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Albright Rushes to CNN With New Satellite Imagery Claims on Parchin After Debunking

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Yesterday, in a post titled Rumored Satellite Imagery of Parchin “Clean-Up” Fails to Materialize, Claim Debunked, I pointed out both Gareth Porter’s debunking of the “Parchin is being cleaned up” claim and added further evidence against the claims that Parchin was being cleaned of evidence from work to develop a neutron trigger device.

It appears that David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security was unable to remain silent in the face of my statement that satellite imagery to back up the claims that Parchin is being cleaned has not been produced for inspection. My post went up before 10 am yesterday, and at 6:05 pm, CNN’s Security Clearance blog put up a post with “new” claims from Albright about satellite imagery from Parchin. Albright’s news is that he claims to have identified the building where work on a high-explosives-based trigger for a nuclear weapon is alleged to be taking place.

Albright is now trying to move the story back to trigger device research being high-explosives based, while the AP’s George Jahn’s claims that Porter was debunking relate to a possible neutron trigger. As I pointed out in yesterday’s post, the concept of “cleaning” away evidence from work with a radioactive trigger device is nonsense, as traces of the radioactivity would still be left behind. The Iranians were also quick to point this out, as cited in the post.

CNN’s “scoop” from Albright:

In an exclusive interview with Security Clearance, David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said commercial satellite imagery shows a building on the sprawling Parchin military complex just south of Tehran that may be the location of a high-explosive test chamber.

 Albright, who is a former U.N. weapons inspector, and his colleague Paul Brannan said in an analysis provided to Security Clearance that the building is notable because it “is located on a relatively small and isolated compound within the Parchin military site and has its own perimeter security wall or fencing.  A berm can be seen between this building and a neighboring building.”

The CNN blog post then goes on to note that although Albright and ISIS have been scouring all the satellite images they can find, they can’t confirm the claims of cleaning activity at Parchin.

Over at Moon of Alabama, b has noted that the IAEA visited Parchin twice in 2005, but CNN cuts that down to one visit: “The IAEA has had only one, limited tour of Parchin. That was in 2005.”

Also, more importantly, CNN is back to ignoring the fact that the high explosives work at Parchin is truly dual use technology. It was also pointed out by b that creation of nanodiamonds is actually the specialty of the expert the Iranians have employed in their high explosives work. CNN allows an unnamed US official to ignore the nanodiamond application and lie outright that the high explosives work can only be weapons-related:

The senior U.S. official also said the evidence is clear from this site that Iran had pursued a weapons program. “There is no other reason to conduct explosion compression in the context of Iran other than nuclear testing. There is only one thing they could be trying to simulate and that is a nuclear explosion,” the official said.

It’s so nice that CNN will allow a “senior U.S. official who would not speak for attribution because of the sensitivity of the information” to promote lies that have already been disproven.

While Obama Urges Caution, Netanyahu, McConnell, IAEA Fan Anti-Iran Rhetoric, Iran Takes Positive Diplomatic Steps

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdECxrhmFbc[/youtube]

President Obama and his administration have spent the last week trying to point out the extreme downside to an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Unfortunately, Obama’s words of caution are getting little play while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made appearances before the war-hungry mob at AIPAC to make the case for an attack now. In the meantime, Iran took positive diplomatic steps that are likely to be overlooked, reversing a death-sentence conviction on an accused US spy and committing to an IAEA visit to the disputed Parchin site.

As seen in the video above, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano made public statements associated with his appearance before the Board of Governors.  From his prepared remarks:

As my report on Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran makes clear, the Agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.

In January and February, a senior Agency team held two rounds of talks in Tehran with Iranian officials aimed at resolving all outstanding issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme. Despite intensive discussions, there was no agreement on a structured approach to resolving these issues. Iran did not grant access to the Parchin site during the visits, as requested by the Agency. Iran provided an initial declaration on the issues listed in the Annex to my November 2011 report, although it did not address the Agency’s concerns in a substantive manner. During the visits, the Agency also submitted questions on Parchin and the possible role of a foreign expert.

