"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin
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.
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.
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." ...
Washington 19 November 2004 |
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.
“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.”
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.
It wouldn't hurt to thank him.
