Iranian Alert -- November 27, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD

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.

U.N. "deplores" Iran nuclear cover-up

27.11.2003 - 07:30
By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog has condemned Iran over an 18-year cover-up of sensitive atomic research and
says any future breach of non-proliferation obligations will not be tolerated.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stopped short of reporting Iran to the Security Council, which could have imposed
sanctions. However, some countries think Tehran has more secrets and will eventually face the U.N.'s supreme body.

The IAEA governing board adopted a resolution that "strongly deplores" Iran's cover-up over the past 18 years of a programme that
involves uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing -- both of which could be pointers to a nuclear arms programme.

The resolution, which passed after more than a week of tough negotiations between its sponsors France, Germany and Britain, and
Washington over how to balance encouragement and condemnation, also praises Iran's promises of "active cooperation and openness".

The United States has described Iran as part of an international "axis of evil" -- together with North Korea and pre-war Iraq -- and believes it
has been using a secretive atomic energy programme to hide development of nuclear arms, which Tehran denies.

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference he was pleased with the resolution, but added: "The board is sending a very
serious and ominous message that failures in the future will not be tolerated and that the board will use all options available to it to deal with
these failures."

Iran's Foreign Ministry hailed the resolution as an "achievement" for Tehran.

However, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA was disappointed the text left out the IAEA's conclusion in a recent report on Iran that there was
"no evidence" of a weapons programme.

IRAN SAYS KEY POINT OMMITTED

"The most important conclusion of the report...was not incorporated in the resolution," Ali Akbar Salehi said.

The IAEA report, however, had also said the jury was still out on whether there was a nuclear arms programme.

Washington, which was infuriated by the IAEA's "no evidence" conclusion, saw the resolution as both a clear rejection of Iran's nuclear
cover-up and a U.S. victory.

"Iran today is at a crossroads," U.S. ambassador to the IAEA Kenneth Brill said in a statement.

"They can...continue down the well worn path of the past almost 20 years of denial, deception, deceit, or they can turn towards the path of a
new chapter wherein they really do come clean and meet their commitments in a verifiable way."

The United States had hoped to send Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions for "non-compliance" with its obligations under the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Europeans opposed this and Washington finally acquiesced.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, travelling with reporters in Texas where President George W. Bush has a ranch, said the
United States welcomed the resolution.

"We welcome that resolution and believe that it underscores the international community's serious concerns with Iran's nuclear activities
and the urgent requirement of Iran to come into full compliance with nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

"We feel that this is a strong resolution. We welcome it and there is no doubt that it means referral to the United Nations ...to be dealt with."

BRITAIN WELCOMES RESOLUTION

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw issued a statement welcoming the adoption of the resolution as "an important step forward in the
international community's efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons".

The French Foreign Ministry said of the resolution: "Its content is balanced, it makes a very firm judgement on Iran's past activities in the
nuclear area and encourages it to continue and confirm its move towards a new policy of transparency and cooperation with the international
community."

Russia also welcomed the resolution, saying it was pleased the matter would not be taken up by the Security Council.

But the Council threat is strongly implied. The resolution contains a so-called trigger clause; if further breaches are uncovered, the IAEA
board will meet immediately to consider "all options", one of which is the Security Council.

Some disarmament experts think Iran still has some secrets.

http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?section=int&page=news_inhalt&news_id=4493370

Muslim scholar: Don't excuse hate speech

By Lou Marano
Published 11/26/2003
UPI

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- An American Muslim scholar finds it "condescending" to dismiss hate speech from Muslim leaders as "rhetorical" while holding Christian and Jewish leaders to higher standards of discourse.

"For a long time, Muslim American organizations have been allowed to get away with all kinds of hate speech against the U.S., against Jews, against Christians -- all forms of anti-Semitism -- and somehow it's been accommodated within the whole program of multiculturalism," Ahmed al-Rahim told a forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center this week.

Al-Rahim, born in Beirut to an Iraqi Shiite family and raised in Texas and New York, is a founding member of the American Islamic Congress, an organization formed after Sept. 11, 2001, in the belief that American Muslims should take the lead in rejecting Muslim extremism and promoting democracy in the Muslim world.

