Iran Producing Gas Used In Making Nuclear Arms

[Excerpt] November 19, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press

VIENNA -- Iran is using the last few days before it must stop all uranium enrichment to produce significant quantities of a gas that can be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Friday.

Iran recently started producing uranium hexafluoride at its gas processing facilities in Isfahan, the diplomats told The Associated Press. When introduced into centrifuges and spun, the substance can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium that forms the core of nuclear warheads.

But the diplomats said Iran was exploiting the window until Monday to produce uranium hexafluoride at its plant in the central city of Isfahan.

Asked about quantities, a diplomat said "It's not little" but declined to elaborate. ...

Iran has huge reserves of raw uranium and has announced plans to extract more than 40 metric tons a year.

Converted to uranium hexafluoride and repeatedly spun in centrifuges, that amount could theoretically yield about 100 kilograms of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, enough for about five crude nuclear weapons.

Iranian officials say the Isfahan plant can convert more than 300 tons of uranium ore a year.

Iran Using Lasers to Enrich Uranium - Exile Group

Fri Nov 19, 9:04 AM ET

World - Reuters

By Jon Boyle

PARIS (Reuters) - An Iranian exile group accused Tehran on Friday of using advanced laser technology to secretly enrich uranium and of lying to the United Nations (news - web sites) nuclear watchdog body about the covert program.

The opposition group, which has given accurate information before and made other accusations on Wednesday, said Iran was making bomb-grade uranium at the Lavizan facility in Tehran it disclosed two days ago, and at Parchin, 30 km from the capital.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said Iran was also seeking to develop a warhead to put on its medium-range Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 missiles, a development outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) warned of on Wednesday.

Iran promised the European Union (news - web sites) on Sunday that it would freeze its uranium enrichment program, a move which spared it a referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

It dismissed Wednesday's accusations as a "well-timed lie."

NCRI's Mohamad Mohaddesin said the West was being duped by Tehran and urged the United Nations to act now in order to foil Tehran's bid to build a nuclear bomb in 2005.

"In recent months, the Iranian regime officially declared to the IAEA (the U.N. nuclear watchdog) that it has shut down its laser enrichment program," Mohaddesin told a news conference in Paris where it has a large base.

"This is a completely false declaration by the Iranian regime ... They are using this laser technology in at least two military sites, maybe more."

He said Lavizan, a former munitions factory, switched to uranium enrichment about 18 months ago using laser equipment. A military complex at Parchin had been conducting similar work since 2000, he said.

Mohaddesin, who used commercial satellite photographs to support its case involving the two sites, said that the Iranian authorities had stepped up security around the Lavizan site since its revelations.

On Wednesday, NCRI said Iran had obtained weapons-grade uranium and a nuclear bomb design from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted selling nuclear secrets abroad.

Iran 'rushing nuclear enrichment'

Preliminary installation of a turbo generator at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant

Iran denies claims that it wants to build nuclear weapons

Iran is producing a gas that can be used to make nuclear arms, days before its promise to freeze such activities takes effect, Western diplomats say.

Tehran has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment from Monday in an deal reached with the European Union.

But the diplomats say it recently started producing uranium hexafluoride, which can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium.

A senior Iranian envoy has denounced the accusation as a "sheer lie".

The agreement with the EU is designed to ease concerns that Iran's nuclear programme aims to produce atomic weapons - a charge Tehran denies.

But the diplomats said Iran was exploiting the window until Monday to produce the uranium hexafluoride, at a processing facility in Isfahan.

"I strongly reject it," top IAEA delegate Hossein Mousavian told Reuters. He said Iran was preparing to suspend production.

US accusations

The US has frequently accused Tehran of using its nuclear energy policy as a front for developing atomic weapons.

It has been at the forefront of moves to refer the country to the United Nations Security Council when the UN's energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Authority, meets on 25 November.

Iran has huge reserves of raw uranium and has announced plans to extract more than 40 tons a year.

Iranian officials say the Isfahan plant can convert more than 300 tons of uranium ore a year.

