Iranian Alert -- October 23, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

PS I have a daily ping list and a breaking news ping list. If you would like to receive alerts to these stories please let me know which list you would like to join.

'Iran must learn to play ball fast'

European ministers strike a deal over Tehran's nuclear plans

Thursday October 23, 2003
The Guardian

Christian Science Monitor Editorial, US, October 22

"Facing an October 31 deadline from the international community and a veiled threat from Israel, Iran's ruling Muslim clerics [on Tuesday] announced they would - for an 'interim period' - suspend a programme aimed at bomb-grade nuclear enrichment and allow spot checks of their nuclear facilities ... Suspicions will still be high in Washington and Israel that Iran may hide a nuclear-weapons programme. But for now, it seems that Iran's eagerness to bring its economy and people into the international community helped push a vigorous internal debate toward meeting the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]."

Times Editorial, October 22

"Two damning IAEA reports have produced a long list of questions, all pointing to well-advanced and extensive plans to build nuclear weapons ... This compelling evidence Iran persists in denying; and while pretending to cooperate with the IAEA, the country has kept the agency's inspectors at arm's length. It is modestly encouraging, therefore, that joint pressure by Britain, France and Germany ... has apparently convinced Iran that it had better appear ... to be playing by the nuclear non-proliferation rules ... Iran must learn to play ball fast ... [because] the imposition of UN sanctions against Iran is no longer ... unrealistic."

New York Times Editorial, October 22

"Iran declared it would voluntarily refrain from uranium enrichment - a process that, depending on how it is done, can produce fuel for civilian power reactors or nuclear weapons ... Yet Iran needs to go further. Uranium imports should be suspended along with uranium enrichment ...

"The problem posed by Iran is particularly urgent because it is now widely assumed that Iranian scientists have already learned how to convert natural uranium into bomb fuel. That leaves only one sure way for Iran to persuade others to trust its repeated promises not to build nuclear weapons. It must not only suspend uranium enrichment, but also dismantle, with international verification, all of its enrichment plants."

Financial Times Editorial, October 22

"Why does Iran need an advanced atomic power sector when it still has such large reserves of oil and gas? ... Whatever Iran's ultimate intentions, it is a relief that it is showing greater subtlety in pursuing them than North Korea with its constant nuclear brinkmanship. Iran may one day follow North Korea. But for the moment Tehran clearly has decided to work within the treaty ... It is odd indeed that Washington is ready to talk to North Korea, a proven nuclear rogue, but refuses any real contact with Iran, still only a nuclear suspect."

Jomhuri-ye Eslami Editorial, Iran, October 22

"Do not accept this disgrace! ... The IAEA is dominated and controlled by America ... This means the US is trying to pave the way for its return to Iran by obstructing Iran's nuclear activities. In this context, the Europeans are acting as brokers who implement America's demands ... Now our officials have reached the conclusion that in order to protect our dignity, security and independence, we need America, Britain, France and Germany's permission."
Via BBC Monitoring

Etemaad Editorial, Iran, October 22

"Iran can now be proud of handling the talks in a positive way that has served its national interest. Iran now has its right of access to nuclear technology recognised without yielding to an ultimatum imposed by the IAEA. Iran has also protected its uranium enrichment facilities. Furthermore, Iran now has Europe's commitment to offer nuclear technology to Tehran ... Iran can now rest assured that all of its interests regarding nuclear capability have been protected."

Via BBC Monitoring

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1068671,00.html

Iran says it will attend Iraq donors' conference

MSNBC
TEHRAN, Oct. 22 — Iran, an outspoken critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, said on Wednesday it was sending a high level delegation to an international conference of donors for the reconstruction of its war-ravaged neighbour
Some 70 countries will attend a two-day donors' conference in Madrid beginning on Thursday. But nations such as France and Germany, which also opposed the war, have said they will pledge no new money beyond what they have already committed.

This would leave the United States, which describes Iran as a focus of terrorist activity, to foot most of the bill.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, asked on Iranian state television if he would be attending, replied:

''After this programme, I am going to fly to Spain to attend this conference...We have already started our constructive activities in Iraq. Our companies are already active there and we will help with Iraq's reconstruction.''

He gave no details of the scale of support Iran might offer.

Iran fought an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Its relations with President Saddam Hussein, overthrown in the U.S. invasion in April, remained tense. But Tehran is equally uneasy about the presence of a large U.S. military and political presence on the territory of its Gulf neighbour.

Washington, however, may see Iran's involvement in the conference as a positive step signalling Iranian interest in a swift restoration of stability.