It claims 1,000 members across the country. Its mission, al-Rahim said, is a broad definition of Islam that includes all American Muslims, engagement in the political process, and "to be self-critical."

Al-Rahim is preceptor in Classical Arabic Language and Literature at Harvard and is completing his Ph.D. at Yale on Islamic intellectual history in the Mongol period.

"The politics of these American Muslim organizations has been very defensive," he said, promulgating an "essentialist," monolithic image of Islam that the media reflect. "Their agenda is Wahabi, it's political."

Reporters who would not ask for the Christian or Jewish positions on issues accept statements from Muslim organizations that lack nuance.

Ethics and Public Policy Center President Hillel Fradkin suggested that the "extraordinary" diversity of Muslims in the United States -- roughly 30 percent African-American, 30 percent from South Asia, and 20 to 25 percent from the Arab world -- precludes a definitive "Muslim position" on most issues.

Al-Rahim said U.S. groups set up to monitor hate crimes against Muslims don't regulate their own language or show concern about language coming from the Muslim world. For example, he said, when retiring Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged the Muslim world to unite against the Jews, no Muslim leader denounced him.

Muslim leaders should be fighting for human rights in the Muslim world, he said. "Muslim organizations in this country do not deal with these issues in any way."

He also said Muslim leaders should be defending the rights of minorities in the Muslim world. "As American Muslims, we're a minority here, and we enjoy tremendous rights." But he said the leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the American Muslim Council -- "they're all connected" -- do not apply this example to Copts in Egypt, Christians in Sudan, or Berbers in North Africa.

Al-Rahim said many American Muslims are afraid to condemn violence and hate speech. "I'll give you a concrete example. One of our board members (Tarek Masoud) published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Sept. 14 (2001) after the attacks, basically apologizing to America for what had happened and apologizing for the reaction of the American Muslim organizations in not condemning these attacks right away."

Al-Rahim said Masoud received no fewer than 20 death threats. When Al-Rahim arranged to meet Masoud, the latter -- fearing al-Rahim would assassinate him -- sent e-mails to friends saying, "I'm meeting with Ahmed al-Rahim. If anything happens ..."

The Iraqi-American community was very involved in lobbying for the war to topple Saddam Hussein, al-Rahim said.

"We lobbied Congress. We lobbied individuals in the Pentagon and other places. We felt this was a way we could bring about change in the Muslim world." He said a Zogby poll before the war showed that 60 percent of Arab Americans were for it. He called the effort "a victory for Iraqi lobbyists."

"If the U.S. cuts and runs, it's going to be a disaster not only for Iraq but for the region," he said.

Al-Rahim was in Iraq for two months this summer working on education. "I have to say that the majority of Iraqis were very conflicted about the U.S. On the one hand, they were happy to have the U.S. there; they were happy to see Saddam gone. And they realized that if the U.S. left, Iraq would fall apart. But they were unhappy with how slow things were going. They felt the U.S. could do things much quicker, particularly the issue of electricity. They expected that a superpower could bring in the right technology, and that just didn't happen."

But generally, he said, Iraqis wants the United States to stay "until it gets the job done."

Al-Rahim described what it was like growing up as an American Muslim.

Although his family was secular, he started attending mosques in Houston after the Islamic revolution in Iran gave Shiites new confidence.

The message he received in the mosques was intensely political. He was 19 when Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini died in 1989. "The mosque had arranged a summer trip for us to go to Iran to commemorate the 40th day of his passing -- and also to commemorate the installation of (Seyed Ali) Khamanei as a leader."

At the site of the former U.S. Embassy, the American Muslim youths chanted, "Death to America!" as Khamanei gave a fiery speech. "It was as if we were at a rock concert," al-Rahim said. "There I was. An American citizen in Iran ... chanting, 'Death to America!' That was the identity I got at the mosques." He found this troubling.

After Sept. 11 he came to realize that "those words actually mean something. There are Muslims out there who are willing to take those words to their logical ends."

He considers it a good thing that the U.S. government is beginning to crack down on such infractions as "smuggling money to Syria and other places."

Al-Rahim said American Muslims should be creating Muslim cultural centers where students could learn about their tradition and history, "not necessarily in a religious way but as part of who they are and where they come from."

