Just under two weeks ago, AP’s George Jahn released the infamous cartoon around which he built a dubious nest of mostly anonymous charges that Iran had conducted work toward developing a neutron trigger device for nuclear weapons, using an explosive containment chamber at the Parchin military site. Jahn further repeated anonymous claims from “diplomats” that satellite imagery showed activity claimed to be Iran “cleaning” the site to remove traces of radioactivity.

It is simply impossible to “clean” radioactivity from a steel chamber in which uranium has been used to generate neutrons, as the neutrons would result in making the entire thickness of the steel chamber radioactive, as I showed in this post. The only way that Iran would be able to hide evidence of work on a neutron trigger device at Parchin would be to dismantle and remove the entire chamber. It most likely would be necessary to raze the entire building as well, since the structural steel in the building surrounding the chamber also likely would have been made radioactive by the neutrons.

Since negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries will continue next month in Moscow, those who prefer a war with Iran now must find new areas in which to accuse Iran of weapons work. George Jahn dutifully stepped up to play his role in this process again today, granting anonymity to “diplomats” who make a vague accusation that Jahn dressed up into a highly sensational headline that is backed up by few facts and then rendered essentially meaningless when he goes further into the information. At the AP’s site, Jahn’s article carries the headline “APNewsBreak: Higher enrichment at Iranian site“. The Washington Post decided that headline wasn’t incendiary enough, and so their version reads “APNewsBreak: Diplomats say UN experts find enrichment at Iranian site closer to arms level“.

The story itself is quite short. It opens:

 Diplomats say the U.N. nuclear agency has found traces of uranium at Iran’s underground atomic site enriched to higher than previous levels and closer to what is needed for nuclear weapons.

Wait a minute. This whole thing is about “traces” of uranium enriched to a higher level. Missing from the entire article is any detail of how much material was found or to what level the uranium was enriched. The highest level of enrichment currently declared by Iran is 20%, which the press in the recent past has been describing as only a short “technical step” away from the the 90%+ needed for a nuclear weapon.

The next two paragraphs from Jahn basically render his entire story moot:

The diplomats say the finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency does not necessarily mean that Iran is secretly raising its enrichment threshold.

They say the traces could be left during startup of enriching centrifuges until the desired level is reached. That would be a technical glitch only.

So, in other words, these “diplomats” are doing their best to create a crisis over something that is a mere “technical glitch” and represents an insignificant amount of material. Of course, for those who only see the headline, especially the one on the Post’s website, the idea will have been planted that Iran is cheating on its declared enrichment program and secretly producing material that is ready to be placed into a weapon.

As I pointed out in this post, all of these incendiary press reports about Iran and uranium enrichment overlook a very important basic set of facts:

Somewhat overlooked in all the hype over the explosion chamber accusations is a very important point regarding Iran’s uranium enrichment work. As noted in an article by Reuters today, such work is very closely monitored by the IAEA already:

They say Iran’s production of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, which it started two years ago, seems to have remained steady in recent months after a major escalation of the work in late 2011 and early this year.

Progress in Iran’s controversial nuclear program is closely watched by the West and Israel as it could determine the time the Islamic Republic would need to build nuclear bombs, should it decide to do so.

Getting Iran to stop the higher-level enrichment is expected to be a priority for world powers when they meet with Iran in Baghdad next week in an attempt to start resolving the decade-old dispute over Tehran’s atomic ambitions.

“It is still going strong. I hear it is unchanged,” one diplomat accredited to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which regularly inspects Iran’s declared atomic sites, said about the country’s most sensitive nuclear activity.

[Emphasis added]

What we also know from this close monitoring, as reported in the IAEA’s November, 2011 report (pdf), is that all enriched uranium produced at these monitored sites is accounted for, so any presumed weapons development would have to assume an undeclared site where enrichment is being carried out:

While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.

Unless credible evidence is brought forward demonstrating that a significant amount of material has been produced by Iran that is enriched beyond the known 20% enrichment level, then accusations such as the one repeated today by Jahn should be quickly brushed aside as nothing more than the war hawks doing their best to recreate the 2003 Iraq scenario in which contrived evidence is use to start a war of choice.

Update: While this post was being written, the version of the article at the Washington Post web site was updated and we now know that the traces found were enriched to 27% uranium:

The International Atomic Energy Agency has found traces of uranium enriched up to 27 percent at Iran’s Fordo enrichment plant, the diplomats told The Associated Press.

That is still substantially below the 90-percent level needed to make the fissile core of nuclear arms. But it is above Iran’s highest-known enrichment grade, which is close to 20 percent, and which already can be turned into weapons-grade material much more quickly than the Islamic Republic’s main stockpile, which can only be used for fuel at around 3.5 percent.

/snip/

The diplomats said a confidential IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program to be released later Friday to the agency’s 35-nation board will mention of the traces of 27-percent enrichment found at Fordo.

That update changes nothing about how flimsy and contrived this particular accusation is. A minor technical detail is being amplified entirely out of proportion to create sensational headlines. Sadly, history tells us that this strategy can be successful. And so much for that report being “confidential”.

Fallout continues from yesterday’s sentencing of Dr. Shakeel Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA to identify Osama bin Laden prior to the US raid that killed him. Marcy commented yesterday on the poor outcome from Leon Panetta disclosing Afridi’s cooperation with the CIA and I noted how the sentencing may have been one motivation behind the potential political impetus for yesterday’s drone strike in Pakistan (which has been followed up by yet another drone strike today).

