Two news reports by major wire services this weekend demonstrate just how pervasive misinformation and propaganda are in the mainstream media when it comes to the Iranian nuclear issue.
The first:
Reuters reported this week that Catherine Ashton, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and chief nuclear negotiator for the P5+1, has high hopes for the new round of talks with Iran resuming May 23rd in Baghdad and will approach the meeting as a “serious set of discussions that can lead to concrete results.”
Sounds positive enough, especially when coupled with the statement Ashton made at the end of last month's meeting in Istanbul. "We have agreed that the Non-Proliferation Treaty forms a key basis for what must be serious engagement, to ensure all the obligations under the NPT are met by Iran while fully respecting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."
However, another comment made by Ashton on Friday is cause for considerable concern. She told reporters in Brussels, "My ambition is that we come away with the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons programme in Iran. I hope we’ll see the beginnings of success.”
Such a statement is certainly alarming. Despite the hysterical cries of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing acolytes here in the U.S., both Western and Israeli intelligence, along with the IAEA, have consistently confirmed that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.
One would assume that the chief P5+1 negotiator would understand and acknowledge this simple - and vitally important - fact. Perhaps Ashton's recent private audience with Netanyahu in Jerusalem was more dangerous and detrimental to the negotiations than one would even expect.
(Of course, the sheer absurdity of Ashton's meeting with the Prime Minister of a state that is not a signatory of the NPT, has an undeclared stockpile of hundreds of nuclear warheads, is a constant violator of international law and perpetrator of war crimes, and which is in consistent breach of countless Security Council resolutions gos without saying. That Netanyahu would have any role whatsoever in these discussions, let alone issuing demands to both the U.S. government and Ashton herself, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how designed for failure these negotiations were from the start.)
The second:
In one of the most embarrassing examples of published propaganda over the Iranian nuclear program to date, The Associated Press today "reported" that it has obtained an undated "computer-generated drawing" of "an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted" at its Parchin military complex. The news agency says it was bequeathed this rendering "by an official of a country tracking Iran’s nuclear program who said it proves the structure exists."
One version of the AP exclusive contains this detail:
That official said the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant. The official comes from an IAEA member country that is severely critical of Iran's assertions that its nuclear activities are peaceful and asserts they are a springboard for making atomic arms.
What mysterious country could that possibly be, one wonders?! The answer is so painfully obvious as to make AP scoopster George Jahn's attempts at anonymity patently ridiculous and pathetic. Jahn, unsurprisingly, has a long history of silly reporting on the Iran nuclear issue.
This detonation chamber stuff, by the way, has been debunked for half a year now.
The story also notes that former IAEA official Olli Heinonen, who himself has a long history of pushing dubious information about Iran's nuclear file, said that the computer graphic provided to the press is "'very similar' to a photo he recently saw that he believes to be the pressure chamber the IAEA suspects is at Parchin." Heinonen added that "even the colors of the computer-generated drawing matched that of the photo."
Pretty convincing, huh? Ok, here's the computer drawing this whole thing is about:
Yes, really. That's it. Really. No, please stop laughing and believe me. That's really the thing they're talking about. Yes, seriously. I mean it.
These are the depths to which propaganda about the Iranian nuclear program have sunk. It's not even clever anymore, it's just stupid.
Just in case anyone is interested, I have successfully uncovered the true identities of the crack Israeli computer graphics team that came up with that drawing:
This post originally appeared on Nima Shirazi's blog Wide Asleep in America.
I have a drawing of a unicorn. Only $110 a ride. Post the money now to reserve your place in the queue.
Ashton is not that cogent. I imagine she meant to say the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons programme in Iran as an issue, or the issue of…. Slip of the tongue, that’s all. Most people like her are fed up to the back teeth with all this nonsense.
You may be correct about the remark being a “slip of the tongue.” However, I am not so sure. I believe that many in the IAEA and some European and American officials do not agree with the official US intelligence assessment which says Iran is not working to produce a bomb.
The IAEA is insisting today that it be given immediate access to Parchin.
link to swissinfo.ch
I also read that some European officials believe that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, even though they may not say so publicly.
link to cbc.ca
I, myself, am not sure that Iran is not experimenting with weaponization. India, Pakistan, N. Korea and Israel did it. Why shouldn’t Iran want a bomb for the same reasons these nations did? It’s a great deterrent against attack, although it did not help Israel in 1973.
So I think Ashton may have been saying what she believes, although she may have preferred to be less honest than she was.
