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Note To Iran - Debunking Netanyahu Requires Some Care
By Moon of Alabama
The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahoo held a speech in front of the UN General Assembly. As usual he brought some props to continue his 30 years of false claims about a 'nuclear Iran'. Netanyahoo's claim in front of this year's UNGA was not entirely false but highly misleading. Unfortunately he is helped by some rather hapless Iranian responses to it.
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Netanyahoo said:
In May we exposed the site of Iran’s secret atomic archive. It’s right here in the Shuabad Distrcit of Tehran. Today I’m revealing the site of a second facility: Iran’s secret atomic warehouse. It’s right here, in the Turkuzahbad Distrcit of Tehran. Just three miles away. Let me show you exactly what the secret atomic warehouse looks like. Here it is. You see, like the atomic archive it’s another innocent-looking compound. Now for those of you at home using Google Earth, this no longer secret atomic warehouse. You have the coordinates, you can try to get there. And for those of you who try to get there: It’s 100 meters from the rug-cleaning operation. By the way, i hear they do a fantastic job of cleaning rugs there. But by now they may be radioactive rags. This is the second secret site. Now countries with satellite capabilities may notice some increased activity on the alley in the days and weeks ahead.
Netanyahoo added the obviously false claim that Iran removed radioactive material from the warehouse and spread it over Tehran.
But just like back in May, when Netanyahoo presented old material that was long known to the IAEA and relevant governments, no one came out in support of his exaggerated claims. Yes, the 'atomic warehouse' in Tehran exists. But it is neither secret, nor does it hold anything radioactive or of current relevance:
A US intelligence official has said that the speech delivered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday at the UN General Assembly about the existence of a second secret atomic facility in Iran was “somewhat misleading.”
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According to the US intelligence official, knowledge of the facility is nothing new to the Americans.“First, we have known about this facility for some time, and it’s full of file cabinets and paper, not aluminum tubes for centrifuges, and second, so far as anyone knows, there is nothing in it that would allow Iran to break out of the JCPOA any faster than it otherwise could,” the official said.
Another US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States is aware of the facility Netanyahu announced and described it as a “warehouse” used to store “records and archives” from Iran’s nuclear program.
I am told that the IAEA also knows of the archive and its harmless content. The old material Netanyahoo presented back in May was most likely copied from the IAEA in Vienna. The IAEA is also the most likely source from where Israeli spies gained knowledge about the 'secret atomic warehouse'.
Netanyahoo again made misleading claims about Iran. That's nothing new. The case is closed.
But unfortunately some some Iranian people put the foot in their mouth by trying to debunk even those parts of Netanyahoo's claims that are correct:
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The first picture in Meysam Yaghoubi's tweet is indeed the gate to the compound Netanyahoo showed. The other pictures though, which show a carpet cleaning facility, were taken inside a compound on the other side of the street of the archive compound. They were not taken inside the compound that Netanyahoo pointed out. This can be easily discerned by comparing the second picture in the tweet above with a satellite view of the place.
The notable gate structure of the archive compound visible at the upper left is not the gate of the compound where the picture was taken, but on the other side of the road.
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The archive compound is marked, the carpet cleaning compound where the interior pictures were taken is south of it.
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The Iranian Students News Agency ISNA provided the carpet cleaning pictures within a mocking piece (Persian, Machine translation) that tried to debunk Netanyahoo by visiting the marked building. The headline and intro of the report make it seem as if the compound Netanyahoo pointed out is a carpet cleaning facility. But the reporter and the photographer never entered that building. They only entered the compound opposite of it:
Netanyahu confused a simple carpet with atomic storage!...
At that place, Mr. Rezaei and his partner, who were the owners of the workshop opposite the atomic bomb of the prime minister of the Zionist regime, stood in front of their workshop, and at the very beginning of seeing the photographer, they were jokingly told us that you were late; before you, other reporter too come here to see the bombs! Mr. Rezaei and his partner are the owners of the "Yekta" carpet workshop, ...
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Mr. Rezaei counted the number of reporters who arrived in front of his workshop on Friday morning, whose partner invited us to the workshop to explore it. Together with the carpet owners and the photographer, we entered the workshop showing us the partner of Mr. Reza'i, and said jokingly that there is the secret storehouse there; we went ahead and saw that there was a number of rug and carpet in Anbar's unique workshop.
This ISNA piece and the attached pictures unintentionally confirm exactly what Netanyahoo said about the location of the archive building: "It’s 100 meters from the rug-cleaning operation."
Iran's foreign ministry is also somewhat hapless when it describes Netanyahoo's speech as "false, meaningless and unnecessary". Why can't Tehran simply say: "Decades old administrative records of our legitimate nuclear energy program are archived in a warehouse that is well known to all relevant entities. There is nothing secret nor nefarious about it."
Hapless attempts to debunk Netanyahoo even where he is right will be used by his propagandists to claim that "Iran lies". Tehran, and its news agencies, must up their game.
