The UN nuclear agency will face "challenges" verifying Iran's compliance with last year's nuclear agreement, the US government watchdog said Feb. 23 in a new report that was immediately used as ammunition by critics of the deal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) faces a budget and staffing shortfall that will require an extra $10 million per year for the next 15 years to monitor the deal, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report goes on to detail the agency's dependence on Iranian cooperation to access nuclear sites and the intrinsic difficulty in detecting undeclared activities such as weapons development and centrifuge manufacturing that do not leave a nuclear trace.