The UN's nuclear watchdog has made a stinging attack on the US Congress over an "outrageous and dishonest" report on Iran's nuclear programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that the congressional report published last month contained "erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information", and that it took "strong exception" to "incorrect and misleading" claims in the report that the IAEA was covering up some of its doubts about Iran's nuclear intentions.

A letter from the IAEA to Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the intelligence select committee in the house of representatives, was leaked to the Washington Post today.

Washington has been keen to ramp up pressure on Iran at a time when Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany - the other main negotiators over Iran's nuclear programme - are favouring a more cautious approach.

Although all six countries want Iran to stop enriching uranium, Russia and China are understood to oppose the imposition of economic sanctions and the European negotiators are opposed to any military action against Tehran.

There have been international concerns about Iran's nuclear programme since it announced success in enriching uranium earlier this year. Uranium must be enriched to be used in nuclear power plants, but further enrichment can produce material suitable for use in atomic bombs.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is only intended for peaceful power generation purposes, but diplomats suspect that it is being used as cover for atomic weapons development.

The congressional report is said to have been written by a Republican staff member of the house intelligence committee who is known to have hardline views on Iran and who based the report's conclusions on published material, rather than secret intelligence.

The IAEA letter particularly criticised a caption in the report claiming that the Natanz plant in central Iran was enriching uranium to weapons grade. That claim was contradicted by the IAEA's latest report on Iran, released to diplomats at the end of last month and showing that enrichment had so far only reached low levels.

But the strongest response was to the report's retelling of an article in German newspaper Die Welt about the departure of former nuclear inspector Chris Charlier from the IAEA.

The report had claimed that Mr Charlier was removed by the IAEA director, Mohamed El Baradei, at the behest of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and that there was an "unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear programme".

The letter described these statements as "outrageous and dishonest", saying that the IAEA's founding rules stated that inspectors could only be sent to a country with the agreement of the country's government.

Source: guardian.co.uk 

---