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ElBaradei's swan song?
By Gordon Prather
03/07/06 "Worldnet
Daily" -- --At the insistence of the Cheney
Cabal, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy
Agency had a "special" meeting a month ago and passed
a resolution which requested that the IAEA director-general:
continue with his efforts to implement the Agency's
Safeguards Agreement with Iran, to implement the Additional
Protocol to that Agreement pending its entry into force – with a
view to providing credible assurances regarding the absence of
undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran – and to
pursue additional transparency measures, required for the Agency
to be able to resolve outstanding issues and reconstruct the
history and nature of all aspects of Iran's past nuclear
activities.
Now, according to the
IAEA
Statute, the IAEA's primary mission is "to seek to
accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace,
health and prosperity throughout the world."
However, the IAEA has a secondary mission:
To establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure
that special fissionable and other materials, services,
equipment, facilities, and information made available by the
Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are
not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1970 –
after affirming "the principle that the benefits of peaceful
applications of nuclear technology… should be available for peaceful
purposes to all Parties of the Treaty" – required each signatory not
already having nuclear weapons "to accept Safeguards, as set forth
in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the
International Atomic Energy Agency … with a view to preventing
diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or
other nuclear explosive devices."
Now, there already were – and still are – Safeguards Agreements
in force with IAEA members which are completely unrelated to the NPT.
In particular, India – which has never been a signatory to the NPT –
has a number of nuclear facilities (including four operating nuclear
power plants and two under construction) subject to IAEA Safeguards.
Those agreements will remain in force for the life of the facility
or the duration of safeguarded activities taking place within.
However, Iran has always been an NPT signatory. Hence, the
Safeguards Agreement covering all its a) "source or special nuclear
materials," b) facilities where such materials are stored, and c)
activities involving the chemical or physical transformation of such
materials, remains in force only so long as Iran is a
signatory to the NPT.
For more than two years, Iran has negotiating an Additional
Protocol to its existing Safeguards Agreement, and was, until
recently, "cooperating" with the IAEA as if the Additional Protocol
were actually in force. But it isn't, yet, and probably never will
be, since the Iranian Parliament has directed its Atomic Energy
Agency to stop "cooperating" as if it were.
The NPT does not require non-nuke NPT signatories to
negotiate and conclude an Additional Protocol to their IAEA
Safeguards Agreements. Hence, the IAEA Board most certainly cannot
make such a requirement of Iran.
Much less can the IAEA Board require "additional transparency
measures" that go beyond those authorized under Iran's Safeguards
Agreement – even beyond those that would have been authorized in an
Additional Protocol – so that the Board can "resolve outstanding
issues and reconstruct the history and nature of all aspects of
Iran's past nuclear activities."
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has spent more than a year
investigating neo-crazy charges that Iran has conducted nuclear
activities in furtherance of some military purpose at various
Iranian military sites, including Lavizan, Parchin and Kolahduz. On
Jan. 27, ElBaradei's deputy even confronted the Iranians with what
he characterized as "information" provided him about a military plan
to construct a small facility to convert uranium-oxide into uranium-tetrafluoride.
The CIA claims they gleaned this "intelligence" from what they
suspect is a "stolen" Iranian military laptop computer. However,
ElBaradei has yet to find any "indication" of that or any other use
of source or special nuclear materials in furtherance of a military
purpose.
And, according to the Iranians, so says ElBaradei's most recent –
and final – report, which was circulated last week to the 35 members
of the IAEA Board.
Needless to say, that isn't what U.S. officials say, echoed by
domestic and international neo-crazy media sycophants.
"We've said that during this time the regime in Iran has an
opportunity to change their ways and change their behavior when it
comes to the nuclear program," said White House spokesman Scott
McClellan.
And if they don't?
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing
official for national security-related technical matters in the
Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development
Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. He also served
as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen.
Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear
weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
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