Posted on 01/14/2002 5:04:51 PM PST by Sawdring
WASHINGTON, Jan 14, 2002 -- (dpa) A stream of Russian missile scientists traveled to Iran from the mid-1990s to work on missile and nuclear weapons programs, a report in the Washington Post said Sunday.
The report, by Michael Dobbs, is partly based on an interview with Vadim Vorobei, a Russian scientist who first went to Teheran in 1996. Vorobei is now a head of department at the Moscow Aviation Institute.
Most of the scientists who went to Teheran were like Vorobei, Dobbs writes: "Elderly representatives of the old Soviet technological elite impoverished by the collapse of communism and willing to sell their services to the highest bidder."
But Vorobei said that U.S. fears about Iran's program were exaggerated. He said Iran's aim was to demonstrate to the world that it was a "major missile power that would soon be able to target the United States". But in fact Iran's capabilities remained "much more modest than that."
Dobbs wrote: "The differing perceptions over what Iran has achieved and how much outside assistance it is receiving go to the heart of the missile defense debate in the United States."
Vorobei's account confirmed what has long been suspected but which Russia had repeatedly denied, Dobbs said - "the existence of an underground railroad of Russian scientists traveling to Iran to work on missile and nuclear weapons programs."
CIA analysts are quoted as saying that Iranian officials wanted Russian help to build an improved version of the North Korean No Dong missile. Any help would have violated international agreements.
The Iranian Shahab-3 is closely modeled on the No Dong.
Vorobei told Dobbs he doubted U.S. projections that Iran could obtain an intercontinental ballistic missile within five or even 10 years. "Their progress is slow," he said.
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