How’s the former deputy director of the IAEA who dealt with Iranian cheating in the past?
Allowing Iran to delay inspections of suspect nuclear sites for up to 24 days will facilitate cheating by Tehran on the nuclear deal reached in Vienna, according to the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency who dealt with past Iranian nuclear cheating.
Olli Heinonen, a 27-year veteran of the IAEA until 2009, also said in the past Iran had “sanitized” two suspected nuclear sites by refurbishing and repainting the locations in an effort to hide illegal uranium enrichment from inspectors.
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Large facilities such as Iran’s Natanz, where large numbers of centrifuges are kept, will be easier to monitor. But small, clandestine sites can be dismantled in 24 days.
“Much of this equipment is very easy to move,” Heinonen said. “So you can take it out over the night … and then there is this dispute settlement time which is 24 days—you will use that to sanitize the place, make new floors, new tiles on the wall, paint the ceiling and take out the ventilation.”
A large-scale enrichment plant would not be easily scrubbed in 24 days, but smaller covert facilities that are used toward the end of the nuclear weapons process can be hidden or sanitized in 24 days, he said.
As for the WSJ article, it is quoting William Tobey, who was deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
According to the agreement, the process starts with IAEA providing Iran with their “concerns” and requesting clarifications. If Iran does not clarify adequately, then the IAEA can request access. This process has no time limits, so the back-and-forth can last a long time.
Once the IAEA requests access, the 24-day period starts, comprised of several stages. By the end of it Iran is “required” to provide access.
So - what happens if they don’t? Then a country files a dispute with the Joint Commission that has 15 days to resolve the dispute. If it is not resolved in 15 days, either party to the dispute can request another 15 days for their foreign ministers to resolve it. At the end of this period, a party can also request an opinion from an advisory board that may take up to 15 days.
So instead of 24 days, it may be 24+30 or 24+45 - 54 or 71 days.
That’s 54 to 71 days of defined time limits. There are also two stages in the process that do not have defined time limits.
The already mentioned initial IAEA requesting “clarifications” and waiting for them.
The advisory board selection in the end.
Still think that’s not enough time for Iranians to scrub the place clean, even if in the end they allow inspectors in?
I think since you’re the one asserting that this kind of delay is a dealbreaker the onus of proof is on you. Can you prove to us that 24, 54, or 71 days is enough time to “scrub the place clean”?
Let’s use a little common sense here. If an inspector is forced to wait weeks, or even months, to gain access to a suspected nuclear facility, and then when he does, he finds new floors, new drywall, new paint, new ceilings, new electrical panels, new furniture, new HVAC, and new dangly pine-fresh-scent tree things, do you think such a person, who is doubtlessly highly educated in nuclear physics, probably from a pretty darn good university, is just going to say, “A-yup! Everything looks spic-and-span here. Total clean bill of health, nothing to see!”
Are you fucking kidding me? Is this some kind of joke thread? Or do you really believe IAEA inspectors are dumber than seventh graders?
Are you a parent? Have you ever suspected your kid of, say, smoking a cigarette or drinking beer? And upon entering their room or smelling their breath, you got a heavy dose of air freshener or Listerine? Did you respond by giving them a gold star for their hygiene, and telling them to enjoy the rest of their evening?
I would trust the former deputy director of the IAEA over your opinion. You should as well.
But ok - let’s say an inspector is forced to wait weeks, or even months, to gain access to a suspected nuclear facility, and then when he does, he finds new floors, new drywall, new paint, new ceilings, new electrical panels, new furniture, new HVAC, and new dangly pine-fresh-scent tree things. And he can find NOTHING wrong.
Is he going to be able claim some kind of violation of the agreement? With what proof?
Also, Senator Udall from New Mexico asked a question in last week’s hearing along these lines:
(Udall): And with regards to the worries about the 24-day requirement for undeclared sites, given the half-life of uranium and plutonium and the resources needed to construct a parallel enrichment capability, would you say it is scientifically possible to hide such work within 24 days, and do you believe we have the technical capabilities to determine if enrichment is being done outside the limits of the JCPOA?
(Moniz): Well, yes. Once again, we have the historical example from 2003 of precisely that happening after six months, easily finding uranium, despite major efforts to disguise it. And in addition, we will have all the containment and surveillance for 20 years of all of the sensitive parts of every machine that they – that they make.
(Udall): And so people that have used the analogy that, like in a drug crime, you flush it down the toilet and it’s gone and we won’t be able to find it, that is an, in fact, been proven out, has it?
Again - former deputy director of the IAEA who actually dealt with these things tells you that yes, Iranians can hide things in that time period. That trumps Moniz, who never dealt with it.
According to the deal, there isn’t a process like a trial where Iran has to be convicted with an evidentiary standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Like what led to the Additional Protocol in the first place, there is no assumed trust for Iran. If there’s reason to believe that Iran is hiding things, the whole deal says that the presumption is that sanctions snap back. The burden is overwhelming on Iran to be transparent. If it isn’t, it gets smacked down hard… again.
If you think that with no proof of wrongdoing there will be any “snapping back” of sanctions, you’re so far away from reality that there really is no talking to you.
So you are saying that the nuclear technicians at the United States National Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and other facilities are lying to Moniz? Because Moniz says in the hearing that those labs were the technical experts who weighed in to judge the effectiveness of the inspection mechanisms.
Welcome to Terr-land, everyone. The scientists at the U.S.'s nuclear labs are liars. Let’s trust the guy who writes op/eds with Michael Hayden, architect of the U.S.'s torture policies, for the truth.
Not that I trust the Mullahs-but, given that they are agreeing to give up their stocks (of highly-enriched uranium), then why would they seek to conceal enriching more of the stuff? that doesn’t make sense to me. Also, I thought that Russia would take back their spent fuel rods (for reprocessing)-wasn’t that part of the deal?
Pop quiz: which former IAEA official said this? “Complete sanitization is very difficult to achieve if nuclear materials were actually used.”
While I’m waiting for that answer, how about this quote from Heinonen’s colleague, Stephan Vogt, head of the IAEA’s Environmental Sample Laboratory, “You cannot get rid of them by cleaning, you cannot dilute them to the extent that we will not be able to pick them up. It is just a matter of time. We won’t find it maybe the first time we go there, [but] the more often we go, the higher the probability that we will pick up (traces) in some corner, at some table, in some plumbing.”
He’s not lying. He’s just being deceptive. His record on Iran is perfectly clear, because he’s been writing about this for a long time… and I’m saying this as someone who has no tolerance for what Iran has been up to for quite a long time.
It’s like asking why Paul Wolfowitz would hype the threat from Iraq.
Did you read my post about the lengthy and involved process of requesting access to military facilities that may take as long as 70+ days? Do you think there will be more than “first time” per facility, and if there will be, it will be in any way “often”?