Iran Politics Club Forum

[Liberator]

Iran dug tunnel for military nuclear work
Reuters - World News
Nov 27, 2004

BERLIN - Iran is working on a secret nuclear programme for military purposes despite promising the European Union it would halt all activities related to uranium enrichment, the news magazine Der Spiegel said on Saturday.

The magazine said it had obtained documents from an unnamed intelligence agency showing that Iran had dug a secret tunnel near an Isfahan facility preparing raw uranium for enrichment, even though operations there had been stopped.

Iran, which has repeatedly denied trying to develop nuclear weapons, promised the European Union on Nov. 14 it would halt all activities related to uranium enrichment, a process that creates atomic fuel for power plants or weapons.

It then demanded an exemption for some 20 enrichment centrifuges for research purposes, a move Western diplomats argued could torpedo the whole deal. They said Iranian officials in Vienna dropped the demand on Friday, but were waiting for a final decision from Tehran.

Der Spiegel, in an advance release of a report due to appear on Monday, said the secret underground facility near Isfahan could soon be ready to produce large amounts of uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6). Centrifuges that spin at supersonic speed can produce enriched uranium from UF6.

The magazine said that according to the intelligence documents, Iran?s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei personally issued a directive at the start of October to build the secret tunnel.

Diplomats say the Iranian attempt to exempt some centrifuges from the deal struck with the European Union was infuriating both the EU, which is offering Tehran a package of economic incentives in exchange for freezing enrichment activities, and Washington which is adamant Iran is trying to produce nuclear arms.


http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/artic...icle_9589.shtml
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Why Iran must shut down its last 20 centrifuges

By: Gary Metz

www.regimechangeiran.com

Yesterday, the IAEA attempted to shut down 20 centrifuges in Iran that were part of their "agreement" with the EU and the Iranians refused. Reuters reports:

"IAEA inspectors ran into problems on Wednesday when Iran refused to let them seal the 20 centrifuges to put them out of use."
The failure of Iran to shut down their uranium enrichment program is a clear violation of the “agreement” that they made with the EU earlier in the week. It is a bold step that can lead to Iran to being referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions.

So why would Iran refuse to come into compliance when they have so much to lose, if they are only for experimental purposes as claimed?

I asked John Loftus (a Fox News intelligence correspondent and director of IntelCon). His answer has been confirmed by other experts on Iran. He claims that uranium enrichment centrifuges, which run at supersonic speeds, emit a unique “sound” that our intelligence satellites can detect. He believes that Iran is aware of this capability of US intelligence.

If Iran has an “undeclared” centrifuge program as many claim, then Iran needs a few centrifuges to be permitted to stay in operation to mask this larger program they have in operation. Once Iran declares that all enrichment has ceased US intelligence would be “hear” the undeclared centrifuges and thus be able to prove their deception. Therefore Iran cannot shut down all their centrifuges.

That the US is aware of this undeclared program would help explain why earlier this week Secretary of State Colin Powell made a public announcement of alarm at Iran's development of a unique version of its Shehab 3 missile system designed only to carry a nuclear warhead.

Iran has no need for such a missile unless it has a nuclear program and one that is far more advanced than most experts had anticipated.

The news of Iran's quest for nuclear technology must be understood in light of their statements as to how they would use the technology.

December 14, 2001, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who, as the Chairman of the Assembly to Discern the Interests of the State and is the Islamic Republic’s number two man after Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, said

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."
But why would the Iranians risk so much at this time?

First it is important to know that, according to the Jerusalem Post, Iran's supreme leader Khamenei has already declared war against the US back in July:

"We are at war with the enemy," Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khamenehi told a meeting of mullahs in the city of Hamadan, west of Teheran, last Monday. "The central battlefield [of this war] is Iraq."
It has also been reported by Bill Gertz on WorldNetDaily.com that Iran's Supreme leader Khamenei has demanded of his nuclear development staff to have two functional nuclear weapons by January of 2005:
"Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged his country's weapons developers to step up work on making a nuclear bomb, a U.S. official said, according to Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

According to the official, an authoritative source in the Iranian exile community has stated that Khamenei met recently with senior government and military leaders on the nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei told the gathering, "We must have two bombs ready to go in January or you are not Muslims," the official said."

Why the January deadline?

I have been reporting for sometime that Iran cannot permit Iraq to have democratic elections. If Iraq has free elections the pressure on Iran to have “open and free elections” (something they do not currently have) will be huge and has the potential of encouraging massive internal opposition to demand the same thing in Iran.

Lately things have not been going well for Iran's insurgents in Iraq and they may feel that they have no choice but to launch their own preemptive strike on US interests in the region.

Iran has already declared its own preemptive strike doctrine, according to ABC News Online:
Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani has warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities. ABC News reported:

"We will not sit [with arms folded] to wait for what others will do to us," Mr Shamkhani told Al Jazeera television when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.

"Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly.

"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq.

"The US military presence [in Iraq] will not become an element of strength [for Washington] at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.
Iran can attack US interests preemptively and make the case that it was an act of self defense.

So how are things likely to play out?

The EU will have to display uncommon courage to maintain their hard-line position with Iran as the price may prove too great. According to IranMania:

A top aide to Iran's supreme leader declared on Monday that Tehran did not fear being taken to the Security Council over its nuclear programme and warned that if the UN imposed an oil embargo world prices would go above $100 a barrel. ...

Questioned about a possible UN embargo on Tehran's oil exports, the former parliamentary speaker said: "The big loser will be them, not us.

"If an oil embargo is slapped on Iran, the price of oil will exceed US $100 per barrel, with a potential to paralyse the West's economy."
The EU imports 8% of its oil from Iran and has 90 days of oil reserves, according to EUBusiness compared to the US which imports no oil from Iran and has 150+ days of oil reserves.

Therefore, the US can afford the fallout from an embargo of Iran while the EU will be in a much more difficult situation.

The EU may cave into Iran's demand and thus permit Iran to continue with its nuclear weapons program. If it does, this will force the US to create a coalition of the willing to take action to prevent Iran's program. The most likely scenario is an embargo of Iranian oil. The US Navy can stop all Iranian oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf.

But Iran has plans for this contingency. According to MEMRI, Hassan Abbassi, one of Iran’s Supreme Leader’s security counselors has been quoted as saying:

If America attacks us, don’t worry at all. It won't be like what you've seen in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In Southern Iran we have a 2000 km coast and 36 islands. The average depth of the Persian Gulf is between 45-50 meters. The Deepest spot there is 94 meters deep between the islands of Abu Musa and Tonb. This is a very suitable spot for maritime guerrilla warfare. Our special forces are definitely ready for action there.

Through the Straits of Hormuz, 67% of the world's total energy passes. You must know this. Imagine I'm gone abd, God willing, you want to face America. Take a tanker to the Straits Of Hormuz and sink it there. The tanker won't sink because the water is shallow there – about 50 meters. The tanker itself is 55 meters high, and when it will lie on the surface, half of it will protrude. It will take five months until it will be salvaged. A rise in oil prices, as you have seen, causes the West fever. These are the weaknesses.

And his attacks are not limited to ships in the Persian Gulf, he has also said:

There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.'
We must take these threats seriously.

None of our options are great, but our best options require the support of the EU and ultimately the UN. This would explain why the US is continuing to support the EU's efforts even though the EU is slowly caving into Iran's demands.

What else can the US do?

Military strikes against Iran are a poor option. As I already pointed out, Iran may act preemptively against US forces.

At best military action on Iran’s nuclear sites it will slow down their program but not end it.

But military strikes will likely have the unfortunate effect of unifying the Iranian people against us. While the Iranian people are largely pro American they are even more pro Iranian. The deaths of Iranians at the hands of the US will likely push the people of Iran back into the hands of the Mullahs they hate. This would be disastrous.

Instead, we can support a regime change in Iran.

This will not likely become a priority of the US unless the EU agreement fails. But if it does, we need to make regime change in Iran US policy and aggressively, publicly and clearly support a popular revolt against the Iranian regime. The people of Iran have replaced their leaders before and can do it again. Unfortunately the Iranian people have been disheartened by the confusing messages coming out of the US administration.

