Not to mention damaging America's reputation to be a trusted negotiator on the international stage for years to come:
In the three years since the start of the Iran nuclear agreement, a cluster of buildings near the Austrian capital has served as an unblinking eye over Tehran’s most sensitive factories and research labs. But perhaps not for much longer.
Every day, workers arrive at the United Nations nuclear agency here to monitor live video from inside Iran’s once-secret uranium enrichment plants, part of an unbroken stream of data delivered by cameras and other remote sensors installed as part of the 2015 accord. Each week, scientists in lab coats analyze dust samples collected from across Iran, looking for minute particles that could reveal possible cheating.
Dispatchers track the movements of U.N. inspection teams that now work inside Iran every day of the year, checking and rechecking known nuclear facilities and occasionally venturing out to investigate tips about suspicious sites elsewhere.
The scrutiny carried out by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency is a key component of the agreement, and it is unprecedented — not just for Iran but for any country, anywhere in the world.
4:12
What happens if Trump pulls out of the Iran deal?
The Post’s Alan Sipress and Karen DeYoung explain how President Trump’s decision might affect an already tense Middle East. (Sarah Parnass, Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)
As the Trump administration considers withdrawing from the pact, the U.N. watchdog agency is
President Trump has said he will announce Tuesday whether the United States will withdraw from the historic agreement, which was signed by the Obama administration as well as the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. While citing no evidence of major violations by Iran, Trump has repeatedly blasted the deal as a “disaster” while accusing Tehran of failing to live up to the spirit of the accord.
[All the different ways Trump could go on the Iran deal]
Trump’s animus toward the pact appeared to deepen last week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a dramatic television appearance to showcase evidence about nuclear weapons research conducted by Iran a decade before the agreement was signed. Trump asserted that the pact was useless because Tehran cannot be trusted to keep its word. “What we’ve learned has really shown that I’ve been 100 percent right,” Trump said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes how Iran has continued with its nuclear capabilities during a presentation at the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on April 30. (Jim Hollander/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Yet by walking away from the deal, the Trump administration may lose its most important instrument for gauging whether Iran is telling the truth or not, according to former U.S. and U.N. officials and experts familiar with the IAEA’s oversight role. Many experts believe a collapse of the agreement will trigger a suspension of the unique, wide-ranging access accorded to the U.N. nuclear watchdog over the past three years.
In effect, by rejecting the deal as inadequate for preventing Iran from getting the bomb, Trump could make it harder for U.S. officials to detect a secret Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, the former officials and experts said.
“We know more about Iran’s program with the deal than without it,” said former CIA director Michael V. Hayden, echoing an assessment voiced by current Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats during congressional testimony earlier this year. Hayden, author of a new book accusing the Trump White House of politicizing intelligence, said the Israeli revelations about Iran’s past nuclear research bolster the case for keeping the essence of the accord intact.
“The Iranians lie. They cheat,” Hayden said. “That’s why you need to have the best possible verification regime in place.”
Critics of the deal contend that its shortcomings outweigh the benefits of the IAEA’s intrusive oversight. Some argue that the agreement is inadequate for containing Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions because several key restrictions are set to be phased in in 10 to 15 years. Others, including former officials of the watchdog group, fault the IAEA itself, saying the agency has not been sufficiently aggressive in demanding access to Iranian military facilities and fuller explanations about Iran’s past nuclear weapons research.
But U.N. officials say the pact’s transparency provisions have helped prevent war by replacing suspicions with hard facts. Yukiya Amano, the IAEA’s director general, told the agency’s 35-nation board of governors that Iran has complied so far with every request made by his inspectors. A collapse of the deal, he warned, would be “a great loss for nuclear verification.”
“The IAEA now has the world’s most robust verification regime in place in Iran,” the Japanese diplomat said in remarks after the board meeting in March. “As of today, I can state that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments. It is essential that Iran continues to fully implement those commitments.”
As the world organization responsible for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the U.N.-affiliated IAEA has a long history with Iran, much of it troubled.
