Iranian Alert -- March 10, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

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Iran Moves Uranium Enrichment to Secret Plants

Reuters - World News (via Yahoo)
Mar 9, 2004

VIENNA - An exile who has previously released key nuclear information about Iran said on Tuesday Iranian leaders decided at a recent meeting to seek an atom bomb "at all costs" and begin enriching uranium at secret plants,

Alireza Jafarzadeh, who disclosed in August 2002 that Iran had a hidden uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water plant at Arak, told Reuters his new information came from the same "well-informed sources inside Iran."

He was a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran before the United States, which lists it as a terrorist organization, closed the NCRI's Washington office last year.

He said the Islamic republic's top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gathered after the father of Pakistan's atomic weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

"At this recent meeting, they decided to join the nuclear (weapons) club at all costs," Jafarzadeh said, adding that the leaders decided it was "vital for the survival" of the country.

"They set a timetable to get a bomb by the end of 2005 at the latest," he said, speaking from Washington.

Iran has repeatedly denied trying to develop atomic weapons, saying its nuclear program is purely peaceful. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Tuesday that Tehran had not violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Jafarzadeh said the people at the meeting said they would have to stop enriching uranium at Natanz, as Tehran had promised France, Britain and Germany in October. But in order to make the weapons-grade uranium needed for a bomb, they decided to move their enrichment to smaller secret sites in the country.

"They will heavily rely on smaller secret enrichment sites at Karaj, Esfahan and at other places," he said.

Jafarzadeh said Tehran was in a better position to hide the full extent of its centrifuge enrichment program from U.N. inspectors now it was able to build centrifuges domestically, without relying on imports.

The allegations came as the governing board of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets in Vienna this week to discuss a resolution on Iran's failure to inform the IAEA about its advanced centrifuge enrichment research.

Jafarzadeh said the Iranian leaders also agreed at their secret meeting to adopt a generally "aggressive and confrontational approach" with the IAEA before "muscling their way to the finish line to get the bomb."

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5268.shtml

Iran used Australian equipment

March 10, 2004

IRAN used Australian equipment sent to it for medical research to develop its banned nuclear program instead, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

Mr Downer said the Middle Eastern nation breached strict export laws by using the mass spectrometer to test enriched uranium samples instead of testing cancer patients.

Mr Downer said the spectrometer was exported to Iran on the understanding that it would be used for agricultural or medical research.

"This export was intended to support agricultural and medical research, including cancer diagnosis," Mr Downer told parliament.

"But the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has discovered that this export was used to test enriched uranium samples and Iran has admitted to this happening on at least one occasion."

Australia had threatened to take back the spectrometer, a machine used to carry out chemical analyses ranging from detecting poisons to analysing trace metals, if Iran could not guarantee it would be used properly in the future, Mr Downer said.

"Iran has provided details of its activities and they assisted our ambassador in making an inspection of the mass spectrometer on the seventh of March," Mr Downer said.

Mr Downer said the government hoped that by going public, it would ensure that such permit breaches did not occur again.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8926606%255E1702,00.html

U.S. and EU states close to Iran nuclear resolution

By Louis Charbonneau and Paul Hughes

VIENNA/TEHRAN (Reuters) - The United States and leading EU states are close to agreement on a U.N. resolution strongly hinting Iran has a nuclear arms programme, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The United States said the resolution would signal to Iran it would be punished if it defied the U.N. nuclear watchdog but stopped short of reporting Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

"We're not looking for a formal non-compliance resolution at this time, but we're seeking a strong resolution that keeps pressure on Iran to comply with all its obligations," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

Iran said on Tuesday it had not violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors met in Vienna.

"It is a mistake to say that Iran has violated its commitments and Tehran will definitely not accept it," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told the official IRNA news agency.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei criticised Iran on Monday for failing to declare advanced "P2" centrifuges that can be used to make atomic bombs and said both Iran and Libya had violated the NPT.

Negotiators for the European Union's "Big Three", France, Germany and Britain, agreed with counterparts from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the text of an IAEA resolution to be sent to capitals for comments and possible revisions.

Iran says its programme is purely peaceful, but the draft refers to ElBaradei's finding in a February 24 report that "most of the workshops used in Iran's centrifuge enrichment programme are 'owned by military industrial organisations'".

