BBC Verify demonstrates selective use of ‘evidence and assessments’

On the evening of June 18th the BBC News website published a 2:38 minute-long filmed item titled “Ros Atkins on… How close is Iran to a nuclear weapon?”, the synopsis to which reads as follows:

“Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long warned that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons.

After Israel launched attacks on Iran last week, Netanyahu said Iran could produce a bomb within months.

BBC Verify’s Ros Atkins explains what we know about Iran’s nuclear programme.

Produced by Aisha Sembhi. Additional reporting by Thomas Spencer and Kayleen Devlin. Graphics by Mark Edwards.”

The video was also added to a written report by David Gritten which had been published on June 14th under the headline “Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb?” and was previously discussed here:

INITIAL BBC NEWS WEBSITE COVERAGE OF EVENTS IN IRAN AND ISRAEL

The point of Ros Atkins’ report is evident in its final two sentences: [emphasis in italics in the original]

Atkins: “But Israel’s justification for these attacks is that it faces an imminent and existential threat from Iran’s nuclear programme. So far that doesn’t match publicly available evidence or expert assessments.”

So what “evidence” and “expert assessments” did Atkins and the BBC Verify team use as the basis for that framing?

After showing viewers video clips of past and more recent statements made by Israel’s prime minister on the topic of the Iranian nuclear programme, Atkins states:

Atkins: “Israel says its targeted two of Iran’s nuclear facilities: Natanz and Isfahan. It hasn’t said if it’s targeted another called Fordo. And Iran acknowledges that Fordo and Natanz produce enriched uranium, which can be used in power plants and nuclear weapons.”

Atkins fails to inform his viewers that the level of enrichment for use in power plants is much lower than that used for nuclear weapons– as the BBC itself reported the following day:

“Nuclear power stations typically need about 3-5% of this enriched uranium to generate a controlled nuclear reaction that releases energy.

But when the aim is to make a nuclear weapon, a much higher proportion of uranium-235 is needed – about 90%.”

Likewise, Atkins fails to inform BBC audiences that the IAEA had already reported in late 2023 that Iran had accelerated its production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels and was producing approximately nine kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235 per month before going on to say:

Atkins: “Iran though says its nuclear programme is peaceful. On this, the global nuclear watchdog has raised concerns about the growth of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. And it says it can’t verify Iran’s intentions are entirely peaceful because of the lack of cooperation. But it found no proof of a systemic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”

As was noted here previously when David Gritten cited the same IAEA report:

“Two days earlier, Gritten himself had reported on the IAEA board’s declaration that Iran is in breach of its non-proliferation obligations and in this report he goes on to tell BBC audiences that:

“Last week, the IAEA said in its latest quarterly report that Iran had amassed enough uranium enriched up to 60% purity – a short, technical step away from weapons grade, or 90% – to potentially make nine nuclear bombs. That was “a matter of serious concern”, given the proliferation risks, it added.

The agency also said it could not provide assurance that the Iranian nuclear programme was exclusively peaceful because Iran was not complying with its investigation into man-made uranium particles discovered by inspectors at three undeclared nuclear sites.”

As noted by David Albright in relation to that IAEA report:

“Iran has no civilian use or justification for its production of 60 percent enriched uranium, particularly at the level of hundreds of kilograms.  Its rush to make much more, quickly depleting its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium, which has a civilian use in research reactors, raises more questions.  Even if one believed the production of 60 percent is to create bargaining leverage in a nuclear negotiation, Iran has gone way beyond what would be needed.  Not surprisingly, and in its understated style, the IAEA reiterated in this most recent report: “The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon State to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern.””

Atkins goes on to promote another source quoted in Gritten’s earlier report:

Atkins: “Or there’s the US. In March its Director of National Intelligence said the US continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”

As the visuals at that point in the BBC Verify video show – and as the DNI herself has pointed out – she also said three months ago that “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons”.

Atkins then dismisses a remark made by the US president to journalists aboard a plane – “I think they were very close to having one” – by telling viewers that:

Atkins: “He gave no evidence to support that claim.”

Atkins next turns to the topic of the JCPOA:

Atkins: “And all of this follows the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the US, the UK and others. In return for sanctions relief, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium to civilian purposes. But in 2018 President Trump pulled the US out of the deal, calling it disastrous. US sanctions returned and Iran – which had stuck to the terms of the deal – began to breach them. And that’s continued”

Atkins displays no interest whatsoever in informing viewers on topics such as the failings of the JCPOA deal or Iran’s failure to repurpose the Fordo facility or to fill the Arak reactor’s calandria with cement as stipulated in the JCPOA agreement. He likewise fails to inform on the obviously relevant topic of the implications of Iran’s breaches of that agreement since 2018.

Instead, Atkins tells viewers that “Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons” before going on to portray over twenty months of unprecedented attacks on Israel by Iran’s proxies in the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as attacks by Iran itself in April and October 2024, as “threats and hostility”:

Atkins: “And, as we watch this conflict, we know of Iran’s threats and hostility towards Israel. That it doesn’t recognise its right to exist. And we know Israel wants regime change in Iran. But Israel’s justification for these attacks is that it faces an imminent and existential threat from Iran’s nuclear programme. So far that doesn’t match publicly available evidence or expert assessments.”

As we see, this item makes no real effort to inform BBC audiences on the issue of the status of the threat posed to Israel (and other countries) by the Iranian nuclear programme on the eve of June 13th. Instead, Ros Atkins and BBC Verify once again use their ‘fact checking’ facade to add supposed credibility to their chosen politically motivated framing.