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US calls on Europe's big three to send "stern message" to Iran

Fri Nov 19, 5:49 PM ET

VIENNA (AFP) - The United States has called on Britain, France and Germany to send a "stern message" to Iran to stop producing the uranium feedstuff gas that can be used to make nuclear weapons, a US official told AFP.

IAEA Photo

"We told the Europeans that we consider this to be really an act of bad faith and to deliver a stern message to Iran that they must stop this," the official said.

The official said the United States was waiting to see "what kind of message the Europeans will send," with the message to be separate from a resolution the European trio was drafting for a key meeting in Vienna Thursday of the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear program.

The US State Department said earlier in Washington that it was seriously concerned by new reports that Iran was producing the uranium feedstuff that could be used to make nuclear weapons just days before it is due to introduce a promised ban on all such enrichment activities.

The State Department was not able to substantiate accusations that Iran had converted 37 tonnes of uranium yellowcake into an unknown amount of uranium hexafluoride gas, but said that if the allegations were true they would further erode Tehran's already shakey credibility on the matter.

Uranium hexafluoride gas is used as the feed to make enriched uranium.

"Obviously, they are of concern," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. "If true, they would yet again raise serious concerns about Iranian good faith and intentions.

"These allegations only heighten our concerns that Iran continues to pursue nuclear activities and does not honor its commitments," he said.

The United States charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons and wants the IAEA to take Tehran to the UN Security Council, which could impose punishing sanctions.

To Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Program, 350 Targets Must Be Hit

DEBKAfile Special Report

November 19, 2004, 9:41 PM (GMT+02:00)


	Covert "shaved" site show here was moved to Nour nuclear suburb.

No one familiar with Iran’s record of broken promises on its hidden nuclear weapons program will be surprised by the allegations leveled against Tehran this week.

On Wednesday, November 17, outgoing US secretary of state Colin Powell said to reporters during a South American tour: US has intelligence that Iran is working to adapt missiles for the delivery of nuclear weapons. “I have seen information that they not only have the missiles but are working hard to put the two together.”

The highly classified, unverified information Powell referred to was described in more detail by the Washington Post the next day: 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 technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles.

DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4.

The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.

It would also mean that Tehran has been stringing along the International Atomic Energy Agency – the IAEA – and the three European powers, Britain, France and Germany, in months of negotiation. The upshot was an Iranian promise to the three, which was trumpeted this week, to suspend uranium enrichment for an indefinite period in three days time, in return for magnanimous incentives. Such promises have been made before and never last long. Three days later, on November 25, the International Atomic Energy Agency – the IAEA – holds a board meeting in Vienna. It must decide whether to accept Iran’s latest promise or refer Iran’s nuclear breaches to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Teheran therefore delivered its pledge in a race for time to save itself from sanctions that could threaten the Islamic republic’s regime’s survival.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 182 just out on Friday, November 19, was the first publication to name the Nour garden suburb of Lavizan in northeast Tehran as yet another covert site Iran has concealed from the IAEA. There, not only is enrichment going forward but also tests on lethal gases and weaponized biological agents.

According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, the Pentagon’s most recent game model on military measures to dispose of Iran’s nuclear threat concludes it will be necessary to topple the Islamic republic’s regime at the same time.

The first stage would be a bombing mission against the regime’s primary prop, the Revolutionary Guards.

The second stage would be the destruction of known and probable nuclear sites – a much harder mission given the hundreds of sites known and unknown number and carefully camouflaged underground behind cunning window-dressing. US intelligence estimates as many as 350 sites. It does not have precise knowledge of which are the most important or even which are active.

Regime change in stage three would entail ground action.

At present, there are no air bases within range for carrying out stages two and three. Sufficient US troops for overthrowing the regime would pose a problem given Iran’s land area of four times that of Iraq.

Furthermore, there is no assurance that Iran would wait for stages 2 or even 3. Iranian agents may well pre-empt US action or retaliate by sabotage strikes or terrorist action inside America.

Co-opting Israel’s air might to the operation poses problems too. The Israelis are found to know as little about the locations of installations as the Americans. To reach Iran, Israeli warplanes would have to fly east over Saudi Arabia and Jordan, or north over Turkey. The distance of some targets, such as Iran’s nuclear sites in the Caspian Sea region, is too great for Israeli planes to make the round trip.

Notwithstanding these impediments, America cannot afford to give up its military option and must keep it afloat as a deterrent, say the authors of the Pentagon game model.

A sample out of Iran’s bag of hide-and-seek tricks with the international nuclear watchdog was exposed in DEBKA-Net-Weekly 160 on June 4, 2004:

The most secret section of the latest report the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director Mohammed ElBaradai has drafted on Iran’s nuclear program is also the most embarrassing for the international nuclear watchdog. We reveal exclusively that when inspectors arrived in Iran in mid-May and asked to revisit installations they saw in February or April, they were astonished to find empty spaces. When they questioned their Iranian escorts, they were greeted with blank stares. “What installations?” the officials asked.

