Friday, August 31, 2012

David E. Sanger, William J. Broad and Jodi Rudoren once again distort IAEA Report on Iran's nuclear activities

Once again, we have the New York Times reporters David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, now joined by Jodi Rudoren spinning and edtitorializing on the latest IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/world/middleeast/nuclear-inspectors-confirm-iranian-progress.html?ref=davidesanger

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/world/middleeast/report-on-iran-nuclear-work-puts-israel-in-a-box.html?_r=1&hp

David E. Sanger and William J. Broad's reportage on Iran's nuclear is deeply misleading. These New York Times commentators have essentially editorialized about Iran's nuclear program, adding their own interpretations to the IAEA Report. They write: "[the report] left open the question of . . . whether by racing ahead with construction [Iranian leaders] were seeking negotiating advantage or trying to gain the ability to build a bomb before sanctions, sabotage or military action could stop them." Today Jodi Rudoren and David Sanger talk about Iran "crossing the red line" toward the construction of nuclear weapons.

The IAEA report says nothing about about building a bomb. That is Messers Sanger and Broad's own conjecture. In fact the IAEA report, as every other IAEA report since 2003 verifies that Iran has not diverted any fissile material for military purposes. The IAEA and every other intelligence agency in the world inspecting the Iranian program verifies that Iran has no detectable nuclear weapons program. In any case the IAEA carefully monitors every speck of nuclear material currently in development in Iran. Sanger and Broad in their own reportage toward the end of their piece contradict their own speculations, reporting  that Iran does not have enough fissile material to construct a "complete nuclear weapon."

Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei in his address to the Non Alligned Movement (barely reported in the U.S. Press) once again renounced any intent to construct nuclear weapons, and denounced nations who had them. How Messers Sanger and Broad can now imply that Iran is on the road to weapons construction can only be explained as reportorial bias. The media should be extremely careful in fan the flames of war in this fashion.

One needs only to see the public commentary to this and every other IAEA report. Despite the complete lack of evidence for any Iranian nuclear military program, vast numbers of the public have come to believe that such a program exists. This was the aim of the neoconservatives under George W. Bush--to gin up a plausible justification for an attack on Iran with the purpose of effecting regime change.