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh dismissed Amano’s report as “only a summary of his earlier report“. Today, Soltanieh announced that Iran remains prepared to define the conditions under which IAEA will be allowed access to Parchin: Read more →

Iran: Parallel to 2003 Rhetoric, Senate War Lobby Objects to Negotiations, IAEA Visit Controversial

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Writing on the front page of today’s New York Times, Scott Shane finally states what should have been obvious to anyone paying attention to the steady drumbeat from the war mongers over the last couple of years:

Echoes of the period leading up to the Iraq war in 2003 are unmistakable, igniting a familiar debate over whether journalists are overstating Iran’s progress toward a bomb.

Shane notes that this time, as opposed to 2003, the Obama administration is trying to calm the war rhetoric instead of inflaming it as the Bush administration did in 2003.

However, the the bellicose Israel  war lobby in the US Senate is more than willing to take up the cause of war as the only answer. A “bipartisan” group consisting of Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Pat Toomey (R-PA),  Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John McCain (R-AZ), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), James Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) has penned a letter to President Obama, trying to take away the major negotiated settlement which could avert war. In the letter, they state:

Second, we believe it is absolutely essential that the United States and its partners make clear to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran that we intend to continue ratcheting up this pressure-through comprehensive implementation of existing sanctions as well as imposition of new measures-until there is a full and complete resolution of all components of illicit Iranian nuclear activities. This must include, at a minimum, the full, verifiable, and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and heavy water-related activities, as required by multiple UN Security Council resolutions.

This is a pre-emptive strike by the Israel war lobby in the Senate to prevent a negotiated settlement in which Iran suspends its work enriching uranium to the 20% level. From an editorial in today’s Washington Post:

 In fact, it appears likely that Tehran perceives talks as an opportunity to undermine sanctions. Mr. Jalili’s letter referred to negotiations “based on step-by-step principles and reciprocity,” language that could describe a proposal originally put forward by Russia last year. Moscow outlined a sequence of steps in which Iran would receive relief from sanctions in exchange for incremental actions to satisfy the IAEA. Iran rejected the idea, but now the P5+1, urged on by the Obama administration, is discussing a modified version. Reportedly, it could grant some sanctions relief if Iran suspended only its higher-level enrichment of uranium, and surrendered material enriched to that 20 percent level.

Clearly, the war mongers in the Senate are demanding that sanctions be ratcheted up substantially, with complete capitulation by Iran being the only way to remove any sanctions. In other words, the Senate group is demanding that negotiations be structured in a way that they are doomed.

Yesterday’s second visit by an IAEA delegation to Iran is being reported widely in the press as a failure. For example, Reuters says: Read more →

Iran Loads Domestically Produced Fuel Plates into Tehran Reactor

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In a move that is sure to disappoint war hawks who have been convinced that Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 20% has been to produce material for further enrichment to the 90%+ needed for nuclear weapons, Iran today very publicly had President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad load the first domestically produced nuclear fuel plates (which use 20% enriched uranium) into the Tehran reactor which is used to produce medically useful radioisotopes.  From Mehr News:

The Tehran reactor was loaded with domestically produced nuclear fuel plates during a ceremony held on Wednesday to unveil Iran’s latest nuclear achievements.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Director Fereydoun Abbasi, presidential aide Mojtaba Hashemi-Samareh, the Chinese and Russian ambassadors to Iran, and a number of other foreign diplomats attended the event.

During the ceremony, a number of domestically produced radioisotopes, which are used for the treatment cancer, were also unveiled.

The same article also noted that Iran has increased its capacity for low-grade enrichment to 3.5%:

On Wednesday, the first cascade of a new generation of centrifuges was also installed at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility and was brought on line.

With the installation of the new centrifuges, the capacity of the facility for the production of 3.5 percent enriched uranium was increased by 50 percent.

Further frustrating those who want to say Iran is moving rapidly toward construction of a nuclear weapon, Iran also took the next formal steps toward re-establishment of the Group 5 + 1 negotiations on nuclear technology:

Iran’s chief negotiator and Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Saeed Jalili sent a reply to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s letter about talks between Tehran and the six world powers, and welcomed resumption of negotiations between the two sides.

According to the secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in the letter which was delivered to Ashton’s office on Wednesday, Jalili welcomed the readiness of the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain, France and the US plus Germany) to resume talks with Iran.

The Iranian chief negotiator underlined in his letter that returning to the negotiation table would be the best means to broaden cooperation between the two sides.