Tehran's U.N. delegation submitted a letter to the IAEA board saying this part of the report was "not correct" and only "three out of 10 workshops" belonged to the defense industry.

WESTERN QUESTIONS

"(Iranians) say the programme is civilian, but there are doubts," said one Western diplomat, declining to be named.

"If it is civilian, why did they produce plutonium, why did they produce polonium-210, why are workshops owned by military industrial organisations?" the diplomat said, referring to weapons-usable items found by the IAEA in Iran.

An Iranian exile who has previously released key nuclear information about Iran said on Tuesday Iranian leaders decided at a recent meeting to seek an atom bomb "at all costs" and begin enriching uranium at secret plants.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, who disclosed in August 2002 that Iran had a hidden uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water plant at Arak, told Reuters his new information came from the same "well-informed sources inside Iran".

The IAEA usually seeks to adopt resolution by consensus and diplomats said the agreement on the text of the resolution was not final.

With scant support for a stronger censure, Washington has decided to put off reporting Iran to the Security Council.

The United States expected IAEA inspections would uncover more evidence that would build its case for going to the Security Council, a senior State Department official said.

"More of these inspections, more of these efforts can clarify what we pass on to the U.N., when we do," said the official, who asked not to be named. He said it was a "logical conclusion" Iran would eventually be referred to the council.

Diplomats from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which has 13 out of 35 seats on the board, said it was unclear if the draft would be acceptable to them or if it was even needed.

"We don't believe a resolution was necessary," Malaysian ambassador Gulam Haniff told reporters on behalf on the NAM.

"It's important that this be passed by consensus," he said.

The draft praised Tehran for signing the Additional Protocol in December permitting IAEA snap inspections of nuclear sites, but called on Iran's parliament to ratify it quickly.

Put forward by Australia and Canada, the draft made a clear comparison between Iran and Libya, saying they got similar nuclear equipment "from the same foreign sources".

But Kharrazi said Iran and Libya, which admitted in December to having a secret weapons programme and has begun dismantling it, should not be compared.

"Comparing Iran and Libya is incorrect," he said. "Libya has officially announced that it was pursuing nuclear weapons and this is a violation of the NPT, but Iran has not been pursuing nuclear weapons and (has) not violated the NPT."

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Saul Hudson)

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp;:404e6f96:ecda4167e4bbf23?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4529516

Red crescent asks Iran to account for quake aid

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The head of Iran's Red Crescent Society demanded the foreign and finance ministries account for $10 million worth of foreign aid sent to help victims of December's Bam earthquake, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Pledges of foreign aid poured into Iran after the December 26 quake which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and killed more than 40,000 people in and around the ancient citadel city of Bam in southeastern Iran.

Iran's Red Crescent Society head Ahmad-Ali Nourbala told state-run Iran newspaper that existing documents showed foreign organisations had provided more than $11.8 million in aid, but said the Red Crescent has only received $1.9 million.

"Their failure to give a clear answer would lead to national distrust and international disgrace," Nourbala was quoted as saying in reformist newspaper Hambastegi.

"The Red Crescent will not be able to continue providing aid relief to Bam survivors if this trend continues," he said.

The officials from the two ministries were not immediately available for comment.

Nearly $500 million in relief assistance has been pledged to Iran from dozens of organisations and countries, including some that have strained relations with the Islamic Republic.

Arch-foe Washington, which broke ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, was at the forefront of the relief effort, sending an 84-strong team and planeloads of blankets, sheeting, medical supplies and water.

Nourbala said the Iranian government had failed to fulfil pledges to provide the quake survivors with 100 billion rials ($11.9 million) and the Red Crescent with 60 billion rials ($7.1 million).

Several people were arrested during clashes in Bam with police last week when hundreds gathered to protest at the failure to resolve their post-quake problems.

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=businessNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4530667

Iran clashes with US over nuclear policy

Staff and agencies
Wednesday March 10, 2004

Iran reignited its war of words with the US today, accusing Washington of trying to "bully" the UN's nuclear watchdog into taking a tougher stance on Tehran's nuclear programme.
Pirouz Hosseini, Iran's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), described the US approach to the agency's 35-nation governing board as an "act of bullying".

