In an October 1 meeting, Western governments ‘proposed that Iran agree to ship up to 80 percent of its LEU to Russia in return for eventual shipments of 20 percent enriched uranium to fuel a small medical reactor in Tehran.’ At an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) negotiations in Vienna last month, outgoing IAEA Director General ElBaradei presented the said Western proposal which Iran rejected. In turn, Iran offered a counterproposal which the United States and other negotiating partners have likewise rejected.
These recent developments are dwarfed by the new light that is now shed on Iran’s nuclear facility at Qom. A published new evidence shows that Iran had been building “contingency centers” in the event of a U.S. bombing attack as early as 2002, years before it began building the second enrichment facility at Qom. Also, there is new evidence that the Qom enrichment facility was constructed on one of many sites where tunneling had been prepared as early as 2002 to protect various kinds of facilities from a possible U.S. air attack.’
It is now said that ‘the apparent Iranian decision to begin preparations for a U.S. attack on Iran in 2002 came after President George W. Bush had declared in his September 20, 2001 speech to a joint session of Congress that any nation that “continues to harbor or support terrorism” would be regarded as a “hostile regime” and then named Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil” with Iraq and North Korea in January 2002.’
The new evidence cancels out the U.S. conclusion ‘that Iran had been working on constructing a covert enrichment plant for several years – well before March 2007, when Iran announced that it would no longer inform the agency of new facilities as soon as the decision had been made to construct them. The Iranian account documented in the report puts the decision to build the Qom enrichment facility in mid-2007.’
Via counterpunch