Despite the fear-mongering over Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Iran provided its alternate explanation yet again for why it had to produce its own 20% enriched uranium for the Tehran reactor:

After Iran announced to the IAEA that it had run out of nuclear fuel for its research reactor in Tehran, the Agency proposed a deal according to which Iran would send 3.5%-enriched uranium and receive 20-percent-enriched uranium from potential suppliers in return, all through the UN nuclear watchdog agency.

The proposal was first introduced on October 1, 2010, when Iranian representatives and diplomats from the Group 5+1 held high-level talks in Geneva.

But France and the United States, as potential suppliers, stalled the talks soon after the start. They offered a deal which would keep Tehran waiting for months before it could obtain the fuel, a luxury of time that Iran could afford as it was about to run out of 20-percent-enriched uranium.

Stay tuned for further developments to see how Iran’s use of a large portion of its 20% enriched uranium in the Tehran reactor will still result in their being described as on the fast track to a weapon by those who want a war there.

Iran Repeats Claim Research Reactor Fuel Plates Object of Enrichment as IAEA Visit Could Be Extended

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It has generally been viewed as a positive development that Iran has agreed to new visits from the IAEA to help ease the tension surrounding its nuclear program. Especially encouraging is a report in the New York Times this morning that Iran has asked the IAEA to extend the current visit that is underway:

Iran’s foreign minister was reported on Monday to have offered to extend a three-day visit to his country by United Nations inspectors in what seemed a further attempt to lower the strident tone of a crisis with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program following the imposition of new economic sanctions.

But the Times moved quickly to caveats on this potential good news. The next paragraph:

But it was not clear whether the offer was part of what European officials have termed efforts by Tehran to buy time while continuing uranium enrichment. Iran says the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes while Western leaders say Tehran is seeking to build nuclear weapons.

One key development the Times misses in this coverage is an announcement relating to the use of the uranium enriched to 20%, which has been at the heart of the current disagreements. Fars News reports today that Iran is putting the finishing touches on nuclear fuel plates for a research reactor that produces medical isotopes. Iran has claimed all along that the 20% enriched uranium was needed to produce new fuel plates for this reactor. Fabrication and installation of these plates would preclude the uranium in those plates being further enriched to weapons grade. From Fars News:

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stressed the country’s ability to convert enriched uranium into fuel plates to supply fuel for the Tehran research reactor, saying the first consignment of 20-percent enriched fuel for the reactor will be ready in the coming months. Read more →

The Upside of Evidence-Free Nuke Accusations Against Iran? We Can Declare Victory!

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One would think that, within a month of the US finally withdrawing its troops (leaving behind a vast mercenary force) from the nearly nine year nightmare in Iraq that was launched on the basis of evidence-free accusations, and only days after President Obama signed into permanency his ability to detain citizens forever without providing a shred of evidence, the Washington Post would refrain from giving Joby Warrick a chance to yammer again from the basis of unsupportable allegations that Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. But this is the Post we’re talking about, and the same bill that gave Obama indefinite detention powers also tightened the screws on Iran, so it was necessary to bring Warrick out to put forth the latest transcribed version of US spin.

Warrick’s piece, at the time of this writing, is occupying the most prominent position on the home page of the Post’s website, where it has the teaser headline “Iran fears worst as West steps up pressure”. Clicking through to the article gives the headline “As currency crisis and feud with West deepen, Iranians brace for war”. The overall spin that the US is projecting through this transcription is that both the Iranian government and Iranian citizens are feeling the almighty power of the US sanctions and that they are in a state of depressed resignation to the inevitability of war, while the US government is seeing that its brilliant moves are paying off and we just might not need to proceed to the point of an overt attack. I guess that is the upside of moving forward with public sanctions (and covert actions that already constitute a full-on war) based on manufactured evidence: it is also possible to manufacture evidence that allows us to declare victory and (hopefully) move on.

There is, of course, a flip side to that same argument. As commenter Dan succinctly put it in my post from yesterday where we were discussing the risk of all-out war stemming from the US sanctions:

All this risk to punish a country for something no one has proven it has done.

With that as background, here is how the Post article opens:

TEHRAN — At a time when U.S. officials are increasingly confident that economic and political pressure alone may succeed in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the mood here has turned bleak and belligerent as Iranians prepare grimly for a period of prolonged hardship and, they fear, war.

