A radiation detector he was carrying indicated a high reading and monitors throughout the plant started to sound, according to reports by the nuclear agency.

The nuclear agency just doesn't want to do it.

Control-room operators then notified other plant officials, who informed the nuclear agency by telephone the same morning.

An attempt a few months ago to pass legislation barring the nuclear agency from changing its rules on evacuation failed.

This was troubling to the nuclear agency, because each time the valve opens, there is the possibility that it will not properly close.

A6 U.S. efforts to bolster a nuclear agency meet opposition.

"The game is over if all this is true," said one Western diplomat with close ties to the nuclear agency.

According to the international nuclear agency no nuclear material in Iran has been taken away for other purposes.

Moreover, when the nuclear agency was created, atomic energy was the power source of the future, considered potentially too cheap to meter.

It might also have been an effort to drive a wedge between the nuclear agency and the Europeans.