From the ABC

No evidence Iran building nukes: UN watchdog chief

UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei said he had no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with recent bellicose rhetoric.

"We haven't received any information there is a parallel, ongoing, active nuclear weapon program," the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told CNN.

"Second, even if Iran were to be working on nuclear weapons... they are at least a few years away from having such weapon," he said, citing Washington's own intelligence assessments.

"My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. The Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire."

Soften the Talk on Iran, ElBaradei Urges U.S.
BY BRIAN KNOWLTON
The New York Times

Published: October 29, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged the Bush administration on Sunday to soften its statements about Iran while maintaining diplomatic pressure to halt the nuclear enrichment that could lead to the production of a nuclear weapon.

But American lawmakers appearing on Sunday television talk programs were divided on whether efforts to influence Iran had been helped or hindered by the administration’s tough talk.

US-allied Gulf states said yesterday they were planning a consortium to provide enough enriched uranium for Iran's civil nuclear programme, which they believe could be a deterrent against the development of nuclear weapon.

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Gus: the AWB giving bribes to Saddam to pale into insignificance... 

President Barack Obama shepherded a unanimous vote through the United Nations General Assembly yesterday to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. The vote will allegedly curb the proliferation & testing of nuclear weapons & underpin moves toward total global disarmament.

With classical yankee hypocrisy, the saviour of the world predictably went on to say that the most immediate challenge to halting the proliferation of nuclear arms is the nation of Iran, which formally notified the IAEA this week of the existence of a second, previously undisclosed uranium-enrichment facility southwest of Tehran.

Using typical yankee language, Obama clumsily claimed that: "Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility... for several years. We expect the IAEA to immediately investigate this disturbing information" (even though America itself has known about the facility for years according to one senior official).

Elsewhere, Madam Lash, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, egged-on by our own ever predictable Milky Bar Kid, gave the press a brief reaction to news of Iran's so-called concealed & still-under-construction nuclear facility near Qom:

"This is further evidence of Iran's continued defiance of IAEA and the United Nations obligations. Iran is breaking rules that all nations are expected to follow." .... which nations are those Dillary?

Of course, the fact that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, America, France, the UK, China & Russia, possess over 98 percent of the more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world isn't seen to be an existential threat to the world the way Iran is.

Whilst the Americans and the International Atomic Energy Agency demand access to Iran's facilities for inspection, they have done nothing to reduce their own arsenals. Indeed, in recent years, the yankees have renewed & upgraded their own stockpiles, whilst fostering proliferation by both India & Israel, whilst ignoring the games played by Pakistan, amongst others, in the nuclear black market.

Perhaps if the great false hope was to call for a nuclear-free middle east & seek the removal of the existential threat that Israel represents to its neighbours in the region, he & his criminal accomplices might actually be taken more seriously?