Ira, I understand your point but I do not think Ashton would make so bold and provocative a statement as implied here. This is a quote of something said and one can easily convey the phrase ‘nuclear weapons program in Iran’ in inverted commas by intonation. By doing so she would be referring to the issue of, not any Iranian program per se. If, as I suspect, that is the case then her phrase implied quite the opposite, that there isn’t such an Iranian program, only the issue which is a US/Israel construction. Heaven knows what Iran is working on, but I do not believe it to be a program dedicated to the construction of a nuclear bomb to drop on Israelis, or anyone else for that matter. It is not conceivable that all the informed experts, security, military and scientific, many of whom would just love to find Iran guilty, should be unconvinced there is such a program. Let’s face it, the US wants to disable Iran and Israeli paranoia has been a convenient Trojan horse for the purpose. However, the ploy is coming undone at the seams because in reality there is no Iranian nuclear weapon program, the emperor has no clothes after all.
a few of the regular participants at RaceforIran have some very astute interpretations of Ashton’s comment,
here link to raceforiran.com
here link to raceforiran.com
and here — an assessment arrived at by assessing Ashton’s statements in conjunction with David Ignatius’
stenographyreporting .link to raceforiran.com
Nima, thanks for the report. It amazes me that few, if any, of the reports quoting the AP story mentioned how Israel fits the description of the source country. Also, how few articles mentioned that the graphic and the detailed description of the alleged facility may be inaccurate or falsified.
A rare exception is the Israeli journalist, Ron Ben-Yishai, (Hebrew only) who compared the computer graphic to Powell’s pictures of those mobile biological weapons laboratories. The photos that Powell showed at the UN Security Council in the run-up to the Iraq war. Ben-Yishai writes the graphic is worthless without a lot of additional information.
link to ynet.co.il
The propaganda war is heating up. Here are some additional items.
A mysterious satellite photograph appeared last week which allegedly “proved” Iran was removing all evidence of the containment chamber in Parchin.
link to upi.com
MEK, the Iranian dissident group supported by the US and Israel, issued a report claiming that 60 Iranian scientists are working on nuclear weapons.
link to jpost.com
Maybe this is pure coincidence but a IAEA weapons inspector was just killed in an automobile accident in Iran. There are no immediate indications of foul play.
link to news.nationalpost.com
Great post Nima. And this type of unsubstantiated and inflammatory reporting about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program has been going on in the MSM for close to 10 years.
RE: “[George] Jahn, unsurprisingly, has a long history of silly reporting on the Iran nuclear issue.” ~ Nima Shirazi
ALSO SEE: How Mossad Justified Its Murder of an Innocent Iranian Electrical Engineer, by Gareth Porter, TruthOut.org, 3/17/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to truth-out.org
yeah, very same image right here:
link to mondoweiss.net
it’s back to the nonodiamonds tank..that has already been debunked.
i was just reading about the revival of the tank theory the other day here:
link to csmonitor.com
triple yawn
MEK is about to be taken of the terrorist list. Our hypocrisy knows no bounds.
@ CloakAndDagger
Check out Greenwald on taking MEK off the terror list.
link to salon.com
What a great way to poison the atmosphere with Iran during the upcoming round of talks. Perfect. Even the WSJ story (quoted in Greenwald) says this in its first paragraph.
Absolutely, “Our hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Glen’s a national treasure. Great article.
Whom can we pay to have Palestine put on the favored list?
They won’t give up. They’re running around pissing on everything. Here’s something you may not see in the NYT.
link to presstv.ir
The mainstream press haven’t been completely silent. I mentioned Amanpour on CNN here link to amanpour.blogs.cnn.com . I’ve seen a dutch program ( from the ‘Tegenlicht’ series) and there have been a few articles, notably in the NYTimes. This is not because the press was a driving force here, but because several players, including the intelligence people, were making enough noise about it, and then the press picked it up.
At the NYTimes they are fully aware that the story changed and they adapted, but not in a way that the reader catches on. At the daily I’m reading (De Morgen) they aren’t even fully aware, even though they read the NYTimes, and I told them. Maybe my mail was lost. Happens.
Note the shift from “they’re working on a bomb” to “they’re working on nuclear capability so they become able to make a bomb” all maintaining the same threatening feeling.
The reader, who sometimes is editor for another paper, will hardly notice the shift on the information level, and even less on the perception level, the feeling of threat.
For comparison I imagine a feedback system where the paper takes responsibility for some of the news the reader receives through the paper, and it polls the reader about the understanding on some issues, and then the paper communicates clearly where it thinks the reader’s understanding is lacking. Eg there was a CNN poll a few years back, I think Annie reported on it, indicating that 70% of americans thought Iran already had a bomb. It would have made a fine pairing if the poll had been followed up right away with the kind of documentary Amanpour made recently.
An odd example, considering the record of CNN.