Never mind those unexplained “military dimensions.” According to the article below, El-Baradei argues that Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon “any time soon.” But any time in the future that Iran does have nuclear weapons will be too soon.
And at the point at which Iran finally does test its first nuclear weapon, we are all too likely to find that the putative “watchdogs” have frittered away the time they could have spent trying to prevent it on insisting there’s no real reason for concern, sending the occasional stern warning, or setting deadline after meaningless deadline for Iran to come clean about its activities.
“Iran nuclear “threat” hyped: IAEA’s ElBaradei,” by Sylvia Westall for Reuters, September 2:
VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran is not going to produce a nuclear weapon any time soon and the threat posed by its atomic program has been exaggerated, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said in a published interview.
The West suspects Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapons capability under the guise of a declared civilian atomic energy program. Tehran rejects the charge, saying its uranium enrichment program is a peaceful way to generate electricity.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no concrete evidence that Tehran has an ongoing nuclear weapons program.
“But somehow, many people are talking about how Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world. In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped,” he told the specialist Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
ElBaradei said there was concern about Iran’s future nuclear intentions and that the Islamic Republic needs to be more transparent with the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog.
“But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the facts as we have seen them so far,” said ElBaradei, 67, who will step down in November after 12 years in office.
The interview was conducted in July but released late on Tuesday.
Last week, an IAEA report lent some weight to Western intelligence reports that Iran had studied ways to make atom bombs although the agency has repeatedly said it does not have concrete proof of a weapons agenda.
Iran has refused to provide documentation, access to sites or to nuclear officials for interviews which the IAEA has requested to reach conclusions about the intelligence materials.