When the backbone of an article about Iran is a collection of remarks made by an AIPAC henchman, you know you're not likely to find a fair and balanced examination of the issue at hand. A piece published earlier today by Bloomberg is a remarkable example of this, not because of what is said by the interviewee, however, but rather due to what is asserted—and omitted—by the journalist herself.
"Obama Prepared to Use Force to Stop Nuclear Iran, Former Adviser Ross Says," reporting of which is attributed to Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, is focused on comments made by Dennis Ross, a former national security adviser to Obama and special adviser on Iran to Hillary Clinton. Ross is affiliated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which is a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Thus, it is no surprise that Ross's remarks are antagonistic toward Iran.
There are, however, two places where the reporting is misleading. In one instance, which stands as the conclusion of the piece, it is an omission that is the root of the problem:
The IAEA yesterday confirmed that Iran has begun enriching uranium to as much as 20 percent U-235 at the underground Fordow underground site near the holy city of Qom, as Iranian leaders had pledged to do last year. The site is monitored by IAEA inspectors to detect any attempt to enrich uranium to the 90 percent level necessary for a nuclear bomb.
“There really is no justification for it,” Ross said of the latest enrichment activities. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot of doubt that they are embarked on a program that can produce, at a certain point, weapons.”
The reporting here would lead an uniformed individual to believe that there is no known peaceful justification for Iran enriching uranium to 20 percent. But that is false. It is well known that the stated purpose is to run the Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes, and whose supply of fuel, provided by Argentina in 1993, is running low. What's interesting is that a Bloomberg article attributed to the same journalist and the same editor acknowledges this fact. Although even this article fails to mention a recent offer by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to suspend 20 percent enrichment in exchange for fuel from the US.
The second infraction is a false assertion made by the reporter:
The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report last Nov. 8 detailing nuclear activities it said had no other use than for military purposes, bolstering the U.S. case that Iran is seeking the capability to produce nuclear weapons even if it hasn’t yet made a decision to do so. [Emphasis mine.]
But the report only alleges that there are military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA found no proof of this claim.
Earlier today, the New York Times Public Editor, Arthur S. Brisbane, admitted that recent Times reporting that Iran's nuclear program "has a military objective" was misleading since the IAEA "stopped short of such a finding." In his write-up, he points to a section of the report that is likely to be the source of not only the Times's mistake, but also Bloomberg's:
43. The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
- Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities…
- Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material…
- The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network…
- Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components…
44. While some of the activities identified in the Annex have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons.
Paragraphs are numbered in the report, and I restored the numbering here to illuminate a point. When Mr. Brisbane says that "these words strongly suggest Iran is conducting a nuclear weapons program," it seems that he is reading paragraph 44 as modifying the information in paragraph 43 (along with a tense confusion, which I will get to in a moment.) But that is not what is being said here. What is said in paragraph 43 is that the IAEA's information indicates that Iran has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive devise. Note the use of the perfect "has carried out," indicating completion, instead of the progressive "is carrying out." Also note the hedge with "relevant." That most of the information contained in this report is old news and pertains to work done in Iran prior to 2003 has been highlighted by Seymour Hersh and Scott Peterson, among others.
Paragraph 44, on the other hand, describes the potential purposes of the activities detailed in the Annex, but keeps quiet on the quality of the evidence concerning the alleged activities that are "specific to nuclear weapons." But further analysis of the Annex shows that the allegations, and the evidence on which they stand, are thin. See, for example, this piece by Muhammad Sahimi and another by Gareth Porter.
Thus, it is wrong for Bloomberg to report that the IAEA detailed nuclear activities that had no other use than for military purposes, because the IAEA only detailed allegations about such activities, not their existence. To echo Mr. Brisbane, "the distinction between the two is important because the Iranian program has emerged as a possible casus belli."
In the last month, not only has the New York Times admitted to making misleading assertions about Iran, but so has the Washington Post. You can complain to the reporter of the Bloomberg article, Indira Lakshmanan, at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net. To complain to the editor responsible for this piece, email Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.