Iranian Alert -- August 28, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The Iranian Student Movement Up To The Minute Reports ^ | 8.28.2003 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Thanks for all the help.

DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Norwegian Companies Interested in Investing in Iran

Tehran Times - By Mehr News Agency
Aug 28, 2003

TEHRAN – Visiting speaker of Norway's Parliament Yurgen Kosmo said the Norwegian enterprises advocate investment in Iran's industries.

Kosmo told the Mehr News Agency that he would seek to explore the avenues for facilitating the investment of Norwegian companies in Iran.

Kosmo also said that he would discuss Middle East developments as well as the issue of human rights in his meetings with Iranian leaders.

Norway wants to be informed about Iran's viewpoints regarding the issues of the Middle East as well as the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the speaker said.

He said Tehran and Oslo both advocate peace and stability in the world, stressing that Norway attaches great significance to its debates with Iran in that connection.

Kosmo said he was interested in meeting with the members of Majlis Article 90 Commission to become familiar with the procedures of lodging complaints with that commission so as to have a real picture of the status of human rights in Iran.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1993.shtml

[DoctorZIn]

Press freedom campaigner rearrested

AFP - World News (via Iranmania)
Aug 28, 2003

TEHRAN - Leading Iranian press freedom campaigner Issa Saharkhiz, detained last month on charges of publishing anti-regime propaganda, was rearrested Wednesday, the student news agency ISNA reported.

Saharkhiz, co-director of the Center for the Protection of Journalists, was taken away by judiciary officials and could be remanded in custody on the same charges, the center told ISNA.

He was originally arrested in mid-July during a crackdown on reformist journalists and accused of "spreading propaganda against the regime" over an article calling for the overhaul of the Islamic regime.

He was later released on bail. The Center for the Protection of Journalists co-organized an August 8 journalists' strike demanding the sacking of Tehran chief prosecutor Said Mortazavi, who as head of the country's press court, oversaw the closure of scores of pro-reform titles in the past few years.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1994.shtml

[DoctorZIn]

Who Do You Believe? The Mullahs or Your Own Eyes?

August 28, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

One test of whether the world is serious about stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is if it is willing to believe evidence when it sees it. We are about to find out if the United Nations and Europe believe what their own eyes see in Iran.

U.N. weapons inspectors have been playing a game of cat-and-mouse with Iran for months, and this week they disclosed that they've found traces of highly enriched uranium. The uranium particles were found in samples taken at Iran's Natanz facility, and U.N. officials say they are sufficiently enriched to be used in a nuclear weapon.

Iran acknowledged that weapons-grade uranium was discovered, but it claims the traces come from used imports that were contaminated before they arrived in Iran. Sure, the imports did it. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) is keeping mum but seems to want to give Tehran the benefit of the doubt. This is not reassuring for the cause of nuclear nonproliferation.

Everything we know about Iran's nuclear ambitions suggests that the mullahs in Tehran are still hiding their true capabilities and intentions. Iran has allowed the IAEA to inspect its sites but has refused access to key areas. As proliferation expert Henry Sokolski noted on these pages recently, Iran's nearly completed "peaceful" light-water reactor would be capable of generating weapons-grade plutonium for 50 bombs after a year of operation. IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei saw for himself in February the advanced stage of the Natanz reactor, where hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium were on display.

The urgent question is whether the IAEA is now going to do anything about this. The Bush Administration has been pushing it to pass a resolution next month that would find Iran in "noncompliance" with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would result in Iran's violations being reported to the U.N. Security Council, for debate and presumably for action.

The problem is that many IAEA officials, Russia and other governments on its 36-member nation board are keen to avoid any confrontation with Iran. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton was in Moscow Tuesday lobbying Russian officials to sanction Iran, but usually reliable sources tell us Russia won't back off its aid to the country.

Tehran's mullahs are also smarter than Saddam Hussein. Instead of resisting inspections, they have recently changed their attitude in the hope of co-opting the IAEA and Europeans to believe whatever they hear. In an August 19 letter to the IAEA, Iran acknowledged that it had conducted "uranium conversion experiments" in the early 1990s that it should have reported but didn't. Iran is "taking corrective action," the letter said. Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA has also suggested that his country is willing to consider signing a NPT protocol that would allow surprise inspections.