I will get to the obligatory statement of outrage from Dana Rohrabacher in a bit, but first there is a very interesting article in Dawn that has a few details from Afridi’s trial. Although Afridi’s cooperation with the CIA occurred in Abbottabad, which is in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly referred to as North West Frontier Province), Afridi was tried in the town of Bara, which is in the Khyber Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The map on the left shows the FATA in blue, most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in green and the Abbottabad district in red.

In the Dawn quotations below, “Khyber” refers to Kyber Agency within FATA and not Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as far as I can tell.

Dawn describes where the trial took place and the convictions that were handed down:

Officials said Afridi had been tried at the office of assistant political agent (APA) in Bara. He was sentenced on the charges of conspiring “to wage war against Pakistan or depriving it of its sovereignty”, “concealing existence of a plan to wage war against Pakistan” and “condemnation of the creation of the state and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty”.

“The trial conducted under the Frontier Crimes Regulation continued for one year during which Dr Afridi was denied the right to engage a lawyer,” said Rahat Gul, an administrative official at the Khyber House.

Dawn then moved on to citing criticism about where the trial took place:

Critics have said he should not have been tried under tribal law for an alleged crime that took place outside tribal jurisdiction, in the town of Abbottabad where he ran a fake vaccination programme designed to collect bin Laden family DNA.

A senior official in Khyber, Nasir Khan, defended Afridi’s trial.

“We have powers to try a resident of FATA (the federally administered tribal areas) under the FCR enforced in tribal areas,” he told AFP.

Hmmm. Venue-shopping. That would never happen in the US, especially when the chosen venue is seriously lacking in due process.

And the trial had to be secret so that Afridi would not be attacked:

“The trial was kept secret so that no one can attack him. We did not reveal even the name of the jirga members to avoid any risk,” he said.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the trial, Dawn informs us that there are conflicting reports on whether Afridi was present. Howver, they did have a report he was present during sentencing, but this quote appears to differ from the one above on how long the trial took:

Nasir Khan said he had appeared on Wednesday when the verdict was announced in Peshawar.

Khan said Afridi’s trial lasted two months and that he was given full opportunity to defend himself, but was not entitled to a lawyer.

But surely, defendants in the US are always free to choose their own counsel, aren’t they?

As expected, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher from California is outraged at the conviction of Afridi. Rohrabacher issued a press release in which he declared that “This is decisive proof Pakistan sees itself as being at war with us” [emphasis in original].

But Rohrabacher continues. It appears that he was very upset that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari did not come to agreement with the US on opening NATO supply routes while Zardari was in Chicago for the NATO summit:

“Advocates of aid argue we should draw a distinction between the civilian government and the military-intelligence cabal who are supporting terrorist groups that murder Americans,”says Rep. Rohrabacher, “but President Zadari’s behavior at the NATO summit in Chicago indicates that he is either in league with the military or under their domination. Any money that goes to Islamabad will continue to end up in the pockets of people actively and deadly hostile to America. [Emphasis from original, once again. Gosh the Congressman sure likes the “bold” button…]

I wonder who those “advocates of aid” might be who are suggesting that there are differences between the folks who support terrorist groups and the folks in Pakistan’s government who will work with the US. Perhaps he read this from my post on his bill to revoke funding for Pakistan failing by a vote of 335-84:

I suppose it’s too much to hope for that someone who operates on the fringes of American politics might realize that the Pakistani government is not a monolith that always acts with all of its participants working together for the same outcome. Rather than supporting those within Pakistan who will advance US interests, Rohrabacher wants to punish all of Pakistan because of those who work against US interests.

This really seems to have hit a nerve, because the press release continues (and in bold type yet again):

Secretary Clinton will have to do more than voice protests over the Afridi case. Both the Departments of State and Defense need to take punitive actions against Pakistan. Carrots are not enough when dealing with an adversary. Sticks are needed to prove we are serious. 

Fortunately for the world, Rohrabacher’s primary use of his stick at this point seems to be in holding down the “bold” button on his computer. If he is given the opportunity to swing his stick in other venues, look for even more violence in a region that needs peacemakers rather than war mongers.

But there are those drone strikes the last two days, so maybe Rohrabacher has a number of folks on his side after all, and his stick was used to push the “fire” button on some drones.

Today, US drones killed four more people in North Waziristan in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This strike comes at a critical time in US-Pakistan relations, as many believed that the US and Pakistan would announce an agreement reopening NATO supply routes through Pakistan at last weekend’s NATO summit in Chicago. Instead of reaching agreement, however, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari was essentially shunned at the meeting. Today’s strike adds to that insult, as Pakistan has been objecting strenuously to US drone strikes as an imposition on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Despite US claims that Pakistan does nothing to stop insurgents in the FATA, Pakistani jets also killed 12 people today in Orakzai Agency, which is near North Waziristan and also within the FATA.

Drone strikes in Pakistan by the US have occasionally been interrupted by various diplomatic issues. For example, there was a lull of over a month at the height of negotiations over the release of Raymond Davis.  One of the most notorious US drone strikes was on March 17, 2011, the day after Raymond Davis was released. This signature strike killed over 40, and despite US claims (was that you, John Brennan?), that those killed “weren’t gathering for a bake sale” it was later determined that the majority of those killed were indeed civilians at a jirga to discuss local mineral rights. Because it was so poorly targeted, this strike always stood out in my mind as the product of an attitude where high-level US personnel demanded a target, no matter how poorly developed, simply to have something to hit since drone strikes had been on hold over the Davis negotiations and there was a need to teach Pakistan a lesson.

