[News] The IAEA's MOSAIC weapon: Predictive espionage and the war on Iran

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 The IAEA's MOSAIC weapon: Predictive espionage and the war on Iran

Backed by US funding and Palantir’s AI tools, the IAEA turned its Iran
inspections into a surveillance regime that blurred the line between
monitoring and military targeting.

Kit Klarenberg <https://thecradle.co/authors/kit-klarenberg>

JUL 2, 2025 -
https://thecradle.co/articles/the-iaeas-mosaic-weapon-predictive-espionage-and-the-war-on-iran
Photo Credit: The Cradle

Ever since Israel launched its illegal war of aggression
<https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-war-on-iran-is-the-frontline-of-a-us-war-on-multipolarity>
against Iran on 13 June, speculation has swirled around the role played by
MOSAIC – a tool created by shadowy spy-tech firm Palantir.

This software has been deeply embedded within the International Atomic
Energy Agency's (IAEA) operations, particularly its “safeguarding” mission:
inspections and monitoring state compliance with non-proliferation
agreements.

MOSAIC
<https://thecradle.co/articles/Modernization%20of%20Safeguards%20Information%20Technology>
has been central to this work for a decade and was quietly integrated
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/16/high-tech-scrutiny-key-iran-nuclear-deal/30247549/>
by former US president Barack Obama's administration into the July 2015
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran.

*Espionage disguised as oversight*

The deal granted IAEA inspectors unfettered access
<https://web.archive.org/web/20180509075735/https:/www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/iaea-director-generals-introductory-remarks-at-press-conference>
to Iran's nuclear facilities to confirm the absence of a nuclear weapons
program. In the process, the agency accumulated an immense trove of data:
surveillance imagery, sensor measurements, facility documents – all of
which were fed into MOSAIC's predictive system.

Yet the software's pivotal role in the deal remained concealed until a
*Bloomberg
exposé*
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-08/peter-thiel-in-eye-of-iran-storm-as-deadline-looms-for-trump>
in May 2018, just days before
<https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-tightens-the-screws-on-irans-oil/>
US President Donald Trump, during his first term, unilaterally tore up the
agreement and launched Washington's so-called “maximum pressure” campaign
against Tehran.

Despite Trump tearing up the deal, inspections of Iranian nuclear
facilities continued, as did MOSAIC's monitoring of Tehran’s
nuclear program. As *Bloomberg *noted, Palantir’s technology helped the
IAEA scrutinize vast swaths of information from disparate sources,
including 400 million “digital objects” globally, such as “social media
feeds and satellite photographs inside Iran” – a capability that “raised
concern the IAEA may overstep the boundary between nuclear monitoring and
intelligence-gathering."

The *Bloomberg* piece also provided fodder for an oft-stated Iranian
concern that Mosaic was helping Israelis track Iranian scientists for
assassination:

"The tool is at the analytical core of the agency’s new $50 million MOSAIC
platform, turning databases of classified information into maps that help
inspectors visualize ties between the people, places and material involved
in nuclear activities, IAEA documents show."

*Bloomberg *quoted the head of a British company that “advises governments
on verification issues” on the hazards of false data being fed into MOSAIC,
“either by accident or design”:

“You will generate a false return if you add a false assumption into the
system without making the appropriate qualifier …You’ll end up convincing
yourself that shadows are real.”

The underlying and ongoing concern for Tehran is that MOSAIC is heavily
influenced by Palantir’s “predictive-policing software.” Employed by many
law enforcement agencies across the western world at enormous expense, this
technology is highly controversial and has been found
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/>
to exhibit dangerous, misleading biases, leading to erroneous “pre-crime”
interventions.

Indeed, *MIT Technology Review*
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/>
has flat-out called for the dismantlement of predictive tech in a report
that looks at how dangerous the technology has been in analyzing even
domestic criminal data:

“Lack of transparency and biased training data mean these tools are not fit
for purpose. If we can’t fix them, we should ditch them.”

Given the inclusion of dubious intelligence – such as the Mossad-stolen
Iranian nuclear archive, openly celebrated by the Israeli agency for its
deception – it is highly probable that such corrupted data triggered
unjustified inspections. *Bloomberg* quoted a negotiator who helped craft
the 2015 deal, expressing concern over how “dirty or unstructured data”
could lead to “a flurry of unnecessary snap inspections.”

Palantir’s software specifically helped the IAEA “plan and justify
unscheduled probes” – at least 60 of these conducted until US-Israeli
strikes put an end to inspections.

*Data as a weapon *

On 31 May, the IAEA released a report
<https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/damning-iaea-report-spells-out-past-secret-nuclear-activities-in-iran/ar-AA1FQIHx>
suggesting Iran may still be developing nuclear weapons. Although it
presented no new evidence, its dubious charges
<https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/damning-iaea-report-spells-out-past-secret-nuclear-activities-in-iran/ar-AA1FQIHx>
related “to activities dating back decades” at three sites where,
purportedly, until the early 2000s, “undeclared nuclear material” was
handled.

Its findings prompted the UN nuclear watchdog's Board of Governors to charge
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/06/12/international-atomic-energy-agency-board-declares-iran-breach/84162481007/>
Iran as “in breach of its non-proliferation obligations” on 12 June,
providing Tel Aviv with a propaganda pretext for its illegal attack the
next day.

