The UN’s former top nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday his cautious language in reports about Iran’s nuclear program was part of a deliberate policy to keep a lid on tensions and avert a rush to war.
Mohamed ElBaradei, who was director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 12 years before stepping down in November, pleaded with the international community to “learn the lessons” of the Iraq invasion and prevent further conflict in the Middle East.
In an interview, he said that despite its technical status, the IAEA’s work was deeply politicized.
“We are a technical organization totally embedded in a political setting,” ElBaradei said, “and we have to be aware of the background and political implications of our work.”
ElBaradei, who was jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2005 along with the IAEA, has been criticized by some for allegedly toning down agency reports on the threat posed by Iran.
A report earlier this year — the first under the stewardship of ElBaradei’s successor, Yukiya Amano — was noted for its blunter language concerning Iran’s nuclear program, prompting some to accuse ElBaradei of concealing facts.
“It is now clear that ... ElBaradei was engaged in what may well prove to be the most lethal cover-up in human history,” a Forbes magazine columnist said following the report’s publication.
ElBaradei denied any cover-up had taken place, but acknowledged he believed he had a duty to frame agency reports in a way that could not be exploited by those seeking war. “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 every word could be used politically and in a very subjective way,” he said. “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.”
He rejected suggestions this amounted to undue political interference in the agency’s work.
“I think the tone was set by me, that’s true,” he said. “But all the facts were in every report, unvarnished.”
His cautious reports are in contrast to the title of his memoirs, Crawling Away From Armageddon, to be published later this year.
The book is expected to reveal details of ElBaradei’s private conversations with US officials, with whom he fought in vain to avoid a US-led invasion of Iraq.
“I would hope that the lessons of Iraq, both in London and in the US have started to sink in,” he said. “Sure there are dictators, but are you ready every time you want to get rid of a dictator to sacrifice a million innocent civilians?”
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
A former flight attendant for a Canadian airline posed as a commercial pilot and as a current flight attendant to obtain hundreds of free flights from US airlines, authorities said on Tuesday. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in US federal court in Hawaii in October last year. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday following his extradition to the US. Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fake employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other
RSS