AS IRAN’S NUCLEAR THREAT GROWS, US PREVARICATES, AND ISRAEL IS DIVIDED

IRAN’S NUCLEAR THREAT IS ESCALATING
William Hague
Guardian, July 11, 2011

 

On 8 June, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, announced plans to triple Iran’s capacity to produce 20% enriched uranium, transferring enrichment from Natanz to the Fordo plant. Inside Iran this announcement by a discredited regime drew little comment and was quickly overshadowed by the domestic political theatre of the latest high-profile tussles between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it was an important statement because it makes even clearer the fact that Iran’s programme is not designed for purely peaceful purposes.

Iran has one civilian nuclear power station and is seeking to build more. All of these power stations need uranium enriched to about 3.5% for fuel. So plans to enrich any further rightly prompt questions.

Uranium enriched to up to 20% does have some civilian uses. But not in the civilian nuclear power stations that Iran claims to desire. Predominantly it is used as fuel for research reactors, producing among other things isotopes for medical use. These are very efficient: one research reactor in Belgium is capable of producing almost all the medical isotopes needed across the whole of western Europe.

Iran has one research reactor. The plans announced by Davani would provide more than four times its annual fuel requirements. Yet this reactor is already capable of producing enough radioisotopes for up to 1m medical investigations per year—already comparable to the UK and much more than Iran needs. The plan would also require diverting at least half of Iran’s current annual output of 3.5% enriched uranium, and so deny it to Iran’s nuclear power stations. If Iran is serious about developing civil nuclear energy, why divert limited materials and resources away from the civil energy programme in this way, while spurning offers of technological assistance for Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear energy from the outside world, including the E3+3 countries of the UK, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US?

Yet there is one clear purpose for this enriched uranium. Enrichment from natural uranium to 20% is the most time consuming and resource-intensive step in making the highly enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon. And when enough 20% enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qom, it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons grade material.…

Iran’s intensified uranium enrichment is envisaged to take place at a previously covert site, buried deep beneath the mountains. That it claims to allow International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring is not a safeguard. Iran has a persistent record of evasion and obfuscation with the IAEA. It has failed to provide the IAEA with access to relevant locations, equipment, persons or documents. It has not replied to questions from the IAEA on its procurement of nuclear-related items.… It has an active ballistic missile programme, including the development of missiles with a range of over a thousand kilometres, and carried out a range of missile tests in June. A reasonable observer cannot help but join the dots.

This is not an abstract issue: Iran’s nuclear programme could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, already the world’s most volatile region. It would be both naive and a derogation of duty to give them—once again—the benefit of the doubt. This is why there are already six UN security council resolutions that require Iran to suspend enrichment immediately, all ignored by Iran.…

(William Hague is Britain’s Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State.)

 

AMERICA’S INTELLIGENCE DENIAL ON IRAN
Fred Fleitz

Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2011

 

Mounting evidence over the last few years has convinced most experts that Iran has an active program to develop and construct nuclear weapons. Amazingly, however, these experts do not include the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community. They are unwilling to conduct a proper assessment of the Iranian nuclear issue.…

The last month alone has brought several alarming developments concerning Tehran’s nuclear program. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said last month that his agency has new information pointing to the military ambitions of Iran’s nuclear program. As of today, Iran has over 4,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium—enough, according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, for four nuclear weapons if enriched to weapons grade. Iran has [now] accelerated its production of low-enriched uranium in defiance of U.N. and IAEA resolutions. It has also announced plans to install advanced centrifuge machines in a facility built deep inside a mountain near the city of Qom.…

To top this off, an item recently posted to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps website mused about the day after an Iranian nuclear test (saying, in a kind of taunt, that it would be a “normal day”). That message marked the first time any official Iranian comment suggested the country’s nuclear program is not entirely peaceful.

Despite all this, U.S. intelligence officials are standing by their assessment, first made in 2007, that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not restarted it since.

In February, the 17 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community issued a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate updating their 2007 assessment. That estimate had been politicized by several officials who feared how President George W. Bush might respond to a true account of the Iranian threat. It also was affected by the wave of risk aversion that has afflicted U.S. intelligence analysis since the 2003 Iraq War. Intelligence managers since then have discouraged provocative analytic conclusions, and any analysis that could be used to justify military action against rogue states like Iran.

I read the February 2011 Iran NIE while on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee. I believe it was poorly written and little improvement over the 2007 version. However, during a pre-publication classification review of this op-ed, the CIA and the Office of the Director of Intelligence censored my criticisms of this analysis, including my serious concern that it manipulated intelligence evidence. The House Intelligence Committee is aware of my concerns and I hope it will pursue them.

Censors also tried to prevent me from discussing my most serious objection to the 2011 Iran NIE: its skewed set of outside reviewers. The U.S. intelligence community regularly employs reviewers who tend to endorse anything they review: former senior intelligence officers, liberal professors and scholars from liberal think tanks. These reviewers tend to share the views of senior intelligence analysts, and they also want to maintain their intelligence contacts and high-level security clearances.

