WASHINGTON - October 29 - Yesterday when asked whether "there is a clandestine, secret nuclear weapons program right now underway in Iran?" Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: "We haven't seen any concrete evidence to that effect" (transcript available).


MUHAMMAD SAHIMI
Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. His articles on the U.S., Iran and Iran's nuclear program include "The follies of Bush's Iran policy," which he co-wrote with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
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CARAH ONG
Ong is Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and is writing regularly on the subject.
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MICHAEL VEILUVA
Foundation counsel with the Western States Legal Foundation, which monitors nuclear issues, Veileuva edits the daily Disarmament Activist blog on Iran. He said today: "Last week a wing of the Iranian government was labeled [by the U.S. government] a proliferator, an ambiguous phrase suggesting that Iran is exporting nuclear weapons technology. But there's no concrete evidence that Iran is engaged in a covert nuclear weapons program. It is by dint of repetition that the Bush administration hopes that its propaganda will be accepted as fact. ElBaradei, as head of IAEA, is the most knowledgeable person to ascertain whether Iran's nuclear fuel cycle program poses a threat and he has repeatedly said that his agency has uncovered no evidence of diversion of nuclear material.

"Hans Blix -- the former head of the UN inspectors in Iraq -- has said the same and noted that this situation is similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion in that the administration is making charges without evidence that contradict what the inspectors are saying."
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