Hominid Views

How odd is that. Something over a month ago, Iran announced that they were 1.5 years away from completing a uranium enrichment plant near Qom that they claimed was for producing reactor-grade nuclear fuel. Now, seemingly instantaneously, IAEA has been granted access to the facility.

But notice the inaccurate and almost incendiary language used to describe the facility in this AP lede:

U.N. inspectors entered what once was a secret uranium enrichment site with its bunker-like construction and heavy military protection that raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran’s nuclear program.

It is not, nor was it ever a “secret uranium enrichment site.” Rather, it is a future enrichment site, as it’s still at least a year away from completion. I am puzzled over these media reports that repeatedly misattribute the site as a facility. I can understand wingnuts doing this—I mean, they’ve taken to call fetuses “babies”—but this is the media for crying out loud. They are supposed to do a little fact checking on the bullshit spin coming from the U.S. government (sadly…even the Obama administration pushes a less forceful version of “axis of evil”).

Here is a Reuters lede for the story:

A team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog inspected Iran’s newly disclosed uranium enrichment site on Sunday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to qualify it as a “newly disclosed uranium enrichment site under construction” or “future enrichment site”?

And the Wall Street Journal adds an odd logical inconsistency in their lede:

A team of monitors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog started an inspection on Sunday of Iran’s recently disclosed uranium-enrichment plant, presenting another big test of Tehran’s willingness to cooperate with the West over its nuclear program.

They make the same error of describing it as a “uranium-enrichment plant.” Astonishingly, they go on to portray an ongoing inspection of the construction project as “another big test” of Iran’s “willingness to cooperate.” Wouldn’t the “big test” be about inspectors getting into the country and actually into the facility some 18 months before it begins production?

The Financial Times makes the same mistake:

United Nations inspectors began visiting Iran’s hitherto secret uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom yesterday in what is set to be another test of whether Tehran will co-operate with world powers over the direction of its nuclear programme.

The New York Times adds a novel twist in their lede:

Just before international inspectors on Sunday were guided for the first time into an Iranian nuclear enrichment plant whose existence was a state secret until recently, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament warned his countrymen to beware of American efforts to “cheat” Iran out of the nuclear fuel that has become the country’s currency in reasserting its power.

This just elevates the hyperbolic bullshit slightly by throwing that tangential story into the lede.

The Scotsman ratchets the rhetoric up a notch with their lede:

WESTERN concerns over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions deepened at the weekend, even as international experts were allowed access to one of Iran’s most closely guarded atomic secrets – a recently disclosed uranium enrichment plant.

Yeah…that “closely guarded atomic secret” plant that they voluntarily disclosed and opened up for inspection more than a year before completion.

Perusal of a dozen other media sources failed to turn up a lede that accurately describes the “facility” as currently under construction.

Can we get some better press, please?