The inspectors pulled out photos from previous visits and showed the Iranian officials what had been there before. The Iranians dismissed them as having been shot in other places that looked the same - or grafted there by “hostile intelligence bodies.”

When the inspectors persevered and reported the existence of aerial photos showing the exact location of the missing facilities, the Iranians shrugged.

The amazing fact is that the Iranians had dismantled and swept away all the structures containing incriminating evidence of continuing uranium enrichment for weapons production so completely that there was no sign a building had ever stood there. The fresh flowerbeds were still in the same places as before but lawns had been extended to cover the sites, most probably with thick layers of earth. All the inspectors could do was to remove soil samples and take them away.

According to our sources, US officials involved in the Iranian nuclear issue have no doubt that the installations were not destroyed but removed to secret subterranean sites probably built under military bases scattered around the country and that the Iranians are industriously advancing their forbidden programs.

Five months later, we have discovered one of those clandestine destinations to be the Nour “nuclear suburb” of Tehran.

Changing the Guard

November 18, 2004
The Economist
The Economist print edition

America's capital is split down the middle on the significance of Colin Powell's resignation as secretary of state and his replacement (subject to Senate confirmation) by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser.

In the blue corner (as it were) are those who fear the change will mark an expansion of American hubris. The administration has lost its most powerful advocate for traditional moderate Republican internationalism, and can now be expected to stress its hard-edged, ideological hawkishness even more (if that were possible). This is the view—fear might be a better word—held by Democrats and many Europeans.

In the more optimistic red corner are those who think the change might provide an opening for renewed diplomacy. Both George Bush and Ms Rice, on this view, recognise that America's dismal image in the world is a problem and both want to repair frayed alliances. Mr Bush will travel to Europe soon after his inauguration. He also says he will do all he can to create a Palestinian state in his second term.

On balance, the red-corner optimists have the better argument, albeit with a proviso. Change in foreign policy is being driven more by facts on the ground than by any change of mind by the president and his foreign-adviser-in-chief.

It has to be admitted that there are plenty of reasons for scepticism about the possibility of greater engagement. Begin with the fact that Mr Powell has had more impact on the administration than many of his critics admit. America's relationship with China, for example, owes much to the outgoing secretary. In 2001, Mr Powell urged caution when China forced down an American spy plane in Chinese airspace. The administration's measured response paved the way for the current smooth relationship. The implication is that Mr Powell's achievements could be frittered away without his good counsel.

Moreover, Mr Bush could have nominated a more Powellite figure to the post than Ms Rice. In John Danforth, a former senator who is now America's ambassador to the United Nations, or in Bob Zoellick, the trade representative, the president could have found someone in the multilateralist Powell mould, had he wanted to do so. He might even, diplomatic scuttlebutt has it, have persuaded Mr Powell to stay on for a while.

In spurning such options, argue the pessimists, Mr Bush has abandoned any pretence that, in formulating foreign policy, he seeks a variety of options and then, like an efficiently impartial chief executive, picks and chooses. Instead, Ms Rice's nomination acknowledges the truth: that, for four years, foreign policy has been mostly run by a cabal of like-minded conservatives, who will now hear even fewer dissenting opinions.

Indeed, some diplomats and foreign-policy wonks fear Ms Rice's move will shift the balance of power inside that cabal towards its most hawkish members. While Ms Rice was at the National Security Council, the theory goes, she was the swing vote between Mr Powell on one side and Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, on the other. Most of the time she sided with the hawks, but not always.

Now that Ms Rice is in Foggy Bottom, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, has taken over a probably less-influential NSC, the super-hawks will swoop. Unlike Mr Powell, Ms Rice will not try to be a counterweight to Messrs Cheney and Rumsfeld. As national security adviser, she was rarely able to rein in these two champion bureaucratic street fighters and they will duly come to dominate foreign policy in the second term. In short, Mr Powell's removal will mark a hard right turn for an administration not known for emollience.

Perhaps. But the reasons for doubting this view are more persuasive. Ms Rice's influence in the administration is not institutional, like Mr Rumsfeld's. It is not rooted in a wealth of experience, like Mr Cheney's. It comes from having the president's ear, and trust. There is some risk that this influence could be diluted by distance. She will not, after all, be inside the White House, seeing the president every day.

Still, her personal connection with the arbiter of policy—what her friends call the “mind meld” between herself and the president—will remain. And since her deputy is taking over the NSC, she may even have a little more influence in the second term than in the first, combining, as she will, a personal connection with the president with institutional power at State and some residual sway over the NSC.

Ms Rice is no ideologue. By background, she is a hard-edged realist, a believer in the uses of American power and the importance of great-power relations. This puts her at odds with those in the administration who see no point in diplomatic charm offensives. She may have a purely instrumental view of diplomacy, but at least she thinks it has a role. Her nomination is no neo-conservative grab at every lever in the foreign-policy machine.

