After all, if Iran voluntarily notified the IAEA of the Qom facility before it was even operational and thus agreed to have the facility inspected, it’s impossible to maintain the melodramatic storyline that Iran was planning something deeply nefarious here and got “caught red-handed.” The assertion that Iran was forced into disclosure is vital to the entire plot, and it’s been constantly repeated as fact.
But ever since this episode began, I’ve read countless accounts from numerous sources and never once saw a single piece of evidence to support this claim — and I’ve been actively looking for it and asking if anyone has seen such evidence. , Bobby Ghosh writes of an exclusive interview he conducted with CIA Director Leon Panetta about Qom, in which Panetta claims the CIA knew of the facility for three years.
