New Report Challenges Blair's Views on Iran
1/26/07
Source:
Campaign Iran
(CASMII)
Today, a report will
be delivered to Number 10 Downing Street and to the news editors of all major
media networks in Britain and the world, countering the some
misconceptions that surround alleged threat posed by Iran.
The report, ‘Answering
the Charges”, drafted by Campaign Iran, sets out 21 of the most popular charges
that have been levelled at Iran and answers each of them in turn. Relying on the
facts as they are currently known, the report challenges the accuracy of many of
the key claims commonly made
against Iran. The report follows a spate
investigations into standards of reporting on Iran undertaken by the Press Complaints
Commission, and is intended to raise the awareness among journalists,
politicians and the public, that much of what has become the conventional wisdom
on Iran, is incorrect.
Professor Abbas Edalat
of Campaign Iran said
today:
“We are concerned that
military action against Iran is not just a real possibility
but an imminent reality. Unable to provide any justification for such action,
the case against Iran is being built on insinuation,
accusation and misinformation. Despite the stories that fill the news, we have
yet to see any evidence that Iran poses a real and imminent threat to any
nation, least of all Great
Britain. We have yet to see any evidence
that Iran is engaged in the development of
nuclear weapons or that it has breached any of its international treaty
obligations regarding nuclear proliferation. We have yet to see any
evidence that the Iranian government is supplying weapons to insurgents in
Iraq or harbouring terrorists within
its borders.
We hope that this
report will provide people with the facts that they need in order to make a
rational and unbiased judgement on the current situation with regards to
Iran. We also hope that it may help
to calm some of the hysteria that is building around the need for military
intervention against Iran.
Military action
against Iran would be completely unjustified,
counterproductive and have disastrous consequences for the people of the country
and the region. We should aim to resolve differences between nations through
dialogue and diplomacy rather than through incendiary threats and military
intervention.”
The
delegation will take place at 12.30pm on Friday 26th January.
It will be
comprise several MP’s, academics, writers and scientists.
Following his
outspoken criticism of US foreign policy, the Right
Honorable Peter Hain MP has been invited to participate.
Full copies
of “Answering the Charges against Iran: Dispelling the Demonising
Myths” are available from www.campaigniran.org. Summary
below.
Answering the
Charges against Iran:
Dispelling the Demonising Myths
A
number of inaccurate statements about Iran have been made by politicians
and repeated uncritically in the media. Campaign Iran, an international group opposed to sanctions
and military intervention against Iran, here counterpose some of these
popular myths against the facts as they currently
stand.
Iran is developing nuclear
weapons
There is absolutely no
proof that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme.
Inspections over the past three years have found no evidence of a nuclear
weaponization programme. There have been over 2200 person/hours of inspections
of Iran's nuclear facilities
by the IAEA and Mohammed El Baradei has stated that there is no evidence that
Iran has a weapons programme. There
is also a religious decree by Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on all
major issues, against the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear
weapons.
Iran has
been blocking inspections of its nuclear plants for
years
Iran has
fully complied with International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. They signed
the Addition Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and for most of
the last three years have allowed
inspectors "to go anywhere and see anything".
Iran is currently blocking IAEA
inspections
After they were
referred to the UN Security Council last year, Iran withdrew
from the voluntary enforcement of the Additional Protocol. They are however
still in full compliance with their international obligations and are allowing
inspections. Inspectors from International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) inspected Iran's nuclear installations in Isfahan and Natanz on
10-12th January 2007 and further inspections will take place on
2-6th February 2007.
The greater the threat of military action, the more difficult inspections are
likely to become.
Iran is enriching uranium
Enrichment of uranium
for domestic power purposes is an inalienable right under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran is believed to have enriched
uranium to the 3.5% level, enough for use as nuclear fuel, but it would require
90% enrichment, with 50-100 kg of it, to make a single bomb. Even a CIA’s
official 2005 US government
report states that Iran is at least 10 years away from
the capacity for a nuclear weapon.
Inspectors found traces of highly
enriched uranium
In 2004
IAEA inspectors did find traces of highly enriched uranium in the plant in
Natanz. In 2005 the IAEA confirmed that this highly enriched uranium was
Pakistani and came to Natanz as a result of imported centrifuges.
