Posted on 10/08/2005 5:50:46 PM PDT by blam
Iran puts radicals in charge of nuclear programme
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 09/10/2005)
Iran's new hardline president has placed his country's nuclear programme under the control of militant commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the military's most committed wing.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has launched a purge of moderates in national and provincial government since his election two months ago, has drafted in fellow radical revolutionaries to top administrative posts - a move that will heighten Western fears over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Many of the new power-brokers are veterans of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds (Jerusalem) Force, in which Mr Ahmadinejad held the rank of brigadier general. The unit is linked to a series of international terrorist attacks and the main backer of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), a leading opposition group that has previously exposed clandestine nuclear sites, gave details of the appointment of high-ranking Quds Force officers to senior positions to The Sunday Telegraph. Other Iranian exiles with contacts inside the country are also tracking the purges.
Most significantly, the country's nuclear programme, which Iran claims is for civilian purposes, is in the hands of hardliners who, like Mr Ahmadinejad, were young radicals at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
American and British intelligence are certain that Teheran is trying to develop atomic weapons. "This is not like the pre-war debate about whether Iraq was working on weapons of mass destruction," an American intelligence official said. "Iran has a nuclear weapons programme. There are no doubts."
The disclosures come days after Tony Blair said that explosives used by insurgents to kill British soldiers in Iraq "lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah", effectively ending a long-running diplomatic effort to woo Iran.
He put the nuclear program under the Revolutionary Guard as a warning, as well as a buffer to those who would consider assassinating him.
Yep...put himself out of the K zone...lol
it is time for Washington to do something right for a change. Iran is on the short list.
Good I feel so much safer now. Those crazy liberals there in Iran might have got their hands on them. Next thing you know they might make a radical President.
Teheran should have been cobalted in 1979.
That's my "short list"....haha.
Agree. If Mahmoud doesn't meet his maker soon, we have a problem and it won't just be Houston's.
Probably his main reason in doing this was to keep what they are doing secret. We need much better intelligence in Iran than we have. We need to know exactly where their nuke facilities are.
GWB must eliminate this threat before he leaves office!!
POS Carter couldn't even pull off a rescue mission.
Gee, Nobel peace prize winner Baradei's IAEA has done such a great job of ensuring peace in this region...
oh yeah, this is fun
Someone needs to, that's for darned sure. Outside of the illusive "powers that be," there is no more dangerous individual on this planet than Ahmadinejad.
Iran's next big earthquake will be manmade............
Time for "Shock and awl"!!!!
POS Carter couldn't even pull off a rescue mission.
And just like Teheran, he is still around, causing trouble, instead of sitting on the porch with his banjo, in "deliverance", where he belongs.
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