With Condi Rice as our new Secretary of State we can expect these confusing signals to the Iranian people to cease. The people of Iran have been waiting a very long time for our clear and uncompromising support.

But the Iranian people witnessed US failure to support a similar call for regime change in Iraq a few years ago, where untold numbers of Iraqi's lost their lives acting on this call by the senior President Bush.

So we need to not only call for regime change but make clear what kind of support the US will give the Iranian people and what we will not.

The US administration needs to release its long awaited "Iran policy." The sooner we do so the sooner the people of Iran can act.

January is coming soon. Let's hope we act before it's too late.

Faster please.


http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/sourc...rce/001582.html
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

U.S. May Seek Lone Push On Iran Sanctions

November 29, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau and Francois Murphy



VIENNA -- Iran has escaped U.N. censure over its nuclear programme but Washington, which accuses it of seeking an atomic bomb, says it reserves the right to take the case to the Security Council on its own.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a U.N. watchdog, passed a resolution approving Iran's week-old suspension of sensitive nuclear activities as part of a deal between Tehran and the European Union.

Crucially, and in line with Iranian demands, the resolution described the freeze as a voluntary, confidence-building measure and not a legally binding commitment.

Its passage meant that Tehran, which denies it wants the bomb, had achieved its immediate goal: to prevent the IAEA from referring it to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions.

"This resolution which was approved by the IAEA was a definite defeat for our enemies who wanted to pressure Iran by sending its case to the U.N. Security Council," President Mohammad Khatami was quoted by state radio as saying.

The United States believes Iran is playing games with the international community and wants to see it referred to the Council. U.S. envoy Jackie Sanders told the IAEA's board of governors that Washington reserved the right to go it alone.

"Quite apart from the question of how this board chooses to handle these matters, of course, the United States reserves all of its options with respect to Security Council consideration of the Iranian nuclear weapons programme," she said on Monday.

"Any member of the United Nations may bring to the attention of the Security Council any situation that might endanger the maintenance of international peace and security."

Sanders also issued a stern warning to companies, including multinationals, against exporting weapons-related equipment to Iran. The United States "will impose economic burdens on them and brand them as proliferators", she said.

The statement reflected U.S. frustration at Iran's repeated success in evading a referral to the Council, despite what IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has called persistent unanswered questions and a "confidence deficit" over Tehran's activities.

Even if Washington took the issue to the Council it could expect strong resistance to punishing Iran with sanctions, including from permanent members Russia and China which both have veto powers.

DIPLOMATIC POKER

A spokesman for U.S. President George W. Bush said: "The implementation and verification of the agreement is critical."

"Iran has failed to comply with its commitments many times over the course of the past year and a half...We will see, as time goes by, if they are now finally going to comply in full."

The developments capped five days of diplomatic poker over the terms of a deal Iran struck with the EU this month to suspend all activities relating to enriching uranium. Enrichment generates fuel for use in nuclear power plants or, potentially, in weapons.

ElBaradei said Iran had now withdrawn a request to continue research on 20 enrichment centrifuges, and inspectors had installed surveillance cameras on Monday to monitor them.

"Good progress has been made (but there's), still a lot of work to be done. The ball is in Iran's court," he said.

Iran says it has a "sovereign right" to enrich uranium and is only suspending such work to show its peaceful intentions.

BRITISH EMBASSY STONED

In Tehran, some 500 members of a conservative volunteer militia pelted the British embassy with stones and firecrackers on Monday, protesting that the Iran-EU deal was a sell-out.

The mainly black-bearded men burned a British flag and tried to charge the embassy gates but were pushed back by riot police. "Nuclear energy is our right," the protesters shouted.

At the IAEA in Vienna, there were signs of mounting exasperation from Western diplomats over Iranian tactics.

Several told Reuters that Iran had only firmly committed not to test the centrifuges until December 15, when the EU and Iran meet to discuss a long-term nuclear deal.

Those talks will focus on trade cooperation and peaceful nuclear technology that the Europeans are willing to offer Tehran if it gives up uranium enrichment for good.

Washington, diplomats say, will not block such a deal but it will not actively support it either -- a stance that some experts believe will eventually kill the agreement. A previous EU-Iran deal collapsed earlier this year.

http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl...&m=11&d=29&a=11
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Canada warns will push IAEA to report violations of Iran nuclear deal

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada, the 2004-5 chair of UN atomic energy agency's Board of Governors, warned it would press the body to inform the Security Council of any violation of a deal to freeze Iran's uranium program.

The Canadian position, laid out in a statement by Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew, mirrored the US stance on the agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).


"This is a final opportunity for Iran to begin the process of restoring international confidence in its nuclear program," said Pettigrew.


"To do so, Iran must cease all uranium-enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive activities and sustain this suspension in a comprehensive and transparent manner.


"If it does not do so, Canada will urge the IAEA to take immediate action and to report Iran's non-compliance to the United Nations Security Council."


Pettigrew also used the statement to offer guarded support for the compromise between Iran and the IAEA, based on a deal between Tehran and France, Britain and Germany reached on November 14.


He said it was a " first step toward a potential permanent solution."


Pettigrew has been locked in a war of words with Iran on another issue -- the death of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi after she was arrested in Iran last year -- which sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.


The IAEA earlier Monday adopted a toned-down resolution on Iran's nuclear program after Tehran agreed to a total freeze on all uranium enrichment activities.


The resolution was a painstaking compromise between hardline US demands to crack down on what Washington says is a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program and Tehran's threats to stop cooperating.


Iran and the European trio are to begin talks in December on a package of rewards to Iran for suspending uranium enrichment, the key process using centrifuges to make fuel for nuclear reactors -- or the explosive core of atomic bombs.


Iran claims its nuclear program is a peaceful, civilian effort and rejects Washington's claims.

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Will the right time to refer the IRI to the UN security council be when they have their hands on a NUKE!?!? Will the right time be when that NUKE is launched!? This is nothing short of appeasement!


Ba Sepaas
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Fatal Fool's Game
Europeans ignore the deadly stakes in negotiating with Iran.
National Review Online



Here we go again. The game is nuclear rope-a-dope with a dictatorship. The U.S. played it with the North Koreans in 1994, and now the Europeans are going a round with the Iranians, with the same disastrous results almost assured.

Iran has announced that it will temporarily suspend uranium enrichment while negotiating with France, Germany, and England over the terms of a possible final nuclear deal. Such a deal would require Iran to halt uranium enrichment, a key step in producing nuclear weapons, in exchange for economic incentives as well as light-water reactors, access to fuel, and other support for its civilian nuclear-power program.

This final deal, even if it's possible to reach (unlikely), would be terrible policy. It would basically mean trusting the mullahs to stop producing nuclear weapons, while at the same time making it easier for them to produce them. Light-water reactors are generally considered difficult to use for weapons production. In fact, they can "be a copious source of near-weapon grade plutonium," according to a recent study by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. The Iranians could easily extract bomb-grade plutonium in small facilities that would be difficult to detect.


“The so-called EU3 are headed toward folly, and are happy to embrace farce on the way
there.”


In short, it would be easy for Iran to continue its weapons program clandestinely even under a comprehensive European agreement. In fact, that's precisely what North Korea did under the Clinton administration’s Agreed Framework, a similarly hapless attempt to bribe a nuclear weapon-seeking rogue state.

So, the so-called EU3 are headed toward folly, and are happy to embrace farce on the way there. Tehran will probably not cut even such a sweetheart final deal, exactly because it is so set on pursuing nuclear weapons. The mullahs don't want to give up uranium enrichment. How do we know? They say it — all the time. Iranian National Security Council chief Hassan Rohani said on Tuesday, "Iran did not promise to stop enrichment but only to suspend it for a limited period of time."

There is only one reason for such determination — Iran wants a nuke. Theoretically, uranium can be enriched to low levels and used for civilian purposes only. But Iran has no need for such a uranium-enrichment capability, since it sits on vast amounts of oil and natural gas and, in any case, the Europeans have promised to ensure that its civilian reactors are supplied with fuel. If a rogue state walks and talks as though it's seeking a nuclear weapon, it’s seeking a nuclear weapon.

