Back again like a bad penny, Associated Press writer George Jahn has returned from nearly a week-long span without any fresh articles to deliver the latest claims that Iran’s civilian enrichment program is either capable of or possibly aimed toward the production of nuclear weapons.
Some may remember Jahn’s February 8 article, “Iran Moves Closer to Nuke Warhead Capacity,” and the subsequent furore over exaggerations and flat out misstatements, which ultimately led the AP to pull the piece in its entirety, replacing it with a separate story by a different author.
Today’s article, “3 World Powers Criticize Iranian Enrichment,” centers around the secret “confidential letter” from Russia, France and the United States, the contents of which have not been made public but which are quoted heavily in the article.
The letter appears to have questioned Iran’s ability to produce 20 percent enriched uranium at all, echoing previous comments from Western officials last week. The letter was addressed to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.
But the AP article declares that the letter’s claims about Iran’s enrichment “reinforced suspicions that Tehran is seeking to make nuclear weapons,” and later claimed that Iran’s enrichment program “can produce both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads.”
Iran began enrichment to 20 percent purity last week, after months of failed negotiations to obtain fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. The US-built reactor produces medical isotopes for 850,000 patients in Iran who rely on nuclear medicine. The IAEA has confirmed that the enrichment to 20 percent has begun, and described the efforts as “modest,” according to Jahn’s February 10 article.
Getting from “modest” on February 10 to “can produce both nuclear weapons as well as nuclear fuel” on February 16 is no small achievement, but the provocative claims are doubly bizarre when coupled with the letter’s ostensible claims that Iran isn’t even capable of producing 20 percent enriched uranium.
The “fissile core of warheads” would need to be enriched to a minimum of 90 percent purity, and some experts say it would be better to enrich it even higher. Though the article points out that going from 20 percent to 90 percent is actually somewhat easier than going from 3.5 percent to 20 percent, if Iran isn’t even capable of producing the 20 percent enriched uranium in the first place, the whole matter must surely be moot.
But Iran wants to wipe Israel off teh maps!
That is not true. Refer to the followin Anti War's post:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid…
Iran said (roughly) that Zionism will "vanish from the pages of time". This is a reasonable remark. After all, Nazism was destroyed but the German people were allowed to flourish. Similarly,as with the Nazis, Zionist criminality must be condemned. Top Zionists should be punished, and nuclear Israel, disarmed. But ordinary Jews should not be harmed. Hopefully, Israel will resist the genocidal temptation of attacking Iran with nuclear bombs. But if Israel does decide to launch a first strike, those responsible should be hanged.
Um, guys, I think Mr. Sapienza's tongue was lodged firmly in cheek when he said his. "[T]eh maps" appears to me to be a waggish "chan boardism"—and, if you'll look at some of his writings on antiwar.com, you'll find that Jeremy Sapienza is probably not in the employ of AIPAC.
i can haz aipac funding?!?
Agreed. The "teh" is the giveaway.
The Iranian government has never threatened Israel.
Hurrah for Antiwar and for Jason Ditz for keeping after this. And let’s NOT forget that even IF Iran was working on nuclear weapons, which it plainly is not, that would STILL not be a reason to attack Iran or to unleash collective punishment on its people via sanctions.
Did we used to have an antiwar movement or something in this country?
Iran has every right to have nuclear power. They are doing everything in complience with the IAEA and NPT.
This is more evidence that the alleged "liberal media" are a myth. Some years ago I noticed that everything written by AP's Ron Fournier had a very pro-Republican Party slant. Then it was revealed that Fournier and Karl Rove were friends. Fournier was subsequently promoted to AP's DC bureau chief.
Neither liberals nor libertarians are represented by either political party and there is no difference between the two on foreign policy.
Is this George Jahn character capable of writing anything without an error of fact or logic? He should be writing novels, and not news stories for the AP. I am surprised he did not find employment with the fiction writers at Bush’s OSP.
George Jahn, Robert Burns, Pamela Hess, and Alfred de Montesquiou are some of the most prolific Absolutist Propagandists.
Israel is a nuclear-ready, outlaw state that has repeatedly ignored dozens of UN resolutions. It also has a parasitic relationship with the American people, aka, the goyim.
Iran is relatively law abiding and certainly less racist. For all the harm it's done, Israel must pay a price. Support BDS (Boycott, divestment & Sanctions) of the Zionist state.
Jason is right to observe the irony of US paranoia over Iranian efforts to enrich Uranium to higher levels combined with the US assertion that they don't think Iran can do it. It's arrogant, yet also condescending, or what American officials typically call 'diplomacy.' But equally as shocking is that at the end of the AP story, it states a flat out lie, the opposite of the truth. Iran has ACCEPTED the plan in principle to have its Uranium enriched abroad, NOT rejected it.
Also ironic, western officials cited in this story both claim that the 20% uranium will not be ready before the reactor runs out of fuel as evidence that the real intention is military, while also insisting (previously in other articles) that the US plan for enriching Iran's Uranium abroad will necessarily drag on for at least a year (and Iran rightly wonders if it will actually drag on forever).
What's next, will Hillary Clinton cite Iran's willingness to risk running out of fuel for its medical reactor to placate western concerns, thus endangering their patient's health, as more evidence that Iran doesn't care about its people and is just a 'military dictatorship'? Or will Obama use deep-penetrator nuclear weapons against Iran not to destroy the nuclear weapons program that Iran doesn't have, but to assassinate Iran's leaders and thus free their people…? The whole charade is such a farce that no level of insane policy seems improbable anymore.
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"But the Islamic Republic rejected the plan and said it would make the reactor fuel on its own — a technical feat that world powers assert Iran is incapable of."
I hate to sound paranoid, but the use of 'passive voice' and other grammatical contortions did scream 'information ops' to me.
OMG!!! Another smoking gun, a radioactive one??? OMG!!
Let’s bomb them back to the Stone Ages, since the ones who will order the murders don’t have to worry about being prosecuted as war criminals.
Hey Israel, time for another 9/11 false-flag, but this time, the clues will point to Iran.
there is only one piece of evidence you need to know in order to prove iran is no where near a nuclear weapon,
america is still threatening war…
So why is this author being published if he is passing bad/unreliable information? Is he just part of a government backed propaganda campaign?