The report identifies three distinct agreements reached between
Argentina and Iran in 1987-88: the first involved help in converting a
nuclear reactor in Tehran so that it could use 20 percent enriched
uranium (i.e., low-grade uranium, which cannot be used for weapons
production) and indicates that it included the shipment of the 20
percent enriched uranium to Iran. The second and third agreements were
for technical assistance, including components, for the building of
pilot plants for uranium dioxide conversion and fuel fabrication.
The indictment shows that the United States put strong pressure on
the Menem government to terminate all nuclear cooperation with Iran. In
December 1991, according to the detailed account in the report, the U.S.
embassy in Buenos Aires informed Argentina's foreign ministry that the
United States could not accept the continuation of the contracts on
nuclear cooperation with Iran. In January, Argentina announced the
suspension of the shipments of nuclear materials to Iran.
But the report also documents the fact that Iran did not take the
suspension as final or anticipate an end to the other contracts on
nuclear technology. According to a Feb. 10, 2002, cable from the
Argentina's ambassador in Iran, an Iranian foreign ministry official
reaffirmed to him the "priority" that the Islamic Republic placed on
nuclear technology transfer from Argentina and said the foreign policy
positions taken by Argentina with which Tehran did not agree – such as
sending warships to the Persian Gulf – "apparently did not alter the
pragmatic attitude held by Argentina."
On Feb. 26, according to the account, the director of the American
department of Iran's foreign ministry "emphasized the need to reach a
solution to the problem that would avoid damage to other contracts."
Thus Iran was signaling its hope of finding a negotiated solution that
could end the suspension and maintain the other contracts with Argentina
as well.
Less than three weeks after that Iranian bid for negotiations, on
March 17, 2002, a bomb blast destroyed the Israeli embassy in Buenos
Aires, killing 26 people. Argentina, the United States, and Israel have
long maintained that Iran was responsible for both that bombing and the
1994 bombing of the AMIA headquarters.
But it seems unlikely that Iranian leaders would have ordered or
knowingly supported any terror bombing in Buenos Aires just when they
were concerned with nailing down an agreement to protect Iran's
important interests in relations with Argentina.
The report goes on to present new information that also appears to
rule out an Iranian role in the 1994 AMIA bombing. It confirms that
Menem canceled the second and third nuclear technology contracts with
Iran but not the first contract involving the low-enriched uranium.
The prosecutors' report further reveals that after the Menem
decision, Iran and Argentina entered into serious negotiations aimed at
restoring full nuclear cooperation. The general manager of INVAP, the
Argentine firm that dominated the National Commission on Atomic Energy,
testified to investigators that during 1992, there were "contacts"
between INVAP and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) "in the
expectation that the decision of the national government would be
revised, allowing the tasks in the contracts to be resumed."
The report does not indicate what results the talks produced. But an
article in the Christian Science Monitor Feb. 18, 1993, quoted an
Iranian official saying that Iran was still purchasing low-grade uranium
from Argentina and said the International Atomic Energy Agency had
confirmed that a shipment of low-enriched uranium would arrive in Iran
within a year.
From 1993 to 1995, according to the same INVAP official, the
negotiations with the AEOI continued, aimed at "reaching a definitive
solution" to the issues surrounding the two canceled projects. It was
not until 1996, according to the report, that Iran communicated its
intention of taking legal action against Argentina over the cancellation
of the two nuclear technology contracts.
The new evidence on nuclear technology relations between Iran and
Argentina is a serious blow to the credibility of the central assertion
in the indictment that Rafsanjani and other former Iranian officials
decided at a meeting on Aug. 14, 1993, to plan the bombing of AMIA. That
assertion was based entirely on the testimony of Iranian defector
Abdolghassem Mesbahi, who was evidently unaware of the continued uranium
exports and continuing negotiations revealed in the prosecutors' report.
Mesbahi's credibility on Iran's alleged role in the bombings was also
damaged by his spectacular allegation that President Menem had received
a $10 million payoff from Iran to divert the investigation away from
Iranian involvement – an allegation the defector later withdrew.
To square these diplomatic revelations with the charges against Iran,
the prosecutors quote what they call a "hypothesis" advanced by SIDE
that Iran uses "violence" in order induce "victim countries" to agree to
"negotiations convenient to Iran's interests." But they offer no further
evidence to support that theory.
The investigation of the 1994 bombing by the Argentine judiciary,
which has no political independence from the executive branch, has had
little credibility with the public, because of a bribe by the lead judge
to a key witness and a pattern of deceptive accounts based on false
testimony.