Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just held a live, PowerPoint infused, press conference in which he made a startling revelation. Mossad just happened to “find” over a thousand pounds, literally a half-ton, of Iranian documents, recordable media, and videos that documented the secret nuclear weapons program they were to have dismantled.
Some unlucky technician, somewhere in Iran today: "Hey, has anybody seen the 100,000 pages of documents about our nuclear program I left on my desk Friday afternoon?"
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 30, 2018
The reason this is important is that Iran, under the terms of the JCPOA–the Iran nuclear deal–was supposed to disclose to the IAEA the extent of its nuclear research. Iran’s position has always been that its nuclear program had been totally focused on the peaceful use of nuclear power. And, for the sake of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to tell the IAEA to FOAD on a lot of its questions:
The completion of the report is one of the steps that Iran had to take — along with dismantling centrifuges and shipping nuclear fuel out of the country — before sanctions will be lifted under the nuclear deal.
Mr. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, concluded this year that it was more important to secure a deal that will, if carried out fully, prevent Iran from gaining the material to build a bomb for at least 15 years than making it admit to past activities. So, the report’s publication allows the deal to go through, no matter how definitive or inconclusive the final result.
But Iran’s refusal to cooperate on central points could set a dangerous precedent as the United Nations agency tries to convince other countries with nuclear technology that they must fully answer queries to determine if they have a secret weapons program.
The agency’s bottom-line assessment was that Iran had made a “coordinated effort” to design and conduct tests on nuclear weapon components before 2003 — echoing a United States national intelligence estimate published in 2007 — and that it had conducted “some activities” thereafter.
“These activities did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies” and the acquisition of technical capabilities, the agency concluded. The efforts ended after 2009, or just as Mr. Obama was taking office and accelerating the sanctions and cybersabotage program against Iran’s nuclear facilities that ultimately brought Iranian officials to the negotiating table.
The documents, from what we’ve seen, indicate that Iran’s nuclear weapons program went beyond feasibility studies and that it continued longer than thought and that it still exists.
In 2015, John Kerry said the U.S. had "absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in" referring to #Iran's nuclear program. With @netanyahu's presentation we now know Iran wasn't the only one lying. #IranDeal https://t.co/SVLI8vlS7G pic.twitter.com/ggdwVuYqY3
— Matthew RJ Brodsky (@RJBrodsky) April 30, 2018
This should give President Trump cover if he decides to leave the deal. And it will make his life damned hard if he decides to stay.
https://twitter.com/moneyries/status/991006644396945408
In the irony category, this pinhead picked the worst possible day to fact check anyone on the Iran nuclear agreement:
President Trump has said that Iran has violated the nuclear agreement.
Watch @AliVelshi fact check what Iran has actually done. #VelshiRuhle pic.twitter.com/TsBbooRIsN
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 30, 2018
My apologies for the string of tweets but it is the fastest way to cover the press conference.
.@netanyahu: “These files conclusively prove that Iran is brazenly lying when it says it never had a nuclear weapons program.” pic.twitter.com/LQfY2foum9
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 30, 2018
#Israeli PM @netanyahu has taken to the podium for his remarks on #Iran but the microphone doesn’t work 😬
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
#Netanyahu: Tonight we are releasing to the world intelligence on #Iran that hasn’t been seen before. I want the international community of secret nuclear weapon program. We will be showing you #Iran’s Secret nuclear files
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
Tonight I am here to tell you one thing. #Iran lied and moved it’s nuclear weapons file to a highly secret location in #Tehran in 2017
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
#Israel has 55 thousand pages and files on 183 different cds on #Iran’s nuclear program with videos and pictures. All materials have been shared with the United States and we will share with other countries all information on “Project Amad” pic.twitter.com/9DwCyLbdXY
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
Project Amad: to design produce and test 5 warheads each with 10 kilotons of explosives each.
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
Netanyahu: Project Amad has “all five components of a nuclear weapons project”.
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
Netanyahu says #Iran has designed a nuclear payload on a Shahab 3 missiles and is expanding its range for nuclear-capable missiles which can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Moscow but are planning for much further reach. “Much. Much. Further”
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 30, 2018
"Iran lied," Netanyahu says, showing evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear facility. Israel obtained half a ton of material inside the vault.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
Netanyahu pulled aside a curtain to show a bookshelf full of documents from the Iranian facility. And then says they're all copies. That's a lot of dead trees.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
The goal of the Project Amad "is like 5 Hiroshima bombs to put on missiles," Netanyahu says. He's reading more materials describing what's there.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
They have missiles that can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Moscow, but are working on a much further range, Netanyahu says. The files show "Iran is brazenly lying"
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
Now Netanyahu is detailing the way Iran continued nuclear work under different names to hide it after the JCPOA, but is ongoing today in a project called Sapan in Iran's Defense Ministry.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
"You don't put thousands of centrifuges under a mountain to develop medical isotopes," you do that if it's for weapons, Netanyahu says.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
Netanyahu says this is a fraction of what was in the files, but there are 4 main conclusions:
1.Iran lied about developing nuclear weapons
2.They kept the program up after the nuclear deal
3.They lied in the IAA reports
4.The entire Iran nuclear deal is based on lies— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 30, 2018
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