NETANYAHU: ‘IRAN LIED’ ABOUT NUKES
Details the ‘coverup’ that makes nuke deal a sham
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday unveiled what he said was a “half-ton” of evidence proving that Tehran covered up a nuclear-weapons program before inking a 2015 deal with the international community.
“Iran lied — big time,” Netanyahu declared in a dramatic prime-time address in English to Israel and the rest of the world.
He said that despite assurances by its leaders that Iran did not possess nukes, the Islamic Republic actually intensified its efforts and even moved its cache of weapons to a “highly secret location” disguised as a run-down warehouse in Tehran last year.
Citing a “great intelligence achievement” by Israel, Netanyahu said his country obtained a half-ton of materials stashed inside three vaults — comprising 55,000 documents and 183 CDs from the Iranian “nuclear archives” — about the socalled Project Amad.
He made the stunning announcement from the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv just days before President Trump will decide whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
The deal offered Iran relief from crippling sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Netanyahu fought hard against the deal while then-President Barack Obama was negotiating it, arguing that it did not provide sufficient safeguards to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power.
Trump, who has called the agreement “insane” and “the worst deal ever,” has signaled he will pull out of it by May 12 unless it is revised.
But he faces intense pressure from European allies not to do so.
Netanyahu said he shared the newly uncovered information with the US, which vouched for its authenticity, and also would present it to Israel’s Western allies and the international nuclear agency.
He used visual aids, including maps, illustrations and animations that he said provide incriminating proof that Iran brazenly lied.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister and senior nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, called Netanyahu’s presentation “childish and ridiculous,” and said the purported evidence was “fake and fabricated.”
“How would Iran keep such important documents in a deserted industrial warehouse?” Araghchi asked.
“The fact that Netanyahu performs this show 10 days before Trump’s decision on the [nuclear deal] makes it clear that it is an orchestrated play to influence Trump’s decision.”
Trump later said during a Rose Garden appearance with Nigerian
President Muhammadu Buhari that Netanyahu’s presentation was “good,” adding that Iran’s behavior is “just not an acceptable situation.”
Trump was coy about whether he will withdraw the United Strates from the nuclear deal, but said that if it does pull out, he still may negotiate a “real agreement.”
Trump and Netanyahu both say a deal should address Iran’s support of militants and its development of ballistic missiles, as well as eliminate provisions that expire in the next decade.
Netanyahu said the newly uncovered trove proves Iran is intent on resuming its race to build a weapon of mass destruction.
“We can now prove that Project Amad was a comprehensive program to design, build and test nuclear weapons,” he said.
“We can also prove that Iran is secretly storing Project Amad material to use at a time of its choice to develop nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu said Iran put aside Project Amad in 2003, but “didn’t shelve its nuclear ambition” and continued work in the field with the explicit goal of producing five warheads, each with the yield of 10 kilotons of TNT “for integration on a missile.”
“That’s like five Hiroshima bombs to be put on ballistic missiles,” he said.
Netanyahu said Project Amad included five key elements: designing nuclear weapons, developing nuclear cores, building nuclear implosion systems, preparing nuclear tests, and integrating nuclear warheads on missiles.
He showed what he said was proof Iran used U-235, enriched uranium required for a nuclear bomb — as well as evidence of an underground facility where the casting process was conducted to build cores, five possible sites to test nukes, and the integration of nuclear payloads for Shahab3 missiles.
Netanyahu pointed out that the scientist in charge of Project Amad, Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, continues to work on “special activities” under the cover of “scientific knowhow developments” with key personnel who were part of the nuclear project.
Former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on Twitter, “Obviously, Netanyahu’s announcement tonight on the Iranian nuclear program is fully coordinated with the US side.”
Netanyahu’s presentation came on the heels of a missile attack in Syria that killed 26 mostly Iranian pro-government fighters.
Damascus suspects it was launched by Israel, which declined to comment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just dropped his own bombshell on the Iran nuclear deal, citing a secret archive obtained by the Mossad that he says proves conclusively “Iran lied — big time.” In a dramatic English-language speech and PowerPoint presentation, Netanyahu on Monday reproduced documents, slides and animation from among 100,000 pages he said showed Iran secretly hid in a bunker.
The archive, he said, shows conclusively that Iran lied when it denied ever having a nuclear-weapons program.
More important, he cited documents suggesting that while Iran shut down that program, Operation Amad, in 2003, it actually continued the work covertly with the same personnel. Moreover, Iran “is secretly storing Amad material to use at a time of its choice” — i.e., when the deal expires.
Its goal: Develop five 10-kiloton nuclear warheads, each about the strength of the US bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, for use on long-range ballistic missiles.
And inspections under the deal have failed to find any evidence of the illicit work — which, again, continued at least through 2015.
It’s proof, Bibi declared, that the 2015 deal negotiated by President Barack Obama “was based on lies” and deception. And he called on President Trump to tear up the agreement by the May 12 deadline.
Not surprisingly, Iran ridiculed Netanyahu’s speech as “crying wolf,” and supporters of the deal called it “old news.”
True, the fact that Iran had a nuclearweapons program isn’t new. Nor is the widespread belief that Iran will resume its work when the deal expires. But Netanyahu has now presented documentary evidence from Iran’s own files to back that up.
And if the material is legitimate — and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t — it shifts the burden of proof onto Tehran.
Even without this new evidence, the deal is inherently flawed: Its provisions begin expiring in just seven years — and its inspections in the interim are plainly inadequate.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised last weekend that Washington will “withdraw” from the deal “if we can’t fix it.” Netanyahu has just given that vow more justification.