I believe that senior intelligence officials tried to block me from naming the NIE’s outside reviewers because the names so strongly suggest that intelligence agencies took no chances of an outside reviewer unraveling the document’s poorly structured arguments and cavalier manipulation of intelligence.

I have been permitted to say the following about the outside reviewers: Two of the four are former CIA analysts who work for the same liberal Washington, D.C., think tank. Neither served under cover, and their former CIA employment is well known. Another reviewer is a liberal university professor and strong critic of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. The fourth is a former senior intelligence official. Not surprisingly, the 2011 NIE included short laudatory excerpts from these reviewers that offered only very mild criticism.

It is unacceptable that Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon while our intelligence analysts continue to deny that an Iranian nuclear weapons program exists. One can’t underestimate the dangers posed to our country by a U.S. intelligence community that is unable to provide timely and objective analysis of such major threats to U.S. national security—or to make appropriate adjustments when it is proven wrong.

If U.S. intelligence agencies cannot or will not get this one right, what else are they missing?

(Mr. Fleitz retired this year after a 25-year career at the CIA, DIA,
State Department and House Intelligence Committee staff.)

 

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS WAR WITH IRAN
Editorial
Washington Times, July 14, 2011

 

The United States is engaged in a deadly but seldom mentioned proxy war with Iran. In a rare act of candor, two senior Obama administration defense officials have addressed the open secret of Iran’s active support for insurgent groups fighting U.S. troops overseas.

Earlier this week, during a visit to Iraq, newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta strongly denounced Iranian support for increasingly violent Shiite militia groups in that country. “We are very concerned about Iran and the weapons they are providing to extremists here in Iraq,” he said. “We’re seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they’ve really hurt us.” Mr. Panetta pledged that America would take action against Iran’s provocations. “We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue to happen,” he said. “This is not something we’re going to walk away from. It’s something we’re going to take on head-on.”

Last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised the alarm against Iran’s support for insurgents. He told the Pentagon Press Association, “Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shiite groups, which are killing our troops. There is no question they are shipping high-tech weapons in there…that are killing our people. And the forensics prove that.”

Iranian support for insurgencies is rarely raised so publicly at such high levels. Iran has been directly or indirectly responsible for more U.S. combat deaths than any other country since the end of the Vietnam War. For years, Iran has supplied arms and other support to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that threaten coalition troops in overseas war zones, there is nothing improvised about the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) that Iran has been supplying to militant groups. These sophisticated weapons are powerful enough to defeat the heaviest U.S. armored vehicles.…

The latest State Department report on Iranian support for international terrorism states, “Iran’s Quds Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives and indirect fire weapons. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107 mm rockets and plastic explosives.” A 2010 story in the London Sunday Times reported that Iranian front companies in Afghanistan funnel salaries of $233 a month to Taliban fighters with bonuses of $1,000 for killing American troops and $6,000 for knocking out American military vehicles.

The Obama administration has been reticent to draw attention to Iran’s support for insurgents.… With U.S. forces exiting the region, it would be strategically sound to signal the Islamic republic that America won’t tolerate continued support for insurgent groups that threaten our allies and interests. As Mr. Panetta said, it’s about time the United States takes this issue head-on.

 

ISRAEL’S PALACE WAR OVER IRAN
P. David Hornik
FrontPage, July 1, 2011

 

Over the past few months, much of Israel’s top security brass has stepped down—the chief of staff (Gabi Ashkenazi), the head of military intelligence (Amos Yadlin), the head of the Mossad (Meir Dagan), and the head of the Shin Bet or internal security (Yuval Diskin).

It’s no accident. True, the MI chief’s term had run out; but the chief of staff and the head of the Mossad had wanted to stay on for another year. As for the head of the Shin Bet, he wanted to get a new post as head of the Mossad—and was passed up.

Why the palace putsch? According to a slew of media reports, confirmed this week by a major columnist, the issue is Iran. These four men’s superiors—Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak—are said to have a hawkish disposition toward Iran’s nuclear program. The four are said to have a more dovish disposition—at least when it comes to a direct Israeli aerial attack on the program (ex-Mossad chief Dagan indeed stunned many by coming out openly and strongly against such a move).

Hence, at least in three of the cases, their early retirement by Netanyahu and Barak.

While the…hoary Palestinian issue keep[s] getting more attention, the Iranian issue concerns survival and is incomparably more important. This week Iran test-fired fourteen missiles, unveiled what it called an underground missile silo, and said its missile program was for defense against “U.S. targets in the region and the Zionist regime.…”

According to [newly appointed Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz Aluf] Benn, ex-Mossad chief Dagan (publicly, as noted) and ex-Chief of Staff Ashkenazi (privately) have been proudly claiming that, over the past couple of years, they stopped Netanyahu and Barak from mounting an attack on Iran. Such an attack, they say, would have failed and, moreover, gotten Israel into a regional war it may not have been able to win. Dagan and Ashkenazi claim they were able to foil such plans, in part, by recruiting ex-MI chief Yadlin and ex-Shin Bet chief Diskin to their side, along with (purportedly nonpolitical) President Shimon Peres.

