Quick! Start spinning!

According to the Washington Post, a group of experts has concluded that the leading piece of evidence supporting the claim that Iran has a nuclear weapons program doesn't prove anything with respect to Tehran:

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

Of course, this does prove that Pakistan was all the more negligent in allowing its nuclear material to be shipped elsewhere. But no worries: that won't affect Abdul Qadeer Khan's non-sentence, or Musharraf's status as a preferred U.S. puppet.

According to the article, the main reason for the presence of American inspectors was to ensure that Bushco wouldn't decide to ignore all evidence and common sense this time out. Mind you, that was before Bush had dropped as far as he has in the polls.

Now, I'm guessing that it'll take just under one news cycle for Republicans to start smearing both the IAEA, and the American experts involved in the project.