Nuclear Shell Game

[Excerpt] November 19, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Henry Sokolski

On Nov. 14, the United Kingdom, Germany and France announced that Tehran had agreed to temporarily freeze its uranium-enrichment program, which could otherwise quickly give Iran a nuclear bomb. Three days later, the Iranian dissidents who first exposed Tehran's uranium-enrichment program back in 2002 claimed Iran had a detailed, missile-deliverable, Chinese nuclear warhead design and was enriching uranium at an undeclared military site. Pressed on these points, Secretary of State Colin Powell lent credence to the report by revealing that he'd seen intelligence that Iran was modifying its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

Is Iran's deal with the European Three simply a bluff to buy more time to push a covert bomb program? If we want to prevent Iran's nuclear shenanigans from becoming a new international norm, we had better find out -- and soon. The best way to do this is to get the European Three to hold off locking themselves into promised, open-end talks this December on what to give Iran to maintain the freeze until the International Atomic Energy Agency can certify that Iran has no undeclared enrichment facilities.

Beyond this, the U.S., its partners and the IAEA board of governors need to challenge Iran and other nations' claims that they have a legal right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). This claim, unfortunately, is something the European Three deal explicitly concedes in its text. Challenge this and Iran will have to choose between staying in the NPT or bolting. Finally, against this and other proliferation contingencies, the U.S. and its partners need to toughen the nuclear rules in a country-neutral way that will restrain Tehran and other future Irans. A critical part of this effort would be for the U.S. to work with the IAEA to upgrade its outdated nuclear safeguards criteria, authorities and capabilities to cope with the post-9/11 world. Certainly, we've tried or discussed every other idea. All of them seem likely to fail.

Consider the latest idea that's now making the rounds: We should pull out all the stops to find out if Iran actually has a bomb before we act. The IAEA seems to be itching for this job. In his report to the upcoming board of governors meeting on Iran , Director General Mohamed El-Baradei noted that although the agency had no smoking gun, the agency was "not yet in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran ." He made it clear why: The agency, he noted, only had the authority to ferret out material discrepancies in declared civilian nuclear facilities; it lacked the authority to snoop for bombs.

Getting the members of the IAEA explicitly to have the agency spy for weapons though, seems an odd way to address nuclear proliferation. The whole idea behind the NPT and the IAEA, after all, was to inspect members' peaceful nuclear activities so that if the agency found discrepancies at declared facilities, appropriate action could be taken well before any bomb might be built. Certainly, if the IAEA board of governors holds off until clear evidence of a bomb project can be found, any hope of stemming the bomb's further spread will be even dimmer than it already is.

Another alternative that should be put aside is trying to bomb our way out of the problem set. Although this option has its proponents, neither we nor the Israelis can do it without making our current Middle East headaches much, much worse. We simply don't know where all of Iran's nuclear activities are. Nor can we target every Iranian nuclear engineer who surely will rebuild whatever might be bombed. With Iraq and the war on terrorism still at issue, waging war now with 69 million Iranians without clear legal cause would risk strategic failure.

* * *

If these options don't make sense and waiting on Iran to behave makes even less, what should we do? The simple answer is to start enforcing the rules.

A good place to begin would be to get the IAEA simply to undertake what it's already authorized and obligated to do -- certify that Iran is not engaged in any undeclared uranium enrichment. Given that the latest accusations about Iran having a secret nuclear military enrichment facility came from the very group responsible for getting the IAEA into the business of investigating Iran's enrichment program, the lead demands investigation. This certification is one the IAEA board of governors should agree on before the European Three begin negotiations in December with Iran over what inducements the Europeans might give Tehran to restrain its nuclear activities.

Second, the U.S., its partners and the IAEA board of governors need to challenge, as the European Three have not, Iran's outrageous claim that it has an "inalienable right" to come within days of having a large arsenal's worth of nuclear-weapons materials. Certainly, the only right any non-weapons state has to develop nuclear energy under the NPT is if it is for "peaceful purposes" and such nuclear activities must be conducted "in conformity" with the treaty's clear prohibitions against directly or "indirectly" acquiring nuclear weapons. In addition, all such activities must be able to be safeguarded to verify against possible diversions to make nuclear weapons. If the IAEA and the NPT are to have any future in preventing proliferation, these qualifications need to be amplified and explicated starting with Iran .