The Madrid meeting is expected to raise far less than the $56 billion the United Nations and World Bank says is needed to put Iraq back on its feet after years of war and sanctions.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters10-22-141022.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Iran Turns Over Nuclear Documents to U.N.
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -

Iran handed the U.N. nuclear agency documents on its past atomic energy activities on Thursday, but the dossier apparently did not include the origin of traces of weapons-grade uranium found in the country.

"We have submitted a report fully disclosing all our past activities in the nuclear field," Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters.

Neither Salehi nor IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei would elaborate on the contents of the documents, which Iran turned over ahead of an Oct. 31 deadline to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.

ElBaradei said he expected the information to answer all outstanding questions about Iran's nuclear activities. "I was assured that the report I got today is a comprehensive and accurate declaration," he said.

But in comments to The Associated Press, Salehi indicated the origin of traces of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium found in at least two different sites inside the country was not in the package.

Diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said earlier this week that Iran was expected to provide the origin of the traces, which ElBaradei has called the most troubling aspect of Tehran's nuclear activities.

Iran insists the contamination, found in environmental samples taken by agency experts, was imported on equipment it uses for peaceful nuclear purposes and that it does not know the country of origin because the equipment was purchased through third parties.

"How can you give the (equipment's) origin ... if you have taken it from the intermediaries on the foreign market?" Salehi said.

The agency needs to match traces found inside Iran to isotope samples from the country the contaminated equipment came from as a way of testing the assertion that enrichment to weapons levels took place outside Iran. If the samples do not match, arguments by the United States and its allies that the high enrichment took place inside Iran as part of an arms program would be greatly strengthened.

The IAEA's board of governors meets Nov. 20. If it finds that suspicions remain about a possible weapons program, it could find Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That would mean U.N. Security Council involvement and possible international sanctions.

Iran previously had insisted it would continue enriching uranium to non-weapons levels as part of a program it says is aimed only at producing electricity.

On Tuesday, Iran told the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France that they would suspend uranium enrichment and sign a protocol allowing spot checks of its nuclear programs. ElBaradei said Thursday he was expecting a letter "in the next few days ... agreeing to the conclusion" of the additional protocol.

Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors to view some sites, including at least one military facility, but for weeks has hesitated at making a full commitment to the IAEA demands.

The agreement giving U.N. inspectors unrestricted access to Iran's nuclear facilities allows the country to maintain its "national dignity," an Iranian government official said Thursday.

Massoumeh Ebtekar, one of Iran's six vice presidents, said on a visit to Vienna that the agreement was "a sign of our sincere commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear technologies."

"It's a sign of commitment to our national dignity and our right to use these technologies in a peaceful manner," Ebtekar said after meeting with Austrian President Thomas Klestil.

She said the Iranian government views the agreement as "totally binding" and described it as "a sign of our willingness to cooperate and to work with the IAEA."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/oct/23/102309785.html

Iran Tells U.N. It Has No More Nuclear Secrets
Thu October 23, 2003
By Louis Charbonneau

Iran on Thursday acknowledged having been "discreet" about its nuclear program in the past but said it had no more secrets after giving the United Nations what it called a full declaration of all its nuclear activities.

The head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, delivered the declaration eight days ahead of an IAEA deadline for Iran to prove it has no secret atomic weapons program as Washington alleges.

"I was assured that the report I got today is a comprehensive and accurate declaration," ElBaradei said.

"It is a large set of documents. We obviously have to start our verification activities (but) it is going to take us time to go through all these documents and reconstruct the full history of the program," he said.

Salehi declined to give any details about the declaration, a stack of papers in a binder about one and half inches thick.

"We have submitted a report that fully discloses our past activities, peaceful activities, in the nuclear field," Salehi told reporters.

However, he said the secretive nature of some of Iran's activities -- which has helped fuel U.S. concerns that Iran is covertly developing an atomic weapon -- was a natural response to sanctions unfairly imposed on the Islamic republic.

"The important thing to note is that Iran had to do some of its activities very discreetly because of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran for the past 25 years," Salehi said.

"Those activities...that were legal activities...were within its (Iran's) rights, but nevertheless it had to do them discreetly," he added.

Submission of the report meets a key demand of the Vienna-based IAEA, which set the October 31 deadline.

ElBaradei has not had a chance to look through the declaration and declined to say whether Iran had fulfilled the requirements of a tough IAEA resolution passed on September 12.