The three uncertainties

Nor is it clear that the removal of Mr Powell really changes anything much within the administration. Though he had some successes, they were confined to bilateral ties (China and India come to mind). But on the broader issues of the war on terror and the particular case of Iraq, he had little influence. When he did make a difference—such as persuading Mr Bush to seek a second UN resolution on Iraq—it ended in failure. The truth is that the State Department under Mr Powell was marginal, not a competing centre of power.

Indeed, his replacement by Ms Rice may actually improve the prospects for diplomacy by bringing greater certainty to proceedings. Foreigners liked Mr Powell. But there was always a chance that what he said would be disavowed by the president 48 hours later—as when he famously admitted that he had “got a little too far forward on my skis” in saying the administration would pick up with North Korea where Bill Clinton had left off. Ms Rice, by contrast, has the president's ear.

All that said, three big uncertainties loom over the Rice State Department. The first concerns the new secretary herself. For four years, Ms Rice has been a sounding board, tutor and weathervane. She will now have to articulate a clearer view of the post-al-Qaeda world. For example: she has a lot of expertise in Russia (her academic speciality was the Soviet army). But should America's attitude to Vladimir Putin's centralisation of power be determined by the need to keep good relations with a partner in the war on terror? Or should it be influenced more by Mr Bush's view that the best way to starve global terrorism is to encourage democracy?

The second uncertainty concerns her department. Does she spend time reshaping it, replacing the diplomats in charge of North Korea and the Middle East (say), while risking the sort of hostility and disruption that Porter Goss is encountering at the Central Intelligence Agency? Or does she—as James Baker did—bypass the diplomats, isolate the 7th floor of the State Department (where the secretary sits) and work around the bureaucracy? One measure of which route she intends to take will be her choice to succeed Mr Powell's loyal lieutenant, Richard Armitage, who also resigned this week. If she picks John Bolton, the punchy undersecretary for arms control, that would be a signal she intends to try to mould the department, not circumvent it.

But the big imponderable is how much appetite there is on both sides of the Atlantic for real diplomatic engagement. Even before the election, Mr Bush and Ms Rice privately indicated that, having got through three roller-coaster years after September 11th, it was time to patch things up in Europe and the Middle East—if only because diplomatic failure there could threaten what the president sees as his achievements in the war on terror. Even the most censorious of European governments know they must find a way to deal with the re-elected Bush administration.

But the fact remains that the three big “Is” dividing Europe and America—Israel, Iraq and Iran—are all hard to solve and easy to disagree about. At the moment, circumstances in all three (the death of Yasser Arafat, Iran's apparent nuclear concession, the prospect of Iraqi elections) are driving Europe and America together in a benevolent way. They are doing so at a time when Ms Rice's appointment opens up some possibility of greater diplomatic engagement. But there has been an overlap of interests, not a meeting of minds.

Spies Thrown Out in The Cold

November 18, 2004
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

Two months ago, Porter Goss, a seasoned Republican congressman and former spy, took charge of the Central Intelligence Agency. His task was to sort out an organisation that has been accused of several huge failures, including a collective failure to foresee the September 2001 terrorist attacks and a collective hallucination about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr Goss had called the CIA “dysfunctional”. As the agency's new head, he said he would have to get rid of much rotten wood. No surprise that Mr Goss is hard at work with his axe.

Over the past week, four senior members of the agency resigned, not all of their own free will. One of them, its acting chief before Mr Goss arrived, John McLaughlin, had been expected to hang up his magnifying glass after 32 years of service. But Stephen Kappes, the chief of secret operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, appear to have been forced out.

Predictably, this has caused resentment in the agency. Mr Goss's political past had already invited dark muttering against him. This week the muttering increased. The four close aides he brought with him from Capitol Hill have generated even louder indignation among CIA loyalists. The top one, Patrick Murray, has been accused of bullying. It appears that Mr Kappes tendered his resignation in response to Mr Murray's suggestion that he should sack his deputy. Mr Kappes was asked to change his mind. But then it turned out that his replacement had already been lined up.

That the CIA's corridors need a good sweep is not in doubt. At the publication of a recent report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Pat Roberts said that America's various intelligence organisations, not least the CIA, suffered from a “broken corporate culture and poor management”. The agency's bungles stretch way back. It failed to detect India's plan to test a nuclear bomb in 1998. The break-up of the Soviet Union, despite years of seismic creaking, was another big surprise to it. So Mr Goss's vigour has also brought applause. “If this were a company, you'd see a rise in the stock,” says Richard Perle, a former Defence Department official.

There is another reason for the Bush administration to look sternly at the CIA. Before this month's presidential election, some senior members of the agency appeared to be offering rather too muscular support to John Kerry. This included a series of leaks, not least about warnings the CIA had quite properly sent to Mr Bush before the Iraq war about its possibly dangerous consequences. One member of the agency, Michael Scheuer, even wrote an anonymous book entitled “Imperial Hubris”, castigating Mr Bush's foreign policy. He too resigned last week.