Third, the U.S. and all other like-mined nations need to start arguing publicly, as several European governments already have, that no country, Iran included, can threaten to leave the NPT -- and do so after accumulating the fruits of nuclear peaceful cooperation under false pretenses -- without becoming an international outlaw. We let North Korea get away with this; we should not let Iran or any other nation do likewise.

Finally, the U.S. and the IAEA need to work much more closely in upgrading the agency's current safeguards criteria, authorities and capabilities, which are woefully out of date. With the spread of modern uranium-enrichment centrifuges, and highly detailed, tested missile-deliverable warhead designs (from Pakistani proliferator A.Q. Khan's transfers to Libya and beyond), the safeguards assumptions of 30 or more years ago no longer apply. It simply takes less material, time, money and overt activity to use peaceful nuclear activities to help make a bomb. We need to work closely with the IAEA to help it catch up. This will require money, technology and much firmer diplomacy. ...

Mr. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, is the editor of "Getting Mad: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice" (U.S. Army War College , 2004).

Nuclear Shell Game - Must Read!

[Excerpt] November 19, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Henry Sokolski

http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/

Thank you for all you do.

John Loftus just reported on Fox News the following:

1. Iran lost a thousand pages of classified files to make nuclear weapons and those documents showed up at the CIA this week.

2. The Iranians have put four scientists on trial this past week for leaking those documents.

3. The British have videotape of a new type of new Iranian warhead that is short and stubby. It is too light to be used for conventional war heads. It can only be used for a nuclear weapons.

This is what prompted Secretary Powell to announce Iran's violation of their agreements.

Also he said there is an underground nuclear bomb factory in little city called Nour, a suburb of Tehran in an area known as Lavizan. The factory has been placed under a new housing development there. There are multiple reports of this.

He recommends a blockade of Iran's oil shipments.

He claims the EU wants us to do the dirty work on this.

The Adventures of Chester

The Future of the Iranian Nuclear Program, Part III

[Note: Have been consumed with non-blogging domestic issues. Light blogging tonight, but will return full force tomorrow afternoon for a few hours.]

[Note: See Part I here, Part II here.]

Analyzing all military options in one post is far too unwieldy, and would be sloppy. Therefore, the remainder of this series on Iran will be broken down into much smaller parts. This part is a group task.

Before diving in to analyzing specific US military options vis a vis Iran, The Adventures of Chester would like to request a group brainstorming session. Using the power of distributed intelligence, we ask you, what are the range of MILITARY options (not diplomatic, not economic, not informational)? Let's see what ideas get tossed out on the table and then we'll look at a number of them, or combinations of them. Readers will forgive the use of editorial privilege in deciding which to consider and which to combine.

We've developed these so far:

Limited Political Objective: Destruction of Nuclear Infrastructure

1. Aerial raid or campaign to destroy WMD infrastructure.

2. Ground-based raid (heavier raid) to destroy WMD infrastructure..

3. Ground-based sabotage (lighter raid) to destroy WMD infrastructure.

4. Combination of aerial raid/campaign and ground-based raid to destroy WMD infrastructure. For example:

a. Aerial raid on majority of infrastructure, seizure of key installations via ground or over the horizon, in order to perform intelligence exploitation, or to capture existing facilities intact.

b. Man-hunting operation designed to find and capture key members of the scientific community, possibly combined with aerial raids on a number of their locations.

Still Limited, but Expanded Political Objective: Destruction of Nuclear Infrastructure, Weakening of Regime Power (a "punitive campaign")

1. Aerial raid on WMD infrastructure, aerial raids on critical vulnerabilities of regime power.

2. Aerial and/or ground raid against WMD infrastructure, aerial/ground raids on critical vulnerabilities of regime power.

3. Aerial/ground raids on WMD infrastructure, ground raids on critical vulnerabilities of regime power, fissure of the nation into a zone of Iranian control, and a zone of US-backed resistance control.

Unlimited Political Objective: Destruction of Iranian Nuclear Infrastructure; Removal of Iranian Regime

1. Aerial raid on WMD infrastructure, small-scale and singular aerial decapitation attack against key individuals, institutions, and symbols of Iranian regime.