“But,” says Benn, “there is a different version, which is no less convincing: the defense establishment did not manage to fulfill the instructions of the political echelon and failed. Now it is presenting its failure as having been exhibiting responsible behavior on a national level.” Those instructions “enjoyed the support of the cabinet…but [were] not translated into any action.”

Why not? Benn, pulling no punches, says that “as far as the politicians are concerned, [Chief of Staff] Ashkenazi failed in his task. He was asked to prepare a military option, and instead prepared excuses.” Benn concludes on a gloomy note: “Now, Israel is twiddling its thumbs, the defeated U.S. is pulling out of Iraq, and Iran is expediting uranium enrichment and [its] economy is flourishing in spite of the sanctions.”

That gloomy message was reinforced by another Israeli media report this week. It concerns, in fact, ex-MI chief Yadlin, who stated that “the only existential threat to Israel in the year 2011 and in the years that follow, is Iran.” Somehow that “only” lacks consolatory power. Yadlin, as noted, is said to have been among the four top-brass opponents of a strike, though some reports have described him as ambivalent on the matter.…

The article goes on to mention a Wikileaks cable saying that, by late 2009, Israeli Military Intelligence “held the view that by 2012 Iran could build one nuclear bomb within weeks or an arsenal within half a year.”

For the citizen without access to intelligence, it is not easy to say what Israel should do about this problem. But between the evil of a risky war and the evil of letting Iran go nuclear, logic indicates that the latter—which entails the materialization of a direct existential threat—is the greater one.…

A 2012 date for Iranian nuclearization (a Rand Corporation analyst puts the date even earlier—now) precludes waiting and hoping for a more realistic U.S. president.

Hence it’s to be hoped that, by clearing out the nay-sayers and replacing them with more amenable officials, Israel’s prime minister and defense minister are keeping their options open.

 

IRANIAN DOUBLESPEAK
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMIA BOMBING
Matthew Levitt
Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2011

 

Seventeen years ago this week, Hezbollah operatives working closely with Iranian intelligence blew up the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding 300 more. Now, after years of obstructing investigation into the attack, Iran claims it is ready to “engage in constructive dialogue” with Argentina about the case, but insists that talk of an Iranian link is nothing more than “plots and political games.”

In fact, it is Iran that is playing games.

Argentinean authorities conducted an extensive investigation into the AMIA attack, with significant international cooperation, and concluded that “the decision to carry out the AMIA attack was made, and the attack was orchestrated, by the highest officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the time, and that these officials instructed Lebanese Hezbollah—a group that has historically been subordinated to the economic and political interests of the Tehran regime—to carry out the attack.”

Iran and Hezbollah each had their own reasons for wanting to attack Israeli or Jewish targets in Argentina in 1994, as they had just two years earlier when they bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. At the time, Tehran was furious over Buenos Aires’ decision to cease all nuclear cooperation with Iran in 1992 for fear that Iran’s nuclear program was not limited to peaceful purposes. In 1994, Argentina terminated its nuclear cooperation. Hezbollah, meanwhile, sought to avenge the Israeli assassination of its leader, Abbas Moussawi, in 1992, and then Israel’s capture of Hezbollah ally Mustapha Dirani in Southern Lebanon in May 1994.

Such coincidence of interests, coupled with Hezbollah’s prized status as Tehran’s primary proxy, and operational considerations such as Argentina’s porous borders, Iran’s heavy diplomatic and intelligence presence there, and the existence of a strong Hezbollah financial/logistical support network in South America, all combined to make Argentina a particularly attractive target for Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah operatives.

According to Argentinean intelligence, as early as May 1993—a full year before Dirani’s capture by Israeli commandos—and again in November 1993, Iranian operative Mohsen Rabbani visited Buenos Aires car dealerships inquiring about purchasing a Renault Trafic van of the kind later used in the 1994 AMIA bombing. Rabbani’s fieldwork in support of Iranian intelligence dates to his arrival in Argentina in 1983, when he began recruiting local Shia—described by others in the community as his “antennas.…” Rabbani was the imam at the al-Tawhid mosque, which served as a base for his activities on behalf of Iran, and was also intimately involved in staffing Iranian front companies in Argentina. According to prosecutors, Rabbani’s surveillance reports would later prove to be “a determining factor in making the decision to carry out the AMIA attack.…”

Prosecutors concluded that the decision to bomb the AMIA building was made at a meeting held by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council in Mashhad on Saturday, August 14, 1993. During this meeting, senior Iranian leaders approved the bombing plot and selected the AMIA building as the target.…

Rabbani was put in charge of local logistics, including all details pertaining to the purchase, hiding and arming of the van to be used in the bombing. Rabbani was also suddenly appointed Cultural Attaché at the Iranian embassy, providing him with diplomatic immunity.…

In time, investigators would uncover records of phone calls between the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires and suspected Hezbollah operatives in the tri-border area who helped coordinate the attack out of a mosque and a travel agency there.

Argentina’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying it had yet to receive a formal word from Tehran but, if confirmed, Iran’s offer to cooperate with the AMIA investigation would be “unprecedented and positive.” Iran’s offer should be immediately tested with renewed requests for those indicted to be made available to stand trial. But the families of the victims should not hold their breath.…