Iran Caught With Nuclear Warhead Blueprints; IAEA Yawns

The IAEA knew that Iran had blueprints for nuclear warheads in 2005, when in the course of examining Iran's nuclear files, it discovered the blueprints, and yet it declared that Iran had no interest in nuclear weapons.

It finally got Iran to turn over those blueprints today.

Iran says that it mistakenly got the blueprints in the course of obtaining other nuclear information on the black market.

I don't buy that either.

The agency has been seeking possession of the blueprints since 2005, when it stumbled upon them among a batch of other documents during its examination of suspect Iranian nuclear activities. While agency inspectors had been allowed to examine them in the country, Tehran had up to now refused to let the IAEA have a copy for closer perusal.

Diplomats accredited to the agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were divulging confidential information, said the drawings were hand-carried by Mohammad Saeedi, deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and handed over last week in Vienna to Oli Heinonen, an ElBaradei deputy in charge of the Iran investigations.

Iran maintains it was given the papers without asking for them during its black market purchases of nuclear equipment decades ago that now serve as the backbone of its program to enrich uranium -- a process that can generate both power or create the fissile core of nuclear warheads. Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment has been the main trigger for both existing U.N. sanctions and the threat of new ones.

Both the IAEA and other experts have categorized the instructions outlined in the blueprints as having no value outside of a nuclear weapons program.

While ElBaradei's report is likely to mention the Iranian concession on the drawings and other progress made in clearing up ambiguities in Iran's nuclear activities, it was unclear whether it would also detail examples of what the diplomats said were continued Iranian stonewalling.

Senior IAEA officials were refused interviews with at least two top Iranian nuclear officials suspected of possible involvement in a weapons program, they said. One was the leader of a physics laboratory at Lavizan, outside Tehran, which was razed before the agency had a chance to investigate activities there. The other was in charge of developing Iran's centrifuges, used to enrich uranium.

You can be sure that Iran kept copies. ElBaradei has been playing everyone for fools if he thinks that Iran isn't keen on obtaining nuclear weapons and yet he's steadfastly refused to accept that despite the growing evidence that shows Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, which would match Iran's intentions to eliminate its enemies in the region.

Iran's nuclear enrichment cascades - the thousands of centrifuges - continue spinning away.

Russia says that Iran wont have missiles that could reach the US before 2020. Gee. That's comforting. It's also assuming quite a bit - like that Iran wouldn't be able to obtain the tech to achieve it before then, or that Iran couldn't stage its missiles (or nuclear weapons in general) far closer to US interests or the domestic US so that its range isn't a limitation.

Combine that with the Israeli reports that Iran is only 2 years from going nuclear, and you can see a reason for serious concern, and another reason why the IAEA should be stripped of its Nobel Prize for ignoring the Iranian nuclear program and all that it comes with. That latter part goes without saying considering that Iran was busy obtaining all kinds of information on the black market and the IAEA was either unaware or incapable and/or unwilling to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear technologies and pursuing nuclear weapons.