Verification
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Iran has received nearly two snap nuclear inspections a month and almost double the overall number of visits it had just five years ago, indicating the value of the deal the U.S. and its allies reached in 2015 to rein in the country’s nuclear program.
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Iranian nuclear activities that could be turned into making weapons have remained at agreed reduced levels since a deal between Tehran and six world powers was implemented last month, a U.N. agency reported Friday.
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The IAEA has more tools than ever to ensure that Iran is living up to its promises, but there’s a catch: Iran gets to approve which technologies the IAEA can use. The deal includes a provision that the IAEA be allowed to use “modern technologies,” but as with agency inspections in other countries, Iran and the agency will have to work out exactly what technology is deployed where.
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The director general of theInternational Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that Iran had turned over samples from a suspected site of nuclear experimentation, but confirmed that they had been collected by Iranians under the watchful eye of surveillance devices, rather than by outside nuclear inspectors.
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United Nations inspectors will be present with Iranian technicians as they take samples from a key military site, two Western diplomats said, undercutting an objection by U.S. Republicans to the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
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America’s top spy says he’s “pretty confident” that the U.S. will be able tell whether Iran is cheating on the proposed nuclear deal, thanks in part to special new tools the intelligence community has developed to buttress inspections and international monitoring efforts.
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The authors explain how the IAEA's environmental sampling process with Iran would work, concluding that "[o]n the basis of what has been made known so far, there is no reason to suspect that the IAEA’s conclusions about Iran won’t be sound."
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The head of the United Nations agency charged with leading an investigation into Iran’s past nuclear activities defended the probe, hitting back at suggestions that the watchdog had ceded control of inspection of one important site to Iran.
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In classified hearings before a joint Congressional intelligence committee, intelligence community officials affirmed that with the combination of the intel they will gain from the Iran deal and their existing technical collection means, they will be able to successfully verify and monitor Iran's compliance with the agreement.
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The author reports on how state of the art anti-neutrino detectors will be employed to monitor and verify Iran's compliance with the nuclear agreement.
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Under the new approach, Iran permanently gives up none of its equipment, facilities or fissile product to achieve the proposed constraints. It only places them under temporary restriction and safeguard—amounting in many cases to a seal at the door of a depot or periodic visits by inspectors to declared sites. The physical magnitude of the effort is daunting. Is the International Atomic Energy Agency technically, and in terms of human resources, up to so complex and vast an assignment?
In a large country with multiple facilities and ample experience in nuclear concealment, violations will be inherently difficult to detect. Devising theoretical models of inspection is one thing. Enforcing compliance, week after week, despite competing international crises and domestic distractions, is another. Any report of a violation is likely to prompt debate over its significance—or even calls for new talks with Tehran to explore the issue. The experience of Iran’s work on a heavy-water reactor during the “interim agreement” period—when suspect activity was identified but played down in the interest of a positive negotiating atmosphere—is not encouraging.
Compounding the difficulty is the unlikelihood that breakout will be a clear-cut event. More likely it will occur, if it does, via the gradual accumulation of ambiguous evasions.
Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States. It is a revolutionary regime that is committed to changing the contours of the entire Middle East and destroying America’s key regional ally, Israel. Iran has held American diplomats hostage, currently holds Americans, including journalists, hostage and has killed hundreds of American servicemen and women in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, directly or through proxies, since taking power. There is simply no evidence to support the idea that we can trust revolutionary Iran to give up its long-term goal of developing a nuclear weapon and delivery systems.
But what about secret facilities? The brute fact about unknown facilities is that we cannot know what we don’t know. No agreement can provide 100-percent confidence that Iran will not cheat at a secret facility. Indeed, no one can have 100-percent confidence today that Iran has not already built a nuclear bomb at a secret facility. What has prevented the Iranians from doing this so far has been Tehran’s judgment that such an undertaking would be discovered and that the United States would act decisively to deny them success. The keys to sustaining effective deterrence are (1) rigorous efforts by the intelligence agencies of the United States and its allies, and (2) a credible military capability to act if Iran dashes toward a bomb.
Since the agreement imposes the most intrusive verification and inspection regime ever negotiated, it will significantly add to the ability of intelligence officials to discover any prohibited activity and enhance the legitimacy of U.S. or other countries’ military actions to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons should it violate its commitments. Nonetheless, as experts and so-called experts debate a 24-day delay for direct inspections of suspicious activity, or insufficient answers about Iran’s earlier nuclear pursuits, no one should miss the larger truth: 99 percent of the work to assure that any Iranian cheating is discovered will be done by U.S. intelligence agencies and those of allies. That was true before the agreement and will remain so after—even though the new inspections regime will provide some helpful information and observations that would otherwise be unavailable.
