into
the side of a mountain, making it less vulnerable to destruction, even with the latest
bunker-busting U.S. bombs.

The pro-administration newspaper Kayhan quoted an "informed official" as saying
that Iran had told the IAEA in 2004 that it had to do something about the threat of
attack on its nuclear facilities "repeatedly posed by the western countries".

The government newspaper called the existence of the second uranium enrichment
plan "a winning card" that would increase Iran's bargaining power in the talks. That
presumably referred to neutralising the ultimate coercive threat against Iran by the
United States.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national
security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance:
Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

(FIN/2009)