Not too long after that strike, another strike seemed to be timed as a response to negotiations gone bad. On April 13, 2011, there was a drone strike in South Waziristan that occurred while Pakistan’s ISI chief was in transit back to Pakistan after discussions with the US over drones was cut short.

With those strikes as background, today’s strike may well be another example of the US deciding to send in a strike to make a political point. The Guardian seems to see the strike in the same way, and notes how the strikes may affect negotiations:

The attack came as Washington runs out of patience with Islamabad’s refusal to reopen supply routes for Nato troops in Afghanistan.

US drone strikes have complicated negotiations over the routes, which Pakistan closed six months ago in retaliation for US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border. Pakistan’s parliament demanded the strikes stop after the attack, but the US refused.

Besides the issue of the supply routes, Pakistan also has angered many in the US with its arrest of Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who helped the US in its operation to kill Osama bin Laden. Afridi was sentenced today to 33 years in prison on treason charges arising from his work with the US. It’s not clear whether the sentence was announced before or after the drone strike, but it was known in advance that sentencing was scheduled for today. [h/t to Marcy for mentioning the sentencing as another potential political issue relating to today’s strike.]

A major sticking point in US-Pakistan relations is whether Pakistan will attack insurgents. Today’s killing of twelve in Orakzai argues against US accusations somewhat. However, the insurgents targeted there are most likely from the the Taliban branch known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which attacks Pakistani targets while the Haqqani network in North Waziristan (the two agencies are less than 50 miles apart at some points, see map above) tends to use Pakistan as a base for attacks in Afghanistan. Interestingly, TTP and the Haqqani network occasionally fight one another, as well. At any rate, Pakistan claims they have cleared most of Orakzai in the report on today’s attacks:

Security sources say over 92 per cent of Orakzai has been cleared of militants in the ongoing military operation in the region.

Moving on to clear North Waziristan would go a long way toward breaking the diplomatic standoff, but would require breaking what many accuse to be close relations between the Haqqani network and elements of the ISI.

At any rate, with the added insult of a new drone strike, don’t look for the supply routes to reopen this week.

It appears that the hopeful signals being sent out by Iran yesterday ahead of the visit by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano have been followed through. Speaking to reporters after his return to Vienna this morning, Amano announced that Iran and the IAEA have reached agreement on how to move forward on inspection of Iran’s nuclear activities.

Of particular importance, Amano describes the agreement as part of a structured approach, which seems to fit Iran’s insistence that any agreement would lay out in advance the framework for how and where inspections are to take place. From Bloomberg:

“There was an important development on the structured approach document on which we have been working since January,” IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said today in Vienna after returning from Tehran, where the deal was reached yesterday. “The decision was made to conclude and sign an agreement.”

The accord will be signed “quite soon,” Amano told journalists, without giving a date or details. The agreement comes as negotiators head to Baghdad for a second round of negotiations tomorrow over Iran’s nuclear program.

The New York Times has more key details, including the fact that inspection of the Parchin facility will be part of the agreement:

Mr. Amano’s visit to Tehran on Monday was his first to Iran since his appointment in 2009. Mr. Amano’s trip here, announced unexpectedly on Friday, was part of what diplomats in Vienna called an effort centered on persuading Iran to allow inspections of a site the agency suspects has been used for secret tests for triggering mechanisms that could be used in a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials have ridiculed those suspicions and contended that the site, called Parchin, was sufficiently inspected by the agency in 2005.

Diplomats in Vienna said an investigation of the Parchin site was “not the only game in town” in the negotiations on the so-called structured approach.”

Asked about the Parchin site specifically, Mr. Amano said: “I have raised this issue of access to Parchin and this issue will be addressed as a point of the implementation of the structured approach document.”

Significantly, the suggestions that Iran has attempted to clean the Parchin site have not made it into any of the articles I have seen announcing this agreement. Note that in the Times article above, there is reference to the IAEA suspecting that trigger work has been carried out there, but that Iran had ridiculed those suggestions. That is a bit inaccurate, as the ridicule from Iran has been directed at the suggestion that Iran was trying to wash away evidence of trigger work carried out with uranium present in the experiments with explosives. As I pointed out, such work would have resulted in neutron activation making the entire steel tank radioactive in a way such that it could not be cleaned by scrubbing its surface. It also seems significant that the “diplomats in Vienna” cited by the Times now seem to be downplaying the significance of Parchin.

One of the biggest instigators of the Parchin issue has been the AP’s George Jahn, who released a cartoon drawing of a tank earlier this month. Marcy compared this to Colin Powell’s infamous vial of anthrax and other falsified “intelligence”. In his article this morning about the agreement, Jahn also refrained from returning to the accusation of cleaning the Parchin site.

Jahn does paint the US a skeptical of Iran’s willingness to cooperate:

Western diplomats are skeptical of Iran’s willingness to open past and present activities to full perusal, believing it would only reveal what they suspect and Tehran denies — that the Islamic Republic has researched and developed components of a nuclear weapons program. They say that Tehran’s readiness to honor any agreement it has signed is the true test of its willingness to cooperate

The United States is among those skeptics. In a statement released soon after Amano’s announcement, Robert A. Wood, America’s chief delegate to the nuclear agency, said Washington appreciated Amano’s efforts but remained “concerned by the urgent obligation for Iran to take concrete steps to cooperate fully with the verification efforts of the IAEA, based on IAEA verification practices.”