Diplomatically, Tehran has been wiping the floor with the EU3. This latest "breakthrough" came just in time to avoid a U.N. Security Council referral, which the Bush administration had been advocating. The Europeans have been negotiating with Iran since August 2003, and getting strung along the entire time as Tehran tries to extract more "carrots." Tehran later reneged on its agreement to stop building centrifuges and enriching uranium, but the Europeans continued to negotiate anyway. Now, the Bush administration — apparently the only international actor serious about ending Iran's nuclear program — will have to wait on the sidelines while the EU3 once again buys the mullahs time.

But sidelining the Bush administration is exactly the point for the EU3. They are desperate to prove that, unlike the cowboys in Washington, they can take care of global threats without resorting to force. As the EU expands, Germany and France are also realizing that they need a broader power base — hence the importance of having the Brits on board. Meanwhile, Tony Blair is anxious to establish that he is, after all, a good European.

No one should mistake what is really at stake here. As Colin Powell pointed out last week in a Santiago, Chile press conference, we have every reason to believe that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, and it has become ever harder for the international community to deny it (try as they might). In Iran, the world faces a potentially nuclear-armed terror state. All that phony diplomatic deals can achieve is to delay the day of reckoning, and maybe not even that.



http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/sourc...rce/001688.html
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Diplomats: U.N. Lacks Right to Inspect Sites in Iran

December 02, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau



VIENNA -- Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog would like to visit a secret military site in Iran that an exile group said was a nuclear weapons site, but they lack the legal authority to go there, U.N. diplomats told Reuters.

Iran, which insists its nuclear program is solely for electricity generation, earlier this week escaped possible U.N. Security Council economic sanctions after agreeing to freeze all activities which could be used to make bomb-grade material.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes satellite photographs show that high explosives are being tested and that procurement records show equipment has been bought that can be used for making bomb-grade uranium, citing unnamed diplomats.

The intelligence came from several sources, including nations that are members of the IAEA, the Times reported.

But the military sites the inspectors would like to inspect -- the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran and Lavizan II in northeastern Tehran -- are legally off limits to the IAEA, which only has the right to monitor civilian nuclear programs.

"The IAEA simply has no authority to go to sites that are not declared nuclear sites," a diplomat close to the IAEA inspection process told Reuters. He said that the IAEA had not asked to inspect Lavizan II, although they would like to.

Last December, Iran signed the IAEA's Additional Protocol, granting the agency more authority to conduct short-notice, intrusive inspections. Although the protocol has not been ratified, Tehran has been acting as if it was in force.

However, this extended authority is only limited to declared sites. Additional access to locations like Parchin and Lavizan II has to be negotiated with the country under inspection.

The diplomat described it as "depressing" that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian exile group with a history of revealing hidden nuclear sites in Iran, said recently that Lavizan II was a secret atomic weapons site and then days later reported that it was being stripped clean.

"TERRIBLE BLOW" TO IAEA INSPECTIONS

"If a country has a strategy for hiding its nuclear program, then the Additional Protocol is of little use," a U.N. diplomat said, adding that the IAEA would not have been able to prove that Libya had an atomic arms program if Muammar Gaddafi had not confessed and handed over his atom bomb designs.

He said that if Iran was hiding a nuclear weapons program, as Washington believes, the IAEA would probably never find it without additional inspection authority.

Diplomats and weapons experts said that the IAEA inspection process had been dealt a severe blow this week when France, Britain and Germany gave in to Iranian demands that a clause demanding Iran grant the IAEA "unrestricted access" to sites in Iran be removed from a draft resolution.

The resolution passed by the IAEA board only calls on Iran to grant access "in accordance with the Additional Protocol."

"It was a terrible blow to this effort to find these potential nuclear weapons sites," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of a Washington-based think-tank, told Reuters.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has asked Iran many times for access to another military site called Parchin, also suspected to be a location for nuclear weapons activity. But a November report by the IAEA said it had received no response from Tehran.

ElBaradei has said that it could take at least two years to resolve all the issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program, even if the country fully cooperates, because of the fact that its program was concealed for nearly two decades.

(Additional reporting by Carolyn Koo in New York)

http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl...4&m=12&d=02&a=7


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[Liberator]

Diplomats: Iran may be hiding nuke equipment Thu. 2 Dec 2004
Associated Press



VIENNA, Austria - Iran may be hiding equipment from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, foiling efforts to police a freeze of all programs that Tehran could use to make nuclear weapons, diplomats said Thursday.

The diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran has yet to respond to a request by the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — for a full list of the components used at the suspected military site of Lavizan-Shian after handing over a partial inventory in October.

The incomplete inventories are particularly worrying because they reflect purchases by Iran's Physics Research Center, an organization run by the military, they said. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, and the agency has said it has found no direct evidence to challenge that statement.

A linked issue is concern that nuclear equipment that has disappeared from that complex might be now at a nearby site, said the diplomats, who are accredited to the agency and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Additionally, Tehran has ignored a months-old request to grant IAEA inspectors access to Parchin, a military testing ground linked to possible experiments with high explosives that can be used with nuclear weapons, the diplomats said.

In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Iran needs to cooperate fully with the IAEA.

After weeks of international pressure, Iran this week agreed to fully suspend its enrichment programs, which it says are meant to make only nuclear fuel. The United States and its allies insist, however, that Iran wants to make warhead-grade uranium.

Some diplomats familiar with Iran's nuclear dossier suggested the focus on the enrichment freeze allowed Tehran to deflect attention from the inventory list, the missing equipment, and the denial of access.

The IAEA has not found any firm evidence to challenge Iranian assertions that its military is not involved nuclear activities.

But an IAEA report in October says Iran's military Physics Research Center only partially responded that month to agency requests "for information concerning efforts ... to acquire dual use materials and equipment that could be useful in uranium enrichment and conversion."

The report said the IAEA continues to await "additional information and clarifications from Iran regarding this matter," and a diplomat said that request remained unfulfilled as of Thursday.

The report expresses linked concern about published intelligence and media reports "relating to dual use equipment and materials which have applications ... in the nuclear military area."

Diplomats said that phrasing alluded to Parchin, a military site 20 miles southeast of Tehran. U.S. intelligence suspects Parchin is being used to test high explosives, possibly for use with nuclear weapons.

Iran has not responded to a months-old IAEA request for access. The agency can demand to inspect only if it has strong suspicions of direct nuclear activity. That is not the case at Parchin — high explosives do not normally fall under the agency's purview.

Similarly the agency is waiting for a full inventory of dual-use components that can be used for nuclear programs from the military-operated Physics Research Center, formerly located at Lavizan-Shian.

A Western diplomat familiar with Iran's file said the partial list available includes equipment meant to eliminate power surges that help centrifuges run smoothly, adding that most of the other components also could be used for enrichment.

The U.S. State Department earlier this year said Lavizan-Shian's buildings had been completely dismantled and that top soil had been removed from the site in attempts to hide nuclear-weapons related experiments.

The October IAEA report notes Iran failed to produce for IAEA inspection a trailer that apparently contained nuclear equipment at Lavizan-Shian.

Iranian opposition groups assert nuclear components at that site were moved to a nearby complex, where they say clandestine enrichment is continuing.


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...php?storyid=907
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

UN Needs More Power to Find Any Iran Nukes -Envoys

VIENNA (Reuters) - There is little hope U.N. inspectors will find any secret Iranian atomic weapons program without increased inspection powers, Western diplomats and a non-proliferation expert said on Thursday.

The United States accuses Iran of having a clandestine nuclear arms program, but Tehran insists its atomic operations are purely for electricity generation.

Earlier this week Iran escaped possible U.N. Security Council economic sanctions after agreeing to freeze all activities which could be used to make bomb-grade material.

Tehran also managed to persuade the EU to drop a demand at the United Nations that would have increased the inspection powers of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Several military sites that inspectors would like to visit are technically off-limits to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. It only has clear rights to go to facilities declared to it as nuclear sites.

Access to other sites is possible, but must be negotiated and can be highly problematic.