Given Iran's record and ambitions, the only safe strategy here is don't trust but verify. Evidence of enriched uranium is a clear violation of the NPT, and if the treaty means anything the world can't allow it to go unsanctioned. The world made that mistake in North Korea a decade ago, and that country now has two rogue nuclear programs instead of one. The IAEA should understand that if it doesn't act to stop Iran from getting the bomb, someone else will have to.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=08&d=28&a=6

[DoctorZIn]

Who Do You Believe? The Mullahs or Your Own Eyes?

August 28, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/971810/posts?page=23#23

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Given Iran's record and ambitions, the only safe strategy here is don't trust but verify. Evidence of enriched uranium is a clear violation of the NPT, and if the treaty means anything the world can't allow it to go unsanctioned. The world made that mistake in North Korea a decade ago, and that country now has two rogue nuclear programs instead of one. The IAEA should understand that if it doesn't act to stop Iran from getting the bomb, someone else will have to.

That is why Iran should be dealt with, before N. Korea.

[F14 Pilot]

Graham will ask UN to look into Kazemi death

Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham will ask the UN Human Rights Commission to look into the beating death of a Montreal journalist in Iran.

"It's important that we have independent reporting and monitoring," he said in a teleconference Thursday from Denver, where he's attending a meeting regarding Norad.

He said he's unhappy with the way the Iranian government has handled the investigation into the death of photographer Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian with Iranian citizenship who died after interrogation in Iranian custody.

Canadian officials haven't been given a copy of the official Iranian report on the death.

"We have been promised that report, but we've yet to see it," the minister said.

Canada will keep the pressure on Iran, he added.

"We continue to consider our options."

He said Canada wants to see the issue dealt with in an open trial.

Graham said a meeting Wednesday between Canadian diplomats and Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi produced little information.

The minister said Mortazavi himself may be "potentially implicated in the case."

Asked about the reported arrest of two Iranian women in connection with the death, Graham said the development is encouraging because it may lead to more information.

"The end game is to get to those responsible."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1062083130953_111/?hub=TopStories

[F14 Pilot]

Re#14
Why not, the regime needs him to keep opponents away.

[DoctorZIn]

State's Reeker Says Iran Must Satisfy IAEA's Nuclear Concerns

August 28, 2003
US Department of States
Washington File

The United States says no country should engage in nuclear cooperation with Iran until Iran has fully answered the questions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear programs and fully addressed the concerns of the international community.

Warns Russia and others against cooperating with Iran

The United States says no country should engage in nuclear cooperation with Iran until Iran has fully answered the questions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear programs and fully addressed the concerns of the international community.

Speaking at the August 27 State Department press briefing, State Department Deputy Spokesman Philip Reeker said that Iran's nuclear ambitions "present a serious challenge to the entire international community, and specifically to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, which is based on the Nonproliferation Treaty."

Reeker was asked about press reports that Russia had agreed to send nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr reactor. In response, the spokesman said that no country, including Russia, should cooperate with Iran "until Iran satisfies the IAEA's questions and fully addresses the concerns of the international community, including full, immediate, unconditional implementation of the additional protocol, to the Nonproliferation Treaty."

He added that the United States is reviewing the IAEA's report on the matter and is looking forward to discussing it at a September 8 meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna.

Following is an excerpt from the August 27 State Department briefing:

(begin excerpt)

QUESTION: Can we talk a little bit about Iran?

MR. REEKER: Sure.

QUESTION: Given that this new IAEA report is out there now, there was a -- there have been reports out of Moscow today that the Iranians are prepared to sign an agreement with the Russians, and that the Russians are -- you know that, to send waste back to Russia -- and that this would clear the way for the Russians soon to provide fuel for Bushehr. Is that -- what do you think about that?

Do you think that -- especially since Under Secretary Bolton has just been in Moscow -- is that your understanding of the way things go -- are going? Are you concerned?

Do you still believe that the Russians are going to send that fuel soon to Bushehr?

MR. REEKER: A number of those questions are obviously things you need to ask the Russians. I am not going to try to speak for them or characterize them. Let's just --

QUESTION: But Bolton was just there.

MR. REEKER: Let's just, yeah, let's start with that, since Bolton was just there.

