Bibi Lied to UN in 2012, Likely to Lie to US Next Week
Look carefully. Are his lips moving?
Benjamin Netanyahu overstated Iran’s nuclear technology in 2012 when he used his bomb cartoon in an address to the United Nations. The Guardian and Al Jazeera have released a trove of documents relating to Iran’s nuclear program and one of the key documents was prepared by Mossad to brief South Africa just a few short weeks after the famous speech. From The Guardian:
Binyamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document.
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Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process.
But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.
As The Guardian notes, although Bibi’s darling little cartoon makes little to no distinction between the steps of enriching uranium to 20% and enriching it to the 90%+ needed for a bomb, the Mossad document (pdf) states that Iran “is not ready” to enrich to the higher levels needed for a bomb:
Despite that clear information that Mossad surely already had at the time of the UN speech (h/t Andrew Fishman for the link), Netanyahu chose to portray Iran as ready to zip through the final stage of enrichment:
Now they’re well into the second stage. And by next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.
So Netanyahu described a step that the Mossad described Iran as not even ready to start and turned it into something Iran was eager to accomplish in a few weeks. Simply put, that is a lie.
Of further note in the document is information relating to the heavy water reactor under construction at Arak. Although it doesn’t appear that Netanyahu mentioned it in the UN speech, it often is portrayed as another rapid route to a nuclear weapon for Iran, because, when finally functioning, it could produce plutonium that could be used in a bomb. Mossad found, however, that Iran was still a couple of years away from having the reactor functioning. Further, Mossad realized that Iran needs a fuel reprocessing facility (that it does not have) in order to use the plutonium in a bomb:
It should also be noted that those two years have elapsed and the reactor still has not been powered up. Further, there are proposals that the reactor can be modified to make it produce a dramatically lower amount of plutonium.
These documents have been released with very important timing. As I noted last week, Netanyahu aims to destroy the P5+1 negotiations with Iran. By pointing out his lies two years ago, we should be in a better position to see through whatever obfuscation he delivers next week. But with a new air of bipartisany-ness, to his visit, don’t look for Washington politicians to be the ones to point out his next round of lies.
Postscript: I am significantly behind on my homework. I owe Marcy a careful reading of the technical documents from the Sterling trial and need to follow up more fully on the suggestions that false documents (including the Laptop of Death?) were planted with Iran for the IAEA to discover. Now with this new trove of documents and the looming date of Netanyahu’s visit, I need to get busy (on something other than planting blueberries)!
this should be all there is to it to the extraordinary enduring lie generated and perpetuated by israel and tbe united states that iran is, and has been, building an atomic weapon:
[ … As The Guardian notes, although Bibi’s darling little cartoon makes little to no distinction between the steps of enriching uranium to 20% and enriching it to the 90%+ needed for a bomb, the Mossad document (pdf) states that Iran “is not ready” to enrich to the higher levels needed for a bomb:
… Despite that clear information that Mossad surely already had at the time of the UN speech (h/t Andrew Fishman for the link), Netanyahu chose to portray Iran as ready to zip through the final stage of enrichment: … ].
that should be the end of sanctions against iran, right?
will it be?
nah.
not so long as our republican political leaders continue to work hyper-diligently to capture the loyalty of democrat zionist zealots into the republican party in order to use them for anti-contraception, anti-banking regulation, anti-carbon emissions regulations, etc.
screw the homework, your baseball reporting was more fun to read :))
“…before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.”
Again, a bomb can’t be built using highly enriched uranium, it must be converted to metal, a difficult process.
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Anyhow the real issue isn’t nuclear, it is ME hegemony. Iran has it and the US wants it. (Unfortunately handing Iraq to Iran was a backward step, but the US came up with ISIS to solve that.)
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So the “negotiations” are meant to result in a way to keep the US boot on the Iran neck, but that will be unacceptable to Iran, as it should be.
Bibi lied to the UN?? Ya don’t say. Water is wet, the sky is blue, blah de blah.
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Truly don’t mean to make light of your post. Just had to say it. Bibi’s a monster, but sadly he seems to “our” monster… or is Bibi running the US? Hard to tell from the peanut gallery sometimes.
Someone ought to “pie” Bibi when he shows up. I think a nice blueberry pie would do, don’t you think? A sterling idea.
Let’s put our thinking caps on and try to think of a government that DOESN’T lie. Bhutan, perhaps?
I’ve done some research on Bhutan in advance of a hoped for trip there either later this year or next year. Depends on which govt and when vis Bhutan. Like most tribes/nations, they’ve had their own smallish imperialistic things going on back in the eons of time.
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It does appear as if the Monarchy and govt there are striving for honesty and fair treatment of their citizens. My still somewhat ignorant “take” on Bhutan is that it seems to be among the very few (not sure who else might fall into the category) that is trying to lead a more honest and transparent govt.
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That said, one has to agree that the USA and Israel have been taking the dishonesty sweepstakes to ever lower levels than I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. Of course, these things are cyclic. But…
One of the most irritating aspects of this non-story is the continued credence given to the idea that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme.
It has been abundantly clear for years that, as the CIA and other US Intelligence agencies have confirmed, it has not had any such programme in this century.
The idea that it might have, a possibility which has been used an excuse to inflict enormous suffering on the Iranian people, is only sustained by underhand tricks of the sort the Merlin programme exemplified.
It is time for the warmongers’ rumours, half truths and outright fabrications not to be tolerated.
What those who suggest that there is any evidence at all of an arms programme in Iran are engaged in is conspiracy to murder by imperialist adventure. Decent people should shun these liars-at the very least they should protest against taxes being used to facilitate the evil.
Given their history of invading, pillaging and plundering their neighbors if I lived next to the Israelis I’d spend every extra dime I had on getting a nuclear weapon. Anyone living in their area who doesn’t do so is foolish.