NBC News: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Monday that he had “new and conclusive” proof that the Iranians were making nuclear weapons.
The evidence of Project Amad, a program to design, build and test nuclear weapons, is contained in 55,000 pages of documents and 55,000 files on CDs that the Israelis sneaked out of the nondescript storage facility in Tehran where Iran’s nuclear secrets are held, Netanyahu said.
Speaking at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu swept aside a black curtain to show a shelf filled with copies of the purported files. “Iran lied, big time, after signing the nuclear deal in 2015,” he said. “Iran is brazenly lying when it says it never had a nuclear weapons program. The files prove that.”
Netanyahu said Iran shelved Project Amad in 2003, but didn’t “shelve its nuclear ambitions,” and continues to preserve and expand its nuclear capabilities, he said.
Netanyahu said the evidence has been turned over to the U.S., including “incriminating blueprints, incriminating photos, incriminating videos and more.”
“The United States can vouch for its authenticity,” said Netanyahu, repeatedly insisting that Iran “lied” as he buttressed his claims with a PowerPoint presentation.
After wrapping up his presentation, Netanyahu left without taking any questions from reporters
A U.S. official confirmed to Bloomberg News that Israel had shared the files with the U.S. and that the U.S. had verified the material as authentic.
Asked about Netanyahu’s claim during a news conference with the president of Nigeria on Monday, President Donald Trump said it was “just not an acceptable situation.”
“What’s happening today,” Trump said, “has really shown that I’ve been 100 percent right.”
On Monday evening, the White House released a statement saying that Netanyahu’s information is “consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people.”
But that assessment flies in the face of the current U.S. intelligence consensus about Iran’s nuclear program, reiterated as recently as April 12 by Mike Pompeo, then the CIA director, at his confirmation hearing for secretary of state.
Asked if he had any evidence to dispute the International Atomic Energy Agency’s finding in March that Iran was complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, Pompeo said, “With the information I’ve been provided, I’ve seen no evidence that they are not in compliance today.”
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, dismissed Netanyahu’s claims as nonsense.
“Netanyahu’s show was a childish and ridiculous game,” he told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, Reuters reported. “The planned show ahead of the May 12 deadline is to affect Trump’s decision on Iran’s nuclear deal.”
That’s Trump’s deadline for amending the 2015 agreement or walking away from the Iran nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence assessment told NBC News that there is no evidence that Iran is cheating on the agreement.
Dylan WIlliams, vice president for government affairs at J Street, a left-leaning pro-Israel group, agreed.
“While Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have long been determined to undermine this agreement, their own security establishments continue to confirm that the deal is working and that Iran is compliant with all of its commitments,” Williams said in a statement. “Nothing we were shown today contradicts or disproves that expert assessment.”
Netanyahu had alerted reporters earlier Monday that he was going to announce what his office billed as a “significant development” regarding the Iran nuclear deal, which he wants Trump to scrap.
The announcement came a day after Netanyahu met Pompeo in Tel Aviv and two days after he spoke with Trump by phone.
The Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, offered Tehran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to curb its nuclear program.
While there is broad consensus that Iran is abiding by the agreement — reached with the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France, Germany and the European Union — Israel has long opposed the pact, which was one of the main foreign policy achievements of the Obama administration.
The Jewish state says the deal has not curbed Iran’s wider aggression, such as its support for Hezbollah — a powerful Lebanese militia and political group — and its role in conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Bahrain.
“President Trump’s been pretty clear,” Pompeo said Sunday in Tel Aviv. “This deal is very flawed. He’s directed the administration to try and fix it, and if we can’t fix it, he’s going to withdraw from the deal.”
He added, “We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats to Israel and the region, and Iran’s ambition to dominate the Middle East remains.”
Pompeo also listed Iran’s non-nuclear threats, including the introduction of thousands of proxy fighters to the Syrian civil war — something that has inspired Israel to carry out missile strikes, including a suspected attack late Sunday.
In his previous role as CIA director, Pompeo consistently portrayed Iran as the focus of evil in the Middle East and a worldwide threat.
