Free to tell the truth?

Index on Censorship has posted online a petition to Iran's justice minister, calling for the release of journalist Maziar Bahari, who has been held without charge in an Iranian jail for over three weeks.

Meanwhile, as the BBC and Guardian report,

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has dismissed the report as hearsay as the soldiers were anonymous:

"The IDF expects every soldier to turn to the appropriate authorities with any allegation,"

There would of course be no repercussions...

An unsung whistleblower

I've done a piece today for Index on Censorship about Atif Amin, the customs investigator who is being investigated by the IPCC (yes, really, the Independent Police Complaints Commission) over allegations that he broke the official secrets act.

He isn't a whistleblower in the true sense of the word as all he did was comment on information that was already in public domain, that he was prevented from investigating the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network after he found that it was smuggling proliferation-sensitive materiel to Libya.

As I commented in an Independent Minds blog, what seems to have upset the state is that he (very mildly) questioned whether it was a good idea to watch Khan proliferating for a further three and a half years. During this time the network supplied Iran and caused Tony Blair so much worry that he invaded Iraq.

So why is the IPCC investigating Amin and questionning BBC journalists, while the killers of Jean Charles de Menezes get away scot free - not to mention the proliferators?

Just the one crucial fact left out

The BBC has reported that:

Iran has been asked by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, for a substantive response to allegations that it is developing a nuclear weapon.

In typical BBC style, the story trades in claim and counterclaim, appearing to be balanced:

Iran says its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes.

Allegations about its nuclear programme are unsubstantiated, says the country's IAEA envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

Mr Soltanieh said that Iran had not been allowed to see any of the documents which allegedly back up US accusations of a military nuclear programme.

But apparently IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei isn't having any of it:

Speaking to the IAEA's board, Mr El Baradei said Iran should provide "substantive information to support its statements and access to relevant documentations and individuals".

Iran "should clarify the extent to which the documentation is factually correct and where, as it asserts, such information has been fabricated or where it relates to non-nuclear purposes", he added.

Except that, if you read El Baradei's statement to the IAEA board, he also said this:

"I call upon Member States which provided the Agency with documentation related to the alleged studies to authorize the Agency to share it with Iran."

The IAEA is asking Iran to comment on documents that it can't show it because the states that provided them won't let it. It isn't clear why the very balanced BBC didn't mention this.

More of the same

On Comment is Free yesterday, Inayat Bunglawala makes the kind of points I have previously made about the sexed-up threat from Iran's nuclear programme.

In particular, he singles out Con Coughlin of the Telegraph, who is repeatedly fed what turn out to be inconsistent stories by MI6. John Scarlett and the Iraq dossier get a mention too.

Iran and Israel again

On Comment is Free, I've got a new piece challenging the spin coming out of Israel on Iran.

It also links to Seymour Hersh's new piece in the New Yorker, which suggests that the US is already covertly engaged in Iran.

Terrorism 4 votes

The Guardian reports comments by Charlie Black, a senior adviser on John McCain's campaign, that a terrorist attack before the election would help McCain. It's pretty cynical and may backfire but, given the shameless way George Bush played the "war president" card in 2004, it's really a statement of the obvious.

When Black talked about a terrorist attack, he did not mean bombing Iran, something neo-con John Bolton says might happen after the election. Terrorism is what other people do.

Wot, no nukes?

The New York Times reports that Israel has carried out an exercise that US officials say "appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."

The BBC also reports the story. Neither mention that Israel has nuclear weapons already.

A minor splash

On Comment is Free, John Gittings asks:

Are we so used to dodgy dossiers that the new evidence about the Iranian capture last year of British sailors and marines doesn't really matter?

He's referring to yesterday's Times story, that the captured sailors were not in Iraqi waters, as the government swore at the time, but disputed international waters.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Oops - we lied

Some proper investigative journalism from the Times has revealed that the British navy personnel captured by Iran last year were in disputed international waters, not Iraqi waters, as Britain repeatedly claimed.

Document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that:

— The arrests took place in waters that are not internationally agreed as Iraqi;

— The coalition unilaterally designated a dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters in the Gulf without telling Iran where it was;

For Iran, (don't) read Iraq

Today's Guardian has the type of story that preceded the invasion of Iraq, an anonymous source feeding a supposedly intelligence-based story about weapons of mass destruction. This time it's about Iran:

The British government said yesterday that Tehran could still be developing a nuclear weapon, and called into question a key American intelligence finding that work on building an Iranian bomb had stopped in 2003.

Apparently, the UK did its own intelligence assessment shortly after the US National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran had dropped its nuclear weapons programme. Was it the Joint Intelligence Committee by any chance?

The anonymous source appears to be Simon Smith, Britain's representative on the International Atomic Energy Authority board, who is quoted directly in the article. The Guardian tells us that:

The evidence has been met with scepticism by several members of the IAEA, who point to the debacle over WMD intelligence on Iraq.

The senior British diplomat said, however: "Just because we got it wrong on Iraq doesn't mean we're getting it wrong on Iran."

Or should that be, 'just because the stories we fed the press on Iraq were dodgy, doesn't mean they won't fall for it again'?

Some straight talking

No spin or mincing of words in the Telegraph's lead story. US neo-con John Bolton says "We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb". Very scary.

Rather less straight talking from Tony Blair, who again failed to produce any basis for his September 2002 claim - in Parliament - that Iraq could get the bomb in "a year or two". It was made up.