When Western intelligence agencies discovered that Iran was secretly building uranium enrichment plants — one at Natanz, in 2002, and another at an underground facility called Fordow in 2009 — the IAEA sent in its teams to investigate. In the years that followed, the agency confronted Iran repeatedly over what U.S. officials described as a clandestine nuclear-weapons research program that Iran apparently ended in 2003. Iran has consistently denied that it ever sought to acquire nuclear weapons and says its programs are directed toward energy production and medical research.
The IAEA was not a participant in the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear deal, but it has been an indispensable partner in its implementation. Since 2015, the agency’s inspectors have recorded and certified Iran’s compliance with each of several key components of the agreement. They confirmed, for example, that Iran had shipped out or eliminated 95 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium, and dismantled or idled two-thirds of its centrifuge machines used in making nuclear fuel. Inspectors watched as Iran poured concrete into its partially completed nuclear reactor at Arak, bending to international concerns that the facility could become a future source of plutonium for nuclear bombs. They verified that Iran had halted uranium-enrichment activities at Fordow, the underground facility originally built inside a mountain as protection against airstrikes.
But the most demanding task for the agency’s inspection teams is the daily monitoring of Iran’s nuclear sites. Iran has for years allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities and even granted permission for the installation of a few video cameras. But since 2015, the agency has enjoyed unparalleled access to every facet of Iran’s current nuclear program, from its uranium mines to the factory where it built its centrifuges.
The new oversight duties have meant an expanded IAEA presence in Iran itself. For the first time ever, the agency keeps a small cadre of inspectors inside Iran every day of the year, so it can handle the heavier workload and quickly respond to any reports about suspicious new sites.
IAEA inspectors have roamed through a total of 190 buildings around the country, while also making 60 “complementary access” calls — agency jargon for visits to facilities that are not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
Back at headquarters, specialists pore over terabytes of data collected by inspectors and transmitted to the Austrian capital over secure communications channels. In a large underground room beneath the IAEA’s office tower, banks of TV monitors flicker with live images from inside Iran’s sole functioning uranium enrichment plant. Computers keep tabs on the tamper-proof electronic seals placed by IAEA officials on more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, from storage bins to uranium-processing machines.
More at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...dab596e8252_story.html?utm_term=.d475419a28ab
In the three years since the start of the Iran nuclear agreement, a cluster of buildings near the Austrian capital has served as an unblinking eye over Tehran’s most sensitive factories and research labs. But perhaps not for much longer.
Every day, workers arrive at the United Nations nuclear agency here to monitor live video from inside Iran’s once-secret uranium enrichment plants, part of an unbroken stream of data delivered by cameras and other remote sensors installed as part of the 2015 accord. Each week, scientists in lab coats analyze dust samples collected from across Iran, looking for minute particles that could reveal possible cheating.
Dispatchers track the movements of U.N. inspection teams that now work inside Iran every day of the year, checking and rechecking known nuclear facilities and occasionally venturing out to investigate tips about suspicious sites elsewhere.
The scrutiny carried out by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency is a key component of the agreement, and it is unprecedented — not just for Iran but for any country, anywhere in the world.
4:12
What happens if Trump pulls out of the Iran deal?
The Post’s Alan Sipress and Karen DeYoung explain how President Trump’s decision might affect an already tense Middle East. (Sarah Parnass, Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)
As the Trump administration considers withdrawing from the pact, the U.N. watchdog agency is
President Trump has said he will announce Tuesday whether the United States will withdraw from the historic agreement, which was signed by the Obama administration as well as the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. While citing no evidence of major violations by Iran, Trump has repeatedly blasted the deal as a “disaster” while accusing Tehran of failing to live up to the spirit of the accord.
[All the different ways Trump could go on the Iran deal]
Trump’s animus toward the pact appeared to deepen last week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a dramatic television appearance to showcase evidence about nuclear weapons research conducted by Iran a decade before the agreement was signed. Trump asserted that the pact was useless because Tehran cannot be trusted to keep its word. “What we’ve learned has really shown that I’ve been 100 percent right,” Trump said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes how Iran has continued with its nuclear capabilities during a presentation at the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on April 30. (Jim Hollander/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Yet by walking away from the deal, the Trump administration may lose its most important instrument for gauging whether Iran is telling the truth or not, according to former U.S. and U.N. officials and experts familiar with the IAEA’s oversight role. Many experts believe a collapse of the agreement will trigger a suspension of the unique, wide-ranging access accorded to the U.N. nuclear watchdog over the past three years.