But repairing the CIA needs more than settling a few old scores. With two-thirds of the agency's staff congregated at its headquarters in Langley, there has emerged a complacent culture of “group-think”, as the Senate Intelligence Committee called it. Mesmerised by the attractions of high-tech espionage, the agency has neglected the bread-and-butter sort: getting spies dug into sensitive places. It did not have a single agent in pre-war Iraq. Mr Goss has promised to correct this, increasing the number of men in the field and cutting the bureaucracy. But this, his side says, requires a few top-level heads to roll.

If roll they must, it will not be without a fight. Officers of the CIA have resumed their whispering to newspapers. Mr Goss's choice for the agency's third-in-command was overruled after the Washington Post had been told an embarrassing story about his past. In tussles between the clandestine and political worlds, the spooks often have a lot of stuff to leak.

Bill Gertz in Betrayal catalogued Iran's receipt of Russian missile assistance which the Clinton administration repeatedly refused to sanction.

Clinton's betrayal of America's national security is the gift that keeps on giving.

Hence the assured defeat of his copresident's attempt in 2008:

Powell: His Iran Nuclear Comment Shouldn't Be Surprise

[Excerpt]
November 19, 2004

NEW YORK -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday it "shouldn't surprise anybody" that if Iran had been working to design a nuclear warhead they "certainly" were also trying to "figure out how they would deliver" it. In an interview on Chilean television, Powell said the comments he first made Thursday about Iran 's nuclear weapons ambitions weren't "brand new news."

Powell said "I made a statement yesterday that said we have some information, I've seen some information, and the dissidents have put out some information that suggests the Iranians are working on designs one would have to have" to put such a warhead onto a missile.

An excerpt of Powell's interview with Chilean television was aired by the Cable News Network.

The Washington Post reported Friday that Powell had shared information with reporters that was classified and based on an unvetted, single source. Two officials told the newspaper that the information was highly significant if true, but it hadn't been verified yet. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters Friday: " I'm not going to speak to the intelligence information available to us. What I will say is that we believe we are on very, very solid ground in pointing to a clandestine effort by Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems." ...

The Multilateralist

[Excerpt] November 19, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

Rumor has it -- actually, NBC has reported -- that Undersecretary of State John Bolton is in line to be promoted to Deputy Secretary now that Richard Armitage has submitted his resignation. In Washington parlance, Mr. Bolton is said to be a "hard-liner," which is meant to suggest that he is one of those "unilateralists" who doesn't play well with other countries.

And yet Mr. Bolton is also the architect of what has arguably been Colin Powell's most important achievement at State, the very "multilateral" Proliferation Security Initiative. About 60 countries now participate in PSI, which relies on existing international treaties and bilateral agreements to interdict WMD, delivery systems and related materials at sea, on land and in the air. Last year PSI allies halted the shipment of uranium-enrichment equipment headed for Libya's nuclear-weapons program.

One of the attractions of PSI is that countries participate as needed on a voluntary basis. Four nations -- the U.S., Britain, Germany and Italy -- took part in the Libya operation. Also last year Taiwan, working with the U.S., boarded a North Korean freighter and confiscated its undeclared cargo of a chemical pre-cursor that could be weaponized. This past week 16 countries have been participating in "Chokepoint '04," a maritime-interdiction exercise off the coast of Key West, Florida, and using techniques that work with drug interdictions. Twenty-two nations took part in a similar drill in Japan last month. This kind of multilateralism is palatable even to the French, who were among PSI's original 11 participants. (Has anyone told Jacques Chirac?)...

Sounds to us as if Mr. Bolton is exactly the right man to be Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

IRAN WARNS IAEA “NOT TO PLAY IN THE HANDS OF TERRORISTS”.

By Safa Haeri
Posted Thursday, November 18, 2004

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PARIS, 18 Nov. (IPS) Iran rejected Thursday as “baseless” allegations by the outlawed Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO) claiming that it has secret nuclear bomb centres near Tehran.

"I totally deny these allegations. This site is not a nuclear site and has nothing to do with our nuclear activities”, Mr. Hoseyn Moussavian, a senior Iranian negotiator with the International nuclear watchdog and the European Union’s so-called “Big 3” said, stressing that Iran has no undeclared nuclear activities.

Spokesmen for the National Council for Resistance in Iran, the political arm of the MKO had alleged on Tuesday that the Iranian military is actively engaged in the process of building atomic bomb by next year.

It is not good for the agency to be played and manipulated by a well-known terrorist group.

"It is not good for the agency to be played and manipulated by a well-known terrorist group", Moussavian pointed out, adding that Iran has agreed to all demands by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for inspecting its nuclear centres.

"We have always responded positively to the agency's inspections requests. We have always cooperated", the British news agency Reuters quoted the official as having indicated when asked if IAEA inspectors could visit the alleged secret site.

