on Iran very cautiously so they couldn’t be used to justify a war on Iran.
In an interview with The Guardian of London, published last Wednesday, ElBaradei said the facts laid out in each report were unvarnished, but the tone was carefully set by him.
“When I was working at the agency, we would literally go through 30 drafts or so of each report before it was ready, because I knew that every word could be used politically and in a very subjective way. Every word was weighed to make sure that it was immune from being abused, and I always wanted to make sure that we were not overstating or understating, but rather just stating the facts.”
ElBaradei said, “I think the tone was set by me, that’s true. But all the facts were, in every report, unvarnished.”
He indicated that he feared a Western attack on Iran. “I would hope that the lessons of Iraq, both in London and in the U.S., have started to sink in. Sure, there are dictators, but are you ready every time you want to get rid of a dictator to sacrifice a million innocent civilians?”
ElBaradei told The Guardian, “I believe the IAEA has a role not only to do inspections and verification, but also to work with the different parties to find solutions. And I don’t think there’s any solution to any of these issues of insecurity except through meaningful dialogue. I left the agency a very happy man when I saw that this approach has been adopted by Barack Obama.”
The Guardian did not quote him as saying if he thought the path of meaningful dialogue had been chosen by the Islamic Republic.
The tone of the quarterly report changed markedly when Yukiya Amano replaced ElBaradei at the head of the agency and issued his first report in February.
That report was still written in legalese and UN jargon. But it put far more emphasis on the Islamic Republic’s failures to work with the agency and dispensed with the previous praise for Iran’s routine cooperation.
It also spoke at length about the concerns that Iran might be conducting military nuclear work.
There were two major changes in the text as used in past reports drafted under ElBaradei.
First, ElBaradei routinely included a sentence that said, “The Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.” That sentence was the one the Islamic Republic always focused its attention on, saying it shows ElBaradei was saying Iran had done nothing wrong. In point of fact, however, no one has ever accused Iran of diverting declared nuclear material and that has never been an issue. ElBaradei never changed that sentence in his quarterly report despite years in which the Islamic Republic took it out of context.
Amano, however, redrafted the sentence. It now reads, “While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.” That shifts the sentence from an endorsement to a criticism of the Islamic Republic.
Second, ElBaradei had pursued concerns about past Iranian nuclear research that could have weapons applications. He spoke as if he were trying to clear up the historical record. Amano, however, expressed concern about both past and current Iranian research, significantly raising the level of official anxiety.
Amano’s report said, “The information available to the agency … raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
Amano also put more emphasis on Iran’s lack of cooperation. ElBaradei had always listed questions posed and mentioned when Iran had not yet replied, but his reports were filled with obeisance to Iran for its cooperation—what one European diplomat told the German news agency were “pitiful excuses for cooperation.” Amano dispensed with those diplomatic niceties. He listed all the information he wanted and then concluded: “Since August 2008, Iran has declined to discuss the above issues … or provide any further information and access to locations and people to address these concerns.”