2. Aerial raid on WMD infrastructure, rolling aerial campaign against all regime targets: political, economic, military.

3. Aerial/ground raids on WMD infrastructure, aerial/ground campaign against entire Iranian regime. Continued occupation of WMD infrastructure. No alternate government created by US forces. Quick exit of US forces from majority of country.

a. Same as 3, but with extensive use of local Iranian resistance.
b. Same as 3, but with overwhelming US ground force.

4. Aerial/ground raids on WMD infrastructure, aerial/ground campaign against entire Iranian regime. Creation of US-supported government zones. US long-term occupation of these zones. Slow attrition of remaining regime power. Could be lighter, or heavier than option 3.

5. Aerial/ground raids on WMD infrastructure, aerial/ground campaign against entire Iranian regime. Creation of US-backed government. Long-term US presence in Iran.

Some Other Wild-Card Options (these break the rule of military-only actions, as they are truly combinatory in nature)

1. Encouragement of aerial strike by proxies (Israel) on WMD infrastructure (military + diplomatic)
a. Can include logistical or other support.

2. Support of internal rebellion; ground raids on WMD infrastructure in conjunction with opposition groups (miliary + covert/CIA)

What say you, readers? Please offer your thoughts and we will have a robust discussion. The tempo and content of the responses will dictate the timing of Part IV.

Remember, the goal is to imagine all unique options, not to critique them in-depth at this point. And likewise, not to be repititious.

UPDATE: Fri, 1:25pm: Excellent comments, readers! Please keep them coming. Remember, the goal at this point is not to critique different actions yet, or to examine the Iranian side, though we will do that too, but instead to offer unique solutions that have yet to be mentioned. I have strong opinions on many of the actions proposed thus far, but will hold back for awhile to let more flow in.

The best comment thus far, which offered an idea completely unique from any others, was posted by "tdbedilion" and involved "military option to squeeze the Iranian economy at its pressure points" to destabilize the regime. Other good comments continue . . .

Sporadic posting throughout the afternoon has begun . . .

November 19, 2004

Iranians Flip-Flop On Nuclear Agreement

In a rhetorical flourish that recalls the best (or worst) of the Clinton Administration and the John Kerry campaign, Iran apparently has decided to stop their refinement of uranium into weapons precursors only after they've made enough of it to turn into weapons:

Iran is preparing large amounts of uranium for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons, days before its promise to freeze all such activities takes effect, Western diplomats said on Friday.
"The Iranians are producing UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) like hell," a diplomat on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told Reuters. "The machines are running." ...
On Sunday, Tehran promised France, Britain and Germany it would freeze its enrichment program in a bid to ease concerns that its nuclear plans are aimed at producing atomic weapons -- a charge it denies -- and to escape a referral to the U.N. Security Council when the IAEA meets on Nov. 25.
Diplomats said they had expected Iran to freeze the program as of last Sunday, the day the deal was reached.

Is anyone paying any attention at all to the Iranian mullahcracy's history? Anyone who thought that the Iranians meant what they said last Sunday, that they were committed to peaceful uses of nuclear power, has to have their head examined. Once again, the Iranians have manipulated the overly credulous Europeans into providing them a diplomatic window in which to pursue their nuclear-weapons ambitions. This window is pretty tight, which tells me that they're much closer to producing a weapon than is commonly thought.

It's may be too late for the UN Security Council to have any effect on Iran's production of the bomb. The EU-3 need to step aside and allow the UNSC to quickly demonstrate whether they'll act or not to stop them. If not, then it falls to Israel and the US, who are the two most likely targets of the nuclear weapons once produced.

More evidence of media bias.

I just wanted to point out that the same media that in the past told us "Iran is a greater threat than Iraq," now appear to be obscuring the latest news developments on Iran. Case in point, the Washington Post.

Yesterday, they published a story, Powell Says Iran Is Pursuing Bomb.

But that was not the "real news." Powell was exposing Iran's effort to develop missiles designed specifically to deliver a nuclear weapon.

Anyone interested in Iran already knew that Iran was being accused of having a nuclear weapons program, but the Washington Post chose to bury the real story. This is why we can't trust the main stream media to provide us with the news. Their bias is showing, again.

I wouldn't put two cents worth of my money on anything Loftus says. Now and then he may get lucky and be right--but since you can never tell, why bother?