We talked a bit about that yesterday. Under Secretary Bolton, in fact, yesterday, Tuesday, was in Paris, where he met with French Deputy Secretary General for Political and Security Affairs Stanislas Lefevre de Laboulaye to discuss a wide range of nonproliferation issues that included discussions in advance of the September 8th meeting of the Board of Governors of the IAEA that will take place in Geneva. That will address concerns -- sorry. Pardon me, Vienna, yeah -- that will address concerns about the Iranian nuclear program. They also had the opportunity to discuss North Korea and the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Today Under Secretary Bolton is in Rome for discussions with Italian officials. He had met Monday, as we discussed yesterday, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Kislyak to address a wide range of nonproliferation issues with them as well.

It is really the latest in a series of ongoing discussions with the Russians about that. One of the subjects, obviously, is the issue of Iran and our concerns about that. He also met, I think I mentioned it yesterday, with the Russian Minister of Atomic Energy, Rumyantsev, and the purpose was, again, to consult with the Russians prior to the September 8th meeting in Vienna.

So I guess, then, to step to the next part of your question, we clearly have concerns about Iran, about their nuclear programs. There's nothing new in that. We have made that quite clear. In terms of the IAEA, the Director General's report on Iran's nuclear program has been circulated to the 35 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors. It has not yet been released to the public, and even though you all think you have copies of the authentic text, I am just not in a position to really comment on it or discuss anything that is purported to be in the report. We do find Iran's nuclear activities troubling. We have talked about that for some time

We think that Iran's nuclear ambitions prevent -- present a serious challenge to the entire international community, and specifically to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, which is based on the Nonproliferation Treaty.

And so we have been looking forward, as we review the report, to discussing it September 8th, in Vienna, and to meeting with the other IAEA board members, and to coordinate an appropriately strong response to the report. But I am not going to try to shadow or preview that now.

We have steadfastly supported the IAEA effort to bring about the facts of Iran's nuclear program, to bring those facts to light. And until Iran has fully satisfied IAEA's questions and fully addressed the concerns of the international community, including a full, immediate and unconditional implementation of the additional protocol, which we have discussed before, then we believe that no country should be engaging in nuclear cooperation with Iran, and that is the view that we expressed to Russia as well.

A follow-up?

QUESTION: Can I just finish, because my question was actually a little more specific than that.

The fact that the Russians are saying today that Iran has agreed to sign this agreement under which they would commit to send this nuclear waste back to Moscow or back to Russia, therefore clearing the way for the Russians to continue cooperation with Iran and, in fact, to go and give them the spent fuel they need to start up Bushehr, did Under Secretary Bolton get any commitments? How do you view those reports? Do you find them accurate? Do they comport with what --

MR. REEKER: I can't -- okay. I think I answered at least half of that question. In terms of finding them accurate, I've seen the reports, you'd have to ask the Russians. I can't comment on Russians or commitments that Iran has reported to have made to Russia.

In terms of our views of the overall situation, as I just said, until Iran satisfies the IAEA's questions and fully addresses the concerns of the international community, including full, immediate, unconditional implementation of the additional protocol, to the Nonproliferation Treaty, we believe that no country should be engaging with Iran in nuclear cooperation, and that would include Russia.

So that is our concern. Iran has an opportunity to address these concerns, and it is obviously a subject we will discuss in Vienna when the Board of Governors meets.

(end excerpt)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=August&x=20030828122129namfuaks0.769253&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html

[DoctorZIn]

State's Reeker Says Iran Must Satisfy IAEA's Nuclear Concerns

August 28, 2003
US Department of States
Washington File

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/971810/posts?page=28#28

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[DoctorZIn]

Russia wants Iran arms proof before dumping n-aid

Reuters - World News
Aug 28, 2003

MOSCOW - Russia will only drop plans to help Iran build a nuclear reactor if the U.N. nuclear watchdog presents evidence Tehran is secretly developing banned weapons, a Russian Atomic Energy Ministry official said on Thursday.

Despite fresh U.S. pressure to back off on its nuclear aid to Iran, Russia has pressed ahead with plans to build the reactor at the port of Bushehr and may sign a key deal on this with Tehran in coming days, officials said.

"Only if the IAEA offers concrete evidence, then we would think twice about this project. So far it's pure politics," the official said on condition on anonymity.

"If proof of any such violation is presented and if the international community consequently adopts a corresponding resolution on Iran, then of course we would comply with international law and act accordingly."

The IAEA is set to hold a crucial meeting in September to decide whether Tehran has breached the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The body said in a recent report obtained by Reuters it had found traces of weapons-grade uranium in Iran.

