With all the courage of conviction that comes from being anonymously sourced, a “senior British diplomat” has cast doubt on the veracity of a recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This unnamed official was backed up by Simon Smith, the British representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who noted that a recent briefing given by the IAEA had raised doubts about Iran’s claims that it never had a nuclear weapons program.
Smith is no unbiased observer. As the spokesperson for the so-called “EU-3” (Great Britain, France and Germany), he serves as the face of a group which has a considerable political investment in maintaining the notion of Iran as a noncompliant player in the diplomatic game that is Iran’s nuclear program. The EU-3 has been attempting to walk the tight wire between a desire to moderate hard-line US policies through placation, and their responsibility under international law to respect the provisions of the nonproliferation treaty. In doing so, the EU-3 has married itself to a policy that centers on Iran’s requirement to suspend unconditionally its uranium enrichment program, since such a program could be used in any nuclear weapons program.
The recent findings of the IAEA, which underscore the legitimate civilian purpose of Iran’s uranium enrichment program undermine the fundamental argument for suspension. The release of the American NIE was timed, coincidentally or not, to counter the IAEA report. By noting that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, the American intelligence report made moot the conclusions of the IAEA, since the UN inspectors would, of course, not detect ongoing evidence of a nuclear weapons program that had been halted. But the conclusions of the NIE came with an alarming premise, that Iran had been pursuing nuclear weapons. The American NIE provides no conclusive evidence to sustain this finding, but rather builds its case on intelligence of dubious sourcing.
The British government rejects the American NIE’s conclusions that Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts have been suspended, while hanging its hat on the case for its existence. The heart of this case continues to be a laptop computer of questionable provenance. In a classic case of double-dipping, data alleged to be contained in this laptop has been cited in both the NIE claiming that Iran’s program was halted in 2003, and in the American/EU-3’s claims today of an ongoing effort. Iran has rejected as irrelevant or fabricated the data presented by the IAEA on behalf of the United States and the EU-3.
I have seen this game played before: As a chief inspector with the United Nations in Iraq, I participated in similar efforts to construct briefings composed of fragmentary sourcing of questionable quality. The end product, comprising visually-pleasing organizations charts, communications diagrams and procurement records, was used to brief the Security Council members in an effort to strengthen their resolve to confront a recalcitrant Iraq. These briefings generated the myth of a retained Iraqi WMD capability, which lived on until proven false in the aftermath of the US-British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Iraq had been placed in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, a doomed process which led to war. I am fearful that the EU-3 is repeating this same process, demanding Iran refute something that doesn’t exist except in the overactive imaginations of diplomats pre-programmed to accept at face value anything negative about Iran, regardless of its veracity. The implications of such a morally and intellectually shallow posture could very well be disastrous.
