Iran
bomb graph doctored from
Internet By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The suspect graph of a
nuclear explosion reportedly provided to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as
evidence of Iranian computer modeling of nuclear
weapons yields appears to have been adapted from a
very similar graph in a scholarly journal article
published in January 2009 and available on the
Internet.
The graph, published in a
November 27 Associated Press story but immediately
found to have a mathematical error of four orders
of magnitude, closely resembles a graph
accompanying a scholarly article modeling a
nuclear explosion. It provides a plausible
explanation for the origins of the graph leaked to
AP, according to two nuclear physicists following
the issue closely.
The graph in the
scholarly journal article was well known to the
IAEA at the time of its
publication, according to a knowledgeable source.
Graph
published by the scholarly journal Nuclear
Engineering and Design in 2009. [1]
That
means that the IAEA should have been able to make
the connection between the set of graphs alleged
to have been used by Iran to calculate yields from
nuclear explosions that the agency obtained in
2011 and the very similar graph available on the
Internet. The IAEA did not identify the member
countries that provided the intelligence about the
alleged Iran studies. However, Israel provided
most of the intelligence cited by the IAEA in its
2011 report, and Israeli intelligence has been the
source of a number of leaks to the AP reporter in
Vienna, George Jahn.
Graph published by the Associated Press
on November 27, 2012, reportedly as evidence of
Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapons
yields.
The graph accompanying an article
in the January 2009 issue of the journal Nuclear
Engineering and Design by retired Swiss nuclear
engineer Walter Seifritz displayed a curve
representing power in a nuclear explosion over
fractions of a second that is very close to the
one shown in the graph published by AP and
attributed by the officials leaking it to an
Iranian scientist.
Both graphs depict a
nuclear explosion as an asymmetrical bell curve in
which the right side of the curve is more
elongated than the left side. Although both graphs
are too crudely drawn to allow precise
measurement, it appears that the difference
between the two sides of the curve on the two
graphs is very close to the same in both graphs.
The AP graph appears to show a total
energy production of 50 kilotonnes taking place
over about 0.3 microseconds, whereas the Seifritz
graph shows a total of roughly 18 kilotonnes
produced over about 0.1 microseconds.
The
resemblance is so dramatic that two nuclear
specialists who compared the graphs at the request
of IPS consider it very plausible that the graph
leaked to AP as part of an Iranian secret nuclear
weapons research program may well have been
derived from the one in the journal article.
Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of
nuclear science and engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told
IPS he suspects the graph leaked to AP was
"adapted from the open literature". He said he
believes the authors of that graph "were told they
ought to look into the literature and found that
paper, copied (the graph) and made their own plot
from it."
Yousaf Butt, a nuclear scientist
at the Monterey Institute, who had spotted the
enormous error in the graph published by AP, along
with his colleague Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, said in
an interview with IPS that a relationship between
the two graphs is quite plausible, particularly
given the fact they both have similar asymmetries
in the power curve.
"Someone may just have
taken the Seifritz graph and crudely adapted it to
a 50-kilotonne yield instead of the 18 kilotonnes
in the paper," Butt said.
He added that
"it's not even necessary that an actual computer
model was even run in the production of the AP
graph."
Apparently anticipating that the
Seifriz graph would soon be discovered, the source
of the graph given to AP is quoted in a December 1
story as acknowledging that "similar graphs can be
found in textbooks, the internet and other public
sources."
Butt said that he doesn't know
whether the AP graph is genuine or not, but that
it could well be a forgery.
"If one wanted
to plant a forgery," he wrote, "it would make
sense to manufacture something that looked like
the output from the many unclassified 'toy-models'
available on-line or in academic journals, rather
than leak something from an actual high-fidelity
classified study."
The Seifritz graph came
to the attention of the IAEA secretariat soon
after it was published and was referred to the
staff specialist on nuclear weapons research,
according to a source familiar with the IAEA's
handling of such issues.
The source, who
refused to be identified, told IPS the reaction of
the official was that the graph represented fairly
crude work on basic theory and was therefore not
of concern to the agency.
The agency was
given the alleged Iranian graph in 2011, and a
"senior diplomat" from a different country from
the source of the graph said IAEA investigators
realized the diagram was flawed shortly after they
received it, according to the December 1 AP story.
The IAEA's familiarity with the Seifritz
graph, two years before it was given graphs that
bore a close resemblance to it and which the
agency knew contained a huge mathematical error,
raise new questions about how the IAEA could have
regarded the Israeli intelligence as credible
evidence of Iranian work on nuclear weapons.
Yukiya Amano, the director-general of the
IAEA, refused to confirm or deny in an appearance
at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington
December 6 that the graph published by AP was part
of the evidence of Iranian "activities" related to
nuclear weapons cited by the agency in its
November 2011 report.
Amano responded to a
question on the graph, "I can't discuss this
specific information."
In its November
2011 report, the IAEA said it had "information"
from two member states that Iran had conducted
"modeling studies" aimed at determining the
"nuclear explosive yield" associated with
components of nuclear weapon. It said the
"information" had identified "models said to have
been used in those studies and the results of
these calculations, which the Agency has seen".
The "senior diplomat" quoted by AP said
the IAEA also had a spreadsheet containing the
data needed to produce the same yield as shown on
the graph - 50 kilotonnes - suggesting that the
spreadsheet is closely related to the graph.
Butt observed, however, that the existence
of the spreadsheet with data showing the yield
related to a 50 kilotonne explosion does not make
the graph any more credible, because the
spreadsheet could have been created by simply
plugging the data used to produce the graph.
Kemp of MIT agreed with Butt's assessment.
"If it's simply data points plotted in the graph,
it means nothing," he told IPS.
After Butt
and Dalnoki-Veress identified the fundamental
error in the graph AP had published as evidence of
Iranian work on a 50-kilotonne bomb, the Israeli
source of the graph and an unidentified "senior
diplomat" argued that the error must have been
intentionally made by the Iranian scientist who
they alleged had produced the graph.
A
"senior diplomat" told AP the IAEA believed the
scientist had changed the units of energy used by
orders of magnitude, because "Nobody would have
understood the original ..."
That
explanation was embraced by David Albright, who
has served as unofficial IAEA spokesman in
Washington on several occasions. But neither
Albright nor the unidentified officials quoted by
Jahn offered any explanation as to why an accurate
graph would have been more difficult for Iranian
officials to understand than one with such a huge
mathematical error.
Further undermining
the credibility of the explanation, Jahn's sources
suggested that the Iranian scientist whom they
suspected of having devised the graph was Dr Majid
Shahriari, the nuclear scientist assassinated by
the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in 2010.
No evidence has been produced to indicate
that Shahriari, who had a long record of
publications relating to nuclear power plants and
basic nuclear physics, had anything to do with
nuclear weapons research.
Note: 1. Nuclear
Engineering and Design. Volume 239, Issue 1,
January 2009, Pages 80-86.
Gareth
Porter, an investigative historian and
journalist specializing in US national security
policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for
journalism for 2011 for articles on the US war in
Afghanistan.
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