The United States, which has accused Iran of seeking a clandestine nuclear arms programme, again urged Russia on Wednesday to sever nuclear ties with Tehran.

State Department deputy spokesman Phillip Reeker said Washington believed no country should engage in nuclear cooperation with Iran until Tehran satisfied IAEA security requirements.

"But so far no one has presented any concrete evidence to us. Our talks with the Iranians are under way, and our position is unchanged. We can't adjust it every time the Americans say something on the subject," the Russian official said.

Interfax news agency quoted an Atomic Energy Ministry official as saying Moscow expected no "unpleasant surprises" from the forthcoming meeting of the IAEA board.

"We can only hope the situation normalises soon," he said. The IAEA office in Vienna was unavailable for comment.

Moscow said earlier this week Russia and Iran may sign in September an agreement requiring Tehran to return nuclear waste to Moscow -- a move some see as aimed at alleviating U.S. pressure ahead of a key Russia-U.S. summit next month.

Itar-Tass news agency, quoting Atomic Energy Ministry spokesman Nikolai Shingaryov, said Russia and Iran intended to sign the agreement in Moscow before the IAEA meeting in Vienna.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1999.shtml

[DoctorZIn]

Freed regime "diplomat" escapes to Iran due to Belgium's complicity

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Aug 28, 2003

Saeed Baghban one of the Islamic regime's diplomats who was involved in the Argentina bombings was able to escape toward Iran. The latter's escape follows his controversial and speedy release due to the intervention of the Belge Government.

Baghban was detained, briefly, yesterday on the request of the Argentinean justice.

Belgium is known for hosting the transaction center of the Rafsanjani clan, in Brussels, and keeping close financial relations with the Islamic regime.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_2008.shtml

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[nuconvert]

"Iran has admitted doing work on enrichment centrifuges at a second site, known as the Kalaye Electric Co., according to Mr. Albright of ISIS.
The existence of this facility was revealed by an Iranian resistance group, and, until recently, Tehran rebuffed IAEA efforts to enter what it first called a watch factory."

Don't want those IAEA guys snooping around your watch factory.

"Inspectors found fresh paint and other signs of hurried refurbishment upon their visit.""...refurbishment is to hide past uranium-enrichment activities,"

Probably say they were working on new "glow-in-the dark " watches.

[nuconvert]

I'm hoping Mortazavi has become too much of a nuisance for the gov't and public embarrassment, that they decide he's baggage they need to dispose of before the elections in Feb.'04.

[DoctorZIn]

Caught Red-handed? Iran Adjusts its Nuclear Story a Bit

August 28, 2003
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

HAS Iran enriched uranium as part of a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb? When inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited a previously undeclared enrichment plant at Natanz earlier this year, they came away worried by the sophistication of its centrifuge machines. In June they told the agency's board of Iran's failure to report a series of nuclear-related activities that should have been declared under its existing safeguards agreement. Since then, swipes taken at Natanz have shown traces of two types of uranium enriched to 20% or more—a by-product of a weapons effort, not the peaceful power programme (which needs enrichment to no more than 3%) that Iran insists is the limit of its nuclear ambition.

Caught red-handed? On September 8th, the IAEA's board will hear that it is still too early to tell. But Iran has been forced to change its story to account for the tell-tale traces of uranium. It first claimed it had had no outside help. Now it says the errant uranium arrived on imported equipment. In the past China supplied Iran with natural uranium, and the plans for a conversion plant to produce uranium gas for its centrifuges (and Iran has now owned up to past conversion experiments that should have been reported). But Pakistan is the likeliest source for the enrichment technology. Iran, however, insists it bought it from “intermediaries”. The IAEA will be checking.

There are other discrepancies. Iran claims that it built its enrichment plant at Natanz without any previous experiments to see if its centrifuge designs worked, and that it has done no enrichment anywhere else (Natanz is not yet fully working). That strikes centrifuge experts as implausible, and heightens suspicion that other nuclear work is under way somewhere. Results from other samples will not be ready until the November IAEA board meeting.

Meanwhile, Iran says that other suspect experiments to produce uranium metal are part of its plans for a heavy-water research reactor. But the metal is used in bomb-building, and such reactors produce lots of bomb-useable plutonium too. Iran's civilian power plans anyway call for more light-water reactors, like the one the Russians are building at Bushehr.