He called for the development of a chaplaincy program in colleges and universities. "There is really no way for imams to be certified in this country," he said, noting that they can "get off the plane" from anywhere in the world and become head of a mosque.

"A lot of foreign imams are preaching something that is not at all relevant to what American Muslims have experienced."

His imam in Houston was from Iraq. "In no time" he was leading the community in support of groups like Hizbollah, he said, adding "There was no accountability."

Much of the funding for U.S. mosques comes from Saudi Arabia and Iran, al-Rahim said. "The American Muslim community needs to be satisfied with smaller mosques that they can control and where the leadership is not imposed from the outside."

Al-Rahim said that after 9/11 the American people embraced Muslims, but the established Muslim organizations did not reciprocate that embrace. However, "average Muslims did a lot to reach out to their American counterparts. ... Individuals can only do so much on a local level," he said. "It needs to be institutionalized."

"The issue has to do with authority. American Muslim converts tend to see authority coming from the Muslim world. And they are very afraid of speaking up and saying, 'I understand things differently.'"

He said African-American Muslims could contribute greatly to U.S. mosques because they understand the issue of civil rights. "But they are not given positions of leadership. And what they end up doing is proving that they are more extreme than the extremists, because that's how you are 'authentic.'"

Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031125-043542-6436r

"Iran to Restart Enrichment at its Own Discretion"

November 27, 2003
Mehr News Agency
IranMania

TEHRAN –- Iran’s decision to suspend its uranium enrichment program was voluntary, and the government will restart the program at its own discretion, Hasan Rowhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) said.

“It is our right to have a nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes and nobody can prevent us from having one,” Rowhani told reporters.

He added that Iran’s right to have a civilian nuclear energy program was emphasized in the resolution adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors on Wednesday.

He said that Iran decided to voluntarily and temporarily suspend its uranium enrichment program in order to foster confidence and that this has been mentioned in the resolution.

He went on to say that the IAEA has not asked Iran to make any legal commitment in this regard, therefore the system has the authority to decide when to restart its uranium enrichment program.

Rowhani stated that the Europeans asked Iran to stop enriching uranium and said that they would sign a long-term commitment to provide Iran with cheap nuclear fuel, but Iran responded by saying that uranium enrichment is not just an economic issue that can be contracted.

He said, “The uranium enrichment issue is an important achievement, and it is a source of national pride for us, and we should continue it.”

At the Brussels meeting, the Europeans said they were not only interested in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue but also sought to establish deep ties with Iran, he added.

Even France announced that they are interested in establishing strategic ties with Iran, which is the first time in 25 years that a key European state has made such a suggestion, he noted.

If this trend continues, a new atmosphere will be created which could promote new opportunities for the expansion of ties between Iran and the European Union, Rowhani said.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=20070&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Iran's Reformist ''Hanging judge'' Khalkhali Dies

November 27, 2003
Reuters
MSNBC News

TEHRAN -- The former head of Iran's Revolutionary Courts, dubbed ''the hanging judge'' for sending hundreds to the gallows in the first months after the 1979 Islamic revolution, has died, a relative said on Thursday.

Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who in recent years had expressed his support for the political reform movement led by President Mohammad Khatami, died on Wednesday aged 76 after battling a series of health problems.

''He had Parkinson's disease, heart and brain problems and he has been very ill in the last eight months,'' the relative, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Khalkhali became notorious in the West after he appeared on television poking with a stick the burnt corpses of U.S. soldiers killed in an unsuccessful mission to rescue 52 hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

As head of the Revolutionary Courts he ordered the execution of many of the deposed shah's top military officers, secret police (SAVAK) leaders, civilian officials and scores of Kurds caught up in an uprising in Iran's Kurdish-majority regions.

Concerned by Khalkhali's harsh punishments the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dismissed him in 1980.

Khalkhali, who was unrepentant about his rulings, spent much of the past decade out of the public gaze in the holy city of Qom in central Iran.

Following Khatami's 1997 landslide election win Khalkhali pronounced himself an advocate of reforms but he was viewed with distrust by Khatami's allies.

