Monday, November 21, 2011

Seymour Hersh: Propaganda Used Ahead of Iraq War Is Now Being Reused over Irans Nuke Program
While the United States, Britain and Canada are planning to announce a coordinated set of sanctions against Irans oil and petrochemical industry today, longtime investigative journalist Seymour Hersh questions the growing consensus on Irans alleged nuclear weapons program. International pressure has been mounting on Iran since the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency revealed in a report the "possible military dimensions" to Irans nuclear activities, citing "credible" evidence that "indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device." In his latest article for The New Yorker blog, titled "Iran and theIAEA," Hersh argues the recent report is a "political document," not a scientific study. "They [JSOC] found nothing. Nothing. No evidence of any weaponization," Hersh says. "In other words, no evidence of a facility to build the bomb. They have facilities to enrich, but not separate facilities to build the bomb. This is simply a fact." AMY GOODMAN: Today the United States, Britain and Canada plan to announce a coordinated set of sanctions against Iran. ABC News and the Wall Street Journal report the sanctions will target Irans oil and petrochemical industry. Last weekend, President Obama warned no options were being taken off the table. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The sanctions have enormous bite and enormous scope, and were building off the platform that has already been established. The question is, are there additional measures that we can take? And were going to explore every avenue to see if we can solve this issue diplomatically. I have said repeatedly, and I will say today, we are not taking any options off the table. AMY GOODMAN: International pressure has been mounting on Iran since the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency revealed in a report the, quote, "possible military dimensions" to its nuclear activities. The IAEA said "credible" evidence, quote, "indicates [that] Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device." The IAEA passed a resolution Friday expressing, quote, "increasing concern" about Irans nuclear program following the reports findings. The speaker of Irans parliament said yesterday Iran would review its relations with the IAEA following the report. Ali Larijani indicated it may be difficult for Iran to continue to cooperate with the nuclear watchdog.

ALI LARIJANI: [translated] If the agency acts within the framework of the Charter, we accept that we are a member of it and will carry out our responsibilities. But if the agency wants to deviate from its responsibilities, then it should not expect the others cooperation. AMY GOODMAN: Iranian parliamentary speaker. Meanwhile, some Iranians have expressed the desire for increased cooperation with the IAEA. SAID BAHRAMI: [translated] Considering the fact that the government has made plenty of clarifications, it would be better for it to expand its cooperation with the IAEA and let them see for themselves, close up, so there would be no pretext for the superpowers. AMY GOODMAN: Last week, the Pentagon confirmed it has received massive new bunker-busting bombs capable of destroying underground sites, including Irans nuclear facilities. The 30,000-pound bombs are six times the size of the Air Forces current arsenal of bunker busters. The new sanctions against Iran also follow last months allegations by the United States that Iranian officials were involved in a thwarted plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The U.S. is expected to announce today that Irans financial sector is of "primary money-laundering concern." This phrase activates a section of the USAPATRIOT Act that warns European, Asian and Latin American companies they could be prevented from doing business with the United States if they continue to work with Iran. Well, to talk more about the sanctions and the implications of the IAEA report, we go to Washington, D.C., to speak with Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Hes been reporting on Iran and the bomb for the past decade. His latest pieceis titled "Iran and the IAEA." Its in The New Yorker. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Sy. Talk about what you feel should be understood about whats happening in Iran right now in regards to its nuclear power sector. SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you mention, going inby the way, the piece was in the blog. It wasnt in the magazine; it was on the web page. But you mentioned Iraq. Its just thisalmost the same sort ofI dont know if you want to call it a "psychosis," but its some sort of a fantasy land being built up here, as it was with Iraq, the same sort ofno lessons learned, obviously. Look, I have been reporting about Iran, and I could tell you that