Last December, Iran signed the IAEA's Additional Protocol, granting it more authority to conduct short-notice, intrusive inspections. Although the protocol has not been ratified, Tehran has been acting as if it was in force.

"If a country has a strategy for hiding its nuclear program, then the Additional Protocol is of little use," a U.N. diplomat said, adding that the IAEA would not have been able to prove Libya had a nuclear arms program if Muammar Gaddafi had not confessed and handed over the bomb designs.

A group of Iranian exiles and the United States suspect there is secret atomic bomb work at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran and Lavizan II in northeastern Tehran.

The United States on challenged Iran to open up its sites to the IAEA to back up its statements that it has nothing to hide.

"One would think that if they really wanted to demonstrate to the world that they were not developing nuclear weapons, they would have absolutely no problem at all in allowing inspections of any facility, anywhere, on any suspicion, on any grounds, because they would have nothing to hide," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters on Thursday.

Although it would like to, the IAEA has not asked to inspect Lavizan II, because accusations by Iranian exiles with a clear agenda were not considered sufficient legal grounds, diplomats said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has asked Iran for access to Parchin, but has received no response from Tehran.

Diplomats and arms experts said the IAEA inspection process had been dealt a severe blow this week when EU negotiators gave in to Iran's demands that a clause demanding it grant the IAEA "unrestricted access" be removed from a draft resolution.

The resolution passed by the IAEA board only calls on Iran to grant access "in accordance with the Additional Protocol."

EU DIPLOMATS CONCERNED

Two diplomats from the European Union said there was increasing concern within the EU that dropping the clause from the resolution may have enabled Iran to gain valuable time until the IAEA board meets again in March and could reconsider whether to refer Iran for sanctions or increase IAEA inspection powers.

"The IAEA simply has no authority to go to sites that are not declared nuclear sites," a diplomat close to the inspection process said. Demands for access would have to be justified with hard proof that nuclear materials have been used there, he said.

One Western diplomat close to the EU's "Big Three" -- France, Britain and Germany -- told Reuters the trio were concerned that Iran had haggled hard over the text of the IAEA resolution this week as a diversionary tactic.

He and another EU-member diplomat said Iran's fight for the right to use 20 centrifuges, machines that can produce nuclear fuel for power plants or weapons, during a freeze of its uranium enrichment program, may have been an attempt to distract them.

"They're worried that Iran has been diverting attention from more important issues... like access to these sites," one said.

An IAEA spokesman declined to comment.


http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/sourc...rce/001720.html

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Lets not act like IDIOTS! We all know the IAEA is well aware of the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons/ weapons of mass destruction programme and is doing all in its power to delay this process. The IAEA like the UN are two organizations that need to be dismantled unless serious internal changes occur!

If the Iranian people can't rid themselves of this menace, then the U.S. and other concerned nations should take action against the mollah's with or without UN/IAEA approval!


Ba Sepaas
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

US slams Iran for restricting IAEA access to military sites

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States denounced Iran for not allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit military sites suspected of housing work on nuclear weapons.

The State Department said the denial of access to the two sites, despite Tehran's repeated insistence that it is not developing nuclear arms and vows to cooperate with the IAEA, was "an anomaly in Iran's behavior."


"The issue here is Iran's commitments to transparency, Iran's commitments to openness, Iran's repeated statements that they're not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and how Iran can build confidence in the world that they're indeed sincere and true," spokesman Richard Boucher said.


"One would think that if they really wanted to demonstrate to the world that they were not developing nuclear weapons, they would have absolutely no problem at all in allowing inspections of any facility, anywhere, on any suspicion, on any grounds, because they would have nothing to hide," he told reporters.


"We expect Iran to provide prompt and unrestricted access to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Boucher said. "This is an issue where Iran needs to try to demonstrate the truth and sincerity of its statements.


"If Iran truly has nothing to hide, one would expect them not only to comply, but to do so with gusto," he said.


Earlier Thursday at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, diplomats said Iran was refusing to allow inspectors to visit the Parchin military site southeast of Tehran where there may have been nuclear weapons technology testing.


They also said the inspectors were legally restricted from checking out buildings at a location in northeast Tehran known as Lavizan-II where Iranian resistance spokesmen have said secret uranium enrichment was allegedly going on.


The IAEA on Monday spared Iran from being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after Tehran agreed, in a deal with Britain, France and Germany, to suspend its uranium enrichment program and allow inspections of its atomic sites.


But the deal refers to civilian nuclear energy production sites, not to military facilities, which are traditionally off limits to the agency.


The New York Times reported Thursday that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had asked Tehran repeatedly and unsuccessfully for access to Parchin and Lavizan-II.


http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/sourc...rce/001717.html
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Iran Working on New Missile, Exiles Say Fri. 3 Dec 2004
Los Angeles Times


Opposition group says Tehran is developing a weapon that could hit Western Europe and is trying to equip them with illicit warheads.

By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer

LONDON - An Iranian opposition group asserted Thursday that the Islamic Republic was developing a new series of missiles with the capability to strike Western Europe, and seeking ways to arm them with chemical or nuclear warheads.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, held a news conference at the Parliament building in London to outline what it said were advanced weapons delivery systems being secretly manufactured by Tehran.

The group has been labeled by the State Department as a front for the Mujahedin Khalq, an armed opposition force, and the two appear on U.S. and European Union lists of terrorist organizations because of violent activities against the Iranian government, a charge the NCRI denies.

Although the group did not give a precise source or documentation for its accusations, organizers pointed out that it first revealed to the world the secret Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak in August 2002.

A former senior CIA official has told The Times that U.S. authorities closely follow the NCRI's claims, despite its terrorist designation and mixed record for accuracy.

"They obviously got sources within their home country," the ex-official said.

The group's charges followed a statement made last month by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who said that Washington had unconfirmed intelligence that Iran might be trying to adapt missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

"The Iranian regime's efforts to obtain long-range missiles and weapons are two wings of a single strategy," the group's spokesman, Ali Safavi, said at the news conference. "Militarily speaking, by obtaining them [missiles] they are trying to put many regions of the world — most of Europe, I must say — within their range."

He charged that the religious leadership in Iran was "bent on acquiring long- and medium-range missiles that will carry nuclear and chemical warheads" in order to "prolong their increasingly fragile regime."

He said the state-run Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization had a top-secret Ghadr missile system in development at the Hemmat Missile Industries complex in northeast Tehran. The missile's range is intended to be about 1,550 to 1,875 miles and it will be more maneuverable and quicker to deploy without detection than the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 missile systems Iran has already developed, Safavi said.

The Iranian government has denied repeatedly that it is developing such missiles. It also has insisted that its nuclear program is for civilian, not military, purposes.

A resolution adopted this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board sealed a mid-November deal brokered by Britain, France and Germany for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities and thus avoid referral to the U.N. Security Council, where it could face sanctions. The U.S. has remained skeptical of Iran's pledge.

Safavi said that his group had a vast network inside Iran and that the missile report, which named divisions and individuals involved in the alleged development, was based on "highly placed people within Iran's leadership as well as its various programs." He did not present any documentary evidence.

"When you look at the quantity of information we have provided for the last few years, many would agree it has been the most accurate and reliable on Iran's nuclear and missile program," Safavi said.

"Western intelligence agencies have been, by and large, left in the dark with regard to these weapons programs."

The Paris-based NCRI is closely linked to the Mujahedin Khalq, which has claimed responsibility for bombings and armed attacks inside Iran against the theocratic regime. Until the defeat of Saddam Hussein, the guerrilla force had been encouraged by Iraq.

Because previous revelations made by the group about Iran's secret uranium-enrichment activities turned out to be true, the Bush administration did not dismiss Thursday's allegations. One official, who declined to be identified, noted that the National Council of Resistance of Iran had no U.S. backing.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the administration's ultimate goal "is that Iran end its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and it's important that they cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

McClellan said any questions about weapons sites should be fully investigated by inspectors.

"The IAEA has asked to be able to go in and inspect those sites," McClellan added. "And I think the international community is sending a clear and unified message to Iran that they need to cooperate fully with inspectors, with the IAEA, when it comes to their nuclear weapons programs."


