The IAEA’s most alarmist findings have been based on outside sources, intelligence briefings and documents provided by the United States, European nations, Israel and possibly others.
In its November 2011 report, the IAEA published a 13-page list of suspected experiments it says “indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” It underlined that it found the information “to be, overall, credible,” describing it as coming from “a wide variety of sources.”
“It is overall consistent in terms of technical contents, individuals and organizations involved and time frames,” the report says.
Some critics assert such assessments are overblown and suggest they may be part of U.S and Israeli attempts to justify an attack on Iran. They cite the Bush administration’s inaccurate claims that fueled the 2003 invasion and note that warnings that Iran will soon have the bomb go back to the early 1980s, based on U.S.-supported technology provided before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Robert Kelley, a former IAEA inspector who was part of a team looking for purported Iraqi nuclear weapons, cites the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in arguing against conclusions that Iran now is working on the bomb.
In that assessment, “US agencies concluded `with high confidence’ that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 under international pressure,” he wrote in a January article for the … >>>
