IAEA Report Contradicts Major Media Narrative on Iran (HuffPo)

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What is at issue here today is whether recent reports of Iranian breakthroughs in enrichment are true. Before today's report it was pretty clear the media's claims were not correct. The claims had been completely debunked by experts before the IAEA report came out. And yet the claims still managed to form the dominant media narrative, as this ABC Report reiterates:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to confirm Iran's rapid progress in advancing its uranium enrichment program in a report due tomorrow.

The only problem is that the report confirms no such thing. What the report details and conversations with arms control experts confirm is that the Iranians have made no major breakthroughs like that claimed by David E. Sanger of the New York Times. Furthermore, his story of May 15 was, as one expert put it, "misleading and sensationalized."

The relevant portions of the IAEA Report, released today, conclude:

Since the Director General's last report, Iran has fed approximately 260 kg of UF6 into the cascades at FEP. Iran has declared that it has reached enrichment levels up to 4.8% U-235 at FEP, which the Agency is in the process of verifying. On 13 May 2007, eight 164-machine cascades were operating simultaneously and were being fed with UF6; two other similar cascades had been vacuum tested and three more were under construction.

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis of the Belfer Center wrote " Iran does seem to be making steady progress toward continuous operation of their centrifuges." But this is hardly indicative of a nuclear program about to start spitting out bomb grade material next week.

This evidence, presented in the IAEA report, says Paul Kerr of Arms Control Today "does not support rapid progress" described by Sanger in his article and portrayed by the media as a whole. Kerr added, "it doesn't seem like have crossed a major threshold."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seanpaul-kelley/iaea-report-contradicts-m_b_49136.html