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...php?storyid=914
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Iran to Resume Uranium Enrichment

December 03, 2004
AFP
Sunday Times



TEHRAN -- Iran will resume enriching uranium after a maximum of six months, powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani vowed on Friday, reaffirming that Tehran's freeze on nuclear fuel cycle work is only temporary. "The last word is after this period, which I do not assume will exceed six months... we must seriously and firmly follow enrichment programmes and use the very important advantages of nuclear technology," he said.

"So far, we have reached the point that we accept to suspend parts of our activities for a period that was not necessary at all.

"Our negotiators have tried to shorten this period and we interpret it to be about two, three months up to six months," the prominent cleric said at Friday prayers.

Earlier this week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spared Iran the fate of being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after Tehran agreed in a deal with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

The United States accuses Iran of running a covert nuclear weapons programme, but the Islamic republic insists it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels, so as to produce fuel for a series of atomic power stations.

Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council, Iran's final arbiter on legislation, also had sharp words for the positions of the (IAEA) and Western countries during negotiations over the nuclear programme.

"We should be dissatisfied with them. They owe to us and have done injustice to us. Iran's activities are (allowed) under legal rights given to all countries to use nuclear technology for non-military purposes."

Referring to the US objection towards Iran's access to the fuel cycle, Rafsanjani, a potential runner for Iran's next presidential elections, said: "They are after the free home, oil reserves and this important geographical region, which have been taken from them after the Iran's Islamic revolution."

Iran is still zealously guarding its "right" under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to have a peaceful nuclear programme, including the full fuel cycle.

Top national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani had reaffirmed on Tuesday that Iran only agreed to the suspension for the duration of negotiations with the Europeans and that "it should be a question of months and not years.

But analysts say that while the deal averted a major international crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions for the time being, but the fundamental problem that Iran wants its very own nuclear fuel cycle still remains unsolved.


http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl...4&m=12&d=03&a=4
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Iran Bought Metal Useable in Atomic Bombs

December 03, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau



VIENNA -- Intelligence reports accuse Iran of buying large amounts of a metal that has many civilian uses but which some U.S. and other countries' officials believe Tehran wanted exclusively for an atomic bomb, diplomats say.

Washington says oil-rich Iran is developing atomic weapons under cover of a nuclear energy programme. Tehran denies this, insisting its atomic ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.

One non-U.S. diplomat, citing intelligence gathered by his country, said Iran bought "huge amounts of beryllium from a number of countries" but gave no details on the amount or states involved.

Beryllium has a long list of innocent uses, such as in spark plugs and X-ray equipment. However, the metal can also be combined with polonium-210 (Po-210), a substance Iran is known to have worked with, to initiate the chain reaction in a bomb.

Other diplomats and one U.S. official -- all speaking on condition of anonymity -- said they had intelligence Iran had acquired and worked with beryllium.

They also said the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency knew about it but had withheld the information from the IAEA board of governors.

This has annoyed the United States, whose officials have complained privately that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei does not always follow up credible intelligence provided to his agency.

"The U.S. is often making mischief, but they obviously really believe there's something there," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of a Washington-based think-tank told Reuters about the beryllium question.

BERYLLIUM IN SPEECH TO IAEA

The head of the U.S. delegation to the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, brought up beryllium in a speech to the IAEA board of governors this week.

"We still wonder whether Iran ever worked with beryllium, which combined with Po-210 forms a neutron source that can be used for initiating a nuclear weapon," Jackie Sanders said.

"Iranian officials have claimed in the past that Iran never procured or worked with beryllium. We wonder whether the IAEA has found evidence suggesting otherwise."

This week the IAEA board rejected U.S. demands that Iran be referred to the U.N. Security Council for economic sanctions and passed an EU-sponsored resolution calling on Iran to freeze sensitive parts of its atomic programme, while noting that the freeze was "voluntary" and "non-binding".

Observers say the beryllium issue could help Washington persuade the IAEA board Iran is trying to produce an atomic bomb.

If it is determined ElBaradei knew Iran had worked with beryllium it could undermine his attempt to be re-elected as the agency's chief. He has said he would seek a third term but the United States opposes that.

EARLY DRAFT

Washington hardliners, diplomats in Vienna say, see ElBaradei as soft on Iran and deliberately undermining their attempt to push the IAEA board to get tough on Tehran.

One non-U.S. diplomat, who did not hide his desire to see ElBaradei out of his job, gave Reuters a three-page memorandum that said Tehran's work with beryllium was mentioned in an early draft of the IAEA's September report on inspections in Iran but was later removed after the Iranians objected.

"This early draft contained issues that later were not included in the final report, such as the beryllium issue, which was omitted after negotiations between the Iranians and ElBaradei," the document said, citing sources with "proven access" inside the IAEA.

Other diplomats confirmed the deletion from the draft. It was also not included in the IAEA's November report.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said many issues are included in early drafts but fail to meet the tough threshold of the final report. "There are all kinds of technical details in first drafts which are later removed. That's part of the drafting process," she said.

http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl...4&m=12&d=03&a=8
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Taking Europe for a Ride

December 04, 2004
Arab News
Amir Taheri



In a manner that recalls haggling in a Persian bazaar, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Islamic Republic of Iran are engaged in a tussle about the meaning of their recently concluded bargain over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Earlier this month Tehran agreed to “completely freeze” its uranium enrichment program in exchange for economic and technological goodies from the European Union. But just moments after the deal was announced Tehran declared that the promised “freeze” was neither complete nor permanent.

“This is a voluntary and temporary freeze,” Hassan Rouhani, the mulla who headed Tehran’s team in talks with the EU said. “We can end it whenever necessary.”

Then Muhammad El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, reported that the “freeze”, had ended before it started because Tehran insisted it should keep 20 centrifuges running, producing hexafluoride gases needed to make atomic bombs. A couple of days later Tehran came back with another promise to honor the deal, thus calming the game and postponing confrontation for a few more months. In another context, and another time, this was known as the “ cheat-and-retreat” tactic.

Cartesians would describe the method used by the European Union to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions as “drowning the fish”. In other words the EU has chosen to completely miss the point. The Iranian nuclear program is a geostrategic issue that concerns vital aspects of regional and international politics, not a technical one about centrifuges and a temporary “freeze” in uranium enrichment. (Incidentally, the deal left out Iran’s plutonium program altogether.)

Let us make a few points clear before tackling the real issue.

First, the problem between the IAEA and Tehran is not about an attempt by big powers, especially the United States, to deprive Iran of its rights. A recent article in The Washington Post presents the whole issue as an attempt by the Bush administration to prevent poor little Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons against Russia, Pakistan, and Israel. Iran may well be threatened by the countries mentioned; and, even if it is not, its leaders may have the right to mistakenly assume such a threat. Iran also has the right to develop nuclear weapons. What it does not have the right to do is to continue enjoying the benefits of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a signatory while violating it by developing a nuclear weapons’ “surge capacity”.

Contrary to what The Washington Post article pretends, nobody is trying to impose anything “imperialistic” or “neoconic” on the mullas who may or may not be as angelic as he thinks. All that is demanded is that they either comply with the NPT or get out and do as they please. Membership of he NPT is not obligatory for any country. Many countries that wanted to develop nuclear weapons stayed out of the NPT — among them France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, Egypt and, more recently, North Korea.

But even then this is not the real issue. Everyone knows that the current Iranian leaders have decided to develop a nuclear weapons capacity as part of the National Defense Doctrine that they put place in the mid-1990s. The nuclear capacity is one of the three pillars of that doctrine. (The other two are a large ground army to sustain heavy casualties in a long war, and a missiles program to make up for the weakness of the Iranian Air Force. All that is no secret. EU ambassadors in Tehran would know this by reading the newspapers, following the debates in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and listening to Friday sermons by establishment mullas.

My guess is that the EU knows that Tehran is determined to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity. The EU must also know that Tehran will not abandon a key element of its defense doctrine to please powers that it regards as “satanic”.

So, why is the EU playing this charade?