[PRO] The agreement is based on verification, not trust. According to the U.S. fact sheet, Iran has agreed to accept the IAEA’s Addi- tional Protocol as well as several even more intrusive monitoring and inspection measures that will provide high confidence that Iran is not making bomb material at its declared nuclear facili- ties and will significantly strengthen the ability of inspectors to detect clandestine facilities. Of course, no verification measures are perfect. In the end, good intelligence is the most important tool for detecting secret activities, but intelligence and enhanced inspections will complement each other, making it less likely that Iran will take the risk of pursuing secret activities and more likely that the U.S. will catch Iran if it tries.
The International Atomic Energy Agency can field a sophisticated array of gadgetry to detect if Iran is departing from its obligations: fiber-optic seals on equipment that can signal the IAEA if they are cut; infrared satellite imagery that can track down hidden reactors; environmental sensors that can detect minute signs of nuclear particles; hardened cameras built to withstand tampering and radiation.
To that list, the West’s intelligence services can add even more: sophisticated cyber espionage operations; an array of seismic and acoustic sensors; and networks of old-fashioned, human spies.
As a deal nears—another deadline looms this week—the Obama administration’s allies are emphasizing these technologies as evidence that the United States will be able to detect Iranian cheating, and in so doing, be able to deter such action.
“This will be a state-of-the-art verification regime, with sophisticated sensors, seals, cameras, coupled with comprehensive audits, interviews, inventories, and a controlled import channel for all Iranian purchases of nuclear-related technology,” said Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, a WMDs nonproliferation organization. “If Iran tries to break out, sneak out or creep out of this agreement, we will catch them."
Advanced spying and monitoring technologies are most useful for figuring out whether Iran is cheating at secret, undeclared nuclear facilities. One tool the IAEA has access to is commercial, high-resolution satellite technology that can give them imagery of locations all across Iran.
“That capability has revolutionized the ability to find things that were once hidden in remote locations,” said Tom Shea, who worked at the IAEA for 24 years and helped establish nonproliferation safeguard procedures.
Satellites—like DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 orbiter—can be used to take photographs in the shortwave infrared spectra, for example, detecting a clandestine reactor that is putting off heat. Electro-optical and radar satellites could help complete the picture. (That’s one of the ways that the U.S was able to find Iran’s previously secret underground nuclear facility in 2009.
Another tool for finding clandestine sites is environmental sampling, which has improved to the point where inspectors can identify infinitesimally minute particles to find hidden nuclear facilities or sniff out misuse at declared facilities.
“You can detect individual atoms, very small samples, so it’s virtually impossible to hide that you’ve been doing nuclear activity in a room,” Persbo said.
And by using remote environmental technologies, the IAEA can engage in “wide area monitoring of ambient air and the ground… they can detect [nuclear activities] without going directly into certain areas,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director at the Arms Control Association.
Fortunately for the JCPOA, the refrain of an “anytime, anywhere” access may make for a great sound bite, but its utility is overstated by Cotton and other critics of the agreement. An access delay — even one of 24 days — wouldn’t make any material difference to the IAEA’s ability to detect undeclared nuclear activities.
When IAEA inspectors search for undeclared nuclear activities, they look for tiny traces of nuclear material on surfaces. Fortunately for them, nuclear material lingers. And, modern detection technology is so amazingly effective that minuscule traces of nuclear material can be detected years after nuclear activities took place. Countries have tried to sanitize facilities completely to remove every last trace of nuclear material. Iran did so at the Kalaye Electric Company after its secret nuclear program was revealed in 2002. Syria tried the same thing in 2007 after Israel bombed its plutonium-production reactor at al-Kibar. In both cases, the IAEA still managed to detect nuclear material. Those findings were critical to persuading the organization’s governing body to make a formal finding of noncompliance against both Iran and Syria.
Perhaps Iran has learned from its past mistakes and could do a better job of cleaning up nuclear material in the future and keeping its program secret. But, what’s clear is that perfect cleanup — if it were possible — would take many months. After just 24 days, the IAEA would have little difficulty detecting the residue from undeclared nuclear activities.
So, here’s the bottom line: The Iran deal doesn’t provide for anytime, anywhere access, but it does facilitate timely access anywhere — and that’s what needed for effective verification.