Tehran nukes targeted in 1st U.S. protest
Students to rally at Iranian mission to U.N. to highlight dangers

Posted: November 19, 2004
4:28 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

American college students are planning to hold the first-ever public protest in the U.S. against Iran's nuclear proliferation this weekend, organizers told WorldNetDaily.

The Iran Action Committee, founded by students at Yeshiva University in New York, is staging a rally in front of the Iranian mission to the United Nations on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in protest of Iran's rapidly emerging nuclear program. The rally will be the first public protest to deal with the threat of Iranian weapons of mass destruction, and is expected to garner students from other New York area colleges, including Columbia, New York University, City University of New York, and Queens College.

To drive their point home graphically, the organizers have assembled a realistic, twelve by five foot missile-head covered with slogans supporting the cause that will stand outside the Iranian mission throughout the protest.

Letters of invitation have been sent to several political figures, including New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Representative Henry Hyde, although the students said they don't expect either to attend.

"This is not just a national concern, it is a universal issue," David Wildman, co-chairman of the Committee told WorldNetDaily. "What makes a nuclear Iran so dangerous is its capability to strike at locations 1,300 miles away from its borders – Eastern Russia, the entire Middle East, our allies, our interests, our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq – a very significant portion the world would be at risk."

Wildman said the purpose of the rally is to "raise international awareness of the danger posed by Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and to call on the international community to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program, cease its support of terror, and enter into the commonwealth of peaceful nations."

"This will be a peaceful, respectful rally," said Wildman, "we hope that this issue can be solved on the streets, in the political arena, through the efforts and resolve of ordinary concerned citizens."

The protest comes amid reports Iran has been assembling a secret nuclear arsenal. The National Council for Resistance, a grassroots Iranian organization which has in the past accurately revealed Iranian nuclear sites, said this week Tehran was producing enriched uranium and testing biological and chemical warfare projects at a secret plant in northeast Iran which had not been disclosed to United Nations inspectors.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday he has seen intelligence corroborating some of the Council's disclosures.

Iran has consistently argued that its nuclear aspirations are for purely peaceful, civilian purposes, but the student protest organizers are quick to dismiss those claims.

"That's just whitewash," said Ariel Rosenzveig, a Yeshiva student and an organizer of the rally. "Does anyone expect Iran, a state that sponsors countless terrorist organizations and is responsible for the murder of thousands of people, to suddenly turn around and be frank and honest with the world and openly declare that it's producing nuclear weapons?"

Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's special Middle East correspondent, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and leaders of the Taliban.

Report: Scientist gave Iran
nuke material

Group reveals Tehran closer than ever to building nuclear weapon

Posted: November 18, 2004
4:50 p.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and the specific design for a nuclear bomb from an exiled Pakistani nuclear scientist, an Iranian opposition group said today.

The National Council for Resistance, a grass-roots Iranian organization that yesterday disclosed what they said was the secret location of an illegal uranium-enriching facility in Iran, revealed today that Abdul Qadeer Khan, who ran a nuclear black market that supplied Libya with nuclear technology, provided Iran weapons-grade material.

"Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU [highly enriched uranium] in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council told reporters.

Soleiman said Khan also gave Iran a Chinese-developed warhead design sometime between 1994 and 1996.

The National Council, based in Paris, is the political arm of the People's Mujahedeen, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization because of its involvement in attacks on Americans in the 1970s. The group has in the past accurately revealed the location of several secret nuclear sites in Iran and is taken very seriously by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

If the disclosure proves accurate, it may increase pressure on America and Israel to take decisive action against Iran.

Since Bush's re-election, the U.S. has increased exponentially their rhetoric against Iran.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said today the U.S. has intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear weapons.

''I have seen intelligence which would corroborate what this dissident group is saying,'' Powell told reporters today on a trip to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago. ''And it should be of concern to all parties.''

Secret Iranian nuke site under civilian homes
Sources: Luxury villas disguise uranium enrichment plant in Tehran

Posted: November 19, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Iran's secret uranium enrichment site, revealed this week by an Iranian opposition group, is housed below a luxury development complex in which civilians live, military sources told WorldNetDaily.