” We urge Iran to take this opportunity to resolve all outstanding concerns about the nature of its nuclear program,” said the statement. “Full and transparent cooperation with the IAEA is the first logical step.”

And the US Senate is of course moving in the opposite direction of negotiations, passing a bill on Monday calling for even tougher economic sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

It is widely believed at this point that the agreement between the IAEA and Iran on inspections has set the stage for the P5+1 talks in Baghdad tomorrow to lead to an agreement in which Iran will stop enrichment of uranium to 20% and confine itself to low-grade enrichment to 3.5%. Such an agreement would defuse tensions significantly, especially if the West responds by loosening the sanctions on Iranian oil.

At this point, cautious optimism might actually be escalating to moderate optimism.

Although today’s meeting with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Tehran  is still in process as of this writing, Iran has put out very hopeful signals ahead of both this meeting and the resumption on Wednesday of the P5+1 talks in Baghdad. Adding to the atmosphere that a deal could be in the works are some positive words from Amano himself:

Before his arrival in Tehran Amano told reporters, “I really think this is the right time to reach agreement. Nothing is certain but I stay positive.” Amano added “good progress” had already been made.

/snip/

“We need to keep up the momentum. There has been good progress during the recent round of discussions between Iran and the IAEA,” Reuters quoted Amano as saying.

The same Mehr News piece carried upbeat news from the Iranian side as well:

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi had said he hoped an agreement would be reached to devise a “new modality” between Iran and the IAEA during Amano’s visit.

/snip/

“Iran had previously invited IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to make a trip to Iran, but he decided to travel to Tehran and hold talks with our country’s officials before the Baghdad talks,” Salehi said.

“We regard the visit by the agency’s director general as a gesture of goodwill,” Salehi stated. “The focus will be on the issue of modality and a new working modality to help clear up the ambiguities and (answer) the agency’s questions. And we hope that an agreement will be reached between both sides to devise a new modality.”

Fars News has the details on who is taking part in today’s meeting:

Amano, accompanied by his chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and number two Rafael Mariano Grossi, was welcomed at the airport by Iran’s IAEA envoy, Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh, and a number of other officials.

During his one-day stay, Amano will hold talks with Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoun Abbassi Davani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

The high levels of the participants on both sides of the talks do suggest that a deal could be imminent, and Fars collected a number of statements from diplomats agreeing:

Diplomats said the fact that the Japanese Amano himself was going raised hopes of a breakthrough.

Another Vienna diplomat said that the surprise announcement was a “hopeful” sign, while a third said they expected Amano to “conclude the negotiations on the modalities (of cooperation) and to have it formalized in a document.

In a separate article, Fars quoted a senior Iranian legislator who set the stage for how Amano’s actions will be depicted if no agreement is made:

“Amano’s visit indicates the sensitivity of the diplomacy which has been formed on Iran’s nuclear program,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh told FNA on Sunday.

He said Amano’s reports on Iran’s nuclear activities strongly affect the stance of the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) on the Islamic Republic.

“In these conditions, his visit to Iran can leave positive effects but if he, this time, acts upon his technical and legal obligations, and not based on the particular political tasks defined (by others) for him,” Falahatpisheh said, and added that Amano’s success in doing so will be in the interest of the agency and its legal standing in international equations and will also help diplomatic efforts to settle the Iran-West nuclear standoff.

By merely referring to “others” controlling Amano, and not using the more incendiary “Zionists” epithet often used when saying that Israel is behind the West’s actions against Iran, Falahatpisheh is showing quite a bit of restraint even in describing Iran’s response to a potential failure of today’s talks.

Meanwhile, Iran is also putting out very hopeful signs ahead of the resumption of the P5+1 talks Wednesday in Baghdad. Over two hundred legislators banded together to issue a statement calling for the West to shift from its “confrontational” stance:

“We tell the 5+1 group to respect the Iranian nation’s rights, act based on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is an established norm, without being influenced by the Zionists’ pressure, and change the policy of confrontation with the Islamic Republic to the policy of interaction,” the statement said.

The statement also said, “The fact is that over the past two decades, the United States and its Western allies, with political ends and despite the Islamic Republic of Iran’s commitment to the NPT and the regulations of the agency (the International Atomic Energy Agency), have imposed an unfair challenge on the Iranian nation, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has defended its interests with self-restraint, wisdom, and national resolve.

“Now, it is the West’s turn to (regain) the confidence of the Iranian nation and put an end to its hostile behavior,” the statement added.

Although “Zionist” language is used here, the overall call for a move toward interaction and away from confrontation is quite positive in tone.

Over at PressTV, Iran has collected statements from P5+1 members Russia and China calling for a peaceful resolution of the talks. From Russia:

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov says the subject of removing anti-Iran sanctions should be addressed in the upcoming talks between Tehran and six major world powers.

“Russia denies the efficiency of sanctions against Iran; it thinks that the sanctions are driving the problem into an impasse,” Itar-Tass quoted Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.

“Yet, bearing in mind the adherence of Western partners to sanctions, I think they should think about the time when the sanctions may be suspended and lifted,” he added.

And from China:

China has urged all parties involved in the upcoming talks between Iran and six major world powers in Baghdad to make efforts to “build up mutual trust.”

“All the parties concerned should make efforts to seek and expand consensus and appropriately address the disputes to build up mutual trust among the parties step by step,” China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said on Monday.