On 17 June
<https://truthout.org/articles/iaea-head-we-did-not-have-any-proof-of-iran-building-nuclear-weapon/>,
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi conceded that the agency had “no proof of a
systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon” by Tehran. Still, the
damage was done. Iranian lawmakers, citing the IAEA's secret sharing of
sensitive data
<https://thecradle.co/articles/iaea-an-instrument-for-israel-secret-documents-seized-by-iran-reveal>
with Tel Aviv and Grossi's covert collusion
<https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/06/12/749690/IAEA--Iran-Israel-Rafael-Grossi-al-Alam-TV-Fars-News->
with Israeli officials, suspended
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/30/iran-hardens-stance-against-iaea-and-its-chief-in-wake-of-us-israel-attacks>
all cooperation with the agency.

This may be the wisest course for other states under IAEA scrutiny. MOSAIC
is now so entwined with the agency's daily function that any country
targeted for regime change could find itself accused of nuclear ambitions
based on manufactured evidence.

A 2017 IAEA document
<https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/17/01/mosaic.pdf> reveals MOSAIC
is comprised of “over 20 different software development projects.” Launched
in May 2015, it was hoped to revolutionize “safeguarding” the world over.

The report described MOSAIC as providing inspectors with “a suite of tools
with which to face the challenges of tomorrow.” For instance, the
Electronic Verification Package (EVP) enables field data – including
planning, reporting, and review – to be automatically collected and
processed. When inspectors visit a facility, they record vast amounts of
information – instantly analyzed at headquarters via EVP.

Elsewhere, the Collaborative Analysis Platform (CAP) enables deep
cross-referencing of internal and open-source data, including overhead
imagery. It supports the IAEA's core safeguarding processes: “planning,
information collection and analysis, verification, and evaluation.”

CAP gives the IAEA “the capability to search, collect, and integrate
multiple data and information sources to enable comprehensive analysis.” An
IAEA official quoted in the document declared the platform represented “a
major leap forward in analytics” and “a game changer”, allowing the IAEA to
collect “a much greater amount of information, and also analyze that
information in greater depth than before.”

Such analytical capacity grants inspectors “the ability to establish
relationships between information from multiple sources, across time,” and
“make sense out of huge amounts of data.”

CAP also assists in the collection and evaluation of open-source
information. The document noted the platform could “process much more
open-source information than the Department currently has capacity for,”
and lets staff “search information across the entire repository; carefully
cross-check different types of information; and utilize information in
visual formats,” such as “overhead imagery.”

*‘Extra-budgetary contributions’ from the US government*

All of this intelligence is highly sensitive and would be a treasure trove
for states intent on military action against nations in the IAEA's
crosshairs. According to the 2017 report, inspectors spent 13,248 days in
the field in 2015 and inspected 709 nuclear facilities. Those figures have
since grown
<https://www.iaea.org/about/by-the-numbers#:~:text=181%20States%20in%20which%20safeguards%20agreements%20were,Budget%20and%20%E2%82%AC27.0%20million%20in%20extrabudgetary%20resources.>.
All the while, MOSAIC – a little-known tool for the “early detection of the
misuse of nuclear material or technology” – has remained operational.

The report noted that MOSAIC was financed through the IAEA's regular
budget, the Major Capital Investment Fund, and “extra-budgetary
contributions.” Its cost at the time was around €41 million (approximately
$44.15 million) – almost 10 percent
<https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gc/gc68-5.pdf> of the agency's
total annual budget. The source and size of those extra-budgetary
contributions remain vague, perhaps deliberately, but a Congressional
Research Service briefing note <https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/R44384.pdf>
indicates Washington formally funds the IAEA to the tune of over $100
million annually.

Moreover, the US consistently provides in excess of $90 million in
extra-budgetary contributions every year. In other words, almost half of
the IAEA’s budget flows from Stateside, suggesting MOSAIC was created
wholly on Washington’s dime.

The timing of its rollout – two months prior to the Obama administration’s
nuclear deal being agreed – could further indicate it was explicitly funded
with Iran in mind. As then-IAEA director general Yukiya Amano
<https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/iaea-director-generals-introductory-remarks-at-press-conference>revealed
in March 2018
<https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/iaea-director-generals-introductory-remarks-at-press-conference>,
the association’s penetration of Tehran was unprecedented.

At a press conference, Amano referred to the IAEA’s nuclear “verification
regime” in Iran as “the world’s most robust.” The organization’s inspectors
spent “3,000 calendar days per year on the ground” in the country,
capturing “hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by our
sophisticated surveillance cameras,” which was “about half of the total
number of such images that we collect throughout the world.”

In all, “over one million pieces of open source information” were collected
by the IAEA monthly.

The IAEA’s fixation on Iran, coupled with suspicions that it provided the
names of nuclear scientists – later assassinated by Israel – raises the
question: Was the 2015 deal always an industrial-scale espionage operation
designed to prepare for war?

A wave of assassinations
<https://thecradle.co/articles/tel-aviv-miscalculates-why-israels-shock-strategy-failed-against-iran>
of nuclear scientists and IRGC commanders in the early stages of Tel
Aviv's failed
war <https://www.mintpressnews.com/who-won-israel-iran-war/290070/> on Iran
appears to support that conclusion.

Iranian officials not only suspended cooperation with the IAEA and ordered
the dismantlement of inspection cameras, but also rejected
<https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/06/27/750193/meaningless-malign-intent-iran-rejects-iaea-chief-call-visit-nuclear-sites>
Grossi’s request to visit bombed nuclear sites. Foreign Minister Abbas
Araghchi branded the IAEA chief's insistence on visiting under the pretext
of safeguards "meaningless and possibly even malign in intent."

What is clear is that any state still cooperating with the IAEA must now
reckon with the possibility that it is not being monitored – it is being
mapped for war.
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