The National Council for Resistance, a grassroots Iranian organization, said Tehran was producing enriched uranium and testing biological and chemical warfare projects at a secret plant in northeast Iran which had not been disclosed to United Nations inspectors.

Military sources say the nuclear plant is hidden many feet below a development of luxury villas in the Iranian suburb of Nour in the Lavizan district of northeast Tehran. They say families of Iranian diplomats and top employees of Iran's Modern Defensive Readiness and Technology Center live in the villas, which contain entrances to a subterranean nuclear facility used to produce weapons-grade uranium and test chemical and biological warfare agents.

"If the U.S. or Israel wanted to hit these facilities, they'd have to target actual homes," one source told WorldNetDaily.

Muhammad Mohaddessin, a senior official of the National Council, said the group had shared the new information "very recently" with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and said inspection of the site revealed by his group would demonstrate that Iran is secretly trying to produce nuclear weapons even while promising to freeze a critical part of its declared nuclear program, which it claims is intended for civilian purposes only.

U.N. inspectors "should not be fooled or deceived by the Iranian regime," Mohaddessin said.

Hossein Mousavian, Foreign Policy Committee secretary at Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said yesterday the National Council's disclosures were propaganda. "It is a well-timed lie as well. The group wants to make another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting on November 25," said Mousavian. "They want to poison the board's atmosphere."

The National Council, based in Paris, is the political arm of the People's Mujahedeen which is listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization because of its involvement in attacks on Americans in the 1970s. But the group has in the past accurately revealed the location of several secret nuclear sites in Iran, and is taken very seriously by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

If the disclosure proves accurate, it may increase pressure on America and Israel to take decisive action against Iran.

Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's special Middle East correspondent, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and leaders of the Taliban.

Iran denies it has secret nuke factory

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Iran denies allegations that it has a secret nuclear bomb facility near Tehran and will allow U.N. inspectors to visit the site, Pakistan Dawn reported Friday.

"We totally deny these allegations. This site is not a nuclear site and has nothing to do with our nuclear activities," the newspaper quoted top diplomat and nuclear negotiator Hossein Moussavian as saying.

An Iranian opposition group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, alleged this week that Iran is hiding a uranium enrichment facility near Tehran and aims to have an atomic bomb next year.

Moussavian insisted Iran had already declared all its nuclear sites and activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "It is not good for the agency to be played and manipulated by a well-known terrorist group," he added.

The NCRI is the political arm of the Iraq-based People's Mujahideen, which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.

Iran has also come under fresh fire from the United States, with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell saying Wednesday that Washington had information that Iran is seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

Powell shared unverified Iran material, officials say

[Excerpt]

By Dafna Linzer, Washington Post | November 19, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell shared information with reporters Wednesday about Iran's nuclear program that was classified and based on an unvetted, single source who provided information that two US officials said yesterday was highly significant if true, but has not yet been verified.

Powell and other senior Cabinet members were briefed last week on the sensitive intelligence. The material was stamped "No Foreign," meaning it was not to be shared with allies, although President Bush decided that portions could be shared last week with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, officials said.

According to one official with access to the material, a "walk-in" source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications enabling Iranian missiles to deliver an atomic strike. The official agreed to discuss the information on condition of anonymity and only because Powell alluded to it publicly.

But US intelligence officials have been combing the information with a wary eye, mindful of the mistakes made in trusting intelligence alleging that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

If the information on Iran were confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it. The documents included a specific warhead design.

US intelligence has known since at least 2002 that Iran was capable of enriching uranium, the key ingredient in a nuclear bomb. Iran also has a successful missile program. But UN nuclear inspectors who have been investigating for nearly two years have found no evidence that Tehran possesses a warhead design or is conducting a nuclear weapons program.

The Islamic republic, which on Sunday entered into a new deal with France, Britain, and Germany to suspend its nuclear program, has denied it is trying to build atomic weapons and insists its work is part of a budding energy effort.

Western intelligence estimates of Iran's capabilities vary. But US officials believe Iran could be three to five years from completing a bomb if it is successful at constructing and operating thousands of centrifuge parts for enriching uranium.

The information provided by the source, who was not previously known to US intelligence, does not mention uranium or any other area of Iran's known nuclear program, according to the official with access to the material.

