Posted on 05/25/2007 3:12:40 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
CBS News has learned that Iran is continuing to make progress on its expanded efforts to enrich uranium — in spite of covert efforts by U.S. and other allied intelligence agencies to actively sabotage the country's nuclear program.
"Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works," says Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad. Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.
"One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it's a black market … you don't know exactly who you are dealing with," Fitzpatrick says.
Senior government representatives, who spoke to CBS News on condition that neither they nor their country be identified, pointed to the case of the exploding power supplies. Installed at the pilot enrichment facility at Natanz in April 2006 as Iran was first attempting to enrich uranium, the power supplies, used to regulate voltage current, blew up, destroying 50 centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in January of this year that the equipment had been "manipulated."
There is other evidence, CBS News was told, that some of the technical difficulties Iran is having in consistently running its centrifuges are the results of a concerted effort at industrial sabotage.
Sources familiar with the U.S. effort against Iran tell CBS News that U.S. intelligence agencies have run several programs in recent years, employing different techniques, including modifying components in hard-to-detect ways and making subtle changes to technical documents and drawings, rendering them useless.
"Governments [interested in deterring Iran] are investing a lot of effort to disrupt the Iranian trade, or track their purchases," Albright says.
Iran is vulnerable to industrial sabotage because it is prohibited from buying what it wants on the open market. Instead, analysts say, it has turned to the black market, focusing efforts to clandestinely acquire the technology in Western Europe. Intelligence sources tell CBS News that Iranian agents working from the Islamic Republic's consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, have shipped home banned components using the protection and secrecy of diplomatic bags.
Although export controls are stronger in Europe than in many other countries, the Iranians still need European products because of either their quality or reliability, or because they already have European-manufactured products and are looking for spare parts.
But the procurement network is global, and trans-national, analysts say. In Dubai and other neighboring nations, Iran has established a shifting network of front companies.
"These are clandestine efforts. Iran frequently changes its front companies, frequently changes its financial arrangements, and government intelligence agencies have been looking at this," says Fitzpatrick
Albright says Iran has become even more sophisticated in its illicit procurement efforts than the network established by AQ Khan that obtained components and materiel for Pakistan's bomb program.
"They have moved beyond just front companies and are very hard to detect," he said. "The Iranians are very clever."
Iran is described as "highly suspicious" and "almost paranoid," and is believed to be predisposed to believe that any of its many technical problems may be the result of foreign sabotage.
"It’s impossible to say the extent to which Iran has discovered any industrial espionage," Fitzpatrick says. "Any technical problems that Iran experiences in its program, some of which were the result of its own speed-up effort, Iran may attribute to foreign espionage."
According to diplomats, getting the Iranians to believe that components may have been tampered with can be as effective in delaying the program as the real thing. But the diplomats also warn that with enough money and time, Iran's nuclear ambitions cannot be derailed by sabotage alone.
Real headline: CBS Working to Sabotage USA
ABC and CBS should be prosecuted. And, also, the CIA snake who keeps leaking this information.
Oh-OH, cats out of the bag, all those centrifuges were suppose to run counterclockwis instead.
Loose lips sink ships, and the MSM’s are flapping away every chance they get.
He kept the diaries during his presidential terms. His second entry was about Iran.
"Monday, January 26
A meeting with head of FBI-SS-CIA, Sec's of Defense & others. Have ordered they be given back their ability to function...Hostages will arrive in country tomorrow. It seems some of them had some tough questions cor Carter in Germany as to why they were there so long and why they were there to begin with.
President Reagan speaks from the gravre. Take that Carter.
CARTER: THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER
No wonder his red-neck brother Billy died young. God didn’t want him to be embarrassed all these years.
(I can’t wait to get my copy of the Reagan Diaries.)
Do not worry: “Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad. Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.”
The effect of this is to slow down the use of these components as they are unreliable. I does not matter if it is true or not it has the same effect.
Former President Carter is a mixture of Woodrow Wilson (a pious, do-gooder, know-it-all academic), Grant (cronyism), LBJ (micromanagement of EVERYTHING—he ran the White House tennis court schedule, for God’ sake!) Nixon (dirty tricks) and Truman (thin-skinned and vengeful), with none of their redeeming qualities.... Worst president of the 20th Century, and that is saying something!!
So, it then took weeks for the 4th ID to transit the Suez Canal and up into Iraq through Kuwait.
Since this leak, there has been a flood of leaks from the CIA (think Plame/Wilson), the State Department and even the Pentagon. The Bush Administration has done nothing to stem the attack on itself by the permanent bureaucracy in Washington.
I can understand why Americans could believe there is no war going on. The President doesn't seem to take it seriously. He is certainly opposed to any border security, even with 40-50,000 illegals coming across the Mexican border from countries tha support jihad. The President doesn't talk about victory and how he's going to achieve it. The President doesn't defend the troops or America from Media assault.
The Bush Family business has been politics. Dubya has destroyed the family business. No Bush will be elected again. He claimed he was different from his Daddy, but he's not. He's wimped out, just like his Daddy.
After Bush I we got 8 years of Clinton. Will the GOP survive Bush II? Thank you Bush Family.
CBS is despicable.
Here we go again, another major news network reporting on a classified government operation. WILL THESE TRAITORS EVER STOP????? ARE THEY TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED?????? I’M TIRED OF THIS, SOMEONE IN THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO BE TRYING THESE PEOPLE AS TRAITORS!!!!!!!!!!!
I think it is kind of funny. If the Iranians think that everything that they get has been tampered with, then every failure, for whatever reason can be blamed on sabotage.
There is no doubt that this was “leaked” for the very purpose of scaring the Iranians.
It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where his girlfriend sticks something of Jerry’s in his toilet, but won’t tell him what it was. Jerry is so paranoid, that he empties his apartment in an attempt to discard the unknown tainted item. In the end, IIRC, she admitted that she made it up.
The idea here is to make Iran think that anything and everything that they bought has been stuck in the toilet.
I LOVE IT!!!
Close the embassies. Do we want Iran to have nukes or not?
Who knows? Maybe the CIA is feeding them disinformation.
Keep that in mind, CBS. Hehehe.
Your remark calls for a....
"Better to be wanted by the police than not wanted at all."
Anonymous
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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