His comments came as the board prepared to discuss a draft resolution on Iran's nuclear programme.

The US had wanted the meeting to condemn Iran for not fulfilling pledges to reveal all past and present nuclear activities.

But the key European states wanted to focus on Iranian cooperation with the IAEA, which began only after last year's discovery that Tehran had plans to enrich uranium and had secretly conducted other tests with possible weapons applications over nearly two decades.

When the issue first came before the authority's board, the US sought to report Tehran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, arguing Iran had violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

However, the US mustered little support and there was no mention of sanctions in the resolution being discussed today.

However, the draft text noted "with the most serious concern" that past declarations by Iran "did not amount to the correct, complete and final picture of Iran's past and present nuclear programme".

It criticised Iran for "failing to resolve all questions" about uranium enrichment, saying it "deplores" this lapse.

The draft resolution also praised Iran for signing an agreement to throw open its nuclear programme to full and pervasive IAEA perusal and for Iran's cooperation with agency investigations.

Meanwhile, in a move that is sure to anger Washington further, the Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said today that Iran would resume uranium enrichment once its relations with the IAEA returned to normal.

Mr Kharrazi said: "It's our legitimate right to enrich uranium. We suspended uranium enrichment voluntarily and temporarily. We will definitely resume enrichment."

He also warned Iran's key European partners - Britain, France and Germany - that they should "resist US pressures if they want the project of cooperation between Iran and them to lead to results".

Iran's undeclared enrichment of uranium was one of the reasons behind an IAEA investigation into the country's nuclear programme.

The US insists such programmes - conducted clandestinely until their discovery last year along with plutonium processing and other undeclared tests - point to a nuclear weapons agenda.

Iran has insisted it is interested in enriching uranium for peaceful uses, such as generating power.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1166396,00.html

Renaissance in Tehran

Khomeini and Savonarola.

By Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi & Elio Bonazzi
NRO
3.10.2004

The mass media routinely refers to Western values, such as tolerance and secularism, in contrast to the bigotry and fundamentalism typical of non-Western cultures, thereby generating the erroneous impression that if the West weren't always immune from religious zealotry, it certainly "solved" the issue in a distant past.

The Renaissance, for instance, is one of the crucial milestones of Western civilization, exercising a profound influence on cultural and intellectual life for centuries. While the Renaissance's achievements are common knowledge, not everybody knows, or remembers, that for several years Florence, the cultural center of the Renaissance, experienced a harsh period. Girolamo Savonarola, an influential preacher, managed to create a theocracy that bears similarities with Khomeini's Iran. Illustrious Renaissance figures, like the painter Botticelli, even bought into Savonarola's zeal; the former voluntarily burned many of his paintings in the belief that they were vain and pagan.

Savonarola, born in 1452, was a monk who hailed from an old family of Ferrara. In early 1482 he was sent by his superior to preach in Florence. His profound concern with the widespread depravity of the era established him as a powerful sermonizer at the peak of the Renaissance; he fervently lashed out at the immoral, pleasure-seeking life of the Florentines. The Medici family became his chosen target and he persistently disputed the morality of these generous patrons of the arts, culture, and the church. He blatantly attacked Lorenzo the Magnificent as the promoter of pagan art, of living frivolously, of ruling as Florence's tyrant.

He announced in prophetic terms the approaching judgment of God and the arrival of an "Avenger" who would reform Church life. The avenger was Charles VIII, king of France, who had entered Italy, and was advancing toward Florence. Savonarola's denunciation of the Medici produced its desired results: Lorenzo's son, Pietro de Medici, who was hated both for his tyranny and for his immoral life, was driven out of the city along with his family. Savonarola visited Charles in Pisa to cheer his imminent arrival in Florence. The king ushered in a new and peculiar constitution — a kind of theocratic democracy was established in Florence — based on the political and social doctrines set forth by Savonarola.

During this period, Savonarola founded a brotherhood for young people to encourage a pious, Christian lifestyle. On Sundays some of the members of this fraternity "cautioned" luxuriously dressed women to lay aside their frivolous ornaments. Thus, an actual morality police was established; these lawmen were encouraged to spy on, denounce, and accuse.