“It is a well-timed lie as well. The group wants to make another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting on 25 November", Mr. Mousavian, who is the head of the Foreign Policy of Iran’s Supreme Council on National Security observed, adding: "They want to poison the board's atmosphere".

In a report to the IAEA’s Board of Directors, the Agency’s Chief said investigations by the Agency’s inspectors in the past two years shows that Iran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear materials to a weapons program, but did not rule out the possibility secret atomic activities existed.

A former high-ranking commander with the MKO told Iran Press Service that the group, listed by the United States and most western governments as a terrorist organisation has “no real information on what the Iranians are doing, even on civilian activities”.

Sources close to the Iranian nuclear programs told IPS that “because of its record of espionage for (the now toppled Iraqi dictator) Saddam Hussein and collaboration with the United States and Israel, Iran’s arch ‘enemies, the MKO has been almost wiped out in Iran and the families of members of the group in Iran are under tight control.

“Scientists working in Iranian nuclear activities, both civilian and military are checked regularly by specialists. Besides, being nationalists or fundamentalists, they are proud producing nuclear energy”, the source told IPS on condition of anonymity.

Hojjatoleslam Ali Mobbasheri, Prosecutor of Tehran’s Islamic Revolution tribunal announced on Wednesday that four people were tried for nuclear espionage activities.

Although he did not say when the men had been arrested and refused to identify them, but he let it be known hat the accused are members of the MKO.

Asked about the group’s earlier disclosure of secret Iranian nuclear centres, the former MKO official who was in charge of the group’s military intelligence and security said most of the information they produced were coming from American sources.

He was referring to the so-called revelations made in 2002 by the group in Washington on uranium-enrichment plant near the central city of Natanz.

“Those sites were not secret. The Americans had them caught by their satellites. At that time, the MKO was the darling of the Pentagon and the CIA that, in order to popularize them with the American and Western public opinion, they provided the group with the information that they confirmed one day after by publishing the pictures”, the source explained.

The Vienna-based IAEA subsequently investigated the sites.

The timing of these revelations raises suspicions that the group is attempting to derail Iran's deal with the Europeans.

Both Farid Soleimani and Mohammad Mohaddesin, spokesmen for the MKO’s political branch told a press conference in Vienna and Paris on Wednesday that the Iranian military was hiding an enrichment site in northeast Tehran and claimed Abdul Qadeer Khan known as the “father” of Pakistan’s atomic programs had delivered bomb designs and weapons-grade uranium to Iran.

Pakistan has already dismissed the claim as "highly exaggerated".

One day after the new allegations from the MKO, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Washington had information that Iran is seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

"I have seen some information that would suggest that they've been actively working on delivery systems to deliver it", Mr. Powell said.

On November 9 Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said that Iran is capable of mass-producing the Shahab-3, a 1.500 to 1.700 kilometres range ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel.

Asked if he got the information from the National Council for Resistance in Iran, Powell said: "I've seen intelligence which would corroborate what this dissident group is saying, and it should be of concern to all parties," Powell said.

But David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan arms control group in Washington, said, "The timing of these revelations raises suspicions that the group is attempting to derail Iran's deal with the Europeans, particularly since there is no evidence to back up any of these claims".

He added that the allegation that Pakistan supplied Iran with highly enriched uranium in 2001 "seems preposterous, given the fact that was a year when the United States was really cracking down on Pakistan's nuclear export activities."

“It is not surprising that every time Iran and Europe and the IAEA come close to some understanding, the MKO make revelations that are immediately enlarged by the American media and officials”, an Iranian analyst observed, referring to the latest accords reached last week in Paris between officials from Iran and the European “Troika”.

Tehran agreed to suspend enriching uranium as from 22 November and in turn, is expecting that its controversial case would be dropped by the IAEA when its 35 directors meet again on 25 November in Vienna.

Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the Secretary of the SCNS and Iran’s top negotiator with both the IAEA and the Big 3 has warned that the 25 November meeting would be of “capital importance” for the future of Iran-Europe-IAEA cooperation.

However, the Paris Accord had come under strong criticism from Iranian hard liners. Mr. Ali Larijani, a former Head of Iranian Radio and Television controlled directly by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the leader of the Islamic Republic tipped to be a candidate for the coming presidential elections in Iran said recently in reference to the accords that “Iran gave pearls to Europe and got bonbons instead”.

But both President Mohammad Khatami and Mr. Moussavian repeated in separate declarations that all agreements reached with the Europeans were approved by the leader.

France, Britain and Germany are drafting a resolution on Iran for a key meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog next week and Washington is pushing the trio to include some tough language, diplomats said on Thursday.

"They are preparing a resolution that will deal with the suspension of the enrichment program and verification of the suspension by the IAEA," a Western diplomat close to the Iran-EU negotiations told Reuters.