The
UN
has passed a resolution against Iran
There is
no basis for Resolution 1737 under international law and questions have been
raised as to whether political pressure was exerted on the Security Council
members to vote in favour of it. Without evidence that Iran has diverted its civilian nuclear activities
into a weaponization programme and since she has fully cooperated with the IAEA,
there were no grounds within the NPT either to refer Iran to the UN
Security Council, or to pass Resolution 1737.
The UN Security Council represents the
view of the International Community
In June 2006, 56 nations signed the
Baku Declaration which stated "the only way to resolve Iran's nuclear
issue is to resume negotiations without any preconditions and to enhance
cooperation with the involvement of all relevant parties". Similarly the Non-Aligned movement
representing the majority of the international community has recognised
Iran’s right for a civilian nuclear
technology.
The UN
resolution is only about sanctions
Resolution 1737 has given
Iran 60 days to stop conducting
uranium enrichment. After this deadline expires the US will no doubt
try and pass another Resolution involving ‘tougher measures,’ namely military
intervention.
With so much gas there is no reason for
Iran to want nuclear power
Iran would
like to export more oil and gas. It was Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz who, under President Ford, persuaded the Shah to establish a large
nuclear programme to meet its energy needs and sold the first nuclear reactor to
the country.
Iran is
harbouring Al Qaeda and supporting terrorists
There is
absolutely no evidence that Iran has in any way collaborated with
Al Qaeda. In fact Iran condemned the 9/11 attacks by Al
Qaeda and supported Coalition’s attack on the Taliban.
Iran is supplying weapons and
intelligence to Iraqi insurgents
No evidence whatsoever
has been produced to link the Iranian government to Iraqi insurgents.
General
Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted at a Pentagon news
conference in January 2007, that he had no evidence of the Iranian government
sending any military equipment or personnel into Iraq.
Iran is
planning to destroy Israel
Iran does not
have the military power to pose an objective threat to Israel.
President
Amadinejad “Israel should be wiped of the map” comment has
been widely reported in the Guardian and elsewhere to have been a mistranslation
and what he actually said is “the regime occupying
Jerusalem must
vanish from the page of time". Rather than “Israel should be wiped off the map”, as wrongly
attributed to him by the western media, he has called for a change of the
occupying regime in the same way that the Soviet
Union went through a regime change. It is said that President
Amadinejad rhetoric against
Israel is inflammatory. However a
distinction must be drawn between angry
rhetoric and genuine threats.
Iran
is a threat to the stability of the region
Iran is
surrounded by countries to the west, north and east that have nuclear weapons -
the US (in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the Indian Ocean), Israel, Russia, China,
India and Pakistan, and now North Korea.
Iran has
not invaded or threatened any country in the past two and a half
centuries. The only war the Iran has fought was the war imposed by Saddam’s
army, which invaded Iran with
the backing of the US and its allies. An attack on
Iran with cause instability
to the region and the world, just as the invasion and occupation of
Iraq has done.
The targeting of
Iran has nothing to do with
oil or gas
Iran holds the world's
largest supplies of oil after Saudi
Arabia and Iraq, and holds more oil and gas
combined than any other country on the planet. As Peak Oil rapidly approaches,
the US demand to control the lion's share
of what is left. Iran has also just shifted its
petrodollars into a Euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar
will be significant.
Democracy should be installed in
Iran
Iran has an active indigenous
democracy movement who ultimately are the only ones who can secure a sustainable
democracy. Any military assault on the country will hugely strengthen the
anti-democratic political forces in Iran. The burgeoning civil society
organisations in Iran would be one of the first major
victims of any military attack on the country. Iranian people are wholly opposed
to military action against their country.
US forces are too
overstretched to take military action against Iran
A full ground invasion
of Iran is highly unlikely. It would be
possible, however, for the US
to use their massive air power to destroy Iran’s civilian
and military infrastructure. A limited ground invasion could be used to take
over Khuzestan province which borders Iraq and contains 90 percent of
Iran’s oil and gas reserves.
America has
learned a lesson from the chaos in Iraq
The
US is fearful that failure to
act against Iran will allow
the Iranian’s to gain too much influence in Iraq. The
US is not thinking in the short-term.
They are not backing out of Iraq as the redeployment of 21,500 troops to
Iraq attests.
Military action against
Iran would be too unpopular
with the US public opinion
The deployment of an extra 21,500
troops to Iraq has shown that George Bush is
willing to suffer unpopularity with his
voters.