America has long seen Bushehr as cover for nuclear co-operation of a dodgier sort. The Russians deny that and say they will manage all the fuel from Bushehr too, to prevent extraction of plutonium from the spent fuel-rods. But Iran says it will eventually make its own fuel, thank you.

Still insisting that its nuclear drive is peaceful, Iran is talking of eventually signing a more intrusive safeguards agreement with the IAEA. That is no longer so reassuring. Unless its gives up its enrichment plans, Iran will soon have all the nuclear skills, and eventually enough uranium and plutonium, to turn nuclear at speed.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=08&d=28&a=9

[DoctorZIn]

Caught Red-handed? Iran Adjusts its Nuclear Story a Bit

August 28, 2003
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/971810/posts?page=34#34

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[DoctorZIn]

Iran in the Crosshairs

August 28, 2003
Al-Ahram Weekly
Mustafa El-Labbad

The arrest of former Iranian Ambassador to Argentina Hadi Soleimanpour in London on Friday, on the charge of complicity in the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, is one more indicator of mounting international pressures on Iran over the past four months. His arrest is further proof of the media campaign to paint Tehran as a regime that flouts international law and legitimacy, the ultimate authority on which is the current US administration. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, there has been a tangible rise in tension in Iranian government circles. Tehran appears to be hemmed in, incapable of action at home or abroad, and haunted by a relentless onslaught of criticism woven and orchestrated by Washington. Iran stands variously accused of meddling in the domestic affairs of Iraq, of obstructing the Middle East peace process through its support of the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad movements, and, more ominously, of pursuing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

In tandem with these external pressures, it also faces mounting popular discontent at home, highlighted by the student demonstrations in July that led to the arrest of 4,000 protesters. This has been accompanied by several cabinet resignations in futile anger at the continued control by conservatives over power in spite of their declining popularity. Minister of Education Mustafa Moin tendered his resignation at the same time as the arrest of Soleimanpour, a gesture reflecting the growing loss of confidence in President Mohamed Khatami and his reform government's ability to peacefully transform the Iranian system.

Since the election of Khatami in 1997, the Iranian reform movement proved highly adept at handling public relations abroad. A sedate rhetoric using modernist terms of reference did much to enhance Iran's international image. On the other hand, conservatives have retained a monopoly on "revolutionary" rhetoric, which in the Iranian political lexicon is synonymous to a vehement, blanket anti- westernism. In addition to a reluctance to make even the least subtle distinctions, conservative rhetoric reflects an intransigent clinging to the past and an inability to fathom the profound changes that have taken place in the international order since the collapse of the Soviet Union and, in particular, since 11 September 2001.

Perhaps the most vigorous proponent of these attitudes is Hussein Shariatmudari, editor-in-chief of the right-wing Kahan newspaper. In a recent editorial in response to the arrest of Soleimanpour he demanded "Why do we not exercise our right to punish the reactionary British government, which according to the members of the British parliament, is playing the tail of the dog in international affairs." The "dog", of course, refers to US President George W Bush. The journalist's appeal was translated into action when the Iranian minister of foreign affairs announced his country was cutting cultural and economic ties with Argentina, which had issued the warrant against the former Iranian diplomat. Argentina has millions of dollars worth of export contracts to Iran in wheat, sunflower oil, rice and other foodstuffs.

Of little avail was the response of British charge d'affaires in Tehran, when summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to receive an official protest, which claimed that the arrest was not a political, but rather a purely criminal matter. Officials in Tehran could have easily pointed to the fact that London, via Britain's High Court, had refused to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet accused of crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths and disappearances of thousands of his opponents during his nearly two decades of rule.

It has been nine years since the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. As deplorable as that incident was, regardless of who the perpetrator was, it is remarkable that Soleimanpour's arrest took place only two weeks before the International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to submit its report on Iranian WMD to the Security Council. Clearly this is more than mere coincidence. There can be little doubt that the Soleimanpour case was deliberately revived in order to help set the international stage for punitive measures, including military action, against Iran. However, the Iranian regime, still dominated by the increasingly unpopular conservative forces, continues to react against this campaign with angry, defensive outbursts. This rhetoric only facilitates a mission bent on abusing international institutions and contrived facts and figures to back Tehran into a corner. From there, an eddy of endless international demands is ultimately designed to serve as the pretext for toppling the regime.

