Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei (his preferred spelling) completed his third term as the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November 2009. During his tenure, the Iranian nuclear activities became a heated source of controversy. IAEA’s key responsibilities are to monitor and report on the nuclear activities of signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, ElBaradei often engaged in political commentary and speculation. Even Condoleezza Rice admonished him by saying "he is muddying the message to Iran.” While Rice was claiming that ElBaradei was favoring Iran, he was actually muddying the message to everyone.
ElBaradei who is a lawyer and not a nuclear scientist (his doctorate is in International law) released numerous reports on the Iranian nuclear activities. None of the reports contained any concrete evidence that Iran engaged in nuclear weapons work. As the media were reporting otherwise, the IAEA issued the following statement in September 2009: "With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran.” On the other hand, ElBaradei told the BBC in June 2009 “It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons, if it decides to do so.” Unfortunately, many took the statement based on “gut feeling” as real evidence.
Another confusion created by ElBaradei was his claim that Iran must abide by a more stringent set of guidelines to which it agreed voluntarily on a temporary basis several years ago. Actually, Iran withdrew from these additional protocols and the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) never approved them. So, it is not clear what the basis of ElBaradei’s claim was.
The numerous contradictory and confusing statements of ElBaradei have constituted a key reason that the Iranian nuclear activities have become such a huge international issue. If ElBaradei had limited himself to the technical aspects of observations and data analysis, perhaps, the Iranian nuclear issue would not be such a mess today.
Just a few days ago the new Director General of IAEA, Yukiya Amano, released another report on the Iranian nuclear activities. A detailed review of this report be found here. In summary, it appears that Amano is following in the footsteps of ElBaradei despite his claims of impartiality.

Comments