A bit further along, we get the US gloating on its “successful” approach:

The sense of impending confrontation is not shared in Washington and other Western capitals, where government officials and analysts expressed cautious satisfaction that their policies are working. Read more →

Russia’s Description of Sodium-22 in Bag Headed for Iran As “Work of a Nuclear Reactor” Misleading

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In a cyclotron, the magnetic "dees" accelerate ions to very high speeds in an outwardly spiraling path before they hit the target. (Diagram from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Radioactive sodium-22 has been found in a bag checked at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport that was headed for Tehran. The earliest reports on this finding were quite misleading, as the initial statement from Russia indicated that the material “could only have been obtained as the result of the work of a nuclear reactor“.

The problem with the Russian statement is that sodium-22 is in fact produced in a device called a cyclotron and not in the type of nuclear reactor containing uranium that most folks think of when they hear that term. Cyclotrons work by using very strong magnetic fields to accelerate ions (atoms stripped of one or more electrons so that they have an electric charge) to very high speeds before they are slammed into a target. The name “cyclotron” derives from the fact that the path traveled by the ions is circular (more accurately spiral).  In the case of sodium-22, the ions are deuterons. Deuterons are ions of heavy hydrogen, known as deuterium, which contain one proton and one neutron (and thus have a net charge of plus one), rather than just the solitary proton found in normal hydrogen.  When deuterons are accelerated to very high speeds and then made to slam into a target of magnesium, the normal magnesium-24 atoms absorb a deuteron and then quickly eject an alpha particle (a helium nucleus with two protons and two neutrons), turning into sodium-22.

Sodium-22 emits both a positron (this is the antimatter form of an electron, or an electron with a positive rather than a negative charge) and high energy gamma ray (like an X-ray), with a half-life of 2.6 years. It can be used in biological experiments as a “tracer”, buts its most common use in medical technology appears to be for calibration of an instrument known as a gamma probe.

The earliest reports on this story only included the Russian statement that the radioactive material only could have come from a nuclear reactor, but later reports are clearing up parts of the misleading nature of that statement. For example, at the time of this writing, the Reuters story, which has been evolving rapidly, characterizes sodium-22 as “an isotope that is used in medical equipment but has no weapons use”. Further, the story says:

Sodium-22 can be used for calibrating nuclear detectors and in medical equipment, nuclear experts said.

“There is no weapons aspect to this (material),” said Research director Lars-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defense Research Institute.

It is not clear at all why Iran would need sodium-22 from an outside source, since Iran has registered a cyclotron with the IAEA (pdf, see page 167) that is stated to be used in the production of medical-related isotopes and is capable of producing high energy deuterons. Since Iran does have over 100 nuclear medicine departments, it would be reasonable to expect that there is demand for sodium-22 in calibration of equipment.

The sodium-22 in the luggage was in steel containers:

“Eighteen metallic objects of industrial origin were found, packed into individual steel boxes,” it [the Russian statement] said.

It is also not clear why this material would be shipped in airline baggage rather than through normal medical/industrial channels. Since sodium-22 is not used in weapons work, it would seem that there would be no prohibition on its importation into Iran. Reuters notes that the passenger shipping the luggage was an Iranian national and left Russia, presumably on the flight for which the bag was checked.  Russia has started a criminal investigation.

Update:  Here is Iran’s side of the story, from Mehr News:

Iranian ambassador to Moscow has said that Russian customs officers’ decision to temporarily hold an Iranian dental student at one of Moscow’s main airports was the result of a misunderstanding.

According to Reuters, Russia’s customs service said on Friday it had seized radioactive sodium-22, an isotope that is used in medical equipment but has no weapons use, from the luggage of an Iranian passenger planning to fly from Moscow to Tehran.

The material triggered an alarm in the airport’s radiation control system and a luggage search led to the discovery of 18 pieces of the radioactive metal packed in individual steel casings, the report claimed.

“Over a month ago, a dental student in Moscow, (before) flying to Iran, was (found) in possession of a material related to his work, which caused a misunderstanding for customs officials. Later, it turned out that it was not a special case, and the student continued his trip,” Ambassador Reza Sajjadi said.