''He pretended to be a reformist but he was not, his support for reforms was a disgrace,'' a mid-ranking reformist cleric in Qom told Reuters.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-27-042609.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Politics Mars Sport in Martial Arts Tournament

November 27, 2003
The Media Line
Melanie Takefman

A regional conflict held sports in a headlock last week when the Israeli and Iranian pankration teams did not compete in the sport’s world cup because of government regulations.

Though both teams placed very well, they were deprived of facing each other in the international competition, which took place in Denmark.

“Although the Iranian martial arts players missed the chances for snatching some gold medals due to their refusal to meet the Israelis, they did steal the show with three golds and five silvers,” IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, reported on Tuesday.

Guy Mor, president of the Israeli Pankration Federation, and Moosa Bakhshaei, his Iranian counterpart, both told The Media Line (TML) that despite both teams’ athletic proficiency, they have never competed against each other.

The Iranian government prohibits all national sports teams from competing with Israel, said Bakhshaei, speaking from Iran.

“It’s really a shame that because of political issues, we cannot play with them,” he added.

However, all tournament participants contributed to an amicable atmosphere, according to reports from Denmark.

Pankration incorporates elements from several fighting styles, including boxing and wrestling.

All three Israeli participants won gold medals, according to Mor. Bakhshaei said that Iran’s four team members took second place collectively.

Pankration, which was founded in 648 B.C. in ancient Greece, enjoys considerable popularity in Israel and Iran, according to Mor and Bakhshaei. They are the only Middle Eastern member nations out of 40 in the International Pankration Federation.

http://themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=3800

Cold Turkey

November 26, 2003
National Review Online
Amir Taheri

This was not how Recep Tayyip Erdogan intended to spend the first anniversary of his party's historic electoral victory. Earlier this year, at a meeting with a group of journalists in Switzerland, the Turkish prime minister spoke of his hopes for "a year of positive change" in a country thirsting for reform.

The idea, he explained, was to speed up the process of restoring the armed forces to their proper role, and to take "the last big steps" towards Turkey's membership in the EU while the economy, in the doldrums for a decade, would start showing signs of a turnaround.

What Erdogan had not anticipated was a wave of terrorist attacks that could expose the basic weaknesses of his political strategy.

This month's violence in Istanbul has already cast doubt on whether Erdogan can reshape the Turkish republic by excluding the military leadership from politics. Many Turks, including some in Erdogan's Justice and Development party (AKP), believe that as terrorism threatens the nation, this is no time to pick a fight with the armed forces. The attacks have already increased popular support for secularist parties wishing to keep the army at the center of Turkish political life.

The terrorist attacks also undermine Erdogan's hopes of a real economic recovery. To be sure, the Turkish economy has been showing some positive signs in the past few months, partly thanks to an enlarged budget deficit. But there are already signs that the terrorist attacks are dampening the Turkish mood. Tourism — the nation's third largest source of foreign currency — has taken a big hit, while the effects on medium and long-term investments remain to be gauged.

The third plank of Erdogan's strategy, Turkey's fast track into the EU, is also threatened. If Turkey turns into a new battlefield for Islamist terrorism, it will hardly help her European aspirations.

Not surprisingly, the Istanbul attacks have been attributed to al Qaeda — conveniently for Erdogan. The very mention of al Qaeda is guaranteed to attract the attention, and hopefully the support, of Washington. Also, by pretending that the terrorists were "foreign elements," the prime minister can foster the illusion that the Turks are victims of an external enemy.

But in truth, the terrorist attacks that have hit Istanbul result, at least in part, from almost a quarter century of attempts to "Islamicize" Turkish politics — attempts in which Erdogan's party, and its four predecessors, played a leading role. Turkey today is experiencing what Iran and several Arab states have experienced since the 1960s: an Islamist monster, created by the establishment, that ends up turning against it.

The first person to think of creating an Islamist force was Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who was overthrown in a military coup and hanged in 1960. The Islamist groups that he had encouraged, and partly financed through public funds, did not lift a finger to help him in his hour of need. This was because, in the words of the Bektashi chiefs who had enjoyed his patronage, Menderes was not "Islamic enough."

