The new IAEA report has been released at the David Albright’s ISIS site: GOV/2011/65 – Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran – 8 November 2011 (pdf). The report is not yet available at the IAEA site. Why not if Albright already has it? Why does he have it btw?

While reading it I will keep in mind this Wikileaks cable:

Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77, which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

As I read it I will update this post with my thoughts on it below the fold.

Iran seems to have made some small progress in installing/operating centrifuge cascades in Natanz and its other sides. There is nothing abnormal in the report or in the operations Iran is doing there. There is, according to the IAEA report, just some progress but not fast progress.

Now we come to part G. Possible Military Dimensions and Amano*s (the U.S.’) argument for releasing the, so far, rumor stuff:

40. The Director General, in his opening remarks to the Board of Governors on 12 September 2011, stated that in the near future he hoped to set out in greater detail the basis for the Agency’s concerns so that all Member States would be kept fully informed. In line with that statement, the Annex to this report provides a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency to date which has given rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.
41. The analysis itself is based on a structured and systematic approach to information analysis which the Agency uses in its evaluation of safeguards implementation in all States with comprehensive safeguards agreements in force. This approach involves, inter alia, the identification of indicators of the existence or development of the processes associated with nuclear-related activities, including weaponization.
42. The information which serves as the basis for the Agency’s analysis and concerns, as identified in the Annex, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible [emph. add.]. The information comes from a wide variety of independent sources, including from a number of Member States, from the Agency’s own efforts and from information provided by Iran itself. It is consistent in terms of technical content, individuals and organizations involved, and time frames.

Keeping in mind that Wikileaks cable, I am not sure I’ll accept 42 without some restrains. That “overall” term is quite a hedge on any detail …

The one really important sentence in the whole IAEA report is in chapter K. “Summary” para 52:

the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement

The IAEA certifies that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material to nefarious purpose.

Now onto the Annex on “possible military dimensions”. Three parts: A. Historical overview of agency efforts, B. Description of sources and assessment of their credibility, C. Agency analysis with regard to weaponization.

In the history section the IAEA is fudging with the “work plan” that was once agreed on between the IAEA and Iran and solved all then outstanding issues. The “alleged studies”, material provided by the U.S. after the work plan was finished, were not an original part of that. Now Amano tries to make them part of it.

Chapter A “History” of the Annex, para 10, is quite unfair to the Iranians:

10. Between 2007 and 2010, Iran continued to conceal nuclear activities, by not informing the Agency in a timely manner of the decision to construct or to authorize construction of a new nuclear power plant at Darkhovin16 and a third enrichment facility near Qom (the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant). …

Iran has the quite plausible standpoint that it has never ratified the Additional Protocol in its relation to the IAEA. Under that standpoint it never had to inform the agency on the decisions to construct something until six month before introducing nuclear material in that place.

To say that Iran “conceal nuclear activities” by not informing the IAEA earlier than it is legally required without ratifying the AP quite off the mark.

Chapter B “Credibility of Information” seems to want to impress just with numbers with claiming “over a thousand pages” received but not with facts about or analysis of possible motives of the providers of such information.

Chapter C.1. “Programme management structure” seems to be a bunch of bull****:

21. The majority of the details of the work said to have been conducted under the AMAD Plan come from the alleged studies documentation …

“alleged studies” = “Laptop of Death” = U.S./MEK/Israeli disinformation. …

23. Information the Agency has received from Member States indicates that, owing to growing concerns about the international security situation in Iraq and neighbouring countries at that time, work on the AMAD Plan was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a “halt order” instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials.

That is a confirmation of the NIE U.S. intelligence agencies issued and which was again confirmed by Mr. Clapper in recent Congress hearing. According to the agencies and him Iran stopped all even slightly weapon related nuclear activities, the alleged “weapons program”, in 2003.

C. 3. (short form – b.): Al Baradei was wrong on the “Green Salt Project” (which is nonsense – b.) and we now believe what the “alleged studies” say about it. (see first quote above for a reasonable explanation of this change of mind – b.)

Tons of pseudo stuff in the following sub-chapters … For example:

43. Information provided to the Agency by the same Member State (the U.S. – b.) referred to in the previous paragraph describes the multipoint initiation concept referred to above as being used by Iran in at least one large scale experiment in 2003 …

C.6. Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments

43. Information provided to the Agency by the same Member State referred to in the previous paragraph describes the multipoint initiation concept referred to above as being used by Iran in at least one large scale experiment in 2003 to initiate a high explosive charge in the form of a hemispherical shell.

Nothing confirmed there. It is all “information provided” via a shady “laptop of death” with unknown origin of the original source.

And now we come to the paragraph that confirms my research and analysis:

44. The Agency has strong indications that the development by Iran of the high explosives initiation system, and its development of the high speed diagnostic configuration used to monitor related experiments, were assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable in these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career with this technology in the nuclear weapon programme of the country of his origin. The Agency has reviewed publications by this foreign expert and has met with him. The Agency has been able to verify through three separate routes, including the expert himself, that this person was in Iran from about 1996 to about 2002, ostensibly to assist Iran in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra-dispersed diamonds (“UDDs” or “nanodiamonds”), where he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications.

Exactly what I wrote about Mr. Danilenko …

…

Okay – it is getting late for me – social duties await – I’ll continue my analysis tomorrow.

What I have read so far is quite unconvincing to any detail obsessed and knowledgeable reader but will give amply fodder for the usual propagandist in the mass media.

On the big scope that seems to be the sole purpose of Amano’s prostitution in this “document”.