The “step by step” reference is not merely a rhetorical device, it refers to a negotiating framework that the Chinese have been suggesting as a way out of the previous negotiating impasse.

In addition to both Russia and China moving into Wednesday’s talks with an aim toward finding a peaceful way forward, it should be noted that this will also be the first meeting after the new government in France has taken over. Iran views Hollande’s government as potentially much more sympathetic than the Sarkozy government, which it viewed as a primary player in establishing the current sanctions.

It seems that if a peaceful resolution to the dispute between Iran and the West over whether Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons this is the week when major steps in that direction will be revealed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2p9H77tj8c[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAKdZvetng0[/youtube]

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) worked himself into quite a bit of anger yesterday defending his amendment to the NDAA which was intended to cut off funding for Pakistan. He gave a remarkable performance, railing against practices by the Pakistani government which he avidly endorses when carried out by the US.

He railed against Pakistan providing haven for Osama bin Laden even though Rohrabacher actually took up arms and fought alongside the mujahideen, which included bin Laden, back in the mid-80’s when they were fighting the Soviets. He blasted Pakistan for supporting terrorists like the Haqqani network at the same time that he is agitating for the delisting of the MeK as a terrorist group. He decried the arrest and detention without charges of Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who carried out the polio vaccine ruse on behalf of the CIA at the bin Laden compound, and yet he has for years been at the forefront of advocating in favor of the prison at Guantanamo, where many remain held indefinitely without charge.

Here is how Rohrabacher described his amendment in a press release:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has introduced H.R. 5734, the “Pakistan Terrorism Accountability Act of 2012.” The legislation would require the Department of Defense to list all Americans killed by terrorist groups operating with impunity inside Pakistan and Afghanistan and supported by elements of the Pakistani government. For each person killed, $50 million would be subtracted from U.S. foreign assistance to Pakistan, a requested $2.2 billion, and given to the victim’s family.

“For too long America has funded the Pakistani government, giving it free money, while elements of the ISI and Pakistan’s military operate radical Islamic groups that are actively murdering Americans,” said Rohrabacher. “Americans will not accept this.” 

“Pakistan has for decades leveraged radical terrorist groups to carry out attacks in India and Afghanistan,” continued Rohrabacher. “Pakistan helped to create the Taliban and Pakistan’s intelligence service hid Osama Bin Laden from the U.S. for years. Today, one of the most dangerous and sophisticated groups killing American troops in Afghanistan is the Haqqani Network, which is closely operated by the Pakistani government.” 

I suppose it’s too much to hope for that someone who operates on the fringes of American politics might realize that the Pakistani government is not a monolith that always acts with all of its participants working together for the same outcome. Rather than supporting those within Pakistan who will advance US interests, Rohrabacher wants to punish all of Pakistan because of those who work against US interests.

Rohrabacher’s attempt at lead pipe diplomacy has failed miserably, going down by a vote of 335 to 84.  Here is how Pakistan Today described the outcome:

Dashing Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s drastic designs, the US Congress on Thursday turned down the bill proposing curbs on American aid to Pakistan.

/snip/

The House of representative rejected the bill as 335 votes were cast against the bill while 84 in favour. Pakistan ambassador to US, Sherry Rehman played an active role against the bill.

At least he did a better job pronouncing Balochistan…

Both Bloomberg and the AP’s George Jahn reported yesterday that the second session of talks in Vienna between the IAEA and Iran produced progress and that additional talks are now scheduled for May 21 in Vienna. But don’t look for news of this progress in the New York Times, because it’s not there. And don’t look for statements from the US praising the progress (although China did praise it) and urging further progress at Monday’s talks in Vienna or the P5+1 talks later in the week in Baghdad. Instead, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro chose to emphasize in an interview on Army Radio in Israel that US plans for war with Iran are ready to be put into action.

First, the good news on the progress. From Bloomberg:

Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors extended a round of negotiations over the Persian Gulf nation’s suspected nuclear-weapon work after both sides said progress had been made.

IAEA inspectors will meet again with their Iranian counterparts on May 21 in Vienna. They ended today two days of talks in the Austrian capital.

“We discussed a number of options to take the agency verification process forward,” IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts told reporters. “We had a good exchange of views.”

/snip/

“We had fruitful discussions in a very conducive environment,” Iran’s IAEA Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said. “We have had progress.”

More details on the progress are reported by Mehr News:

Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to develop a modality for further cooperation, the Mehr News Agency has learnt.

The responsibilities and commitments of each side will be determined by the modality and the measures necessary will be taken based on the agreement.

In his report on the progress of negotiations, George Jahn couldn’t resist a partial reprise of his report over the weekend in which he breathlessly released a cartoon purporting to depict an explosives chamber where nebulous “Western diplomats” have leaked to Jahn that work to develop an explosive neutron trigger for an atomic bomb has been carried out. In an interesting development, Jahn has put a new accusation into this scenario. On Tuesday, I pointed out that if the accused work has been carried out in the chamber, then the steel walls of the chamber will be radioactive due to neutron activation and that this radioactivity will be dispersed throughout the entire thickness of the steel. That means the chamber cannot have its radioactivity removed by the cleaning process claimed by David Albright:

The process could involve grinding down the surfaces inside the building, collecting the dust and then washing the area thoroughly.  This could be followed with new building materials and paint.  It could also involve removing any dirt around the building thought to contain contaminants.