since '04, under George Bush, and particularly the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, we wereCheney was particularly concerned there were secret facilities for building a weapon, which are much different than the enrichment. We have enrichment in Iran. They've acknowledged it. They have inspectors there. There are cameras there, etc. This is allIrans a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nobody is accusing them of any cheating. In fact, the latest report that everybodys so agog about also says that, once again, we find no evidence that Iran has diverted any uranium that its enriching. And its also enriching essentially at very low levels for peaceful purposes, so they say, 3.8 percent. And so, there is a small percentage being enriched to 20 percent for medical use, but thats quite small, also under cameras, under inspection. What you have is, in those days, in '04, 05, 06, 07, even until the end of their term in office, Cheney kept on having the Joint Special Operations Force Command, JSOCthey would send teams inside Iran. They would work with various dissident groupsthe Azeris, the Kurds, even Jundallah, which is a very fanatic Sunni opposition groupand they would do everything they could to try and find evidence of an undeclared underground facility. We monitored everything. We have incredible surveillance. In those days, what we did then, we can even do better now. And some of the stuff is very technical, very classified, but I can tell you, there's not much you can do in Iran right now without us finding out something about it. They found nothing. Nothing. No evidence of any weaponization. In other words, no evidence of a facility to build the bomb. They have facilities to enrich, but not separate facilities for building a bomb. This is simply a fact. We havent found it, if it does exist. Its still a fantasy. We still want to thinkmany people do think it does. The big change was, in the last few weeks, the IAEA came out with a new report. And its not a scientific report, its a political document. It takes a lot of the old allegations that had been made over the years, that were looked at by the IAEA, under the regime or the directorship of Mohamed ElBaradei, who ran the IAEA for 12 years, the Egyptianhe won a Nobel Peace Prize for his worksomebody who was very skeptical of Iran in the beginning and became less so as Iran wentwas more and more open. But the new director of the IAEA, a Japanese official named Amano, an old sort offrom the center-right party in JapanIm sure hes an honorable guy, he believes what he believes. But we happen to have a series of WikiLeak documents from the American embassy in Vienna, one of the embassies in Vienna, reporting on how great it was to get Amano there. This is last year. These documents

were released by Julian Assanges group and are quite important, because what the documents say is that Amano has pledged his fealty to America. I understand he was elected as ahe was a marginal candidate. We supported him very much. Six ballots. He was considered weak by everybody, but we pushed to get him in. We did get him in. He responded by thanking us and saying he shares our views. He shares our views on Iran. Hes going to behes basicallyit was just an expression of love. Hes going to do what we wanted. This new report has nothing new in it. This isnt me talking. This isin the piece I did for the New Yorker blog, its different for the blog because it has more reporting in it. I talked to former inspectors. Theyre different voices than you read in the New York Times and the Washington Post. There are other people that dont get reported who are much more skeptical of this report, and you just dont see it in the coverage. So what were getting is a very small slice in the newspaper mainstream press here of analysis of this report. Theres a completely different analysis, which is, very little new. And the way it works, Amy, is, over the years, a report will show up in a London newspaper, that will turn out to be spurious, turn out to be propaganda, whether started by us or a European intelligence agencyits not clear. This all happened, if you remember the Ahmed Chalabi stuff, during the buildup to the war in [Iraq], all about, you know, the great arsenals that existed inside [Iraq]. The same sort of propaganda is being used nowpardon me, I have a slight coldthat shows up over the years, over the last decade, in various newspapers. The IAEA would look at it, rule it not to bebe a fabrication, or certainly not to be supportable by anything they know. All of these old reports, with the exception of, I think, in a new study that was put out by the IAEAthere were maybe 30 or 40 old items, with only three things past 2008, all of which aretheymany people inside the IAEA believe to be spurious, not very reliable fabrications. So there you are. AMY GOODMAN: So, Sy Hersh, youre saying that its not new information. Its a new head of the IAEA thats making the difference here. Can you talk more about U.S. infiltration of Iran, JSOC in Iran, surveillance, as well, in Iran? SEYMOUR HERSH: Sure. I mean, the kind of stuff they did. I could tell you stuff that was secret eight, nine years ago. We wouldfor example, we developedif there was an underground facility we thought waswhere we saw some digging, lets say, in a mountain area, we would line the road,

