He who pays the PIPER...

...calls the tune.

In this case, the US may or may not have had to pay the piper. Nevertheless, the strong arm tactics the US employed in a failed effort to oust Elbaraedei in 2004 were apparently enough to persuade him to walk the straight and narrow this time around.

The U.N. watchdog, in a confidential report made available to The Associated Press, said Iran plans to start setting up thousands of uranium enriching centrifuges this year even as it negotiates with Russia on scrapping such domestic activity.

[that doesn't sound confidential to me]

* * *

The 11-page report . . . declared that - because of lack of sufficient cooperation from the Iranian side - the IAEA remained unable "to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."

The finding was essentially an admission that the agency cannot establish whether Iran is hiding aspects of its nuclear program that it is obligated to report to the IAEA . . . under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The evidence of Iran's intention to embark on full-scale uranium enrichment appeared to jibe with news of lack of progress in talks between Moscow and Tehran . . .

* * *

Detailing some of Iran's foot dragging over the past month, as well as new findings of concern, the report [dutifully] said:

• "Iran again declined to provide" a copy of a document located earlier by IAEA inspectors showing how to cast fissile uranium into the shape to fit a warhead.
  
  [They 'located it earlier,' yet they still need a copy? What kind of inspectors are they? Don't they use James Bond-like cameras when they 'inspect?']
  
  
• There were "inconsistencies" in tests of plutonium isotopes provided to the agency to help it look into plutonium separation experiments in the mid-1990s, suggesting that not all plutonium had been accounted for.
  
  [That's nothing! "Some 380 tons of explosives powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control."]
  
  
• Iran dismissed information based on U.S. intelligence documenting links between the so-called "Green Salt Project" - a precursor of uranium enrichment - with nuclear-related high explosives and warhead design as "based on false and fabricated documents."
  
  [It wouldn't be the first time.]
  

What ever kind of pressure they're putting on Baraedei, it's working like a charm.