Jahn now allows for the possibility that Iran could not leave a chamber that is radioactive due to neutron activation in the building for an IAEA inspection:

 Some fear that Iran may even dismantle the explosives containment chamber believed to be inside the suspect building, taking it out in small pieces, if given enough time.

Why has Jahn’s language evolved from “scrubbing” the chamber to removing it? Was it this sentence in my post:

On the other hand, should Iran remove the chamber, then that would be suggestive that they were unable to remove neutron activation evidence and thus unable to hide evidence of trigger research.

At any rate, given the apparent progress in negotiations, it is difficult to overstate the irresponsibility of US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro’s statements on Tuesday and aired today on Army Radio in Israel:

“It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force,” Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in remarks about Iran aired by Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday.

“But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available – not just available, but it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready,” said Shapiro, who the radio station said had spoken on Tuesday.

Somewhat overlooked in all the hype over the explosion chamber accusations is a very important point regarding Iran’s uranium enrichment work. As noted in an article by Reuters today, such work is very closely monitored by the IAEA already:

They say Iran’s production of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, which it started two years ago, seems to have remained steady in recent months after a major escalation of the work in late 2011 and early this year.

Progress in Iran’s controversial nuclear program is closely watched by the West and Israel as it could determine the time the Islamic Republic would need to build nuclear bombs, should it decide to do so.

Getting Iran to stop the higher-level enrichment is expected to be a priority for world powers when they meet with Iran in Baghdad next week in an attempt to start resolving the decade-old dispute over Tehran’s atomic ambitions.

“It is still going strong. I hear it is unchanged,” one diplomat accredited to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which regularly inspects Iran’s declared atomic sites, said about the country’s most sensitive nuclear activity.

[Emphasis added]

What we also know from this close monitoring, as reported in the IAEA’s November, 2011 report (pdf), is that all enriched uranium produced at these monitored sites is accounted for, so any presumed weapons development would have to assume an undeclared site where enrichment is being carried out:

While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.

What we have now is the IAEA and Iran inching closer to inspections of the Parchin site and potentially an agreement to suspend enrichment of uranium to 20%.

Those advocating war would then attempt to accuse Iran of having cleaned the Parchin site, but as I have pointed out, this would be impossible without removing the chamber itself if neutron trigger work has been carried out there. In addition, war hawks also will have to postulate the existence of a separate, undeclared site for enrichment if they are to continue insisting that weapons development continues or has been restarted, despite the US NIE in 2007 declaring that all such work stopped in 2003.

Both Marcy, here,  and b, over at Moon of Alabama, have roundly criticized the cartoon released on Sunday by AP’s George Jahn purporting to depict a chamber at Iran’s Parchin site where various groups accuse Iran of carrying out work aimed at an explosive trigger device for a nuclear weapon. David Albright, working through his Institute for Science and International Security, has been near the forefront in most of these accusations, with one of his accusations coming out in December of 2009 (pdf). As described in his 2009 piece, Albright accuses Iran of attempting to replicate A.Q. Khan’s uranium deuteride (UD3) initiator for a bomb, which “works by the high explosives compressing the nuclear core and the initiator, producing a spurt of neutrons as a result of fusion in D-D reactions. The neutrons flood the core of weapon-grade uranium and initiate the chain reaction.”

Prior to the release of the cartoon, Albright had claimed on May 8 that he had detected activity aimed at “cleansing” the Parchin site.  I debunked that claim the next day, by pointing out that all traces of radioactivity cannot be washed away and that Albright’s claims would mean that the waste water carrying the radioactivity was allowed to drain freely onto the grounds surrounding the building, where the radioactivity could be found without much effort. Albright repeats those claims in Jahn’s article accompanying the cartoon, and he brings in another expert to support his claims that residue from testing a trigger device could be scrubbed:

A cleanup “could involve grinding down the surfaces inside the building, collecting the dust and then washing the area thoroughly,” said David Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security in Washington looks for signs of nuclear proliferation. “This could be followed with new building materials and paint.

“It could also involve removing any dirt around the building thought to contain contaminants,” Albright said in a statement emailed to selected recipients. “These types of activities could be effective in defeating environmental sampling.”

Fitzpatrick, the other nuclear nonproliferation expert, also said a cleanup could be effective.

“In the past, the IAEA has been able to catch out Iran by going to a building that Iran tried to clean and they still found traces of uranium,” he said. “And Iran learned from that and they learned that ‘boy you have to scrub everything really clean; get down into the drains and grind away any possible residue.”

Earlier in the article, Fitzpatrick (who is  Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Program of the International Institute for Strategic Studies) mentions that Iran is specifically accused of using uranium in the explosives research. Also, the article claims that the equipment associated with the chamber includes “a neutron detection system outside the explosion chamber to measure neutron emissions”.

Albright and Fitzpatrick completely overlook a very important basic aspect of the nuclear physics involved here. If they really are going to claim that uranium is being used and that bursts of neutrons capable of initiating a nuclear reaction are the goal of the experiments, then the neutrons originating from the uranium and from the neutron bursts would result in neutron activation of the steel container itself. Neutron activation occurs when the nucleus of an atom absorbs a neutron, forming a new, radioactive, form of the original atom.

