Iran finally tells IAEA of Qom facility/Sarkozy's Contempt for BO

Vienna/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency it is building a second, previously unknown, uranium enrichment plant, days before the country was scheduled to hold talks with world powers.
Leaders of the United States, Britain and France reacted harshly to Iran's late admission, with Obama saying that the layout of the new plant that has been built for several years was 'inconsistent' with use in a civilian nuclear power program.
'Iran's nuclear program is the most urgent proliferation challenge the world faces today,' British Premier Gordon Brown said at a joint press conference with Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Brown said that the 'the level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve.'
The revelation came at a sensitive juncture in Tehran's relations with China, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the US, which are preparing for talks with Iran on October 1 in Geneva, aimed at improving relations, but also at touching on that country's controversial nuclear program..
Until now the international public was only aware of the operating enrichment plant in Natanz, which some countries fear could one day be used to make material for nuclear arms.
Iran admitted to the new site near the city of Qom, the spiritual capital of Iran, on Monday after finding out that Western intelligence agencies knew about the project, according to a US official and to a diplomat briefed on Western intelligence findings.
'Everything, everything must be put on the table now' by December, Sarkozy said. Otherwise Iran would face new sanctions. Britain and the US are also ready to push for new punitive measures if needed.
Under IAEA regulations, Tehran would have been obliged to inform the nuclear agency about such projects as soon as a decision is taken to build it. However, Iran has previously declared it is not following this rule.

Background: New Iranian Nuclear Facility
The new facility is located near Qom[1], a town south of Tehran, according to Western intelligence agencies, and is big enough to house 3,000 centrifuges.
'That is what is needed to make (material for) a bomb a year, but not enough for a nuclear reactor,' a diplomat briefed on the intelligence said.
Tehran maintains that it is enriching uranium only as fuel for nuclear electricity generation.
The UN Security Council has applied three rounds of sanctions on Iran in an unsuccessful effort to get the country to stop its enrichment activities at Natanz, a site that only became known after an exiled Iranian opposition group revealed it in 2002.
A US official said Iran opted to build the second site after Natanz was exposed and subjected to IAEA inspections. 'So the obvious option for Iran would be to build another secret underground facility,' the official said. 'Not surprisingly, we found one.'
US intelligence was aware of it from the beginning but waited until it could be 'undeniably' shown it was for weapons grade uranium, he said.
In past years, a number of nuclear arms experts have described a scenario in which Iran would use a secret installation to make material for a nuclear bomb, while letting the world believe the known Natanz site is the only enrichment facility it has.
'It's catastrophic,' said Andreas Persbo, a London-based nuclear arms control expert, reacting to the revelations.
'It just shows that the worst fears of hawks in Western intelligence agencies have come true,' he said.
Obama has sought to reach out to Iran to begin negotiations on the contentious issue that has been on the top of the international agenda for years. He reaffirmed Friday his desire to reach a diplomatic solution.
Iran has firmly rejected demands to stop enriching uranium.
China and Russia in the past have been reluctant to back strong Security Council measures on against Iran, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signalled a willingness to get tougher since Obama announced September 17 that he was dropping Bush-era plans to base a long-range missile-defense system in Eastern Europe.
A Medvedev spokesperson in Moscow said Friday of the latest revelation about Iranian uranium enrichment: 'How could we not be worried?'
Medvedev has already observed that 'in some cases imposition of sanctions cannot be avoided.' Some Russian media observers said Moscow may be willing to help impose sanctions, in return for the US shelving its Polish- and Czech-based missile defense shield plans.
The information about the Qom site was contained in a letter sent Monday to the Vienna-based IAEA, the organization confirmed.
The letter did not provide the location of the new plant, but said additional information would be provided 'in an appropriate and due time.'
The level of enrichment indicated in the letter would mean Iran was enriching uranium to a standard for use in nuclear power plants, but not in nuclear weapons.
'In response, the IAEA has requested Iran to provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible,' IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Pittsburgh she was 'concerned' and echoed the IAEA's call for prompt cooperation.
The diplomat briefed on Western intelligence said the plant was unlikely to start operating before next year, while another diplomat said it seemed Iran would need at least 6 months to start running the facility.
According to the IAEA, no nuclear material has likely been introduced at the newly disclosed location, and a diplomat said no equipment for enrichment had been installed yet.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cancelled a press conference scheduled for later Friday at United Nations headquarters in New York, and Iran's ambassador in Vienna was not available for an interview.
All diplomats and officials speaking with the German Press Agency

September 29, 2009
Sarkozy's Contempt for Obama
By Jack Kelly
The contempt with which the president of France regards the president of the United States was displayed in public last week.
Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).
"We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth," President Obama said.
What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn't call them on it.
‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons...but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Mr. Sarkozy said.
"Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions," Mr. Sarkozy said. "North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993."
"What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?" he asked rhetorically. "More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map."
If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn't have been so meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.
"If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce or own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons," he said.
The extent of BO’s naiveté - or duplicity - was on display Friday at the G20 summit when the president, flanked by Mr. Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed to the American public that Iran had a second nuclear weapons site on a military base near the holy city of Qom.
News reports indicated BO had been briefed on the site before his inauguration. But he's been conducting his foreign policy as if the mullahs could be trusted.
"Iran has been put on notice," President Obama said in Pittsburgh.
Iran responded to being "put on notice" by testing Monday two ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead 1,200 miles.
It was to protect Europe from such missiles that the ABM system President Obama abruptly cancelled earlier this month was designed.
The BO administration officials said the ABM cancellation - regarded as a betrayal by Poland and the Czech Republic, where the missiles and radars were to be located - actually improved U.S. security, because it has made Russia more amenable to sanctions against Iran.
The UN Security Council has never passed strong sanctions against Iran because Russia and China have vetoed them. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he still doesn't like economic sanctions, but will support them if diplomacy fails. China remains opposed.
BO shouldn't count on Russian support, said Soviet expert David Satter.
"Words are cheap for the Kremlin and the Iranians are aware of this," he said. "The Russians, having endorsed sanctions, will now find hundreds of reasons why any specific sanctions package is unfair...The reason is that support for Iran is Russia's most important trump card in foreign relations and there is little likelihood they will give it up."
Iran has been put on notice before. At the G8 meeting in Italy in July, Mr. Obama and other leaders set a "firm deadline" of Sep. 10 for the Iranians to make a serious offer to negotiate about their nuclear program. When the mullahs blew him off, Mr. Obama quietly extended the deadline until December.
December could be too late. "Tehran soon could have humankind's most frightening weapon if substantial diplomatic progress is not made in the coming days," Rep. Howard Berman (D-Cal), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Saturday (9/26).
If severe economic sanctions are not imposed immediately, in months if not in weeks, only a military strike will b e able to prevent an Iranian bomb.
But after sternly lecturing Iran on its international obligations Friday, President Obama didn't call for sanctions. He called for more negotiations. And then, as the Iranians were spitting in his eye with the missile test, he jetted off to Copenhagen to lobby to have the 2016 Olympics held in Chicago.
No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy holds Obama him in contempt- much like many US citizens (LWT)
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[1] Qom is the spiritual and religious capital of Iran and is of particular significance to the Shiites. Iranian clergy (mullahs) and law makers come from Qom