But people soon turned on Savonarola. He was initially excommunicated, then hanged, and finally burned at the stake in May 1498. He would not, however, be the last "proselytizer" who was rejected by the very populace to whom he had brought powerful spiritual renewal.

Like Savonarola, Khomeini created a theocracy based on strictly religious political and social doctrines. Like Savonarola, Khomeini did not "interfere" directly in politics and affairs of state, but his teachings and ideas were absolutely authoritative. And like Savonarola, who tried without success to lead an international convention against the Borgia pope, Khomeini tried to bring together a convention of Islamic leaders to annihilate Israel and to spread his confrontational vision of Islam.

The Basijis, the "morals police" of the Islamic republic of Iran, target women who do not observe the religious dictates of veil and dress — exactly as Savonarola's young brotherhood did in Florence.

The list of similarities between Savonarola's and Khomeini's theocracies goes on, but we will stop here for the sake of brevity.

In the more recent past, Western civilization was finally able to exorcise religious fundamentalism, and now looks back at its worst moments with shame and contrition. Secularism brought us the notion of separation between Church and State.

The fact that in the last few years European powers have helped perpetuate the Islamic republic of Iran, thereby bestowing an aura of international legitimacy on Tehran in exchange for cheap oil, gas, and copper, betrays once again the old-time colonialist policy of allowing "the natives" to do as they wish amongst themselves so long as they do not threaten the interests of the empire.

Religious fundamentalism wouldn't be tolerated in any of the European nations. Any nation attempting the fundamentalist "experiment" would immediately become a pariah, and would be economically blackballed by the other European nations. When Joerg Haider, the controversial, extreme right-wing Austrian politician, formed a coalition government where his party would have had a few ministers, the 14 member states of the EU immediately cut off all bilateral contracts with Austria, forcing Haider to resign as secretary of the party.

It is likely that the same treatment would be reserved for European nations attempting to implement religious fundamentalist policies. But Iranians are not Europeans; they are the "natives" of a distant world, one subjugated to the economic interests of a still-colonialist Europe. So, instead of applying economic, diplomatic, and political pressure to Iran in order to force secularism, EU nations have preferred to maintain the status quo, thereby exploiting the situation to their own economic advantage.

The political justification used by the Europeans to condone their dealings with the mullahs relied on the illusion that the Islamic clerics would have been able to reform the theocratic regime. That illusion has been shattered by the extremely low turnout for the national elections on February 20, a result of a campaign by Iranian activists to boycott them. The successful outcome of this maneuver has been to expose the smoke-and-mirrors devised by the mullahs to deceive the West. The boycott has undermined the Islamic republic, rather than just the hardliners or the reformists.

A model to explain social and economic dynamics in a period of decline was elaborated by Albert Hirshman in the 1970s. In his book, titled Exit Voice and Loyalty, he distinguishes between ways people react to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations or governments. One way, the "Exit" strategy, consists of the member quitting the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product; another is the "Voice" strategy, which is when members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change "from within"; and, lastly, there is the "Loyalty" strategy that retards Exit and permits Voice to play its proper role.

Applying Hirshman's categories to Iran, it is easy to see how loyalty raised the bar to exit and permitted voice (the failed reformist experiment started with the election of Khatami in 1997). There is no doubt that the record-low turnout in February is a clear message from Iranians of exit to the hated mullahs and the European powers to stop using the reformist farce to justify their lucrative oil, gas, and copper contracts.

In retrospect, it now appears evident that the so-called reformist experiment was nothing but a smokescreen carefully orchestrated by the mullahs to regain credibility after squads of professional killers sent by the former President Rafsanjani provoked serious diplomatic incidents in various European countries. The good-cop/bad-cop game was made possible by the appearance of Khatami on the Iranian political scene and played by the Iranian theocracy merely to assuage Western discontent.

The political landscape of the Islamic republic is characterized not by political parties or movements that fight over ideas and alternative policies but by "insiders" and "outsiders." The rewarding mechanism is the opposite of meritocracy and is based on common background, family connections, social class, and even geographical location. Insiders are a restricted oligarchy, which consists of a few, socially homogeneous groups. The typical insider has a modest education, grew up in certain neighborhoods of Tehran, and has good connections with the all-powerful bazaaris — the shop-owners of Tehran's bazaar — if not one of them. Colluding with the mullahs, they initially provided the financial backing needed for Khomeini's revolution. They were rewarded by the regime they helped install, by being allowed to amass incredible fortunes; today, they represent the backbone of support for the theocratic regime.

