U.S. Set to Lift Sanctions on Iran, 'We knew they worked on nukes but we like to live stupidly'.

U.S. Set to Lift Sanctions on Iran, 'We knew they worked on nukes but we like to live stupidly'. (WSJ).

The Obama administration said it expects to start lifting sanctions on Iran as early as January after the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog found no credible evidence that Tehran has recently engaged in atomic-weapons activity. But the agency reported that the country had pursued a program in secret until 2009, longer than previously believed.

The mixed findings in the report, which also indicated that Iran showed limited cooperation with investigators, fueled critics who said the July nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, as well as the White House’s move on Wednesday, were too easy on Tehran.

“Iran has provided what [the IAEA] says was sufficient,” said a senior U.S. official working on the implementation of the Iran deal. “We had not expected a full confession [by Iran], nor did we need one.”

Wrapping up a five-month probe of Iran’s past activities, the IAEA said it believed Iran had a coordinated nuclear-weapons program until 2003 and that some of these activities continued as late as 2009.

The agency said the most-recent work Iran conducted on a weapon appeared to be through the use of computer modeling to develop components used in an implosion device. The agency said the work was done between 2005 and 2009.

“The modeling…has a number of possible applications, some of which are exclusively for a nuclear explosive device,” the report said.

The agency said there were no credible indications of nuclear-weapons-related activities in Iran after 2009. But it added that Iran provided little information on some points and offered some misleading responses. Hmmmmm........What could go wrong? Read the full story here.