After Year Two(!) of the investigation of Iran's atomic weapons program, we have this:

It is unclear if Iran's nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful, but there is still no firm evidence that Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons as Washington asserts, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Tuesday.

"Have we seen any proof of a weapons program? Have we seen undeclared (uranium) enrichment? ... Obviously until today there is none of that," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters before entering a closed-door session of the IAEA board of governors.

"But are we in a position to say that everything is peaceful? Obviously we are not at this stage," he said, summing up a two-year IAEA investigation of Tehran's atomic program.

Although ElBaradei's inspectors have uncovered many potentially arms-related activities in Iran, it has found no "smoking gun" to back U.S. charges of a covert bomb program.

One of the main items on the board's agenda this week is a resolution drafted by Germany, France and Britain calling for the IAEA to make a "definitive determination" in November on Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. negotiators have also proposed issuing an ultimatum to Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, open up all facilities to U.N. inspectors and answer all outstanding questions about its nuclear activities by Oct. 31.

Washington hopes this "trigger mechanism" will set the stage for a U.N. Security Council report in November and possible economic sanctions.

The Russians and the European trio oppose issuing an ultimatum, diplomats say.

Russia has also proposed amending the European proposal to call on the IAEA to make a "judgment" rather than a "definitive determination" about Iran's nuclear program, according to a revised draft obtained by Reuters.

Diplomats said this milder wording would undermine the U.S. push to have Iran hauled before the U.N. Security Council in November.

ElBaradei said there was no guarantee he would be able to complete his investigation by November, implying that the demand for a "definitive determination" by then might be premature.

"There is no artificial deadline whereby I can say that in November ... everything will be completed," he said.

Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA meeting, Hossein Mousavian, told Reuters that Tehran wanted to bring the standoff to a head in November and was confident Iran would be cleared of the U.S. charges.

Iran has been negotiating with France, Britain and Germany since October 2003, when Tehran promised to suspend its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a wide range of carrots, including non-military nuclear and other technology and a guarantee that it could keep a peaceful atomic program.

For many anti-war people, it is an article of faith that if only we has assigned the watchdog role on Saddam to these blithering gasbrains, all would have been well. This despite the fact that even prior to our invasion, Saddam was already running rings around the inspectors, and had even compromised the inspection force with his own spies.