The official said the CIA remains unsure about the authenticity of the documents and how the informant came into their possession. A second official would say only that there are questions about the source of the information.

Officials interviewed did not know the identity of the source or whether the individual is connected to an Iranian exile group that made fresh accusations about Iran at a news conference Wednesday in Paris. The National Council for Resistance in Iran charged that Iran was still enriching uranium and will continue to do so.

The lack of certainty about the source who approached US intelligence had kept officials from talking publicly about the information, and Powell's comments caught the few informed officials by surprise, angering some of them.

Powell's remarks also drew expressions of concern from European allies. Yesterday, in an effort to assuage European concerns, the administration told diplomats that Powell misspoke in releasing information that had not yet been verified, sources said. During a conversation about Iran with reporters accompanying him on a trip to Chile on Wednesday, Powell said he had "seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead, I'm talking about what one does with a warhead." ...

Iran: Nuclear Facility Used to Generate Electricity

By VOA News
Washington
19 November 2004

Iran has denied allegations that it has a secret nuclear weapons facility.

Iranian officials say the claim by the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran is a lie. They say the group is trying to negate the progress Iran recently made with European negotiators by agreeing to suspend uranium enrichment.

Tehran says the facility in question is only used to generate electricity.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's claim that Iran could be developing nuclear-capable missiles was based on intelligence that was classified and based on what it called an "unvetted, single source."

Mr. Powell said Wednesday that intelligence indicates Iran is trying to modify its missiles to carry nuclear warheads, but did not elaborate.

Iran urges UN to ignore nuclear claims by exiles

(Reuters)19 November 2004

TEHERAN - Iran called on the UN nuclear watchdog body on Friday to ignore new allegations by a group of opposition exiles that it is trying to build nuclear weapons.

“The IAEA should not damage its prestige by listening to this terrorist group’s lies and taking it seriously,” Hossein Mousavian, Tehran’s chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Reuters.

Mousavian said the latest charges by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that Tehran is purifying uranium at a secret plant in Tehran for weapons, in violation of a pledge it made to both the European Union and United Nations, was an attempt to poison its relations with the agency.

“This piece of information is absolutely baseless. It will harm the good atmosphere created between us and the IAEA,” he said. The IAEA meets next week to discuss Iran’s atomic plans.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Friday also rejected claims by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Tehran had been working on ways to deliver an atomic warhead on a missile.

Powell’s assertions came hot on the heels of the NCRI charges. The group said Iran had obtained bomb-grade uranium and a warhead design from Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s atom bomb. Pakistan and Iran dismissed the allegations.

Diplomats say it would be hard for the IAEA to ignore the charges. Not all the NCRI’s past claims have been accurate, but enough of them have been to give the group a reputation as a key source of information on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

An NCRI spokesman said the group would release further details about the alleged secret enrichment plant in Tehran at a news conference in Paris later on Friday.

Iran on Sunday promised France, Germany and Britain it would halt its uranium enrichment programme in a bid to avoid a referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. The freeze is due to take effect on Nov. 22.

EUROPEANS DISTURBED

Diplomats in Vienna have said the EU was disturbed by the new NCRI charges as well as Powell’s.

Washington accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons. Tehran rejects this charge, saying its plans are only for the peaceful generation of electricity.

The IAEA began looking closely at Iran after the NCRI said in August 2002 Tehran was hiding a large uranium enrichment plant and other facilities from the agency. The charges were confirmed and Iran later declared the sites to the IAEA.

The NCRI is the political wing of the exiled group known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation. Both are listed by the US State Department as terrorist organisations.

Tehran has been developing a medium-range ballistic missile experts say would be able to hit Israel, Iran’s arch-foe.

The IAEA said in a new report on its two-year investigation of Iran’s nuclear programme that Iran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear materials to a weapons programme, but did not rule out the possibility secret atomic activities were taking place.

Diplomats said the IAEA planned to request a visit to the alleged new site in northeast Tehran to check the NCRI’s accusations.

Asked whether Iran would grant permission to the IAEA inspectors to visit the site, Mousavian said: “We have been cooperative with the IAEA and will continue to be so.

“We will assist it to verify the suspension before the board meeting.”

