IAEA Report Card: 32% out of 100%...
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Posted on 11/21/2005 3:17:17 PM PST by conservativecorner
WASHINGTON (AP) - An Iranian exile who opposes his country's Islamic government said Monday that Iran's military is building a series of secret tunnels to hide equipment for missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, who helped expose nuclear facilities in Iran in the past, told a news conference in September that tunnels were under construction mainly in an area called Parchin.
But on Monday he said the secret construction of missiles extends well beyond that location. He said that on orders of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the Iranian defense ministry has taken over an area in eastern and southern regions of Tehran.
North Korean experts have cooperated with Iran in the design and building of the complex, producing blueprints, for instance, the dissident said.
A leading Iranian aerospace group, Hemmat Industries, is located in the area and is building three versions of Shahab and Ghadar missiles, Jafarzadeh said.
The Shahab 3 has a range of 1,300 to 1,900 kilometers and Ghadar, still in the production stage, 2,500 to 3,000 kilometers, he said.
Some of the tunnels are located in Kahk Sefid Mountain, he said, pointing to a map.
In an interview, Jafarzadeh said the most significant development was that Iran was concentrating its work on missiles and nuclear warheads all together in tunnels underground in the Tehran area.
"I think the United States should be doubly worried about this because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sped up its nuclear weapons program and the revolutionary guards are now dominating all three branches of power - executive, legal and judicial," Jafarzadeh said.
"It's a nightmare," he said.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack agreed that Iran has a covert nuclear program. "It's hidden from sight and it's hidden through a variety of means," he said.
However, McCormack said he did not know about Jafarzadeh's latest disclosures. And there's been "a very mixed record in terms of some of these groups in talking about so-called revelations about Iran's nuclear programs."
Negotiations between the European Union and Iran are stalemated.
Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a private watchdog group, criticized the Bush administration for trying to defuse the standoff by endorsing a Russian proposal to let Iran enrich its own uranium so long as the enrichment is done in Russia.
"The United States has stepped onto a slippery slope," he said, and given Iran's record of concealment and deception, "this is an approach that invites serious trouble for the future."
We need to end it in Iraq and go after the real problem next door...
We need to end it in Iraq and go after the real problem next door...
Iran has been itching for a fight since about 1979. We really need to grant them that wish. Strength and military might is the only message these fanatics understand and have a respect for. Unfortunately, what our right hand wishes to do, our left hand does everything in its power to see that it doesn't happen. Hopefully, the left will take off its rose-colored glasses before there is a smoking hole in Israel or here at home.
QUESTION: There's an Iranian exile who's given a news conference today and making what he calls revelations about Iran's nuclear programs, that they're twofold, mainly: that Iran has this very extensive network of underground tunnels to hide its missile production; and that North Korea is helping in that production. So my questions are do you -- does the U.S. Government share the thought that these things are actually going on and have you asked the IAEA to examine them?
MR. MCCORMACK: I haven't seen the news conference that you're referring to. We have -- we and the rest of the world, I think, have seen as the Iranians seek to sort of drip out piece by piece their nuclear program, and I would say doing so grudgingly; that this is a program that is covert, it's hidden from sight and it's hidden through a variety of different means. As for these specific reports, I can't speak to them, Saul. I don't know. There's been a certainly, a very mixed record in terms of some of these groups in talking about so-called revelations about Iran's nuclear programs, but you know, I can't speak to these particular allegations.
I imagine we have satelites that could explore from overhead to read what is underground in these questionable places.
IAEA Report Card: 32% out of 100%...
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