"I hope we will come to the conclusion that we have seen all past nuclear activities in Iran and that all materials and activities in Iran are under (IAEA) safeguards," he said.

"AXIS OF PROVIDENCE"

The IAEA is particularly keen to have details about the origin of uranium enrichment centrifuge parts, which Iran says it bought on the black market and blames for contaminating two Iranian sites where the IAEA found traces of bomb-grade uranium.

"We should know the origin of materials and equipment to verify the Iranian statement that this (enriched uranium) was the result of contamination," ElBaradei said.

In a play on President Bush's description of Iran, North Korea and pre-war Iraq as an "axis of evil," Salehi said Iran and Europe have joined forces in an "axis of providence" based on dialogue and mutual respect.

Salehi also reiterated his country's commitment to a deal brokered by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in Tehran on Tuesday, under which Iran pledged to accept tougher IAEA inspections and suspend its uranium enrichment program.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin had briefed his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov on the Tehran visit and both men expressed their satisfaction with Iran's declaration.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=MYE2315YXPOAKCRBAEOCFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=3675843

Iran's Hardliners are Furious

October 22, 2003
AFP
Khaleej Times

As their papers hit the newsstands on Wednesday, readers were informed that their government had made a humiliating climbdown by bowing to international demands the Islamic republic come clean on its suspect nuclear activities.

“Do not sign the protocol”, headlined the Jomhuri Eslami, the morning after Iran agreed to sign the additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allow surprise UN inspections.

“We should not accept this humiliation,” said the paper, echoing concerns here that reinforced inspections would be a violation of national sovereignty.

“The Iranian people have no doubts that the signing of this protocol will be an eternal humiliation. Iranian politicians have to know that if they do not stand against the Europeans and the United States, these people will not stop until they destroy the Islamic republic of Iran,” it warned.

Echoing that view was the extremist Ya-Letharat, which asserted that the Europeans were “the unofficial agents of the US”.

“If they really were independent from the US and they really did have good intentions, they would not close their eyes to Israel’s nuclear arsenal,” it said. And drawing on harrowing memories of the devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq, the paper said “one can still see the wounds on our war veterans that were inflicted by the poison gas used by Saddam Hussein and made in Germany and France.”

For Hossein Shariatmadari, the outspoken editor of the Kayhan newspaper, “the best thing to do is to leave the NPT”.

And the conservative Ressalat paper questioned whether the deal -- which may prove hard to implement given the level of anger among hardliners -- was “a solution to the problem or the beginning of a crisis.”

The moderate press, however, was largely breathing sigh of relief that Iran’s leaders had pulled the country back from the brink of yet another showdown with the West when they made the landmark agreement here with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer.

And they also presented the deal -- under which Iran agreed to bow to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands and in return won a pledge that unspecified European technical assistance may eventually follow -- as a victory for Iranian diplomacy.

“Iran can relax now, since all the principles that preserve its interests in the nuclear field have been preserved,” the reformist Etemad paper said, praising the Europeans for “taking the initiative to control an issue that was turning into a crisis.”

The reformist Shargh newspaper said it was display of “realism” on Iran’s part, and a sign that the country was “still pursuing last minute diplomacy”.

Iran News said the deal was the “clearest cut diplomatic victory for Iran” since the 1979 Islamic revolution -- represented by the fact that the three foreign ministers had to make an unprecedented convergence on Tehran to secure Iran’s cooperation.

For its part, the Iran Daily declared the “Nuclear Crisis Over”. But judging by the reaction of hardliners, that remains to be seen.

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/October/22n/Iranian%20%20press%20show%20nuclear%20deal%20will%20prove%20hard%20to%20swallow.htm

UK Considers Iran Ex-diplomat's Case

October 22, 2003
BBC News
Elliott Gotkine

A court in London has granted the Home Office a three-week extension to decide on whether a request to extradite Iran's former ambassador to Argentina should go ahead.

It had been due to make a decision on the Thursday.

Hade Soleimanpour is accused by the Argentine Government of being involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre which left more than 80 dead and over 200 injured.

He was arrested in Durham on 22 August but later freed on £730,000 bail.

His detention has caused a diplomatic crisis between Argentina and Iran and strained relations between London and Teheran.

Two months after Hade Soleimanpour was arrested the British Government has yet to decide on whether Argentina's request to have him extradited should proceed.

A spokesman for the Home Office confirmed that it had asked for the delay because it needed more time to consider the 2,500 or so pages of evidence submitted to the court by Argentina.

London's Bow Street Magistrates' Court agreed to the request and the British Government has until 13 November to reach a decision.