The draft resolution will be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board when it meets on Nov. 25.

Diplomats said Washington would like the Europeans to include a so-called "trigger mechanism" in the resolution that would set the stage for a referral to the Security Council if Iran resumed activities linked to uranium enrichment or was found to be hiding any more sites from the IAEA.

But they said the EU three would prefer to avoid any harsh U.S.-backed language that could disrupt the delicate talks aimed at persuading Tehran to permanently abandon enrichment. ENDS IRAN NUCLEAR 181104

The official said the United States was waiting to see "what kind of message the Europeans will send,"

The process has begun. We don't have time to fool around with this. Europe will have to choose quickly.

Diplomats Say Tehran Sends Wrong Signal

Iran Said to Continue to Convert Uranium Despite Pact With Europe

[Excerpt]

By Dafna Linzer

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2004; Page A10

Despite promises to freeze its nuclear programs, Iran has continued to convert uranium for enrichment, diplomats in Washington and Vienna said yesterday, a situation that they said signals potential trouble for a new and still untested agreement between the Islamic republic and European countries.

Earlier this week Tehran agreed to freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for guarantees that it would not face the prospect of U.N. sanctions while it continued to negotiate with diplomats from Britain, France and Germany. That deal was to take effect Monday, so while Iran's conversion work does not technically violate its terms or international law, it sparked concern among the Europeans that Iran was going to look for loopholes to continue its nuclear programs.

"This is really a shot in the eye," one European diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting the deal more.

To help sell the deal to a skeptical Bush administration, Britain, France and Germany drafted a U.N. resolution making it clear that any Iranian attempt to pursue nuclear materials during the negotiations would result in immediate referral to the Security Council, according to diplomats who have seen the draft.

The unambiguous language in the two-page resolution was shared with Bush administration officials yesterday; a final version is to be presented at the International Atomic Energy Agency's board meeting on Iran next week in Vienna.

Diplomats here and in the Austrian capital confirmed yesterday that Iran has continued to convert raw uranium to hexafluoride gas, known as UF6, the end stage for the uranium before it can be enriched.

"The Iranians are trying to get as much work in before the suspension takes effect because they know most countries want the freeze to be permanent," a Western diplomat said.

The IAEA expects all of Iran's programs to come to a halt on Monday, in accordance with the European deal. It will then attempt to verify the freeze and report its findings to the agency's board three days later.

Iran, rich in oil and gas, insists its work is geared toward the development of a nuclear energy source. But the scale of its programs and the years of secret work Iran conducted have fueled suspicion that it has a covert weapons program.

U.S. officials have said little publicly about the Euro-Iranian deal, though privately many in the Bush administration are skeptical that it will last more than a few weeks.

State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Wednesday that the United States was "agnostic" about the agreement and has noted that a previous deal among the four countries fell apart in June.

Diplomats for the three European allies have said they are not convinced the deal will hold either but are willing to give direct negotiations a chance.

But the deal has been rocked almost daily by fresh accusations and information since it was accepted on Sunday.

During a conversation about Iran with reporters accompanying him on a trip to Chile on Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he had "seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems."

He continued: "I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead, I'm talking about what one does with a warhead."

Powell's comments surprised senior officials in the administration who had been privy to the classified and unverified information about Iran's missile and warhead capabilities.

Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence received hundreds of pages of documents purporting to be Iranian nuclear warhead designs and plans to modify missiles to carry such warheads. But that information, officials said, has not been authenticated by U.S. intelligence. Officials have been proceeding cautiously in attempting to verify the information, mindful of mistakes made in prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons capabilities based partly on bad intelligence.

European officials, worried that Powell's comments undermined their deal with Iran, were told that the secretary misspoke, several sources said.

Powell, whose spokesman said the secretary stood by his remarks, did not refer to the controversy during an interview Friday with Spanish-language Univision television.

His deputy, Richard L. Armitage, told al-Jazeera television: "There's not a big secret that Iran has been developing missiles. It's always been the combination of a drive for nuclear weapons and missiles that has been a great concern for the United States." ...

Terrorist MKO making some strong inroads. Disturbing! Let's not forget this is a radical Islamist Marxist group where all members are required to dress alike and think alike.

USE them only.

Briefing frenzy in Washington over Iran nuclear fear

By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 20/11/2004)

A briefing war erupted in Washington yesterday over the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions and how to counter them - a debate reminiscent of the countdown to the invasion of Iraq.

Washington has been thrown into a frenzy following Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks that Iran is studying how to equip a missile with a nuclear bomb.


	Colin Powell: a rare stumble or deliberate political manouevre?

Even as officials pondered whether his remarks were a slip or a deliberate attempt to scupper a new initiative by Germany, France and Britain, the debate intensified yesterday over reports that the intelligence had been based on a single, unvetted source.

According to the Washington Post a "walk-in" source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages of documents containing the information that Mr Powell cited.

