Bloomberg Bombshell:

IAEA Relies on Doctored U.S. Info on Iran

VIENNA (Dispatches) -- Details of a 15-year-old Central Intelligence Agency sting emerging from a court case in the U.S. may prompt United Nations monitors to reassess some evidence related to Iran’s nuclear program, Bloomberg cited two western diplomats as saying.

Date: 21 February 2015 - 21:44

News ID: ۱۱۲۱۹

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Vienna will probably review intelligence they received about Iran as a result of the revelations, said the two diplomats who are familiar with the IAEA’s Iran file and asked not to be named because the details are confidential. The CIA passed doctored blueprints for nuclear-weapon components to Iran in February 2000, trial documents have shown.
"This story suggests a possibility that hostile intelligence agencies could decide to plant a ‘smoking gun’ in Iran for the IAEA to find,” said Peter Jenkins, the UK’s former envoy to the Vienna-based agency. "That looks like a big problem.”
While Iranian officials have consistently accused the IAEA of basing its case on forged documents, the agency has never acknowledged receiving tampered evidence.
CIA Whistle-Blower
A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency carries out a thorough assessment of the information it receives.
The CIA documents were filed as evidence to an Alexandria, Virginia court on Jan. 14 for the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, who was convicted of leaking classified information about operations against Iran. Sterling worked on a CIA project aimed at misleading Iranian scientists by feeding modified designs for nuclear-weapons components to the country’s IAEA mission in Austria.
"The goal is to plant this substantial piece of deception information on the Iranian nuclear-weapons program, sending them down blind alleys, wasting their time and money,” according to a May 1997 cable submitted to the court.
The project remains relevant because elements of the IAEA’s suspicions about Iran rest on older information provided by intelligence agencies.
The IAEA reported Thursday that its 12-year probe of Iran has stalled.
"While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material” inspectors cannot "conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities”, the IAEA said in its quarterly report.
The CIA sting shows the kind of tactics that the U.S. and its allies have used against Iran, according to Dan Joyner, a law professor at the University of Alabama.
"The falsification of nuclear-related documents is a very real part of such states’ efforts to frustrate Iran’s nuclear program,” said Joyner, who has written extensively on nuclear proliferation risks. "This revelation highlights the dangers of reliance by the IAEA upon evidence concerning Iran provided to it by third party states whose political agendas are antithetical to Iran.”
Nuclear Talks in Vienna
Iran's and America's top nuclear officials joined seven-nation talks Saturday in a move that may help resolve technical disputes standing it the way of a deal.
Technical experts for Iran and the six nations it is negotiating with have been meeting alongside senior political officials. But Saturday was the first time that Iranian Atomic Energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi and U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz also joined in.
Western officials say the U.S. decided to send Moniz only after Iran announced that Salehi will be coming. Still, their presence could improve chances of a deal by fast-tracking complex technical details, AP said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif is also at the talks, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry scheduled to join Sunday and Monday.
World powers and Iran have set an end of March deadline for a framework agreement, with four further months for the technical work to be ironed out. The talks have missed two previous deadlines, and both sides have said a further extension would make little sense without a basis for continuing discussions.
The U.S. government’s weakness in the negotiations has been exposed by anti-Iran taunts from congressional hardliners, Washington's closest Arab allies and the occupying regime of Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to strongly criticize them in an address the U.S. Congress early next month.