The sites, equipment, and activities described in the nuclear archive not only defy Iran’s nonproliferation commitments. Rather, they also reflect Tehran’s longstanding efforts to keep its nuclear program a secret. For this reason, transparent, detailed IAEA reporting and rapid IAEA responses to new information – including to the data in the archive – remain vital to holding Iran accountable for any nuclear misconduct. However, more than 15 months after the archive’s disclosure, the IAEA has yet even to mention the archive in any of its quarterly reports.

To be sure, while both INFCIRC/153 and the IAEA Statute require the agency to report noncompliance to the Board of Governors, they lack specificity regarding the amount of detail the IAEA must provide the Board of Governors about its inspections. Similarly, they lack specificity concerning how quickly the IAEA must respond to new information about nuclear activity. As a practical matter, these decisions constitute the prerogative of the IAEA director general, who makes individual judgment calls in each case.

Still, pre-JCPOA reporting on Iran’s nuclear program established a precedent not only for relatively swift IAEA responses to new data (though Tehran often failed to cooperate with the IAEA’s efforts), but also for transparency and detail in reporting to the Board of Governors. These standards began to decline after the JCPOA. Reports since then have omitted a wide range of information that would enable independent assessments of Iran’s adherence to its nonproliferation commitments.

Pre-JCPOA Reporting and Transparency

As early as 2003, the IAEA – then under the leadership of ElBaradei – stated that Tehran had adopted a “policy of concealment,” dating to the 1970s, aimed at hiding “breaches of its obligation to comply with the provisions of the Safeguards Agreement.” Between 2003 and 2015, dozens of IAEA reports to the Board of Governors assessed Iranian nuclear activities – including violations of its CSA and AP – by providing extensive detail on Iran’s stockpiles of low-enriched uranium, centrifuge operations, research and development on advanced centrifuges, and illicit procurement efforts, among other data. Moreover, the reports identified suspicious sites by name, such as Parchin and Lavisan-Shian.

The IAEA’s November 2011 report, authored by Amano, provided the most comprehensive documentation of the agency’s knowledge – or lack thereof – of the Iranian nuclear program’s undeclared sites and activity. In light of Tehran’s refusal to provide “the necessary cooperation,” the report said, the IAEA “is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.” This concern, the report noted, bore particular salience in light of Iran’s willingness to declare other nuclear facilities only after the IAEA “was made aware of their existence by sources other than Iran.”

In response to many of the IAEA’s reports to the Board of Governors, Iran routinely objected that the IAEA Statute and the CSA require the agency to keep its findings confidential. But the IAEA and its Board of Governors dismissed these complaints, providing a clear standard for future reporting. While both the Statute and the CSA prohibit the IAEA from publicly disclosing “confidential information” related to its inspections, these provisions do not preclude the issuance of reports to the Board of Governors, which then bears the right to publicize them if a majority of its members agree, as they did in these instances.

Case Study: Natanz and Arak

When an Iranian opposition group exposed the facilities at Natanz and Arak in August 2002, the IAEA’s then-director for safeguards operations for the region wrote a letter to Iran within days seeking clarification. Iran initially delayed IAEA requests for access, but eventually, in February 2003, allowed ElBaradei and his delegation to visit Natanz. Under CSAs that lack an AP, though, heavy water and associated production plants – in contrast to uranium enrichment plants – are not subject to safeguards and therefore do not require declaration to the IAEA. Still, Tehran confirmed to the delegation that it had begun constructing a heavy water production plant in Arak, thus corroborating the opposition group’s report.

In May 2003, Iran further informed the IAEA that it planned – but had not yet begun – to construct a heavy water research reactor in Arak as well, which would constitute a nuclear facility requiring declaration to the IAEA under the CSA, with or without an AP. A heavy water research reactor would enable Tehran to produce weapons-grade plutonium sufficient for a nuclear warhead. The AP, which Iran signed in December 2003, strengthened the CSA by requiring member states to declare all heavy water-related facilities and activities, including heavy water production plants. Pursuant to the AP, the IAEA ultimately visited Arak for the first time in May 2004.

In September 2003, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution expressing “concern” that Iran had introduced nuclear material into its pilot centrifuge enrichment cascade at Natanz. In June 2004, the Board passed a resolution stating that it “[d]eplores” that Tehran’s “cooperation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been.” The resolution further said that the Board “regrets” that Tehran’s commitments “to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities … have not been comprehensively implemented.” The resolution then called on Iran “to reconsider its decision to start construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.”

In multiple resolutions over the subsequent 11 years, the IAEA Board of Governors as well as the UNSC echoed these calls. For example, the UNSC’s December 2006 resolution imposing sanctions on Iran stated that Iran “shall without further delay suspend … all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development,” as well as “work on all heavy water-related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.”

Case Study: Lavisan-Shian

In June 2004, the IAEA again responded rapidly when it received new information, this time about suspicious activity at Lavisan-Shian. An Iranian opposition group first brought the site to public attention in May 2003, claiming that it served as a base for a biological weapons center. In late 2003 and early 2004, though, the IAEA received information that possible undeclared nuclear activity occurred there as well, prompting it to begin an investigation. The agency issued requests to visit the site in February and March 2004, each of which Tehran denied.