One reason is that EU is run by techno-bureaucrats masquerading as politicians. The techno-bureaucrat cannot conceive of an adversary that does not play the game by his rules. We are witnessing a clash of cultures. On the European side we have the products of a society in which politics is defined as the art of distributing resources, accommodating differences, and placing laws made by consensus above faith and ideology. In that type of politics there is no right and wrong, no good and evil, as such — only legal and illegal.

The practitioner of that type of politics interprets his lack of critical judgment as tolerance of diversity.

On the other side we have the Khomeinist politicians who regard their brand of Islam as the only true religion that should, one day, conquer the world. They claim that, with the Soviet Union in the dust bin of history, their regime offers the only alternative vision of the world to that of the United States.

They see the Middle East as the immediate battleground between the two visions because both the Islamic Republic and the United States are now committed to changing the regional status quo. The US wants to do so by fostering democratic regimes, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq. The Islamic Republic wants to unite the region under the banner of Khomeinist Islam. The US is promoting a two-state solution for the Palestine-Israel conflict. The Islamic Republic is committed to a one-state solution, to be known as Palestine, in which Jews would ultimately become a minority. The US, and the West in general, regard their concept of human rights as the highest of values. The present leaders in Tehran see it, in the words of Khomeini, as a “Jewish-Crusader plot” to undermine Islamic culture.

The mullas know that, sooner or later, these two visions will clash in the Middle East. They are not prepared to let the US remold the Middle East after its own fashion. They also believe that they can win the battle of ideas. Their only fear is that, at some point, American military power would not only check their ambitions but threaten their regime. They see nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the use of American military power to thwart their plans for the kind of Middle East that the late ayatollah dreamed of.

“Had Saddam had nuclear weapons, he would still be in power,” says Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the key figures in the Tehran establishment.

The EU knows that it cannot prevent Iran from building a nuclear arsenal. The diplomatic circus, in which the IAEA is enlisted as clown, is aimed at fudging the issue by nurturing false hopes of a negotiated solution. Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, let the cat out of the bag when he said that all that the EU wanted was “to prevent another Iraq.” In other words, the EU has organized this Punch-and-Judy show to deprive the US, regarded by Barnier & Co as a “rogue hyper-power”, of an excuse to use force against the mullas. This may well be a laudable objective. But it does not answer the real question: Can the region, and, indeed, the world, including the EU, be comfortable with the prospect of a regime with messianic ambitions being armed with nuclear weapons in the Middle East?


http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl...4&m=12&d=04&a=1
_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

Watchdog 'Bowed to Pressure From Iran' on Bomb Materials

December 05, 2004
Telegraph
Damien McElroy, Foreign Correspondent



The world nuclear watchdog dropped a claim that Iran bought large quantities of a metal used to trigger explosions in atomic weapons after bowing to objections from Teheran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency at first accepted Western intelligence reports that the Islamic republic had bought "huge amounts" of beryllium from "a number of nations", but removed the claim from its final report on Iranian compliance with nuclear non-proliferation rules, published 10 days ago.

An earlier draft of the IAEA report, seen by The Telegraph, said that Iran had manufactured material to use with the beryllium that it had purchased as a "nuclear initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons".

A spokesman for the IAEA conceded that the agency had removed any mention of beryllium from its report, but said that the change was insignificant. She said: "There are all kinds of technical details in first drafts which are later removed. That's part of the drafting process."

Jacky Sanders, the American ambassador to the IAEA, however, said that Iran's assertions that it has never acquired or used beryllium were no longer reliable.

The climbdown by the IAEA reflected Teheran's insistence that it had never acquired or used beryllium, and helped Iran escape immediate referral to the UN Security Council over its nuclear ambitions. Instead, the IAEA board passed a resolution demanding that the country suspend uranium enrichment while the agency inspects declared nuclear sites.

The compromise agreement has been heavily criticised by American officials and others for failing to compel Iran to open all suspected sites to nuclear inspectors on demand. The IAEA last week revealed that Iran had refused access to two military bases where it is said to be developing nuclear material and missiles capable of carrying an atom bomb. The deal permitted inspections of Iran's existing civilian nuclear energy production sites only.

Western intelligence agencies have intercepted documents suggesting that Iran purchased equipment for delivery to the Parchin military base and a second facility at Lavisan. Satellite photographs suggested that weapons are being tested at the sites. The head of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei said that Iran had repeatedly rejected requests to visit the sites. "We are following every credible piece of information," he said. "It takes time."

Iranian officials claim that they are not obliged to open up the facilities to weapons inspectors. "There is nothing required for us to do," said one Vienna-based official. "They should have evidence that there are nuclear activities, not just, 'We heard from someone that there is dual-use equipment that we want to see'."

The IAEA head, Mohammad ElBaradei, yesterday denied that he had collaborated with the Iranians to expunge the beryllium charge. He said: "We don't negotiate our report. At the end of the day not a single paragraph is shown to any single country until the report is out."


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_________________
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -J.F.K


http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Liberator]

A Nuclear Iran Poses Extreme Threat To U.S.

December 05, 2004
The Arizona Republic
Orde Kittrie



Referring to the United States in a recent speech rolling out Iran’s newest long-range ballistic missile, Khamenei crows that “the Islamic revolution stamped the expiry date on the forehead of that imperialistic and nihilistic government which espouses nihilism.” Thus, the Iranian regime seeks to destroy the United States both because of its foreign policies — what we do overseas — but also, and more fundamentally, because of U.S. domestic policies — who we are at home...Chilling stuff, especially when one realizes that these are not the musings of a twisted backbencher in the Iranian parliament, but the featured speeches of the current supreme leader of Iran as it seeks nuclear weapons.

Armed only with boxcutters, the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001 killed 3,000 people and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to New York City, the Pentagon and the global economy.

This toll pales in comparison with the damage that would be caused by a “nuclear 9/11” – a terrorist state or group using a nuclear weapon against the United States or its allies. Detonation of a single small nuclear weapon in a U.S. city such as Phoenix could kill more than 500,000 and cause over $1 trillion in damage.

The risk of a nuclear 9/11 is high and rising. As Harvard Professor Graham Allison writes in his outstanding recent book, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe: “On the current path, a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not.”

In the first presidential debate, President Bush recognized that “the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network.” The Bush administration’s success in countering this threat will turn first and foremost on its handling of the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

The most important action we can take to prevent a nuclear 9/11 is to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program in its tracks. During the presidential campaign, Senator Kerry characterized the Iraq war as the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, what we were told about Iraq that turned out to be false – that it was a leading sponsor of anti-American terrorists and on the verge of developing nuclear weapons — turns out to be true of Iran.

There is a risk that the American people — having felt “burned” with respect to Iraq — might reflexively dismiss the Iranian nuclear threat. To fail to understand, and act upon, the dangerous nature of the Iranian regime and how close it is to acquiring nuclear weapons would be a tragedy of historic proportions.

Iran and a trio of European countries recently negotiated a temporary freeze of part of the Iranian nuclear program. Media coverage of this deal has shed too little light on the dangers of the Iranian program and on the tenuousness and limited scope of the temporary freeze agreement. The Bush administration’s very important concerns about the negotiations, which it has watched from a distance, have been given short shrift.

The difficulty of reaching agreement on even this temporary partial freeze does not bode well for the long term. It seems likely that Iran will violate the temporary freeze agreement, as it violated a similar agreement reached in October 2003, or that follow-on negotiations will fail to extend the temporary freeze.

The United States will likely soon have to make an important decision regarding its willingness to tolerate an Iranian nuclear bomb. To understand the stakes and prepare for that day, it is critical to know why a nuclear-armed Iran would be extremely dangerous, how close Iran is to acquiring nuclear weapons, and what steps must be taken if we are to decisively avert the menace of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Iran’s track record

A nuclear-armed Iran would be extremely dangerous for a number of reasons. Iran’s hard-line fundamentalist regime continues to blatantly threaten the United States, which it routinely refers to as “the Great Satan.”

In May, on the first day of its new session, Iran’s parliament broke into chants of “Death to America.” At Iran’s annual military parade in September, a long-range missile had draped over it a banner proclaiming, “We will crush America under our feet.”

Three different sets of Iranian diplomats at the United Nations have been thrown out of the U.S. in just the last two years for suspiciously photographing infrastructure and transportation sites in New York City. Meanwhile, Iran is working on the Shihab 5 missile, which would be capable of hitting the continental United States.