The suggestion that the information was based on a single source aroused alarm. Many politicians and journalists in Washington are still reeling from their over-reliance on single sources for the misleading pre-war intelligence about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Powell's comments initially fuelled speculation that Washington was seeking to undercut a tentative deal by three European Union states with Teheran for it to freeze its nuclear enrichment programme. Yesterday he played down the impact of his remarks, saying: "This shouldn't be brand new news. . .this shouldn't surprise anybody."

The growing diplomatic consensus, however, was that Mr Powell had made a rare stumble and had been lulled into saying more than he intended.

But the administration has stood by his remarks, which chime conveniently with the dominant view in Washington that the EU's diplomatic overtures are naïve and doomed. But for the moment, the administration seems willing to give the Europeans a chance, not least because it is still mired in Iraq.

"We've seen previous agreements signed," one senior administration official told The Telegraph yesterday. "What we would like to see is a real commitment. Our concern is that we see action. We'll wait and watch."

Jo Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation programme at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, said it appeared that Mr Powell had stumbled and had not intended to "sink the (EU's) deal". But, he added, the "result is the same" and his comments played into the hands of administration hawks.

"The administration did not back down," he said. "It had numerous opportunities to do so but did not."

President George W Bush flew to Chile yesterday for the summit of Asian and Pacific leaders for his first appearance on the world stage since his re-election, with the nuclear proliferation threat posed by North Korea at the top of his agenda.

Back home in Washington, the main focus will be on Iran, likely to be the defining issue of Mr Bush's second term.

Despite yesterday's attempts to undermine Mr Powell's intelligence, the administration appears far more unified in its intention to confront Iran, than it was to face down Saddam Hussein.

Patience in Washington is fast running out. John Bolton, under-secretary of state for arms control, has been pushing for a tougher line and is said to believe that Iran should have been referred to the UN Security Council a year ago.

American officials will be looking for clear means of verifying the Iranian claims that they are freezing their programmes from Monday.

The claims were being greeted with increasing scepticism in Washington yesterday in the light of reports from Iran that it using its last few days before the deadline to produce a gas that can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Diplomats told the Associated Press that Iran was using its last few days to produce significant quantities of uranium hexafluoride which can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium.

U.S. Stands by Powell Comments on Iran Nuke Threat

Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday defended its charges that Iran was working to fit a missile with a nuclear warhead and dismissed doubts about the reliability of its intelligence on the Islamic republic.

And the No. 2 U.S. diplomat suggested Washington's deliberately tough line was part of a strategy that could help Europeans who are negotiating to persuade Iran to suspend some nuclear activities.

"We believe we are on very, very solid ground in pointing to a clandestine effort by Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems," Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, told reporters.

The Washington Post cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying the information, made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, was unverified and based on a single "walk-in" source. Ereli said he would not discuss intelligence.

Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, a former NATO boss, challenged the U.S. allegations. "At this point, the Iranians do not have any nuclear weapons, so it's impossible to use the missiles with nuclear weapons," he said during a visit to Austria.

Powell earlier this week said the United States had intelligence suggesting Iran was working on the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Powell has repeatedly claimed credit for throwing a spotlight on Iran's nuclear activities and raising concern about Tehran's ambitions among major powers, such as Britain, France and Germany.

His accusation came days after the European powers won a pledge from Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities in exchange for talks on economic incentives.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the U.S. stance made the Europeans' negotiations more effective.

"My view would be that the incentives of the Europeans only work against the backdrop of the United States being strong and firm on this issue," Armitage told the Arab-language television network Al Jazeera. "In the vernacular, it's kind of a good cop-bad cop arrangement. If it works, we'll all have been successful."

Powell's allegations, made without accompanying evidence during a trip to Brazil, prompted comparisons with the Bush administration's prewar charges that Iraq had developed illicit weapons that threatened U.S. interests.

Those charges formed the core of Washington's case for war. However, no such weapons were ever discovered, and there is widespread agreement among experts that they never existed in any substantial number.

A senior State Department official, who asked not to be named, told reporters the intelligence Powell cited on Iran was "good enough to talk about."

Western diplomats in Vienna also said that despite the European accord, which takes effect Nov. 22, Iran was preparing large amounts of uranium for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran denied the accusation.

Ereli, who could not substantiate those claims, said, "These allegations only heighten our concerns that Iran continues to pursue nuclear activities and does not honor its commitments."

Mujahedeen-e-Khalq
Iranian rebels

How is MEK funded?
When Saddam Hussein was in power, MEK received the majority of its financial support from the Iraqi regime. It also used front organizations, such as the Muslim Iranian Student’s Society, to collect money from expatriate Iranians and others, according to the State Department’s counterterrorism office. In 2001, the Justice Department accused seven Iranians in the United States of funneling donations—between $5,000 and $10,000 per day—collected at Los Angeles International Airport to MEK. The money allegedly was for starving children in Iran; according to the FBI, it was used to buy arms.
Did MEK have ties to Saddam Hussein?
Yes. Iraq was MEK’s primary benefactor. Iraq provided MEK with bases, weapons, and protection, and MEK harassed Saddam’s Iranian foes. Experts say MEK’s attacks on Iran traditionally intensified when relations between Iran and Iraq grew strained. Iraq encouraged or restrained MEK, depending on its Baghdad’s interests.