Fast forward to the 1970s and Suleyman Demirel, a political heir to Menderes, playing the Islamic card. Demirel benefited tactically and managed to become prime minister on two occasions. In time, however, he toowas ditched by his allies for being insufficiently Islamic.

More recently, in 1996, Necemttin Erbakan brought to prominence the small, right-wing, Islamist Rifah (welfare) party. But although the Erbakan government lasted just over a year, it still strengthened the Islamist groups in myriad ways, especially through government subsidies. But Erbakan, too, experienced the fate of his predecessors: By 1998, with his party disbanded, his career was at an end.

Turkey's various Islamist parties have a 25-year history of exercising power at the municipal level, where they have done the most damage to Turkey's political traditions.

From the mid-1980s, the Turkish Islamists forged a strange alliance with the security forces against what they regarded as "common enemies." At the time, the army saw the Communist, secessionist Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) — and its other Marxist allies — as the nation's principal foes. Sharing that enmity, the Islamic parties joined forces with the worst elements of the army to set up death squads against the PKK and other leftist groups. The most notorious of these squads was Hezbollah, an outfit originally created by the mullahs of Tehran but later infiltrated by Turkey's secret service (MIT).

In July, 1993, Hezbollah authored one of the most tragic chapters in the history of modern Turkish terrorism. Militants attacked a hotel in Sivas, in eastern Anatolia, where the Alevis, a moderate sect that has always supported secularism, were holding a public meeting. The attackers blocked all exits in the hotel and then set it on fire. Some 40 people were burned alive while the local police, under the control of the Rifah-party municipality, beat those who tried to escape.

Between 1985 and 2000, more than 800 people died in various acts of Islamist violence, not including victims of clashes between the security forces and various ethnic and religious terror groups. Those assassinated by Islamist terrorists include judges, journalists, academics, politicians, doctors, and even housewives.

A pattern has been established over the past quarter of a century. Each time Turkish politics takes an Islamist turn, the broader Islamist movement has become more radical and violent. Erdogan has made the same mistake that Menderes, Demirel, and Erbakan made before him: He assumed Islamist ideology could be phased out in moderation.

The terrorist attacks in Turkey have little to do with Iraq, or even rising hatred for the United States. Both Iraq and U.S.-hatred are but a pretext for Islamist groups wishing to destroy Erdogan's government because it is not "Islamic enough." The only way to deal with the threat is to form a broad popular front dedicated to the values and traditions of Turkish democracy. Erdogan can take the lead in that direction, but before he does, he must realize that anyone mixing politics and religion risks having them explode in his face.

— Amir Taheri, an NRO contributor, is an Iranian author of ten books on the Middle East and Islam. Taheri can be reached through Benador Associates.

http://www.nationalreview.com/nr_comment/taheri200311261213.asp

Iran 'Not Worried' About Tougher Nuclear Inspections

VOA
Greg LaMotte
Cairo
27 Nov 2003, 12:49 UTC

Iran said Thursday it is not worried about tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities following Wednesday's vote by the International Atomic Energy Agency warning Iran it would not tolerate any future violations of its rules.

Iran's supreme national security council chief, Hassan Rohani, was quoted by Iran's official news agency, IRNA, Thursday as saying Iran has no fear about tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities. Mr. Rohani said such inspections would prove its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.

On Wednesday the IAEA condemned Iran for what it called an 18-year cover-up of nuclear research that included uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, both of which are needed for a nuclear weapons program.

The United States says Iran's civilian nuclear program is a cover for a secret nuclear arms program.

The IAEA approved a resolution Wednesday that did not punish Iran for its past deception, but it warned Iran that it would consider other options if there are any further failures to report nuclear activities.

Mr. Rohani said Iran is not worried about the resolution and hailed it as blocking what he called a U.S.-led scenario against Iran.

Washington had been pushing for the issue to be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions against Tehran for failing to meet its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But after new promises from Iran and negotiations involving Britain, France and Germany the matter was resolved within the IAEA, at least for now.

Mr. Rohani was quoted as saying Iran's relations with European countries and the IAEA had entered a new era.

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=8E27CD0B-72D7-47A5-98DB84C6F3A6A408

1441 Lite

November 27, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

Get ready for another round of U.N. Resolution 1441-style word-interpretation games.

Yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors released its latest resolution on Iran's nuclear program. The resolution noted that "Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under the safeguards agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material." It also noted that Iran had provided contradictory information and followed a "pattern of concealment."

The IAEA's inspectors reported earlier this month a series of violations by Iran of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, most notably -- and worryingly -- the 18-year-long concealment of a program to enrich uranium, strongly suggesting an intent to produce weapons-grade material. Iran persists in claiming it is only pursuing a peaceful nuclear program, a claim laughable for a country with one of the largest supplies of oil and gas in the world. The IAEA's board, however, naively believes the arrogant theocrats who rule Iran should be given the benefit of the doubt. The IAEA's resolution states that "should any further serious Iranian failures come to light, the Board of Governors would meet immediately to consider . . . . all options at its disposal, in accordance with the IAEA statute and Iran's safeguards agreement."

Assuming that the board wants to do something more forthright the next time around -- and a next time seems inevitable -- it can refer Iran's violations to the U.N. Security Council. But the precedents here aren't encouraging. We are reminded of the resolution aimed at Iraq passed a year ago by the Security Council. Resolution 1441 clearly stated that "Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations" and that Iraq "will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations." France and Germany hid behind the supposed vagueness of the phrase "serious consequences" to protect Saddam until the U.S. and Britain forced the issue.

Since the IAEA report on Iran, U.N. members have been positioning themselves over the interpretation of the phrase "serious Iranian failures." An IAEA official conceded to us that any future U.N. debate will turn on "what constitutes a serious failure." Iran has its own view, of course. "There is no ground . . . for Security Council involvement," said a statement issued by its IAEA delegation.

The wording of the IAEA board's resolution cannot be satisfying to the Bush administration, which has pushed hard for robust action to stop Iran's nuclear program before it poses a real threat. Although the IAEA board claims to have the same goal, it doesn't seem capable of any action that might be called robust.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=11&d=27&a=6

Bush Pays Surprise Thanksgiving Visit to Troops in Iraq

November 27, 2003
The Associated Press
Terence Hunt

President Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to American troops in Baghdad Thursday, flying secretly to violence-scarred Iraq to thank U.S. forces for serving there. It was the first trip ever by an American president to Iraq -- a mission tense with concern about his safety.

"You are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful," Bush told some 600 soldiers who were stunned and delighted by his appearance.

The president's plane -- its lights darkened and windows closed to minimize chances of making it a target -- landed under a crescent moon at Baghdad International Airport.

Bush flew in on the plane he most often uses, and White House officials went to extraordinary lengths to keep the trip a secret, fearing its disclosure would prompt terrorist attempts to kill him.

With the president out of sight, L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. civilian administrator, told the soldiers it was time to read the president's Thanksgiving proclamation and that it was a task for the most senior official present.

"Is there anybody back there more senior than us?" he asked. That was the cue for Bush, who promptly stepped forward from behind a curtain, setting off pandemonium among the troops.

"I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere," he joked. "Thanks for inviting me."

The news of Bush's trip was not released until he was in the air on the way back to the United States. "If this breaks while we're in the air we're turning around," White House communications director Dan Bartlett told reporters on the flight to Baghdad.

While here, Bush spoke with soldiers from the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division at an airport mess hall. "You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq," he said, "so we don't have to face them in our own country."

Terrorists are testing America's resolve, Bush said, and "they hope we will run."

"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," the president said, prompting a standing ovation and cheers.

Wearing an exercise jacket with a 1st Armored Division patch, Bush stood in a chow line and dished out sweet potatoes and corn for Thanksgiving dinner and posed with a platter of a fresh-baked turkey.

Plans for the trip were tightly held among a handful of senior aides. First lady Laura Bush, preparing a Thanksgiving Day dinner, was not told until Tuesday or Wednesday. Bush's parents, former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, were invited to his ranch for the holiday but were not informed.

As for Bush taking the risk of a trip to Baghdad, Bartlett said it was appropriate for the president to visit troops on Thanksgiving. "It is also appropriate that the president travel in a way that his safety and security will not be compromised," he said.

Bush said with confidence that measures had been taken to ensure his safety and that of others.

