Mohamed ElBaradei - The Age of Deception

My daughter, Laila, who also lived in London, was in the Underground on the way to her law office. She came out of the station to see thirty messages on her cell phone and was sure that something was terribly wrong—until she was able to reach her brother.

The Nobel committee later said they were sure that if they called the IAEA the news would leak immediately. The ambassador told me he had bought a large bouquet the year before as well.

Two examples:

From Javier, age 7: “I heard we had many people giving you support from Spain so that your inspectors would have more time so that there would be no war in Iraq. That is why we were so happy with your Nobel Peace Prize, and we hope that you will continue fighting for peace in the world. Congratulations!”

From Alicia, age 12: “I am totally against wars, and I thank you very much for your efforts to try to avoid the war in Iraq. Despite the fact that your strategy, based on dialogue, was absolutely not to the liking of the USA, you knew how to stay firm and you showed that there were not nuclear weapons in Iraq, even while gaining the hate of the most powerful country. I hope that in the conflict with Iran you are luckier and that things get solved by using dialogue and not through arms. And that the politicians of the USA accept the opinions of the UN, and that they not always do whatever they want for their economic gain. I wish you luck and that you can continue using your main weapon: dialogue. With affection…”

After a meeting with Rice, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, publicly denied that there had ever been a Russian proposal. He obviously wanted to maintain the unity of the negotiating parties and did not want to disagree with the United States in public.

The Majlis had never ratified Iran’s Additional Protocol, but the Iranians had been implementing it provisionally.

Secretary-general of the Council for the European Union and the EU’s high representative for common foreign and security policy.

The P-5 (permanent members of the Security Council) plus Germany, who were working more or less as a unit in the negotiations at the time.

“Bolton Admits Lebanese Truce Block,” BBC News Online, March 22, 2007.

David S. Cloud, “U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis,” New York Times , July 22, 2006.

“UK Dismisses Talk of Iran Attack,” BBC News Online, April 9, 2006.

Beckett had been working on climate change as the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs. She told the Sunday Times on June 28 that when Blair told her she was being appointed foreign secretary, her response was “one word, with four letters.”

Annan supported the set of principles, but his visit to Iran never materialized.

Glenn Kessler, “Early October New Deadline for Iran,” Washington Post , September 21, 2006.

It was hard to decipher his intentions. I suspected that Aghazadeh and his colleagues were feeling the heat, because our inspectors were pressing hard for the “full story” that would fill in gaps in the history of Iran’s nuclear program. The pressure to suspend enrichment may also have been on his mind; as one of the fathers of Iran’s enrichment program, Aghazadeh was not eager to see it disappear.

A “transparency visit” was the term used when Iran agreed voluntarily to allow the IAEA to visit a site where the Agency had no clear jurisdiction.

Sarah Dilorenzo, “Iran Rejects U.N. Resolution and Accuses Security Council of Hypocrisy,” Associated Press, San Diego Tribune , December 23, 2006.

According to rumor, certain Iranian officials had admitted that Iran had appointed a special group in 1987 to look into planning a nuclear weapon option. The group allegedly had been disbanded in the early 1990s. Reportedly, Iran was divided internally about how to confess this matter to the IAEA. The Agency had heard similar intimations through intelligence channels. But we were never able to verify the truth behind these rumors.

Turkey has also taken a number of anti-Western stances under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership, which has gained him immense popularity in the Muslim world. Turkey is a member of NATO and considered a Western ally, but there has been considerable controversy over its candidacy for membership in the European Union, which has been cited by Muslims as proof of Western bias against them.

In these types of experiments, a small “target” of one material is irradiated to produce another material. Thorium, like uranium and plutonium, is a nuclear material that can be used as fuel in a reactor. However, thorium itself cannot be used directly in a nuclear weapon, because it is not “fissile,” meaning that the thorium nucleus does not fission, or split, to produce energy. Instead, thorium is “fertile,” meaning that it can absorb neutrons to produce uranium-233, which in turn is a fissile material.

In fact, the law was only adopted in 2010.

“Egypt Rejects Reports of Nuclear Probe,” Agence France-Presse, May 7, 2009.

This was not the first threat I had received. A few years earlier the Egyptian authorities had received information that a militant Egyptian group was planning to target Egyptian public figures abroad. I was on the list. The Egyptian ambassador to Vienna, Mostafa el-Feki, informed me and the authorities in Austria. For a time I was given increased security, but nothing came of it.

Gideon Frank, the director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, attended the meeting, as did Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weissglass, and his military adviser.

The NSG, founded in 1974, is a multinational body made up of forty-six Member States that have the capacity to export nuclear technology. The NSG seeks to reduce nuclear proliferation risks by controlling the export of materials that could be relevant to nuclear weapons development.

Peter Wallsten, “Bush: No Nuclear Pact for Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times , March 5, 2006.

Transcript retrieved from CNN archives at www.archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/28/le.01.html.

Charlie Rose, October 30, 2007. Transcript retrieved at www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Transcripts/2007/cr301007.html.

“Israel Says UN Nuclear Chief Should Go,” Agence France-Presse, November 8, 2007.

Lieberman later became foreign minister.

“Israel Minister: ‘Apocalyptic Scenario’ If Egypt, Saudi Arabia Go Nuclear,” Jerusalem Post , November 8, 2007.

Haaretz , November 17, 2007.

Interview on CNN’s Late Edition on November 11, 2007. Transcript retrieved from CNN archives at www.archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/11/le.01.html. A number of pundits commenting on this interview recalled a comment Bolton had made to Insight magazine in August 1999: “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States.”