This radical Iranian regime has a history of following through on its threats to attack the United States. This same regime held 52 US diplomats hostage from late 1979 to early 1981. It was also behind the 1983 suicide bombing by its Hizballah proxies of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon that killed 241 American servicemen.

Mohsen Rafiqdoust, then head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, four years later took credit for the attack as follows: "The United States has felt the impact of our might on its ominous body, and knows that both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell ... officers, NCOs and soldiers at the Marine Headquarters have been provided by Iran.” If Rafiqdoust assumed that it was safe to take credit for the attack after several years had passed, if he thought that the delay would mean Iran would pay no price for the attack, he was right, as no retaliation against Iran accompanied his statement of responsibility for the attack.

The 9/11 Commission Report makes clear that the Iranian government has continued its involvement in terrorist attacks against the United States. The Report points to “strong” evidence of Iranian government involvement in the June 1996 bombing by its Hizballah proxies of the Khobar Towers residential complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that housed U.S. Air Force personnel. Nineteen Americans were killed, and 372 were wounded. Yet Iran has also never paid a price for its sponsorship of this attack.

Most recently, Iran has provided safe haven to al-Qaida from Sept. 11, 2001 to the present day. Estimates of the number of al-Qaida members currently being harbored by Iran range to over 300, and are said to include 18 senior members of bin Laden’s network including bin Laden’s son and former security chief.

This year’s State Department Global Terrorism Report declares that Iran continues to be “the world’s most active sponsor of terrorism.” Iran earns this title not only because of its own terrorist acts and hosting of al-Qaida, but also because it provides Hizballah, Hamas and other deadly groups with “funding, safe haven, training and weapons.”

Meanwhile, both through these surrogates and directly, Iran continues to call for and work towards the destruction of Israel. At the same Iranian parade where a banner draped over one long-range missile threatened to “crush America under our feet,” a banner draped over another missile proclaimed “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

Former Iranian President Rafsanjani, in a speech at Tehran University in December 2001, specified that on the day Iran comes into possession of a nuclear weapon, Israel will cease to exist. He noted to the student audience that while “nothing will remain after one atomic bomb is dropped on Israel,” which is small in size, the fallout will “only damage the world of Islam.”

Why Mullahs hate us

Why do the Iranian mullahs hate the United States and want to destroy it? The fundamental reason is reflected in their nickname for the United States: “The Great Satan.” Satan in the Koran is neither a conqueror nor an exploiter but an insidious tempter. The Iranian regime complains about U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. support for Israel. But, for the Iranian regime, including Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it is American culture’s seductive effect on Muslims that represents the greatest threat to the kind of Islamic world they want to impose.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replaced the equally anti-American Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s Supreme Leader upon Khomeini’s passing in 1989. In Supreme Leader Khamenei’s famous keynote speech to the 1997 summit, hosted by Iran, of the world organization of Islamic governments, he complained to the assembled leaders of the 55 member countries that “the West has persistently exported to our countries the culture of laxness and disregard for religion.” “Western materialistic civilization,” he explained, “is directing everyone toward materialism while money, gluttony and carnal desires are made the greatest aspiration." As Khamenei put it in an interview in May 2004: “the source of all human torment and suffering is the ‘liberal democracy’ promoted by the West ... liberal democracy is devoid of morality.”

The personal website of Supreme Leader Khamenei, at www.wilayah.net, reflects his continued abhorrence of the West and its temptations. For example, the website’s front page on Nov. 28 featured Khamenei’s explanation of why Iran bans satellite dishes: such equipment “makes it so easy to receive forbidden programs, and sometimes leads to other corruptive matters.” Less benignly, every speech in the website’s archive consists largely of Khamenei expressing hatred toward the west.

For example, the most recent speech on the website speaks with anticipation of the fast-approaching day “when the Muslims will rise up hopeful and united” against “the aggressive powers, which have sucked their blood for 200 years and have demolished their honor and dignity” by, among other things, “dishonoring [the] dignity” of women.

Referring to the United States in a recent speech rolling out Iran’s newest long-range ballistic missile, Khamenei crows that “the Islamic revolution stamped the expiry date on the forehead of that imperialistic and nihilistic government which espouses nihilism.” Thus, the Iranian regime seeks to destroy the United States both because of its foreign policies — what we do overseas — but also, and more fundamentally, because of U.S. domestic policies — who we are at home.

Chilling stuff, especially when one realizes that these are not the musings of a twisted backbencher in the Iranian parliament, but the featured speeches of the current supreme leader of Iran as it seeks nuclear weapons.

Special danger of Iran’s surrogates

The danger of Iran possessing nuclear weapons is exacerbated by its use of surrogates like Hizballah. Iran orders groups like Hizballah to engage in those most outrageous of terrorist acts for which Iran decides to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability.

For example, the State Department and FBI have both held that Iran, working through Hizballah, was responsible for both the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina which killed 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center in that same city, which killed 86 people, including several children. Unlike with the attack on the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon, the Iranians have steadfastly denied involvement in this attack on an Israeli embassy and Jewish cultural center in a country far from the Middle East. As with other terrorist attacks in which Iran has been involved, Iran has also never paid a price for its involvement in these two Buenos Aires attacks.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons and decides to use them against the United States or Israel, it is quite likely to turn to Hizballah once again, providing it with “both the TNT and the ideology” to do the dirty deed so that Iran can take credit only if it so chooses and once the dust has settled.

The self-assurance with which Iran organizes terrorist attacks is already chilling. Nuclear weapons would provide Iran with both the ultimate form of TNT and the ability to threaten massive retaliation against any country that might consider making Iran pay a price for a terrorist attack of any kind.

Iran today is the leading state sponsor of terrorism even without such a nuclear umbrella. The prospect of how confidently Iran could flout global norms if it had a nuclear umbrella is terrifying.

Iran’s savvy in outsourcing some of its most egregious terrorist attacks to Hizballah, and then proceeding to deny responsibility for those attacks until years later, is matched by its savvy in insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes while taking every imaginable step to use the program to develop bomb-making capability.

Iran is gaming the system

Iran insists it needs nuclear energy as a source of electricity and that its nuclear program is “for peaceful purposes” and thus legal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran’s insistence that it needs to spend billions of dollars on a nuclear energy program when it has very little indigenous uranium but does have the world’s second-largest oil reserves (after Saudi Arabia) and second-largest natural gas reserves (after Russia) is laughable. Iran’s history of cheating on its nuclear nonproliferation commitments is a more serious matter.

Verifying that a nuclear program is really “for peaceful purposes” can be challenging, because the ingredients of a peaceful nuclear energy program can be nearly identical to those of a nuclear weapons program. For that reason, the NPT requires member states to abide by strict “safeguards,” which build confidence that a state’s nuclear programs are peaceful by rendering them more transparent.

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. bureaucracy assigned to monitor NPT implementation, has identified “many breaches of Iran’s obligations to comply” with the safeguards Iran agreed to under the NPT. Unlike with Iraq, this IAEA assessment that Iran has violated the safeguards — as well as the conclusion by the Bush Administration and others that Iran is aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons — is grounded not only in closely held intelligence information but also in public, un-contradicted evidence.

A tip to the West by an Iranian dissident group led to the discovery in 2003 that Iran had for the previous 18 years been hiding from the world, including the IAEA, entire facilities and major activities relating to its nuclear program. Iran’s failure to disclose these nuclear facilities and activities to the IAEA over the course of those 18 years was a gross violation of Iran’s safeguards obligations.

Why, if Iran’s nuclear program was for purely peaceful purposes — which is allowed — would Iran conceal these major facilities and activities for 18 years, when such concealment is itself in violation of NPT safeguards?

Iran formally admitted the existence of the facilities and activities in an October 2003 submission to the IAEA that was supposed to be the correct, complete and final story of Iran’s nuclear program. Only when confronted with irrefutable technical evidence from IAEA inspections did Iran confess that this purportedly correct, complete and final submission contained glaring omissions relating to the most weapons-friendly part of their program.