The arrest of the former Iranian diplomat also indicates that Britain, historically the European nation with the closest connections to Iran, has made up its mind to join Washington's steamrolling operation against Tehran. That the Bush administration is determined to overthrow the Iranian regime has been made abundantly clear in the months following the fall of Baghdad. This belligerency is in spite of the fact that Washington had held secret negotiations with Tehran, via the good offices of Switzerland, Afghanistan and Britain to reach understandings over the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Khatami demanded an apology from the British government over the arrest of the former Iranian diplomat. Although in keeping with internationally recognised diplomatic norms, the request is certain to be drowned out by the bombast of Iranian conservatives and by the din of the anticipated protest demonstrations that are expected to converge on the British Embassy.

Following the victory of the Islamic revolution, worshippers in Friday prayers in the University of Tehran would chant: "Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to Britain!" When, in the mid-1990s, Iranian-British relations began to thaw, the "Britain" part vanished from the refrain. It may soon be revived, however, as part of the conservatives' response to Britain's blind loyalty to the neo-con administration in Washington.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/653/re7.htm

[DoctorZIn]

Iran in the Crosshairs

August 28, 2003
Al-Ahram Weekly
Mustafa El-Labbad

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/971810/posts?page=36#36

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[DoctorZIn]

WAR IS NOT THE BEST MEANS TO DEAL WITH IRANIAN MENACE:

RICHARD PERLE

PARIS 28 Aug. (IPS) "Iranian (nuclear) weapons are certainly a very serious problem for the United States and we ought to find proper means to deal with it", according to a senior American policy analyst from the neo-conservatives.

In a lengthy interview published Thursday by the centrist French daily "Le Figaro", Mr. Richard Perle, a former Defence under secretary under former president Ronald Reagan explained that after 11 September, the United States can no more allow that "the worst kind of arms in the world be in the hands of the worst regimes in the world".

A former member of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board, Mr. Perle is considered one of the most hawkish voices concerning threats posed by "rogue" regimes such as the Islamic Republic, Syria or North Korea.

His comments were made as international pressures increases on Tehran over its secret plans to produce an atomic arsenal, an accusation that Iran rejects, insisting that its present nuclear powered station that are under construction with the help of Russia are purely for civilian use, primarily producing electricity.

Observed that in case Washington would have to attack Iran, no nation, even Great Britain, US’s only ally in the war against Iraq would refuse to join, Mr. Perle said he was not sure that today, war (on Iran) was the best of the means to deal with Iranian menace.

"However, I can assure you that in the US, the Congress is fully aware of the threats the regime of the Iranian mullahs presents for our nation", he added.

In his opinion, the present "chaos" in Iraq is due more to the lack of colonialist experience of the American administrations and less because of the result of the war. "Sure, we have not done all quite well (in Iraq). There has been mistakes and there will be more in the future. Invading a nation and administrate it is not in the American culture. We have no colonial experience of which we could draw a doctrine, therefore, our approach was an empiric one out of necessity", he explained.

He attributes the present widespread violence and sabotages to three groups of people: Members of the former Ba’th ruling Party that have nowhere to go; the Muslim extremists for whom attacking American soldiers is part of a global terrorist strategy and common law criminal who were freed from prison by Saddam Hoseyn. "But the great majority of the Iraqis do not support any of these groups", he stated.

Known for his mistrust of the United Nations, Mr. Perle expressed openly his objection to have the UN involved in the administration of Iraq. "This is utterly a bad idea, for the simple reason that the United Nations did not succeed in any area where it had been put in charge. The UN is not a solution (for Iraq). And what would do a French division that an American division can not?"

Nevertheless, Mr. Perle, who is finishing a book on the Iraq war in his residence in south of France, remains optimistic on the future of the war-ravaged country. "The key is to hand over the power to the Iraqis the soonest possible. We had been late, but we have realized our mistake. Now, things goes on the right direction".

ENDS PERLE 28803

http://www.iran-press-service.com/

[DoctorZIn]

WAR IS NOT THE BEST MEANS TO DEAL WITH IRANIAN MENACE:

RICHARD PERLE
PARIS 28 Aug. (IPS)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/971810/posts?page=38#38

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[nuconvert]

"America has long seen Bushehr as cover for nuclear co-operation of a dodgier sort. The Russians deny that and say they will manage all the fuel from Bushehr too, to prevent extraction of plutonium from the spent fuel-rods."

Considering the Russians can't keep track of their own stuff, this isn't very reassuring.