Outsiders don't stand a chance of ever becoming part of the restricted oligarchy that shares the real power. The barriers to entry to the insider group are insurmountable. Both reformists and hardliners are slightly different political manifestations of the same social congregation, the insiders that contributed to the creation of the Islamic republic in 1978-79 and nowadays help the clerical regime navigate through perilous waters.

The power struggle in Iran was never between reformists and hardliners. The electoral victory of Khatami in 1997 represented a moment of collective delusion, a moment when the outsiders believed they could influence the political process. In reality, the real power struggle was fought behind the scenes and affected only a small fraction of the Iranian public. It was all about the redistribution of wealth among the insiders; for instance, to determine who would have occupied the most prestigious governmental posts (posts that, incidentally, make for the best sources of income thanks to the rampant corruption in Iran).

Another way to explain February's low electoral turnout is to consider the dangerous fracture between the overwhelming majority of outsiders, who have no chance to count, and insiders, who are now fighting for their survival. Outsiders couldn't care less for the 2,500 so-called reformist candidates prevented from running for office by the hardliners. Had people cared they could have shown their support by demonstrating in front of the parliament. Their apathy and disinterest was loud and clear.

The real outcome of the elections, with or without reformist candidates participating, would have not changed the real balance of power. The people of Iran clearly indicated that the real issue at stake, from now on, is not the reform of the regime — which is impossible — but its demise. In 2004 Tehran, which resembles 1498 Florence, the time of the "preachers" is coming to an end. We can only hope for a bloodless transition of power, where the criminally responsible are brought to justice and given a fair trial.

European powers are now left without any justification for continuing their support for the Islamic regime. It is likely that the mullahs will attempt to shift the focus of their negotiations with EU nations. Forget about real democracy and secularism, an open dialogue with theocratic Iran could still be perceived among Europeans as beneficial for themselves, who are eager to bring long-term stability to Afghanistan, to create a new regime in Iraq, and to keep the oil-rich Persian Gulf as tension-free as possible. But it will become increasingly difficult for European governments to sell any policy of support for an ugly regime to their own respective citizens, who have come to loathe Islamist fascism.

— Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, a native of Iran, is an activist and writer. Elio Bonazzi is an Italian-born political scientist. Husband and wife, they are based in New York.

http://nationalreview.com/comment/zandbonazzi_bonazzi200403100907.asp

Situation radicalizes on 4th day of Teachers strike

SMCCDI (information Service)
Mar 9, 2004

The Islamic republic regime agents intervened in several schools, on the 4th day of Teachers strike, in order to beat and arrest several teachers and supporter students. These sporadic clashes have increased in the cities of Hamdean, Esfahan and Ardebil while starting in several areas of Tehran and its suburbs, such as Rey, Eslamshahr and Karaj.

Clashes between students and agents of the Islamic republic regime are in constant increase due to these interventions leading often to slogans against the regime and its leaders.

Streets leading to schools are under the constant watch of regime's militiamen intending to avoid any street demonstration.

The repressive move along with the statement issued by the official created Teachers syndicate calling for an end of strike are showing the fear of the regime and its firm intention to put an end to the situation which is radicalizing every day and is spreading to more cities, such as, Malar, Tabriz and Gorgan.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/smccdinews/article/publish/article_4140.shtml

IRAN AND NORTH KOREA TO COOPERATE ON NUCLEAR EQUIPMENT.

Iran and North Korea will build an underground facility for the manufacture of uranium-enrichment centrifuges near the city of Kusong, Japan's "Sankei Shimbun" newspaper reported on 10 March, citing an anonymous "military source." A high-ranking Iranian military official reportedly negotiated the project during a late-January visit to Pyongyang. After the equipment is manufactured at Kusong, which is northwest of Yongbyon, the equipment will be shipped to Iran via a third country, according to the Japanese daily. BS

source: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 46, Part III, 10 March 2004

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