Iran opposed

In the meantime, Iran is likely to press its demands to have the case against Mr Soleimanpour dropped.

It says the accusations are politically motivated and has dismissed Argentina's evidence as background reading.

But Argentina will not back down.

President Nestor Kirchner has described the bombing of the Jewish cultural centre as the country's 9/11 and he has made bringing the perpetrators to justice an essential part of his government's administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3206281.stm

Blair Envoy Warns Iran on 'Meddling'

October 23, 2003
The Guardian
Ewen MacAskill

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, deputy head of the US-British coalition force in Iraq, has warned Iran to stop meddling in the reconstruction of the country and described the role of a Tehran-backed militia there as "malign".

In a wide-ranging and candid interview with the Guardian, Sir Jeremy said the British government has been in talks with Tehran to make it clear that its involvement in Iraq is "unacceptable" and will count as "further marks against them".

He also criticised Syria for not having "played completely straight".

Sir Jeremy, who was until the summer British ambassador to the United Nations, spoke in detail about the growing danger and sophistication of the violent groups ranged against US and British forces in Iraq and the strategy being formulated to counter them.

While still at the UN, Tony Blair asked him to delay his retirement plan of becoming head of Ditchley Park, an Oxfordshire retreat favoured by thinktanks on international relations, in order to go to Iraq to help turn around the fortunes of the beleaguered US-British coalition.

He went to Baghdad for the first time last month to take over as de facto deputy to Paul Bremer, the American head of the US-British coalition provisional authority that runs Iraq.

He returned to London a week ago to brief Mr Blair on the situation and discuss details of the counter-strategy.

Central to that strategy - and discussed between Sir Jeremy, Mr Blair and others in Whitehall over the last week - is the acceleration of the political handover of power to Iraqis and an equally speedy regeneration of the Iraqi economy.

Sir Jeremy, who is now back in Baghdad where he has promised Mr Blair he will stay for at least six months, said these positive economic and political developments were being ignored in the media. He understood the focus on blood and gore but "we feel there is a lack of balance in the overall reporting. Some of the stuff is incorrigible, like al-Jazeera".

Like others in the US-British coalition provisional authority, he lives in Saddam's former presidential compound. His instinct is to wander Iraq to get a feel for the mood but security limits movement.

He would like to visit the souk in Baghdad but "people would see a nob getting out of a car and the temptation would be for one of them to come up with a gun".

Sir Jeremy, who is widely respected in the diplomatic community from his time at the UN, chose not to take on formally the job as Mr Bremer's deputy. He did not want to have to deal with day-to-day administration, preferring freedom to think about wider policy and to inject a British perspective into the US-led authority.

The big variable in making plans for the future of Iraq is security.

That had become more problematic, he said, because of a potent alliance between Saddam loyalists and what he described as terrorists from outside Iraq.

The Saddam loyalists "are lending local knowledge and local weaponry on one side to classic terrorist training and experience on the other and that is quite dangerous".

He added: "We are not talking, in any sense, of an ability in strategic military terms to drive the Americans forces back. They are just too strong.

"But you are talking about attrition, grinding away at the authority. It keeps on looking unable to cope, unable to stop the bombs going off every few days."

There are frequent reports of differences between the US and Britain about how to handle the problem. Sir Jeremy, as a diplomat, is never going to admit to that, but he accepted that "the Brits often bring a different tactical perspective".

By that, he meant the Americans "have not done colonies causing trouble. They have not done Northern Ireland. We did the Balkans in a different way, bottom up peacekeeping.

"Their armed forces are very much trained for major strike and destroy and regenerate after you have dealt with the enemy. That combination of (US) power and (British) tactical subtlety is actually a very good one."

Among London's priorities for security are the open - or half-open - borders with neighbouring Arab countries and the huge amount of weaponry left in Iraq.

But language too is a problem in the battle for hearts and minds.

He objected to the characterisation of the opposition to the US-British presence as a resistance movement.

This use of resistance - and occupation - meant "a rhetorical and an emotional consonance between what is happening in Palestine and Iraq, and al-Jazeera and other Arab media play on this. Therefore, there is an emotional set of catchwords which make it very different for the coalition to win hearts and minds against it."

On the border issue, he said that Britain wanted to put more security people on the border but also to confront Syria and Iran, which has a big influence inside Iraq through the Badr brigades, an Iranian-backed militia that moved into Iraq from Iran after the war, ostensibly to protect the Shia population.