In a television newscast on June 16, 2004, ABC News reported – based on satellite images provided by the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank based in Washington, DC – that Iran had dismantled the facility and razed part of the site during the IAEA’s inquiry. “This destruction at the site raised concerns,” noted the institute, “because it is the type of measure Iran would need to take if it was trying to defeat the powerful environmental sampling capabilities of IAEA inspectors.” On June 18, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution stating that it “[d]eplores” that Tehran’s “cooperation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been.”

The IAEA once more sought access to the site. “As a result of this new information, in June 2004 the IAEA requested and received permission from Iran to visit and take environmental samples from Lavizan-Shian,” wrote Pierre Goldschmidt, the IAEA’s deputy director general at the time, and arms control scholar Nima Gerami. The IAEA arrived at the site on June 28, less than two weeks after the ABC News report, and collected environmental samples. The results showed no evidence of nuclear activity. “It should be borne in mind, however, that detection of nuclear material in soil samples would be very difficult in light of the razing of the site,” stated the IAEA. “In addition, given the removal of the buildings, the Agency is not in a position to verify the nature of activities that have taken place there.”

Case Study: Fordow

A similar process unfolded after the United States, Britain, and France, in late September 2009, exposed another Iranian covert facility: the uranium enrichment plant under a mountain at Fordow, located near the holy city of Qom. Washington immediately noted the site’s implications. “Iran’s decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime,” said President Barack Obama at a press conference announcing Fordow’s discovery. The “size and configuration of this facility,” he added, “is inconsistent with a peaceful program.” In early October 2009, ElBaradei visited Tehran to meet with Iranian leaders, who agreed to allow an IAEA visit to Fordow at the end of the month.

In its November 2009 report, the IAEA stated that Iran’s failure to notify the agency of “the decision to construct” the site “is inconsistent with its obligations” under the CSA. “Moreover,” the IAEA said, “Iran’s delay in submitting such information to the Agency does not contribute to the building of confidence.” In a subsequent November 2009 resolution, the IAEA Board of Governors urged Tehran “to comply fully and without delay with its obligations” under prior UNSC resolutions, and “to meet the requirements of the Board of Governors, including by suspending immediately construction at Qom.” In a June 2010 resolution, the UNSC affirmed that Iran “shall without further delay” take steps “to address the serious concerns raised by the construction of an enrichment facility at Qom in breach of its obligations to suspend all enrichment-related activities.”

Post-JCPOA Reports and Transparency

After the implementation of the JCPOA, the IAEA’s reports to the Board of Governors began to include significantly less detail about Iran’s steps either to meet or to evade its commitments. These gaps undermine the ability of members of the Board of Governors and members of the Joint Commission to reach independent, fully informed assessments of Iran’s adherence to its commitments – particularly as those commitments pertain to the sites, equipment, and activities identified in the archive.

IAEA reports have omitted crucial data on centrifuge production and operation; enriched uranium stocks and production; controversies over Iranian adherence to centrifuge research and development restrictions; the amount of enriched uranium exempted from the JCPOA stockpile limits; large hot cells in excess of allowed limits; monitoring of key dual-use equipment; the exact quantity of heavy water under Iran’s control in Iran and elsewhere; and illicit procurement activities and controversies. IAEA reports also lack detail about the agency’s steps to verify Section T of Annex I of the JCPOA.

Moreover, the post-JCPOA reports lack details about the status of multiple sites that Tehran, according to pre-JCPOA reports, had barred the IAEA from accessing in whole or in part. In August 2017, the IAEA acknowledged that it had not requested permission to visit any military sites in Iran since the JCPOA’s implementation. In an interview with Reuters, an anonymous IAEA official cited the possibility that Iran might deny the agency permission to visit military sites, thereby giving American leaders a rationale to abandon the JCPOA. “We just don’t want to give them an excuse to,” the official said. In effect, the UN watchdog acknowledged that political considerations had interfered with its mission to serve as an independent and unbiased monitor of Iran’s nuclear activities.

The lack of transparency is particularly significant in light of the Obama administration’s repeated pledges that the JCPOA would provide unparalleled insight into Iran’s nuclear program. On the day after the accord’s finalization, President Obama said it would offer “unprecedented, around-the-clock monitoring of Iran’s key nuclear facilities and the most comprehensive and intrusive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated.” Ten days later, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asserted, “We will have far better insight on the – certainly the industrial aspects of the Iranian nuclear program with this deal than what we have today.”

Notably, however, the Shorabad archive includes documentation of activities at many of the sites that the IAEA omitted in post-JCPOA reporting. This report now turns to the IAEA’s response – or apparent lack thereof – to the archive’s disclosures. In the context of the overall gaps in the IAEA’s post-JCPOA reporting on Iran’s nuclear program, the IAEA’s opaque response to the archive offers significant reason for concern.