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IAEA complains of 'outrageous' inaccuracies in Iran report to House Intelligence Committee

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, Sept 16, IRNA
Iran-US-IAEA

A recent U.S. House of Representatives committee report on Iran's nuclear capability is "outrageous and dishonest" in trying to make a case that Tehran's program is geared toward making weapons, a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

IAEA said in a letter outside a meeting of the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna that the US report is false in saying Iran is making weapons-grade uranium at an experimental enrichment site, when it has in fact produced material only in small quantities that is far below the level that can be used in nuclear arms.

The letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post, also says the report erroneously says that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei removed a senior nuclear inspector from the team investigating Iran's nuclear program "for concluding that the purpose of Iran's nuclear program is to construct weapons."

In fact, the inspector was sidelined on Tehran's request, and the Islamic Republic had a right to ask for a replacement under agreements that govern all states relationships with the agency, said the letter, calling the report's version "incorrect and misleading." "In addition," says the letter, "the report contains an outrageous and dishonest suggestion that such removal might have been for 'not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program."' Dated August 12, the letter was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, a senior director of the Vienna-based agency.

An IAEA official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the letter, said it was written "to set the record straight."

The dispute was reminiscent of the clashes between the Vienna-based agency and the U.S. administration over whether Iraq's Saddam Hussein was trying to make weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms.

American arguments that Saddam had such covert arms programs were given as the chief reason for the US invasion of Iraq.

ElBaradei's criticism of the U.S. standpoint on Iraq and subsequent perceptions that he was soft on Iran in his staff's investigation of Tehran's nuclear activities may be a cover for a weapons program led to a failed attempt last year by Washington to prevent his re-election.

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