Sir Jeremy was unequivocal about the role of Iran. "There are elements in the Badr corps who are malign and interested in using violence against the coalition. There are others who are actually there to support the Shia community in a more defensive capacity whom we might be able to enrol to ensure community law and order. We are making it very clear to Iran that that is unacceptable, that will be further marks against them (for) stirring it up in Iraq and we will deal with the violence on the ground accordingly."

Syria too "have not played completely straight. We asked them to help in closing the border and in handing over the more violent people. To some extent they have done this but there are signs they are keeping their options open in Damascus."

There has been a tendency for Downing Street and the Foreign Office over the last few weeks to talk up the things going right in Iraq but Sir Jeremy denied this was a orchestrated propaganda drive.

The next big project was to reduce unemployment, which is currently 60%. He predicted that $13-14bn (about £8bn) of the $20bn being allocated by the US would go into the economy. The remaining $6bn or so would be going to help train the police, army and new civil defence force - and there would be $12-14bn in oil sales next year.

On the political side, the aim is to speed up the creation of a constitution, elections and a handover of sovereignty to an elected government next year.

He has a personal interest in a speedy handover. That Ditchley job is being held open for him.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1068937,00.html

UN Agency to Study Iran Nuclear Documents

October 23, 2003
Reuters
Ha'aretz

VIENNA - Iran is expected to submit to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog on Thursday key documents it says will prove it has no plans to build an atomic bomb.

Submission of the report meets a key demand of the Vienna- based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has given Tehran an October 31 deadline to clear up suspicions its nuclear program ranges beyond power production to arms development.

A diplomatic source told Reuters Iranian officials handed documents over to an IAEA official in Tehran late on Wednesday.

An IAEA spokeswoman said it would take at least several days to assess the contents of the report, awaited with intense interest by a Washington administration that views Tehran as a major focus of terrorist activity.

Iranian representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, talking on Wednesday after meetings with Vienna-based officials, told Reuters: "It's an indexed file which contains a full report regarding the Agency's questions and the history of Iran's nuclear activities...It will reach Vienna tomorrow morning."

Vienna-based diplomats on the UN agency's governing board, who will decide whether Iran has fully met IAEA demands, will subject the report to rigorous examination. There are strong conservative forces in Iran that object to the IAEA's intrusive investigations and see only a U.S. bid to discredit Tehran.

"We will want to hear it from (IAEA chief Mohamed) ElBaradei that this is in fact everything that they needed from Iran," a diplomat in Vienna said on condition of anonymity.

Iran has always denied it seeks nuclear weapons and on Tuesday agreed to sign up to tougher IAEA inspections and suspend uranium enrichment as part of a deal welcomed by U.S. President George W. Bush.

Iran, however, insist that its suspension of uranium enrichment facilities is a voluntary measure, arousing concerns among some experts that it has not ruled out pursuing nuclear weapons at a later stage.

The IAEA is particularly keen to have detailed paperwork on uranium enrichment centrifuge parts, which Iran says it bought on the black market and blames for contaminating two Iranian sites where the IAEA found traces of arms-grade uranium.

Under the agreement on inspections brokered by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in Tehran on Tuesday, Iran pledged to implement the tough inspection regime ahead of ratification.

Leading hard-line Iranian commentator Hossein Shariatmadari called the nuclear agreement with Britain, France and Germany a "big mistake" and mocked government officials' insistence that Iran's decision to suspend uranium enrichment was voluntary.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=352831&contrassID=1&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Iran Still Has Nuclear Deadline, U.S. Says

October 23, 2003
The Washington Post
Joby Warrick

The Bush administration intends to press Iran to comply with an Oct. 31 deadline for opening the books on its past nuclear activities, senior officials said yesterday, as U.S. skepticism grew toward this week's surprise agreement by Iran to stop enriching uranium.

Iran's ruling clerics hailed Tuesday's nuclear accord with France, Germany and Britain. But U.S. and U.N. officials awaited the handover of new documents from Iran spelling out how and why the oil-rich nation built a number of sophisticated nuclear factories and laboratories in a rugged area south and west of Tehran.

The documents, which Iran promised to deliver to U.N. officials late yesterday, were considered a critical test for Iran, which until now has resisted demands to fully open its nuclear program to international inspection. The Bush administration contends that Iran is secretly attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

"The pressure is still on Iran," said a senior U.S. nonproliferation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Nothing changes the fact that Iran still must fully comply and explain itself by October 31st," the deadline set by the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for turning over nuclear data.

