Cables Reiterate Depth of US Belief in Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten is quoting a number of as-yet-unreleased WikiLeaks cables detailing State Department officials repeated discussions about the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

The cables are said to cite officials accusing “hundreds” of Iranian companies and at least 30 other nations involved in what the US believes is a secret plot to obtain nuclear weapons. Though the cables are said to cite efforts to acquire nuclear material and technology, they don’t appear to provide any additional evidence that such a program exists, which is to say any evidence at all.

Rather they reiterate the official US allegations ad infinitum, and always without proof. Early documents pointed to the same policy, with US officials angrily rebuking members of the international community for disagreeing with the claims, but never providing any evidence to back them up.

Though some have spun the large number of documents reiterating the claims as proof of their validity in and of themselves, the sheer volume of documents, without any real evidence, increasingly suggests that no such evidence even exists, and that the accusations are a matter of policy and not an assertion of fact.

Interestingly though, one of the cables seems to shoot a hole in the notion that the nuclear program is purely military, as a Feburary 2009 cable has US State Department officials saying that Iran’s efforts to acquire additional uranium are because Iran was “practically out” and need more “to supply the nation’s current and future nuclear power plant capacity.”