While NAM (Non Aligned Movement) countries had recently released a statement in which they are backing the nuclear program of Iran and asking for initiation of negotiations without precondition, UN Security Council has divided on Iran’s nuclear issue. Russia and China are supporting the diplomatic manner and they are against any economic sanctions towards Iran. And upon the latest developments, especially the latest meeting between Ali Larijani and Javier Solana, the EU is positive and hopeful concerning the negotiations.

In this atmosphere, even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is known with his harsh explanations has softened his stance on the nuclear issue. Speaking in Senegal on his way to a non-aligned summit in Cuba and then the annual meeting of the United Nations, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was open to “new conditions” on the subject.

While the negative and hopeless atmosphere in the international arena has almost changed since 22 August toward this issue, the US is still pursuing its attempts for economic sanction decision to be taken in UNSC. For realizing this aim US tries to set up a coalition against Iran. "The US intends to poison the course of the negotiations through constant antagonism, although Iran has constantly stressed negotiations for realizing its nuclear rights," Foreign Ministry Spokesman of Iran Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told DPA News Service.

Furthermore we faced with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 12 September letter that was signed by External Relations Director of IAEA in Vienna. This letter was prepared by 35-nation board meeting of the IAEA and was addressed to the Chairman of the House of Representative Intelligence Committee. It was a scathing letter to a congressional committee saying part of its case against Iran is "outrageous and dishonest." The letter, which was first reported on by The Washington Post was unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s nuclear program.  The letter was the first time the IAEA has publicly rebutted US allegations about its Iran investigation.

At first it is necessary to give brief information concerning the 23 August Staff Report that was prepared by U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. This report entitled “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States” was prepared as an unclassified assessment on Iran and the kinds of threats Iran poses to the United States.

Many analysts called this report as a piece of war propaganda since it has a cover with President Ahmadinejad’s photo at the “World without Zionism” conference and starts with quotations taken from his explanations in this regard.

This report gives information on several threats that Iran can impose. Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program, evidence for and Iranian nuclear program, timeline to an Iranian nuclear bomb, dubious claims and explanations for Iran’s nuclear activities, the question of chemical and biological weapons, the threat from the Iranian ballistic missile program, Iran’s weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, how Iran is destabilizing Iraq, Iranian involvement in Iraq’s political process, Iranian support to Iraqi militia, Iranian involvement in attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq, Iran’s role in Iraq, Iranian support for terrorism outside Iraq (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Palestinian Groups), WMD terrorism are some of the headlines included in that report.

This report accuses the CIA and other US intelligence agencies of failing to demonstrate “the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgments on these essential topics, which have been recognized as essential to US national security.”

The report noted that besides having a likely chemical weapons development program and an offensive biological weapons program, Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. It furthermore underlines the concern that Iran is aiding terrorism in Iraq and helping Hezbollah stage missile attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon.

The most striking part of the report is in relation with the uranium enrichment capability of Iran. Report claims that Iran is “enriching uranium to weapons grade using a 164-machine centrifuge cascade.” This was the claim that annoyed IAEA and forced the agency to write a letter saying that the report includes falsifying data on Iran’s enrichment program. In reality, Iran has achieved 3.5 percent enrichment so far, not the 90 percent required to make a bomb. Making enough of such material for a weapon would require 16,000 centrifuges, not 164.

The IAEA warned about the five significant errors in the committee’s report, that claimed Iran’s nuclear capabilities were more advanced than either the agency or US intelligence had shown.

The Congress report claimed that Iran was producing weapons-grade uranium. The IAEA called that "incorrect", noting that weapons-grade uranium is enriched to a level of at least 90 per cent; Iran had enriched uranium to 3.5 per cent, and done so under the agency monitoring. In the other words, IAEA said that it is false in saying Iran is making weapons-grade uranium at an experimental enrichment site, when it has in fact produced material only in small quantities and that is far below the level that can be used in nuclear arms.

The report was also covertly mentioning that IAEA supports Iranian nuclear program by saying that IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei removed a senior nuclear inspector from the team investigating Iran’s nuclear program "for concluding that the purpose of Iran’s nuclear program is to construct weapons." So that, this was one of the points that was condemned by IAEA and interpreted as "incorrect and misleading."

On the other hand, several intelligence officers privately said the report included at least a dozen claims that were either demonstrably wrong or impossible to substantiate. The report is still to be voted on and has not been discussed by the full committee.

This report was interpreted as false, incorrect, shameful and one-sided approach of U.S. lies and deceptions by Iran. According to Iran’s Parliament Supreme National Security Council Secretary Aladdin Broujerdi, the U.S. has been trying to gain an international approval against Iran nuclear technology. In his explanations took place on ISNA, he stated that "The U.S. Senate in its false report against Iran has announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran is after producing nuclear weapons and that it has achieved high percentages of enrichment, which has been officially denounced by Mohammad El-Baradei and the IAEA as a shameful and false report".

It is important to remind that since a long time a section of the American ruling establishment is pressing US intelligence agencies to produce “evidence” that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose an imminent nuclear weapons threat. This is the same scenario as the pre Iraq war. During that time Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Bush administration who were planning the Iraq war were seeking to manufacture fake “intelligence” that Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction justified a US invasion and occupation of the country.

According to a news on Yale Global, in April, when asked about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that “Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries,” National Intelligence Council Chairman Tom Fingar stated that there is no dissent within the 15 US intelligence agencies that Iran will get a nuclear bomb no sooner than “early to mid next decade.” Actually this is a situation which the Bush administration and especially neo-cons are not happy with.

The general idea of these efforts is the lack of information about the Iran’s nuclear program. Actually more than improving the intelligence on Iran, US ruling establishment is looking to find a gap on this issue. That is why they are pushing intelligence agencies to produce evidence.

Since the US have an intelligence failure past, the world opinion is questioning the quality of US intelligence about the nuclear facts in Iran. In order to give an example, it is interesting to underline one of the assessments in this regard. In the aftermath of that intelligence failure the Silverman-Robb Commission examined the capacity of US intelligence agencies to assess WMD developments abroad. He concluded: “Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world’s most dangerous actors.”

Consequently, it can be said that while US is trying to pursue its Iran policy within the international system unlike the Iraq case, a noteworthy section of ruling establishment in the US tries to create the similar scenario. Different than past experience IAEA reacted in a harsh manner this time. Actually, both the UN and the world countries are concerned about the developments and no one wants to experience the same things again. Especially this time one of the parties is Iran and possible negative developments concerning this country will have really negative impacts on world economy. Apart of this, Middle East region has enough problems and a majority of world countries agree that Iran shall take part in solving these problems rather than being subjected to another conflict.

So that, solving the current nuclear crisis with diplomatic tools will be the wisest way for US. Rather than misleading intelligence reports, US shall improve its intelligence regarding Iran in all fields and after having right and clean data, it shall make a comprehensive analysis and determine its new Iran policy. This is the route that a super power shall pursue.

Arzu Celalifer

International Strategic Research Organization

Centre for Middle East Studies

celalifer@yahoo.com