The president had slipped away from his Texas ranch in an unmarked vehicle and was driven to a nearby airport, where he climbed aboard Air Force One on the back stairs rather than the front.

"If you were sitting outside the ranch waiting for the president you would not have known the president had just left," Bartlett said.

The plane stopped at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., outside Washington, to pick up a few aides and four reporters and a camera crew sworn to secrecy. Five photographers and another reporter accompanied him from Texas after being summoned just hours before his departure.

Security fears were heightened by an attack last Saturday in which a missile struck a DHL cargo plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.

Bush spent about two and a half hours on the ground, limiting his visit to the airport dinner with U.S. forces. The troops had been told that the VIP guests would be L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

In a ruse staged in the name of security, the White House had put out word that Bush would be spending Thanksgiving at his ranch in Crawford with Mrs. Bush and his parents and other family members. Even the dinner menu was announced.

Instead, Bush slipped away from his home without notice.

Within the White House only a handful of senior aides knew about the trip, officials said.

Security fears were underscored by regular attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. More than five dozen U.S. troops were killed by hostile fire in November, more than any other month since the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1. Early this week, a U.S. military official, Col. William Darley, said attacks peaked at more than 40 per day about two weeks ago and have since dropped to about 30 per day.

The violence persisted Thursday as the president was en route here.

Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Italian mission in Baghdad, damaging the building but causing no injuries, the U.S. military said. Also, a U.S. military convoy came under attack on the main highway west of Baghdad near the town of Abu Ghraib, witnesses said. And in the northern city of Mosul, unidentified gunmen shot dead an Iraqi police sergeant, said Brig. Gen. Muwaffaq Mohammed.

Since operations began, nearly 300 U.S. service members have died of hostile action, including 183 since May 1 when Bush declared an end to major fighting.

Bush's father visited U.S. troops at a desert outpost in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day 1990, in the runup to the Gulf War. The first President Bush had been the first U.S. president to visit a war zone since President Nixon went to Vietnam in 1969.

Dwight David Eisenhower, as president-elect, visited Korean battle fronts in December 1952 and President Lyndon Johnson made two wartime trips to Vietnam.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17151-2003Nov27.html

Iran Used European Nuclear Designs - Diplomats

November 27, 2003
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA -- Iran has acknowledged to the U.N. its uranium enrichment centrifuge programme is based on a European firm's designs that appear identical to ones used in Pakistan's quest for an atom bomb, diplomats say.

Tehran, accused by Washington of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, told the U.N. nuclear agency it got the blueprints from a "middleman" whose identity the agency had not determined, a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It was unclear where the "middleman" got the drawings. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said in a report Iran told the IAEA it got centrifuge drawings "from a foreign intermediary around 1987".

Centrifuges are used to purify uranium for use as fuel or in weapons. Experts say the ability to produce such material is crucial for an arms programme and the biggest hurdle any country with ambitions to build a bomb must overcome.

Several diplomats familiar with the IAEA said the blueprints were of a machine by the Dutch enrichment unit of the British-Dutch-German consortium Urenco -- a leader in the field of centrifuges.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Reuters he had no knowledge a Urenco design had been used by Iran. "This is new information to me," he said.

In a statement to Reuters, Urenco said it had not supplied any centrifuge know-how or machinery to Iran.

"Urenco would like to strongly affirm that they have never supplied any technology or components to Iran at any time," it said.

PAKISTAN, IRAN DENY NUCLEAR COOPERATION

Pakistan, which non-proliferation experts and diplomats say used the Urenco blueprint, and Iran have repeatedly denied any cooperation in the nuclear field.

Iran has long insisted its centrifuge programme is purely indigenous and that it has received no outside help whatsoever -- not from Pakistan or anywhere else.

The father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, worked at the Urenco uranium enrichment facility in the Dutch city of Almelo in the 1970s.

After his return to Pakistan he was convicted in absentia of nuclear espionage by an Amsterdam court, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. He has acknowledged he did take advantage of his experience of many years of working on similar projects in Europe and his contacts with various manufacturing firms.

But David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, said: "Khan is widely believed to have taken these drawings and developed them."