With Tuesday's accord, Iran appeared to be seeking to avert a showdown over its nuclear program while avoiding the appearance of bending to U.S. pressure. Iran pledged to temporarily halt enriching uranium and several other activities potentially useful in developing nuclear weapons. It also agreed to submit to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA officials.

Official White House reaction to the agreement has been positive, if guarded. President Bush, speaking to reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One en route to Australia, described the European initiative as "an effective approach."

But privately, administration officials have expressed skepticism, noting that the accord does not specify how long Iran's must suspend its uranium enrichment. On Tuesday, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rouhani, said that "it could last for one day or one year; it depends on us."

Some U.S. and European diplomats questioned whether Iran's intent was to isolate the United States diplomatically while buying more time to pursue weapons surreptitously. "It may well be a clever device, a way to divide Europe and America while giving the Iranians a public relations coup," said one Western diplomat familiar with the negotiations.

In Tehran, President Mohammad Khatami said the agreement demonstrated to the world "that we are sincere." Senior officials of his government promised to quickly deliver to the IAEA a full accounting of Iranian nuclear activity since the 1970s.

Diplomats and weapons experts said the depth of Iran's sincerity will become apparent over the coming days. They said Iran now faces more pressure to clear up serious questions, including the source of the traces of weapons-grade uranium found in two nuclear facilities this summer. Iranian officials deny having enriched uranium in Iran before June of this year.

"Iran now has to perform," said David Albright, a former IAEA inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "Iran's declarations about its past activities will be the first benchmark of its performance."

Rose Gottemoeller, a top nonproliferation official at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, said Iran had taken a positive step by "making it clear they're not going to be another pariah state -- another North Korea."

"Are they also trying to buy time? Probably yes," Gottemoeller said. "But in a way this buys time for all of us. It gives us a chance to leverage those interests in Iran that say, 'We don't want to be another Pyongyang.' "

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=10&d=23&a=7

Al-Qaida in Iran - A Glance

October 23, 2003
The Associated Press
The Daily Camera

Some of the senior al-Qaida operatives who may be in Iran, according to U.S. officials:

Saif al-Adil, considered the No. 3 man in al-Qaida still at large. U.S. indictments accuse him of coordinating the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings and helping train the Somali militiamen who fought U.S. forces in Mogadishu in 1993. Some officials have said he may be connected to the May bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. If true, this suggests he was able to communicate and possibly move money around at that time.

Abu Mohamed al-Masri, also known as Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah. Like al-Adil, he was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group with known contacts to the Qods Force in Iran. He has been charged with playing an organizational role in the embassy bombings and ran a training camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's elder sons. U.S. counterterrorism officials say Saad has been a rising star within al-Qaida but is currently a midlevel figure in terms of his actual authority within the organization.

Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, an ideological counselor to Osama bin Laden and a terrorist planner. It is unclear if he is still in Iran.

Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian operative the CIA describes as a close associate of bin Laden. Zarqawi's current whereabouts are unknown, but he is thought to be coordinating operations in Iraq and may be inside that country.

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/nation_world_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2420_2369842,00.html

The CIA and the War on Terror

October 22, 2003
New York Sun
Michael A. Ledeen

It is no surprise that the CIA is not up to speed on the terror network. Ravaged by more than two decades of devastating leaks, ever-more-restrictive guidelines from Congress reacting to the latest account of wrongdoing in the popular press, and a series of directors who were either mediocre or ignored by top policy makers, the agency and its satellite organizations within the intelligence community were predictably unable to get the goods on Al Qaeda and the others who had long since declared jihad on us.

The core of the problem was, and is, neither organizational nor "human." There is no shortage of exceptionally smart, brave, and patriotic people in the CIA, and there is nothing about its structure--aside from the need for better exchange of information among the various "boxes" in the vast intel community - that needs dramatic overhaul. The problem is cultural, and that cannot be fixed overnight.

There is now a commission looking into what went wrong prior to September 11, but it has not addressed the core issue, which is a systematic refusal to look into certain matters of great importance. Put simply, there are things the CIA does not want to know, and it acts to ensure that it will not know them.