Did U.S. forces crack down on MEK during the Iraq war?
Yes. In early April, U.S. forces bombed MEK bases. On April 15, though, the United States signed a ceasefire with MEK, the first such agreement between the United States and a terror group. The ceasefire reportedly instigated fierce debate among President Bush’s national security advisers. Under pressure from the State Department, U.S. officials changed course and disarmed MEK, but pledged to guard MEK from attacks by Iranian forces or the Badr Brigade, an Iranian-backed group of Iraqi exiles.

Have there been other anti-terror moves directed at MEK?
Yes. On June 17, French authorities arrested some 160 MEK members, including Maryam Rajavi, outside Paris. They accused MEK of conspiring to prepare and finance acts of terrorism from the group’s French base, where authorities also confiscated $8 million. All the suspects were subsequently released, including Rajavi, but many were confined to their homes while the investigation continues.

When did MEK target Americans?
In the early 1970s, angered by U.S. support for the pro-Western shah, MEK members killed several U.S. soldiers and civilians working on defense projects in Iran. Some experts say the attack may have been the work of a Maoist splinter faction operating beyond the Rajavi leadership’s control. MEK members also supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

Do some U.S. lawmakers support MEK?
Yes. MEK—or at least its political wing, the National Council of Resistance—has enjoyed the support of some members of Congress for several years. In August 2001, 30 U.S. senators asked the Bush administration to reconsider MEK’s designation as a terrorist group. Since September 11, some U.S. lawmakers have withdrawn their support; others have reiterated it. The European Union added MEK to its roster of terrorist organizations in May 2002, despite some support for the group among European lawmakers.

Why do some U.S. lawmakers support MEK?
Because it opposes Iran—a regime that the U.S. government says sponsors terrorism and seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction. MEK has reportedly provided the U.S. government with valuable intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program. Over the years, MEK became more palatable to many in Congress by abandoning its Marxist doctrine and recasting itself as a pro-democratic, pro-capitalist organization that supports the rights of women and minorities. The group has a female leader and about half of its troops in Iraq are women. Some skeptics argue that the prominent role of women in MEK is less a reflection of the group’s values than a publicity tool aimed at garnering support among Iranian exiles opposed to the Tehran government’s religious restrictions on women.

Some terrorism experts also call for MEK’s removal from the State Department terror list. They argue that MEK has not attacked Americans in three decades. They also say that placing the group on the terror list was a misguided conciliatory gesture to Iran and that MEK instead should be supported as a legitimate source of resistance to the Iranian government.

Does MEK have support in Iran?
Very little, according to experts and press reports. Iranians criticize MEK for accepting support from Iraq, carrying out attacks against Iran on Iraq’s behalf, and murdering Iranian civilians. Many Iranians consider MEK “as toxic, if not more so, than the ruling clerics,” according to The New York Times Magazine.

Does MEK consider itself a terrorist group?
No, and it has protested being labeled one by the U.S. government. In 2001, MEK was granted a hearing by the State Department after a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the group’s due-process rights were violated when it was denied the chance to oppose its terrorist-group designation. MEK’s place on the terror-group list was subsequently reaffirmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. However, the Washington, D.C., office of the National Council of Resistance remains open.

Is MEK a cult?
We don’t know, but it has some of the trappings of a cult. Members reportedly deify Maryam Rajavi; her photographs are found throughout MEK camps, and followers staged public self-immolations to protest her arrest. Members are said to undergo regular self-criticism sessions. They also reportedly are required to divorce; children are separated from their parents and sent to Western nations for adoption by Iranian families. When they reach 18, some of them return to join MEK, because “from the day they were born, these girls and boys were not taught to think for themselves but to blindly follow their leaders,” according to a New York Times Magazine account.

http://www.cfrterrorism.org/groups/mujahedeen2.html

US calls on Europe's big three to send "stern message" to Iran

Meanwhile. .

Mexico seeks greater ties with Iran mullahs," Nov 19, 2004

Mexico is ready for expanding ties with Iran on all areas, notably in economy and trade, the deputy of Mexico's foreign ministry for economic affairs, Irma Avriana said on Friday.

Speaking to the grand seminar on Irano-Mexican economic relations, Avriana said Iran was an important power in the Middle East and" we believe expanding ties with Iran will be in the intersts of every country including Mexcio".

Also addressing the audience, the head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Alinaghi Khamoushi said Iran enjoyed an economic growth rate of 6.5, adding his chamber tried to strenghten trade bewteen the two countries.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_4531.shtml

Thanks for the post.