at-Largely
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Earlier this morning, Reuters (and AP too) news service ran a piece citing one UK government official and an anonymous Iranian source alleging that the IAEA inspectors were thrown barred out of Iran. Now just to make clear why this is important, Saddam Hussein had allegedly done the same thing according to reports, which was not true.

The IAEA cannot and does not generally issue specific responses when dealing with a country, because the matters are confidential. So I called them to see how solid this story was that Reuters put out. My report is at Raw Story, but here is in part the statement I was given, which is up in full at RS:

"It should be noted however, that there are a sufficient number of inspectors designated for Iran and the IAEA is able to perform its inspection activities in accordance with Iran's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement."

For them to issue this statement shows how concerned they are about these reports, so concerned, they are willing to go on the record and issue something more than just their standard confidentiality statement. It also shows that the Reuters reporter did not contact the IAEA, inexplicably.

Is this bad reporting or propaganda?

AP responds (link is in the original RS article):

"Update: After an inquiry by RAW STORY, the Associated Press' Director of Corporate Communications Jack Stokes said they could not reach the spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency after running a story asserting that Iran had barred 38 IAEA inspectors.

"IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming and other agency officials did not immediately return after-hours calls from The Associated Press," AP reporter NASSER KARIMI wrote.

Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna received comment from the agency shortly after the story broke this morning. AP's original article didn't indicate if they'd called the IAEA about Iran's claims before filing with the headline, "Iran bars 38 IAEA nuclear inspectors."

Stokes did not say why the AP called the agency after hours."