Thursday, July 30, 2015

Iran Unlikely to Be Required to Disclose Past Nuclear Weapons Work

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U.S. administration says full disclosure about program’s history isn’t critical to verify future commitments
An Obama administration assessment of the Iran nuclear deal provided to Congress has led a number of lawmakers to conclude the U.S. and world powers will never get to the bottom of the country’s alleged efforts to build an atomic weapon, and that Tehran won’t be pressed to fully explain its past.
In a report to Capitol Hill last week, the administration said it was unlikely Iran would admit to having pursued a covert nuclear weapons program, and that such an acknowledgment wasn’t critical to verifying Iranian commitments in the future.
Details of the report, which haven’t been previously disclosed, indicate the deal reached this month could go ahead even if United Nations inspectors never ascertain conclusively whether Iran pursued a nuclear weapons program—something Tehran has repeatedly denied.
The issue of Iran accounting for its alleged past work has emerged as a flash point in the debate between Congress and the White House over the July 14 agreement. Lawmakers initiated a two-month review of the accord last week, and many have demanded answers about Iran’s nuclear weapons history.
Under the deal, Tehran is required by mid-October to give U.N. inspectors access to Iranian scientists, military sites and documents allegedly tied to a covert nuclear-weapons program to have international sanctions repealed. Iran has balked at such requirements in the past.
GOP members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
U.S. lawmakers and outside nuclear experts are skeptical the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be able to conclusively determine in two months an investigation it has failed to resolve in more than a decade.
The IAEA is required to publish a report by year-end on Iran’s alleged past military work as part of the deal.
A secret agreement between the IAEA and Tehran spells out how the U.N. agency will complete the probe. But U.S. lawmakers have bristled in recent days over the confidentiality.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano speaks during a news 
conference in Vienna earlier this month after the Iran 
nuclear deal was reached. 
Photo: hans punz/European Pressphoto Agency
Some senators complained last week that they were told by administration officials that Iran would be allowed to manage some of the IAEA’s investigation. They said they were told Tehran would conduct its own soil sampling at a military site called Parchin, where, allegedly, explosive devices were tested.
“We’re going to trust Iran to do their own testing? This is absolutely ludicrous,” Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho) told Obama administration officials at a congressional hearing last week.
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