The types of nuclear facilities which Iran has chosen to construct, and the nuclear program development activities which Iran has chosen to undertake, are an additional source of concern, as they seem like poor choices for power generation but perfect choices for weapons development.

Desert mirage

Now, Iran has agreed to freeze activity on one sensitive part of its nuclear program while it negotiates with Britain, France and Germany on the rewards it would receive for a fuller and more permanent freeze.

Iran’s good faith with respect to temporary freezes has already been called into question by its breaking a similar agreement reached between it and the same three European countries in October 2003. In that case, Iran had by July 2004 broken the seals placed on its nuclear equipment by IAEA inspectors and begun to use that equipment in violation of its freeze commitment.

The new partial freeze agreement raises several concerns. The duration of the promised freeze was left unclear, with Iran hinting that one key part of it may last only until Dec. 15. Another problem with the new freeze agreement is its failure to cover several parts of the Iranian nuclear program, such as its heavy water facility, which can also be used to make nuclear weapons.

The agreement also failed to adequately address widespread concern that Iran may be hiding secret facilities in which it is continuing even its work of the temporarily frozen variety. The IAEA has announced as recently as Nov. 29 that it is “not in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.” This is of particular concern since so many key elements of Iran’s nuclear program were kept secret for so long and came to light only when their existence was revealed by an Iranian dissident group.

In addition, the manner in which Iran negotiated the freeze agreement — time and again reopening the agreement to cadge additional concessions out of the Europeans — raises questions about Iran’s good faith in the negotiations.

The freeze agreement seems to have also left by the wayside Iran’s continued lack of compliance with six previous IAEA resolutions in which Iran was called upon to provide specific further disclosures, access and confidence-building measures. These previous IAEA demands are in nearly every case still “unmet” or “unresolved.”

In other words, Iran seems to be gaming the IAEA system — taking two steps forward with its nuclear weapons program, getting slapped back a step, then taking two additional steps forward. The last country that gamed the IAEA system like this was North Korea, which managed to so successfully game the system that it now has several nuclear weapons.

Expert assessments of how long it would take for Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the absence of a full freeze range from as much as five years to as little as a few months.

Averting nuclear-armed Iran

There are two possible options for decisively averting the menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: a rock-solid agreement in which Iran permanently and verifiably abandons its nuclear-weapons program or, as a last resort, a series of preemptive military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Britain, France and Germany — the three European countries that took the lead in negotiating with Iran the current and previous freeze agreements — are pursuing an agreement in which Iran would permanently and verifiably abandon its nuclear-weapons program in return for economic and other benefits. The two sides are scheduled to meet in mid-December to try to negotiate such an agreement. Iran has repeatedly announced, including after the current temporary freeze agreement was signed, that it will never permanently abandon its “inalienable right” to an advanced nuclear energy program, a program of the sort that could very quickly be altered to churn out nuclear-weapons material.

Under a rational analysis, Iran’s leaders might nonetheless abandon their weapons program if they can be convinced that the net value (benefits minus costs) to them of abandoning nuclear weapons outweighs the net value to them of pursuing such weapons.

Similar negotiations have succeeded in convincing several other countries to give up nuclear weapons programs, and Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and South Africa each in fact once had actual nuclear weapons and were successfully talked into giving them up.

The Bush Administration has thus far focused on making clear to the Iranians the costs of pursuing nuclear weapons. The Europeans meanwhile have been offering the Iranians incentives to abandon their nuclear program. In other words, the two have been playing bad cop/good cop, with the Bush Administration waving a stick and the Europeans dangling carrots.

But U.S.-European coordination needs improvement. For example, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw recently unhelpfully declared of a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program, “I think the prospect of it happening is inconceivable” and “I don't see any circumstances in which military action would be justified against Iran."

Removing from Iran’s calculus the threat of a preemptive strike is a mistake. As Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis, the preeminent Middle East historian, has reported, the Iranians who held the American diplomats in Iran hostage from 1979 to 1981 later revealed in their memoirs that they originally intended to hold the hostages for only a few days. They changed their minds when President Carter made it clear that there was no danger of serious action against them. The Iranians finally released the hostages only because they feared that the new President, Ronald Reagan, might approach the problem “like a cowboy.”

At the same time, some carrots being dangled by the Europeans – such as membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) – are only meaningful with the concurrence of the United States, which has the ability to, for example, block Iran from entering the WTO. If Iran is to agree to abandon its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. must be part of the deal. In light of the existential nature of the threat posed by an Iranian nuclear weapons program, helping facilitate Iran’s entry into the WTO — which already has 148 other countries as members — would be a small price for the United States to pay for a permanent and verifiable abandonment by Iran of its nuclear-weapons program.

A negotiation which includes potential U.S. trade and other such concessions could quickly determine whether it is possible to craft a deal which would convince Iran to permanently and verifiably abandon its nuclear-weapons program. Should such a deal prove impossible to reach, a preemptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities will, as a last resort, become the only available option for decisively averting the menace of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Helping the Iranian people to rise up against the Khamenei regime is a worthy goal. But Khamenei’s regime, although unpopular with many of its own people, seems solidly in control. On the current timeline, Khamenei’s regime will acquire, and be able to use, a nuclear bomb long before any revolution ousts it, if one ever does.

Several factors, including Iran’s history of threats and attacks against the United States, provide strong support for the legality under international law of a preemptive strike focused on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program. The risk of such an attack inciting the “Arab street” or insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan would be well worth taking — for an Iranian nuclear program is an existential threat and insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are not.

The Bush administration seems to be leaning towards outsourcing to Israel such a preemptive military strike. It has recently supplied Israel with warplanes capable of reaching Iran and “bunker buster” bombs capable of burrowing into the ground and destroying the thick walls around some of Iran’s nuclear facilities. But the Iranian nuclear sites are a much more challenging target than the Iraqi “Osirak” reactor which Israel successfully demolished in 1981. The known and suspected Iranian sites are spread all over the country, and the worst possible outcome would be to attack the Iranian nuclear program and leave one or more bomb-capable facilities untouched and thus capable of manufacturing an Iranian tool of revenge.

While the Iranian facilities are at the far edge of Israel’s range and capability, the United States has dozens of bombers in a better position to do the job right. Should negotiations fail and a preemptive strike become necessary, the United States must step up to the plate and do the job itself. Our very existence may depend on it.

Deterrence – which is predicated on the other side’s unwillingness to sustain heavy casualties – worked during the Cold War because the United States and Soviet Union both had a sense of self-preservation that caused them to fear mutual assured destruction. This is not true of Iran’s leadership, whose beliefs embrace death and martyrdom.

During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, this same Iranian regime sent thousands of its own schoolchildren — each armed only with a small plastic “key to heaven” — to their deaths in human waves across minefields to clear a path for its adult troops. These schoolchildren were members of the Basij militia, known for its religious zealotry and direct allegiance to the supreme Ayatollah.

Three weeks ago, at a peak of U.S. and European pressure on Iran to modify its nuclear program, Iran’s leadership gathered tens of thousands of young Basij militia members together south of Teheran to chant “No to Compromise,” “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” The spirit of the human wave attacks is still strong.

If Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons, this regime that instills hatred in and readily sacrifices its own children, that is so fundamentally hostile to the United States, seems unlikely to hesitate to bring death to the children of America through a nuclear attack on the “Great Satan.”

If we do not draw the line at Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, there will be nowhere left to draw the line. We must either prevent an Iranian bomb, or watch the world descend into a hell where the exceptionally hostile Iranian regime has the power to destroy American cities, and we are left to count the days before Hizballah, the Basij, or the Iranian military itself goes ahead and does it.

Orde Kittrie is a professor at the College of Law at Arizona State University. Before joining the ASU law faculty, he served in the U.S. State Department for 11 years, including as the Department's senior attorney for nuclear affairs. In that capacity, he negotiated five nuclear non-proliferation agreements between the United States and Russia and served as counsel for the U.S. Government's sanctions and other responses to the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. The opinions contained in this article are not necessarily those of Arizona State University or its College of Law. The College of Law is the only accredited law school in the Phoenix metropolitan area and one of the nation's leading centers of legal education and thought.


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