Of these important things, the most important is Iran. For 25 years now, we have had bad intelligence on Iran. At the time of the fall of the shah, the "crisis group" in the CIA had no full-time, Farsi-speaking expert working on the impending Islamist revolution. Things were so bad that the agency's experts told Senator Henry Jackson's committee that texts of the Ayatollah Khomeini's sermons and writings--texts that clearly showed his murderous intentions--were most likely forgeries. During Iran-Contra, when American officials went to Tehran, there was still no full-time Farsi speaker available, and they dragooned a retired intelligence officer to serve as interpreter. And in the last few years, the CIA has repeatedly missed the vital Iranian role at the heart of the terror network, typically chanting the false mantra that "Sunnis and Shi'ites don't work together." That nonsense prevented them from seeing that, as the Washington Post wrote on Wednesday, and as I had written as early as April, 2002 and reiterated in The War against the Terror Masters, Iran was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Their working relationship dates back to 1996, Osama bin Laden fled to Iran during the liberation of Afghanistan, and top Al Qaeda terrorists are still operating from Iran.

The CIA does not seem to have accepted this intimate relationship. If they did, it would be impossible for the State Department to believe, as it clearly does, that we can enlist Iran in the war against terrorism, or that Iran would ever deliver to us top Al Qaeda leaders.

Yet that information was not hard to obtain. Much of it was on the public record, including official court transcripts from Germany and Italy. Other pieces came from European intelligence services, with whom the CIA's relationship is surely better than mine or the Washington Post's. Over the past two years, the CIA has repeatedly refused to take seriously information about Iran's financing of international terrorism, Iran's close working relationship (often brokered by the royal family of Dubai) with Saddam Hussein, and, as the Associated Press has just reported, the claim that there is a cache of enriched uranium in Iraq, a portion of which was transported to Iran several years ago. Although the CIA protests that they do not like the channel through which this information arrived (Manucher Ghorbanifar, a man they have wrongly characterized as a "fabricator" out for money, when in reality he has been an extraordinary source of understanding and has sacrificed a substantial personal fortune in the cause of Iranian freedom), they could easily have verified the uranium story through others, or by simply looking. But they didn't.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the CIA does not want to know about these things. They have learned over the years that our policy makers do not want information that gets in the way of the dream of good working relations with the Iranian government. How else can one explain that the State Department and the CIA forced the termination of discussions with Iranians that had yielded information that saved American lives in Afghanistan?

It will be difficult and slow to change this deeply imbedded culture, but it is the most important task facing the intelligence community. One urgent step is the opposite of current efforts: Instead of merging the various components into a single structure, we should create competing groups, a la "Team B" that helped rethink the Soviet strategic threat in the last decades of the Cold War. The competing groups should be encouraged to rethink the conventional wisdom and take a fresh look at useful sources of information.

The intel community will not embrace this, but the president should. Otherwise, we will continue to lose lives in the Middle East that could be saved, we will continue to be ignorant of the actions and intentions of our greatest enemies in the terror war, and we will scratch our head wondering if there really is a supply of enriched uranium buried somewhere in Iraq.

Michael A. Ledeen holds the Freedom Chair at AEI.

http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.19338,filter./news_detail.asp

Regime Change In Iran, Internal Pressure May Do The Job

October 23, 2003
Heritage Foundation

There is often good reason to grumble about the selection of the Norwegian Nobel committee for its famous Peace Prize. Last year for instance, the honor was bestowed upon former President Jimmy Carter, at least partly in recognition of his criticism of the foreign policy of the Bush administration. The whole thing was most unseemly.

This year, however, the committee managed to get it right when it chose Iranian layer-activist Shirin Ebadi. It must take extraordinary courage to be a human rights activist in a place like Iran, a female one at that. Yet, Mrs. Ebadi, a former judge, has been at it for over 20 years defending the rights of women and children, working for the political freedoms that Iranians have been denied for decades now. If the Nobel Peace Prize has any meaning, this is exactly it.

Iran is a country that has been ruled by religious mullahs with an iron fist since 1979, when the Shah was dethroned, a place where dissidence is usually rewarded with jail, and torture still part of traditional punishment. I will never forget the time Iranian dissidents brought a movie of a stoning to my office. It was unspeakable. International concerns over the spread of Islamic law have precisely at their roots Iran, which was lost to the world after the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini and his fellow religious fanatics.

But equally to the point, the timing of the prize is right. Iran has reached a critical point, not just in its internal politics, but also its relations with the international community. It is a country sometimes described as being in a pre-revolutionary state, with a population that is 60 percent under the age of 18, and whose young people are deeply disillusioned with the religious establishment.

The Nobel Prize will help strengthen and spotlight Iran's growing internal political opposition, which last summer gave rise to widespread student demonstrations. A crackdown resulted, but Iran's reformers have now received new hope.

One quite stunning testimonial came from no less than the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini himself, Iranian cleric Hossein Khomeini, who was in Washington a few weeks ago. "Now we have had 25 years of failed Islamic revolution in Iran," he told Slate magazine, "and the people do not want an Islamic regime anymore.” With Americans troops already having "liberated" Iraq, he called for an immediate American invasion of Iran.

