A hotly disputed report by the Associated Press claiming the White House’s nuclear deal with Iran would allow Tehran to self-inspect a key nuclear facility has been corroborated by Reuters and the New York Times, likely putting to rest earlier criticisms that the AP got its facts wrong.
“The director general of the [United Nation’s] International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that Iran had turned over samples from a suspected site of nuclear experimentation, but confirmed that they had been collected by Iranians under the watchful eye of surveillance devices, rather than by outside nuclear inspectors,” the Times reported Monday.
The samples collection operation was monitored by outside investigators via video and GPS tracking, which IAEA officials said was good enough for them. U.N. inspectors point to this arrangement as proof that the AP’s scoop is a “misrepresentation.”
But the Times reported that, “A compromise reached in July in Vienna, a day before Iran signed its broad nuclear accord with six world powers, allowed the Iranians to collect the material themselves so that they could make the case that no foreigners were allowed into their military bases.”
RedState contributor Dan McLaughlin quipped Monday on social media, “[A] whole lotta people owe the AP an apology.”
A separate Reuters report echoed much of the Times’ findings.
“Four diplomats familiar with the deal told Reuters that U.N. inspectors would be present at Parchin to oversee the inspections,” the group revealed Friday.
Reuters suggests that the AP’s initial report is somewhat inaccurate due to Iran allowing U.N. officials to monitor the samples collection process from afar.
“The diplomats, who have knowledge of the deal, said that while the IAEA inspectors will not be next to the Iranian technicians when they take samples, they will be at Parchin overseeing the process. Cameras will record the process,” Reuters reported.
Still, the bottom line according to the article is that, “Iranian officials have also said that international experts would not be allowed in.”
IAEA investigators were last given access to that particular Iranian site in 2005. Officials said at the time that they likely inspected the wrong building, hinting that the Iranian government intentionally misled them. The site reviewed by U.N. officials has since been renovated, leading to suspicions that Iran may be trying to hide past nuclear research.
“We entered a building which the agency had previously only been able to observe using satellite imagery,” IAEA director Yukiya Amano said Monday in a statement. “Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work. There was no equipment in the building. Our experts will now analyze this information, and we will have discussions with Iran in the coming weeks, as foreseen in the road map.”
The AP first reported in August that the White House’s nuclear deal with Iran would allow for self-inspections, but its story was disputed immediately by a number of reporters who doubted the story’s veracity.
“Most troubling fact remains on AP story: Refusal to provide context on how monitored inspections work, but rush to get angry GOP quotes,” Vox’s Max Fisher said on social media.
Some even suggested that Israeli agents were behind what they suspected was a bogus report.
“Could it be that #Israel stands behind leaking this document to #AP?” asked Said Arikat of Al-Quds, a pan-Arab daily newspaper.
Several AP reporters, including U.S. foreign policy reporter Bradley Klapper, AP diplomatic writer Matt Lee and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian, pushed back hard on these suggestions, as they stood by their agency’s original work.
It didn’t help that the initial AP report underwent a stream of seemingly endless and unexplained edits, causing further doubt as to its authenticity of its major scoop. Spokespeople for the AP declined to explain why the story had undergone multiple revisions, some of which actually removed the claims about Iranian self-inspections.
Amano maintains that the original August report is a mischaracterization of the nuclear agreement with Iran.
The news agency continues to stand by its story, pointing to a copy of the draft agreement between the IAEA and Iran that it obtained and made available online later in August as proof of the report’s authenticity.