In effect, by rejecting the deal as inadequate for preventing Iran from getting the bomb, Trump could make it harder for U.S. officials to detect a secret Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, the former officials and experts said.
“We know more about Iran’s program with the deal than without it,” said former CIA director Michael V. Hayden, echoing an assessment voiced by current Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats during congressional testimony earlier this year. Hayden, author of a new book accusing the Trump White House of politicizing intelligence, said the Israeli revelations about Iran’s past nuclear research bolster the case for keeping the essence of the accord intact.
“The Iranians lie. They cheat,” Hayden said. “That’s why you need to have the best possible verification regime in place.”
Critics of the deal contend that its shortcomings outweigh the benefits of the IAEA’s intrusive oversight. Some argue that the agreement is inadequate for containing Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions because several key restrictions are set to be phased in in 10 to 15 years. Others, including former officials of the watchdog group, fault the IAEA itself, saying the agency has not been sufficiently aggressive in demanding access to Iranian military facilities and fuller explanations about Iran’s past nuclear weapons research.
But U.N. officials say the pact’s transparency provisions have helped prevent war by replacing suspicions with hard facts. Yukiya Amano, the IAEA’s director general, told the agency’s 35-nation board of governors that Iran has complied so far with every request made by his inspectors. A collapse of the deal, he warned, would be “a great loss for nuclear verification.”
“The IAEA now has the world’s most robust verification regime in place in Iran,” the Japanese diplomat said in remarks after the board meeting in March. “As of today, I can state that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments. It is essential that Iran continues to fully implement those commitments.”
As the world organization responsible for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the U.N.-affiliated IAEA has a long history with Iran, much of it troubled.
When Western intelligence agencies discovered that Iran was secretly building uranium enrichment plants — one at Natanz, in 2002, and another at an underground facility called Fordow in 2009 — the IAEA sent in its teams to investigate. In the years that followed, the agency confronted Iran repeatedly over what U.S. officials described as a clandestine nuclear-weapons research program that Iran apparently ended in 2003. Iran has consistently denied that it ever sought to acquire nuclear weapons and says its programs are directed toward energy production and medical research.
The IAEA was not a participant in the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear deal, but it has been an indispensable partner in its implementation. Since 2015, the agency’s inspectors have recorded and certified Iran’s compliance with each of several key components of the agreement. They confirmed, for example, that Iran had shipped out or eliminated 95 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium, and dismantled or idled two-thirds of its centrifuge machines used in making nuclear fuel. Inspectors watched as Iran poured concrete into its partially completed nuclear reactor at Arak, bending to international concerns that the facility could become a future source of plutonium for nuclear bombs. They verified that Iran had halted uranium-enrichment activities at Fordow, the underground facility originally built inside a mountain as protection against airstrikes.
But the most demanding task for the agency’s inspection teams is the daily monitoring of Iran’s nuclear sites. Iran has for years allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities and even granted permission for the installation of a few video cameras. But since 2015, the agency has enjoyed unparalleled access to every facet of Iran’s current nuclear program, from its uranium mines to the factory where it built its centrifuges.
The new oversight duties have meant an expanded IAEA presence in Iran itself. For the first time ever, the agency keeps a small cadre of inspectors inside Iran every day of the year, so it can handle the heavier workload and quickly respond to any reports about suspicious new sites.
IAEA inspectors have roamed through a total of 190 buildings around the country, while also making 60 “complementary access” calls — agency jargon for visits to facilities that are not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
Back at headquarters, specialists pore over terabytes of data collected by inspectors and transmitted to the Austrian capital over secure communications channels. In a large underground room beneath the IAEA’s office tower, banks of TV monitors flicker with live images from inside Iran’s sole functioning uranium enrichment plant. Computers keep tabs on the tamper-proof electronic seals placed by IAEA officials on more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, from storage bins to uranium-processing machines.
More at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...dab596e8252_story.html?utm_term=.d475419a28ab