The most common neutron activation product in steel is production of cobalt-60 from the naturally occuring cobalt-59 in the steel. Cobalt-60 has a half-life of over five years and is very easily detected due to the high energy beta and gamma radiation released by it and its decay products. It is critically important to note that this neutron activation occurring within the steel of the container would not be just on the inside surface of the chamber. The collisions of neutrons with cobalt-59 nuclei in the steel would occur throughout the full thickness of the steel, because at the scale of a neutron, the metal atoms comprising the steel are mostly empty space. Thus, the neutrons pass through the steel, only occasionally colliding with a metal nucleus. If the collision is with a cobalt-59 nucleus, then cobalt-60 can be formed as the nucleus absorbs a neutron. (See this helpful tutorial from Florida State University showing the classic 1911 Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden experiment where alpha particles are shot through a gold foil. The concept for neutrons going through steel is essentially the same.)

Neutron activation of steel resulting in cobalt-60 was used in efforts to reconstruct the radiation doses at various locations around the atomic bombs dropped on Japan (pdf). Furthermore, neutron activation of steel in nuclear reactor facilities is a major consideration in the decommissioning of these facilities (pdf).

With those thoughts in mind, we now have tools with which to evaluate subsequent developments surrounding the chamber at Parchin. The claims from Albright and Fitzpatrick appear to be aimed at setting the stage for accusations that Iran carried out trigger research at the facility, even using uranium, but subsequently removed all radioactive traces of that work. Such an accusation could be made after IAEA gaining access to the site but failing to find traces of radioactivity. However, the neutron activation information above would make such an accusation highly dubious, as it would be impossible to remove all traces of neutron activation of the steel from which the chamber is constructed.

On the other hand, should Iran remove the chamber, then that would be suggestive that they were unable to remove neutron activation evidence and thus unable to hide evidence of trigger research. Further, analysis of the metal itself, if access to the chamber is granted, would be very informative about Iran’s intentions when the chamber was constructed.

The AP cartoon article claims the chamber was constructed in the early 2000’s by Azar AB Industries. It is doubtful that this Iranian company has experience working with steel intended for nuclear uses. The cobalt concentration in the steel used for this chamber should be compared to the cobalt concentration in other steel materials produced by Azar AB Industries, because steel intended for use in nuclear activities is intentionally engineered to be low in cobalt content:

Due to the ability of cobalt to absorb neutrons, severe restrictions are placed on its concentration in steels destined for atomic energy applications. Levels of 0.01 and 0.005% Co maximum and lower are commonly listed by the N.R.C.

If the chamber was constructed of steel that is artificially low in cobalt content, then that would suggest that Iran intended the chamber to be used in trigger device development. On the other hand, if no evidence of neutron activation is found upon analysis of the chamber and if it is found to be comprised of steel no different in cobalt content from other steel produced by Azar AB Industries, that would be very strong evidence that the chamber had always been intended for nanodiamond work and no trigger work involving uranium was carried out.

Update: It seems relevant to note how far neutrons can penetrate in steel. The illustration above for the Rutherford experiment is for a very thin foil of gold. Penetration of neutrons into steel depends on the speed at which the neutrons are travelling. The ability of radiation to penetrate into an object is measured as the half-value layer, which is the thickness of the material that is needed to stop half of the radiation that is incident on it. For neutrons, we have this for passage through steel or iron:

10-100 keV neutrons = 0.36 cm

100-500 keV neutrons = 2.73 cm

1 MeV neutrons = 3.45 cm

The neutrons emitted in uranium decay are in the 250-560 keV range, so up to one fourth of neutrons emitted by uranium would travel as far as 5 cm, or two inches, into the steel of the chamber walls. I have not seen an estimate of the chamber wall thickness, but this rough calculation should suffice to demonstrate that virtually the entire thickness of the chamber walls would be subject to neutron activation.

As we get closer to the NATO summit next week in Chicago, the meltdown of Afghanistan continues. It is clear that the intent of the Obama administration is to maintain the stance that the surge of US troops into the country over the past two years has stabilized the situation and that developments are on pace for a complete handoff of security to Afghan forces and full NATO withdrawal by the end of 2014. Any deviation from this script could trigger a Congressional review of strategy for Afghanistan just when the campaign season is heating up for the November election. Such a review, the Obama administration fears, would be fodder for accusations that their strategy in Afghanistan has failed.

The news today is not good for maintaining the “success” point of view. Yesterday, yet another member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council was gunned down in Kabul. This morning, a bomb placed on a bicycle killed nine people in what Reuters described as “the relatively peaceful Faryab province of northern Afghanistan”. A provincial council member was among those killed. Reuters also reminds us this morning that there are over 500,000 refugees displaced within Afghanistan. Furthermore, at the mid-point of the surge, that total increased by 100,000 during the first half of 2011. The situation has not improved, as 400 more people are displaced daily.

“Isolated events” of green on blue killings appear to be picking up in pace. One American was killed on Friday in Kunar province and two British soldiers were killed on Saturday in Helmand province. These attacks bring the total to 16 isolated incidents for the year. The Department of Defense is now moving closer to adapting the language of the clumsily and retroactively classified report “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility” (pdf), now saying ““We believe, again, that most of these [attacks] are acted out as an act of honor for most of them representing a grievance of some sort.” Rather than acknowledging that the grievances arise out of cultural insensitivities displayed by NATO forces, however, DoD is offering the grievance explanation as a way of saying the attacks do not stem from Taliban infiltration (although the release does mention that “less than half” of the attacks have such an influence).

Interestingly, it appears that there is another publication that can shed some light on internal DoD analyses of green on blue attacks. Conservative blogger Bob McCarty is on the trail of a publication titled “Inside the Wire Threats — Afghanistan”. He is about a month into an FOIA fight to get a copy of the publication from the Army.