when there were trucks going up and down the road, we would line the road with what seemed to be pebbles. In fact, they were sensors that could measure the weight of trucks going in and out. If a truck would go in light and come out with heavy, we could assume it was coming out with dirt, they were doing digging. We did that kind of monitoring. We also put all sorts of passive counters, measures, of radioactivity. Uranium, even plutoniummost of the stuff thats being done there is enriched uranium. Theyre not making plutonium. But you can track. At a certain point, you have to move it. Once you take it out and start moving it around, you can track it. You can find Geiger counters, if you will, to use that old-fashioned term. You can measure radioactivity and see increases. We would go into a building, our troops, sometimes even with Americans, go into a building in Tehran, where we thought there was something fishy going on, start a disturbance down the street, take out a few bricks, slam in another section of brick with a Geiger counter, if you will, or a measuring device to see if, in that building, they were doing some enrichment we didnt know about. And we also have incredible competence at looking for air holes from the air, from satellites. If youre building an underground facility, you have to vent it. You have to get air into it. You have to find a way to remove bad air and put in fresh air. And so, we have guys that are experts, tremendous people in the community. Some of them retired and set up a private company to do this. They would monitor all of the aerial surveillance to look for air holes, so we could find a pattern, try to find a pattern, of an underground facility. Nada.We came up with nothing. And the most important thing is, we alsoand the IAeven this new report also sayslet me emphasize this: if youre not diverting uranium, if youre not taking uranium out of the count and smuggling it someplace so that you can build a bomband that, theIAEA is absolutely categorical oneverything that they are enriching, whatever percentage they enrich to, is under camera inspection, and under inspection of inspections. Its all open, under the treaty, the safeguard treaty. Nobody is accusing Iran of violating the treaty. Theyre just accusing them of cheating on the side, or some evidence they are. And theres been no evidence of a diversion. So if youre going to make a bomb, youre going to have to bring it in from someplace else. And given the kind of surveillance we have, thats going to be hard to do, to import it from a third country, bring in uranium and enrich it, or enriched uranium. Its just a long shot.

And what you have isas I said, its some sort of a hysteria that we had over Iraq thats coming up again in Iran. And this isnt a plea for Iran. Theres a lot of things that the Iranians do that is objectionable, the way they treat dissent, etc., etc. So Im just speaking within the context of the hullabaloo thats up now. And as far as sanctions are concerned, you know, excuse me, weve been sanctioning Cuba for 60 years, and Castro isyou know, he may be ill, but hes still there. Sanctions are not going to work. This is a country that produces oil and gasless and less, but still plenty of it. And they have customers in the Far East, the Iranians. They have customers for their energy. Were the losers in this. AMY GOODMAN: How would you compare the Obama administration to the Bush administration when it comes to Iran? SEYMOUR HERSH: I cant find a comparison. Samea little less bellicose, but the same thing. I do thinkI have every reason to believe that, unlike Mr. Bush, President Obama really is worried about an attack. He doesnt want to see the Israelis bomb Iran. Thats the kind of talk weve been getting in the press lately. And theres newas you mentioned, the 30,000-pound bombs built by Boeing, I think. The problem is that most of Irans facilities, the ones that we know about, the declared facilities under camera inspection, a place called Natanz, is about 80, 75 to 80 feet underground. And youd have to do a hell of a lot of bombing to do much damage to it. You could certainly do damage to it, but the cost internationally would be stupendous. The argument for going and bombing is so vague and so nil. Theres been studies done showingtechnical studies, MIT and other places, and the Israeli government also has had its scientists participate in these studies, showing it would be really hard to do a significant amount of damage, given how deep the underground facilities are. But you hear this talk about it. And theresyou know, look, this president has said nothing about whats going on in Tahrir Square again. Were mute. Hes been mute on this kind of bellicosity. But my understanding is that, purely from inside information, is that he does understand the issues more. I think its right now a political game being played by him to look tough. You know, everybodys chasing, you know, the independent vote. I dont know whywhats so important to go after people that cant decide whether theyre Democrats or Republicans, but that seems to be the name of the game.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, lets turn to the response in Israel to the IAEA report. Yesterday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN the time has come to deal with Iran. When asked specifically whether Israel would attack Iran, this is how he responded. DEFENSE MINISTER EHUD BARAK: I dont think that thats a subject for public discussion. But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well the publics. And people understand that the time had come. Amano told straightly what he found, unlike Baradei. And it became a major issue, that I think, duly so, becomes a major issue for sanctions, for intensive diplomacy, with urgency. People understand now that Iran is determined to reach nuclear weapons. No other possible or conceivable explanation for what they had been actually doing. And that should be stopped. AMY GOODMAN: That was the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak. Sy, your response? SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, what makes me nervous is Barak and Bibi, Bibi Netanyahu, are together on this. Theyre not always together on many things. They both agree, and thats worrisome because, again, its a political issue there. Everybodythe country is moving quickly to the right, Israel is, obviously. And I can just tell you that Ive also talkedunfortunately, the ground rules are so lousy in Israel, I cant write it, but Ive talked to very senior intelligence people in Iranin Israel, rather. If you notice, you dont hear that much about it, but the former head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, who leftwho was the guy that orchestrated the attempted assassinations in Dubai, etc.no dovehas been vehement about the foolishness of attempting to go after Iran, on the grounds that its not clear what they have. Theyre certainly far away from a bomb. Israel has been saying for 20 years theyre, you know, six months away from making a bomb. But I can tell you that Ive talked to senior Israeli officers in Israel who have told me, A, they know that Iran, as the American intelligence community reportedI think it was in '07there was a National Intelligence Estimate that became public that said, essentially, Iran did look at a bomb. They had an eight-year war with Iraq, a terrible war, 1980 to 1988. And we, by the way, the United States, sided with Iraq, Saddam Hussein at that time. Iran then, in the years after that, they began to worry about Iraq's talk about building a nuclear weapon, so they did look, in that period, lets say '87 to '97 to 2003, no question. The American NIE said in '07it was augmented