Would that it were so easy. With a sizable portion of the U.S. military tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reconstruction consuming great amounts of American resources, such a smart move towards Tehran is not likely to be in the cards. (Nothing should be ruled out, of course.) That Iran represents a very serious problem, however, has clearly sunk in internationally.

Especially of concern is Iran's nuclear program, which has been aided and abetted by Russia. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have given Iran until Oct. 31 to open up all its nuclear sites to inspection to prove that it has no nuclear weapons program. This deadline is fast approaching.

Iran is, in fact, one case where Europeans and Americans currently agree. A nuclear Iran would destroy the whole strategic stability of the region, said a high-ranking German diplomat speaking in Washington this week. “It cannot happen. It would be a catastrophe.”

A letter expressing deep concern was recently sent to Tehran from the governments of Britain, France and Germany, and this week foreign ministers from the three countries traveled to Iran to reinforce the message, which seems to have produced some results, or at least a declaration of intentions by Iran to comply with IAEA demands.

Iran is twice the size of Iraq. It is politically unstable, possibly nuclear capable, and known to sponsor terrorist groups infiltrating Iraq. Accordingly, the Bush administration needs to think fast and send an unequivocal message. International sanctions must be applied if the IAEA inspectors come up with incriminating evidence of a clandestine nuclear program. Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and must be held to its treaty obligations.

In addition, we need vigorous support for the burgeoning democratic forces in Iran, for instance through an Iran Liberation Act such as proposed by Sen. John Kyl. Iranian reformers now have an international figure in Shirin Ebadi to rally around, a Nobel Prize winner with a platform. She could be the galvanizing figure Iranians have been waiting for.

Helle Dale is Deputy Director of The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Appeared in The Washington Times

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed102303a.cfm

Saddam's fall may bring Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq together

23-10-2003
Gulf News Online

The chances of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq to come together for the first time and cooperate to enhance security are looking better after the fall of Saddam Hussain, according to a western Middle East Affairs expert.

In an interview with Gulf News, Fred Halliday, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, said that now more than ever there is a greater scope for the three countries to come together to work toward peace in the region.

He pointed out that there has been a failure to foster engagement between the elite of the Arabs and the Iranians.

"Some people do not see the other side of the story and yet this is important for the same people were living here long before the colonial powers and will still after they have disappeared. They have to realise that they have to find a way to live together," he said.

He said the information technology explosion in the Gulf is a great opportunity to improve understanding among people in the region. He added that the problems between the people of the Gulf are very small compared to other regions.

There is no major disagreements between the Arabs and the Iranians.

However, he said, both sides must cooperate. He pointed out that there are good personal relations between Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=101023

Iran Visit Represents "Best of European Cooperation"

October 23, 2003
Xinhuanet
China View

LONDON -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has described his trip with his French and German counterparts to Iran as "successful," stressing that it represents "the best of European cooperation."

"I think that my trip with these two foreign ministers illustrates if you like, the best of European cooperation," Straw said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation radio 4on Thursday.

"Here you have three strong, proud sovereign nation states but each of us has recognized that we can do and achieve much more together than we can do if we do things separately. So we have pooled our sovereignty for this purpose," Straw said.

He said, "It was open to any of us -- to Dominique de Villepin, my French counterpart, or Joschka Fischer, my German counterpart --at any stage to say we are not going to agree with the other two and we will withdraw to follow a German or a French foreign policy."

"But because we have been engaged on this, we have cooperated, we bring much more to the party. I think as a result of that the Iranians realized that they were not just facing these individual countries but unofficially we were speaking for a common and agreed position on behalf of twenty five European nations."

Turning to the nuclear issue of Iran, Straw said he expected Iran to keep its promise to show "full transparency" to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and allow an intrusive inspections regime.

He added, "The words are important but the test of the words is action. And obviously we look and hope and expect that Iran will stand by the agreements that we made which hook in very tightly to the obligations on them posed by the IAEA."

Following intensive talks between foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and Iranian top officials earlier this week, Iran agreed to hand over all documents related to its nuclear activities demanded by the IAEA. Iran also agreed to meet IAEA demands for more strict inspections regime, full disclosure of its nuclear activities and a suspension of uranium enrichment.

The deal was struck just 10 days before the expiry of an IAEA deadline for Iran to ease international suspicions over its nuclear program.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-10/23/content_1139783.htm

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