ISIS Publishes IAEA Nuclear Briefing Notes

The Institute for Science and International Security published notes today from a briefing given in Vienna by Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's Deputy Director General of Safeguards in February 2008 to member states, including Iran.

According to ISIS, the notes were prepared by one of the diplomats attending the briefing and checked among a other delegations. The IAEA has not reviewed these notes and has not supported their dissemination. As a result, they represent an unofficial record of the meeting and may contain inaccuracies. ISIS describes the contents of the notes as follows:

"The notes describe the technical basis for the IAEA's outstanding questions about the scope and direction of Iran's alleged nuclear weaponization studies. Specifically, it describes some of the information contained on a laptop obtained in Iran by an intelligence operation in 2004, as well as additional information provided by IAEA member states to the IAEA more recently. The information presented, which included multimedia files, describes several aspects of what could be nuclear weapons development-instructions on how to communicate internally using first names only, missile re-entry vehicle research including the chronology of events-separation of the missile, loss-of-tracking, switching on of altitude detectors, timing of firing devices-leading to an explosion at an altitude of about 600 meters. The IAEA notes that the altitude described in the documents excludes the possibility that the warhead was designed to accommodate conventional explosives or chemical and biological charges.

The briefing notes also summarize the reactions of Iranian diplomats at the meeting. They insist repeatedly that the allegations are groundless and the documents fabricated."

Click here to read the notes.