What the IAEA actually needs is some preliminary evidence about where a secret nuclear facility might be lurking. The much-discussed but little-understood Additional Protocol was developed precisely for that purpose, and the JCPOA obliges Iran to accept it, first voluntarily and subsequently on a legally binding basis. But, the JCPOA goes beyond the Additional Protocol in two innovative and important ways.
First, IAEA monitoring will be extended to declared yellowcake (the precursor material to the feedstock for enrichment) and to declared centrifuge components. This measure will deter Iran from diverting this material and equipment to a secret program. Iran could, of course, try to acquire yellowcake or centrifuge components secretly instead — but doing so would create more opportunities for detection.
Second, the deal also creates a “Procurement Working Group” to oversee the import of all equipment and material that either is used or could be used for nuclear purposes. The intelligence communities of the United States and its friends spend considerable resources monitoring Iranian imports. If they discover that Iran has obtained any items that should have been declared but weren’t, they will have acquired clear evidence of secret nuclear activities in Iran. They could hand this evidence to the IAEA, which could conduct inspections to investigate further.
All in all, therefore, the JCPOA provides for some impressive verification provisions to guard against sneak-out. That said, no one should be under any illusions. Detecting small, undeclared centrifuge plants is difficult, and there is no guarantee of success. But, perfection is not the right metric against which to assess a nonproliferation agreement. The real question is whether sneak-out is more likely with a deal or without one. And here the answer is clear: Sneak-out would be much more likely without a deal, because the IAEA’s powers to detect clandestine facilities would be much more limited.
Moreover, responding to Iranian violations need not depend on proof gathered by the IAEA on site. While an IAEA inspection that catches Iran red-handed would probably provide the strongest basis for going to the Security Council and re-imposing sanctions, the United States would not need to wait for IAEA confirmation of Iranian cheating. If the United States acquired reliable intelligence of Iranian violations that posed a serious security threat and could be shared with others, the nuclear deal enables Washington to go directly to the Security Council without waiting for IAEA access. Indeed, depending on the scale and time-urgency of the threat, the United States could choose to act on its own to penalize Iran.
Inspections are only one component of the JCPOA’s comprehensive monitoring system. Continuous surveillance of the entire nuclear supply chain, including the prohibition of sensitive imports other than those individually approved and monitored for legitimate purposes, will make it difficult for Iran to pursue an undetected covert enrichment program. To succeed, a covert program requires not just a single clandestine site but a substantial number of effectively hidden facilities and undetected movement of equipment and materials between them. It requires unaccounted-for or successfully diverted supplies of uranium ore, processed uranium, uranium gas, centrifuge components, and facilities designed to produce those supplies. The JCPOA’s layered monitoring system will greatly increase the likelihood of detecting one or more of the necessary elements of a covert program and provide a substantial deterrent to Iranian cheating.
MYTH: Allowing inspections within twenty-four days gives Iran enough time to hide/dispose of nuclear material.
Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain will be under 24/7 surveillance and monitoring. IAEA inspectors will have the right to visit any part of that supply chain immediately. If suspicious activity is detected elsewhere in Iran, Tehran must allow international inspections within twenty-four days. Disposing of nuclear material is different from disposing of illicit drugs or murder weapons: Nuclear materials leave traces that endure for thousands of years. The U.S. intelligence community and IAEA nuclear inspectors are fully confident they can detect nuclear activities well beyond twenty-four days.
The agreement is based on verification, not trust. According to the U.S. fact sheet, Iran has agreed to accept the IAEA’s Additional Protocol as well as several even more intrusive monitoring and inspection measures that will provide high confidence that Iran is not making bomb material at its declared nuclear facilities and will significantly strengthen the ability of inspectors to detect clandestine facilities
- Nuclear deal has adequate provisions for verification
- Sophistication of verification techniques ensures Iran will be caught if they try and cheat on the agreement
- Iran routinely gets caught whenever it tries to develop clandestine nuclear facilities and no reason to suspect next time won't be the same
- Current nuclear deal will put in place sufficient measures to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon
- ... and 15 more quote(s)
Historically, nations have been more likely to attempt 'sneakout' from an international agreement than an overt "breakout" and Iran has done this multiple times already in its past. Given the challenges of identifying and inspecting all of their nuclear facilities in a timely and consistent manner, verification of the nuclear deal will always be an issue.
- Verification of Iran's nuclear facilities likely to be much more difficult than advocates anticipate
- Iran has long history of providing arms to Hezbollah
- Iran historically more likely to try and sneakout than breakout from a nuclear agreement
- Iran has given no indication that they can be trusted to abide by agreement
- Effective verification of the nuclear deal is unlikely because it depends on cooperation from Iran which has a 20-year history of cheating on agreements