in 2011. I wrote about it a year ago in The New Yorker. It said, yes, they did look at a bomb, but notthey knew that they couldn'tthere was no way they could make a bomb to deter America or Israel. Theyre not fools. This Persian society has been around for a couple thousand years. They cant deter us. We have too many bombs. They thought maybe they could deter Iraq. After we went in and took down Iraq in '03, they stopped. So they had done some studies. We're talking about computer modeling, etc., no building. Theyno question, they looked at the idea of getting a bomb or getting to the point where maybe they could make one. They did do that, but they stopped in 03. Thats still the American consensus. The Israelis will tell you privately, "Yes, we agree." They stopped most of their planning, even their studies, in '03. The Israeli position is they stopped not because they saw what we did to Iraq, but they thought that we couldwe destroyed IraqI had a general tell me thiswe destroyed Iraq init took themwe did in three weeks what they couldn't do in eight years. They thought they would be next. But the consensus was, yes, they stopped. And also, if you asked serious, smart, wise Israelis in the intelligence business and there are many "Do you really think, if they got a bomband they dont have one nowthey would hit Tel Aviv?" and the answer was, "Do you think theyre crazy? We would incinerate them. Of course not. Theyve been around 2,000 years. Thats not going to happen." Their fear was they would give a bomb to somebody else, etc. But theres an element rationality in the Israeli intelligence community thats not being expressed by the political leadership. Its the same madness we have here. Theres an element of rationality in our intelligence community which says, in '07, and it has said it again last year, they don't have the bomb. Theyre not making it. Its at NIE, 16 agencies agreed, 16 to nothing, in an internal vote, before thatthey did an update in 2011 on the '07 study and came to the same place. It's just not there. That doesnt mean they dont have dreams. It doesnt mean scientists dont do computer studies. It doesnt mean that physicists at the University of Tehran dont do what physicists like to do, write papers and do studies. But theres just no evidence of any systematic effort to go from enriching uranium to making a bomb. Its a huge, difficult process. You have to take a very hot gas and convert it into a metal and then convert it into a core. And you have to do that by remote control, because you cant get near that stuff. Itll kill you. So radioactive.

I mean, so, look, Im a lone voice. And you know how careful The New Yorker is, even on a blog item. This piece was checked and rechecked. And I quote peopleJoe Cirincione, an American whos been involved in disarmament many years. These are different voices than youre seeing in the papers. I sometimes get offended by the same voices we see in the New York Times and Washington Post. We dont see people with different points of view. There are, inside thenot only the American intelligence community, but also inside the IAEA in Vienna. There are many people who cannot stand what Amano is doing, and many people who basicallyI get emailsand this piece came out, was put up, I think, over the weekend. And I get emails, like crazy, from people on the inside saying, "Way to go." Im talking about inside the IAEA. Its an organization that doesnt deal with the press, but internally, theyre very bothered by the direction Amano is taking them. Its not a scientific study, Amy. Its a political document. And its a political document in which hes playing our game. And its the same game the Israelis are picking up on, and those who dont like Iran. And I wish we could separate our feelings about Iran and the mullahs and what happened with the students from 1979, into the reality, which is that I think theres a very serious chance the Iranians would certainly give us the kind of inspections we want, in return for a little lovean end to sanctions and a respect that they insist that they want to get from us. And its not happening from this administration. AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, I want to thank you very much for being with us. His latest piece is on the blog at The New Yorker. Its called "Iran and the IAEA." Seymour Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize. His piece, you can see at The New Yorkers website.

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