There are two recent stories on Afghanistan that are not entirely bad news. AP has a story this morning from an interview with Agha Jan Motasim, who sits on the Taliban council. They quote Motasim: “I can tell you, though, that the majority of the Taliban and the Taliban leadership want a broad-based government for all Afghan people and an Islamic system like other Islamic countries.” Motasim tells AP that only a few hard-liners are responsible for the violence carried out by the Taliban. On Friday, the Washington Post informed us that on “more than a dozen” occasions since control of night raids was handed over to Afghanistan, Afghan commanders have refused to act, citing a concern for innocent civilians who would be nearby. It appears that there might actually be a healthy process working in this case:

“In the last two months, 14 to 16 [night] operations have been rejected by the Afghans,” said Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the top Afghan army officer. “The U.S. has said, ‘This operation better be conducted. It’s a high-value target.’ Then my people said, ‘It’s a high-value target. I agree with you. But there are so many civilian children and women [in the area].’ ”

Many of the rejected night operations are later conducted once civilians are no longer in the vicinity of the targets, Karimi said.

What a concept: waiting until no civilians are present to carry out a raid that is likely to be violent. Why couldn’t US forces have come up with that idea on their own?

One of the topics I seem to find myself posting on the most frequently is the remarkable lack of accountability for the spectacular failure of David Petraeus’ efforts to train the Iraqi security apparatus. Petraeus has repeatedly touted how wonderfully his training work went and yet whenever the failures of this training actually make it into corporate journalism, Petraeus’ name is nowhere to be found.

Such is the case again today. An article titled “U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police” appears on the front page of today’s New York Times and it shows, once again, that the tremendous amounts of money and effort that have gone into “training” in Iraq are a complete waste (and since training is shown to be a failure in this article, Petraeus’ name does not appear):

In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed — and may jettison entirely by the end of the year — a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.

But wait, this is the State Department. How did the effort get in their hands? It turns out that they started it originally, turned it over to Petraeus and then recently took it back:

Since 2003, the American government has spent nearly $8 billion training the Iraqi police. The program was first under the State Department, but it was transferred to the Department of Defense in 2004 as the insurgency intensified. Yet the force that the American military left behind was trained to fight a counterinsurgency, not to act as a traditional law enforcement organization. Police officers here, for example, do not pull over speeding drivers or respond to calls about cats stuck in trees.

Petraeus burst onto the scene politically in September of 2004, when he penned an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he praised himself for his wonderful work in training Iraqi security forces:

Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq’s security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight — and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

This was a nearly unprecedented move by an active military officer, jumping into a political discussion just before a critical presidential election. Petraeus’ actions could be seen in no other light than as an endorsement of Bush’s war and an attempt to help Bush get re-elected by painting a rosy picture of “progress” at a time when citizens were beginning to think the war effort had been a waste.

Petraeus threw some big numbers around in the op-ed:

Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.

And yet, when we hit the review of war progress three years later in September of 2007, Petraeus was not held accountable for the fact that his claims on training had been false. In their “fact-checking” of the Move-On.org “General Betray Us” ad, the Washington Post (while awarding three Pincchios to Move-On and undoubtedly earning a number of their own) wrung their hands over the training claims:

With hindsight, Petraeus was overly optimistic in his 2004 assessment. But does this statement support MoveOn.org’s indictment against him?

A claim of “tangible progress” was not totally unreasonable in 2004. The more important question is whether that progress was sufficient to stabilize Iraq. Obviously, it wasn’t.

Yup, Petraeus clearly claimed in 2004 that his training had everything on track to stabilize Iraq in short order. That turned out not to be true, but the Post merely decided to describe that as “not totally unreasonable” so that they could award Pincchios to Move-On for pointing out where Petraeus lied. The Post had a clearly marked roadmap showing where and how Petraeus lied, and they chose to shield him against his failures.

Sadly, this indirect reference in the “fact checker” is about the only place the issue of training came up during the 2007 debate, and yet the misleading statements about training were clearly an area in which Petraeus should have been most vulnerable at the time. Petraeus was allowed to wipe the slate clean of his previous failures and lead the “new, improved” effort in Iraq.

Going back to today’s Times article, a bit of reading between the lines shows that as we approach eight years after Petraeus’ claim of “tangible progress”, the entire concept of training has been a sham from the start. Recall that we read earlier that “the force that the American military left behind was trained to fight a counterinsurgency”, but the Times tells us in another part of their article:

The Iraqis have also insisted that the training sessions be held at their own facilities, rather than American ones. But reflecting the mistrust that remains between Iraqi and American officials, the State Department’s security guards will not allow the trainers to establish set meeting times at Iraqi facilities, so as not to set a pattern for insurgents, who still sometimes infiltrate Iraq’s military and police.

Although we have avoided traditional police training to train Iraq’s police in counterinsurgency, that force is still infiltrated by…insurgents. We have poured billions of dollars down the training rathole and accomplished nothing.

Despite these spectacular failures, the most visible leader of training in Iraq, David Petraeus, has never been called to task for his actions claiming success. Instead, we have the same group that was instrumental in getting unrepentant torturer Allen West  elected to Congress agitating last January to get Petraeus a fifth star, presumably as an attempt to bolster his chances for an eventual Presidential run. And in the meantime, Petraeus is happily running the CIA and eating his pineapple.