Khan is known to have visited Iran, but the diplomats said there was no proof of a link involving him and his laboratories in Pakistan.

The United States accuses Iran of using its nuclear power programme, parts of which it kept hidden from the IAEA for 18 years, as a front to build an atom bomb. Tehran denies this.

On Wednesday, the IAEA Board of Governors unanimously approved a resolution that "strongly deplores" Iran's two-decade concealment of its centrifuge enrichment programme, while praising its promises to be transparent from now on.

The IAEA is still investigating Iran's enrichment programme in order to identify the origin of traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) inspectors found at the Natanz enrichment plant and the Kalaye Electric Co.

But when IAEA experts visited Iran's pilot enrichment plant at Natanz earlier this year, they saw it bore the marks of the centrifuges outlined in the Urenco designs, diplomats said.

They said Tehran later acknowledged it had used the Urenco designs and recently showed them to the IAEA. Iran also admitted to a massive procurement effort to get centrifuge components.

Iran says some of these components, purchased through "middlemen" in the middle of 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, were contaminated with HEU. This, the Iranians say, is why the IAEA found HEU traces at Natanz and Kalaye, where centrifuge parts were tested and manufactured.

Diplomats and non-proliferation experts say Iran's centrifuge programme based on the Urenco design appears to have been more successful than Pakistan's. They say Pakistan eventually abandoned the Urenco model and chose another one.

http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&src=201&feed=reu&section=news&news_id=reu-l27549416&date=20031127&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw

Human Rights in Iran, Small Mercies

November 27, 2003
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

The UN's censure of Iran's human-rights record is not entirely fair

Who killed Zahra Kazemi?

NO ONE yet knows precisely who killed Zahra Kazemi. The Canadian-Iranian journalist died in July, after a violent beating, while held in custody in Tehran. Since then, the Iranian intelligence ministry, the prosecutor's office and a parliamentary committee have been squabbling over who was to blame. And the Canadian government, unusually, lost patience and tabled a UN resolution, a draft of which was passed last week, denouncing Iran for using torture and suppressing freedom of expression.

Iran's ruling theocracy had imagined that its image was on the mend. In 2002 the UN failed, for the first time in 18 years, to censure its human-rights record. In return, President Muhammad Khatami's government began to talk more about human rights with foreigners, and allowed UN monitors to interview political prisoners. A moratorium on the stoning of adulteresses seemed to be holding. So why, a year on, did no fewer than 73 countries support Canada's resolution?

Because they feel hoodwinked by unfulfilled promises of reform. Time and again, foreigners have urged Iran's judiciary to, say, give detainees immediate access to a lawyer—something they are currently denied—and to end the use of unconstitutional courts to try political defendants behind closed doors. They have received only polite assurances.

Iran's fractured politics are partly to blame. The reformist government and parliament cannot curb human-rights violations without co-operation from the conservative judiciary, which tramples on rights precisely to silence reformists. Tehran's political prisoners, 35 or so of them, are all being punished for propagating or supporting reformist ideas. Of the roughly 100 publications banned since 2000, all but a handful were pro-reform.

Yet the impression that Mr Khatami's six years in office have not improved Iran is not quite fair. True, a conservative-dominated upper house has vetoed most enlightened legislation, such as Iran's adherence to a UN anti-torture convention and the expansion of trial by jury. Outrages still occur; four months after their arrest, the lawyer for three dissidents still has no idea what, if anything, his clients have been charged with. But Mr Khatami's bent for accountability has forced many state organs to behave better.

Gone are the days when state-employed fanatics murdered dissidents; under Mr Khatami, the intelligence ministry has been purged of bad types, and the minister occasionally takes judges to task for their wilder accusations. Although interrogators remain adept at using psychological pressure to extract “confessions”, physical torture is now rare. In some ways, Ms Kazemi's death is an aberration.

The best hope for justice in her case, and in others, may lie in the behind-the-scenes influence wielded by the president and his allies, who may be the reason why only a handful of the 4,000 demonstrators arrested this summer remain behind bars. But if the reformists lose their grip on parliament after next spring's elections, things could get tougher for dissidents. Canada's resolution, though it ignores small mercies now, may have the virtue of prescience.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2256210

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