Diplomats: Iran Is Readying Nuke Processes

Friday November 19, 2004 3:46 PM

AP Photo VIE107

By GEORGE JAHN

Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran is using the last few days before it must stop all uranium enrichment to produce significant quantities of a gas that can be used to make nuclear weapons, diplomats said Friday.

Iran recently started producing uranium hexafluoride at its gas processing facilities in Isfahan, the diplomats told The Associated Press. When introduced into centrifuges and spun, the substance can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium that forms the core of nuclear warheads.

Iran last week agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and all related activities in a deal worked out with Britain, France, Germany and the European Union. The deal, which takes effect Monday, prohibits Iran from all uranium gas processing activities.

But the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tehran was exploiting the window until Monday to produce uranium hexafluoride at its Isfahan plant in central Iran.

Asked about quantities, one diplomat said ``it's not little,'' but he declined to elaborate.

Iran has huge reserves of raw uranium and has announced plans to extract more than 40 tons a year.

That amount, converted to uranium hexafluoride and repeatedly spun in centrifuges, theoretically could yield more than 200 pounds of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, enough for about five crude nuclear weapons.

Iranian officials say the Isfahan plant can convert more than 300 tons of uranium ore a year.

Iran is not prohibited from making uranium hexafluoride until the deal takes force. But its decision to carry out uranium processing right up to the freeze deadline was expected to disappoint the Europeans - and give the United States ammunition in its push to have the U.N. Security Council examine Tehran's nuclear activities.

Washington says Iran wants to enrich uranium to make weapons. Tehran says it is interested only in low-grade enriched uranium for nuclear power.

Iran announced suspension of enrichment last week, and the agency said it would police that commitment starting next week, ahead of the Nov. 25 IAEA board meeting.

Although the deal commits Iran to suspension only while a comprehensive aid agreement with the EU is finalized, the pledge reduced Washington's hopes of having the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency refer Iran to the Security Council when the board meets Thursday.

By opting to freeze - and not scrap - the program, Tehran has not dropped plans to run 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for what it says will be the fuel requirements of a nuclear reactor to be finished next year.

It currently possesses less than 1,000 centrifuges. But even with 1,500 centrifuges, experts say, Iran would be able to make enough weapons-grade uranium for about a bomb a year.

Iran, meanwhile, dismissed as ``baseless'' remarks by Secretary of State Colin Powell on its nuclear program, adding he should review his intelligence sources.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was reacting to Powell's comments on claims by the Iranian dissident group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, which alleged that Tehran was secretly running a program intended to produce nuclear weapons by next year.

Powell said Wednesday he had seen intelligence that partially confirmed the claim, including some indicating that Iran ``had been actively working on delivery systems'' for a nuclear weapon.

``There is no place for weapons of mass destruction in Iran`s defense doctrine,'' Asefi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Asefi suggested that U.S. officials ``reconsider their intelligence sources.''

On Thursday, Asefi dismissed the claims of the Iranian dissident group, which the United States and the European Union consider to be a terrorist organization.

``The claims are raised to destroy the positive atmosphere that resulted from the Paris agreement,'' Asefi said, referring to last week's accord on suspending uranium enrichment activities in return for British, French and German guarantees that Iran has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program.

Asefi said Friday that Powell's claims were ``indicative of U.S. anger over Iran`s process of confidence-building and transparency'' in its nuclear program, the official news agency reported.

Matt Drudge did us all a favor today with this headline:

XX IRAN IN NUKE RACE XX

The media doesnt ingore his posts.

It wouldn't hurt to thank him.

Iran Producing Gas Used In Making Nuclear Arms

Iran Using Lasers to Enrich Uranium - Exile Group

Iran 'rushing nuclear enrichment'

Nuclear Shell Game

John Loftus just reported on Fox News the following:

The Adventures of Chester

The Future of the Iranian Nuclear Program, Part III

Iranians Flip-Flop On Nuclear Agreement

More evidence of media bias.

Report: Scientist gave Iran nuke material

Iran denies it has secret nuke factory

Powell shared unverified Iran material, officials say

Iran: Nuclear Facility Used to Generate Electricity

Iran urges UN to ignore nuclear claims by exiles

XX IRAN IN NUKE RACE XX

Report: Scientist gave Iran
nuke material