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Iran to Resume Suspended Nuclear Research •
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CIA Gave Iran Bomb Plans, Book Says
By Josh Meyer
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 04 January 2006
The nuclear designs were intentionally
flawed, but Tehran was tipped off and could have made use of them, the writer
contends.
Washington - In a clumsy effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the
CIA in 2004 intentionally handed Tehran some top-secret bomb designs laced with
a hidden flaw that U.S. officials hoped would doom any weapon made from them,
according to a new book about the U.S. intelligence agency.
But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by
the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful
for designing a bomb, writes New York Times reporter James Risen in "State
of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration."
The clandestine CIA effort was just one of many alleged intelligence failures
during the Bush administration, according to the book.
Risen also cites intelligence gaffes that fueled the Bush administration's
case for war against Saddam Hussein, spawned a culture of torture throughout
the U.S. military and encouraged the rise of heroin cultivation and trafficking
in postwar Afghanistan.
Even before the book's release Tuesday, its main revelation - that President
Bush authorized a secret effort by another intelligence outfit, the National
Security Agency, to eavesdrop on unsuspecting Americans without court-approved
warrants - had created a storm of controversy when it was reported last
month in the New York Times in an article coauthored by Risen.
In the book, Risen says he based his accounts on interviews with dozens of
intelligence officials who, while unnamed, had proved reliable in the past.
Bush has confirmed the existence of the program, but condemned the newspaper
for the December report and for its use of confidential sources.
The CIA added its own criticism Tuesday, saying the book contains "serious
inaccuracies."
The NSA domestic spying controversy is at the heart of an intensifying debate
over whether the president has overstepped his authority in fighting the U.S.-declared
war on terrorism by not adequately consulting or allowing oversight from Congress
and the courts.
The Justice Department disclosed Friday that it was conducting a criminal investigation
to find out who leaked classified details of the domestic spying program.
The book's release date was moved up in the wake of the NSA controversy, and
it provides additional details of that domestic spying effort, in which Bush
did not seek permission for domestic wiretaps from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court.
The New York Times delayed for a year publication of its article on the NSA's
domestic spying, in part because of personal requests from the president. Critics
have questioned whether the paper could have published the information before
last year's presidential election if it had decided against a delay. Newspaper
officials have refused to comment on reasons for the delay or on the exact timing.
Top New York Times officials also refused to publish a news article about the
reported CIA plot to give intentionally flawed nuclear plans to Iran, according
to a person briefed on the newspaper's conversations by one of the participants.
That person said the New York Times withheld publication at the request of the
White House and former CIA Director George J. Tenet.
U.S. officials have long maintained that Iran's rulers want to develop nuclear
weapons, but Tehran has insisted that it seeks to develop only a civilian nuclear
energy program. Whatever the case, the CIA was desperate to counter what it
believed was a clandestine nuclear program, and turned to a Russian defector
who had once been a nuclear scientist in the former Soviet republics, according
to the book.
The book says the CIA worked with the U.S.-based defector to concoct a story
about how he was destitute, but in possession of valuable nuclear weapons blueprints
that had been secreted out of Russia.
CIA officials had concerns about the man's temperament, Risen says, but sent
the defector and the blueprints to Vienna anyway, with orders to hand-deliver
them to someone at Tehran's diplomatic mission to the International Atomic Energy
Agency, or IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
His CIA handlers never imagined that the Russian defector would tip off the
Iranians to the fatal flaw that they had hidden deep within the blueprints.
But that, the book adds, is exactly what the Russian did, in part because the
CIA failed to send anybody to accompany him out of fear that it might make the
Iranians suspicious.
The book does not say whether Iran used the plans, but reports that a senior
Iranian official visiting Vienna appears to have taken them immediately to Tehran
after the defector dropped them off.
"He [the Russian] was the front man for what may have been one of the
most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have
helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President
George W. Bush has called the axis of evil," the book contends.
Two nuclear weapons experts who say that they have no knowledge about whether
the covert effort described in the book occurred added that a deliberate flaw
in the plans could have been easily found by the Iranians.
"Iran has excellent scientists and any information related to weapons
designs could move its program ahead," said a European nuclear weapons
expert, who refused to allow his name to be used because his government prohibits
comments on nuclear weapons or designs.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector for the IAEA, agreed with the other
expert that the plans could have shaved many years off Iran's nuclear effort.
"I wouldn't call it a colossal failure" by the CIA, said Albright,
now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
"But I don't quite understand the purpose of it, why you would want to
hand something like this to the Iranians. It's unlikely to work."
According to the book, the CIA effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear effort came
on the heels of another massive intelligence failure, in which a CIA officer
mistakenly sent an Iranian agent a trove of information that could help identify
nearly every one of the spy agency's undercover operatives in Iran.
The Iranian was a double agent who turned over the data to Iranian authorities.
They used it to dismantle the CIA's spy network inside the country and arrest
or possibly kill an unknown number of U.S. agents, the book says.
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Iran to Resume Suspended Nuclear Research
Agence France-Presse
Wednesday 04 January 2006
Iran announced it would resume nuclear fuel research after a suspension of
over two years, prompting the UN atomic watchdog to warn Tehran that it must
maintain a freeze on sensitive nuclear work.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran would not "step back"
on its decision to resume nuclear fuel work, state television reported.
"Our country will go forward on the nuclear path with patience, wisdom
and planning," the hardline president was quoted as saying after a parliament
session on the state budget.
"We will not make a step back on our path," he said, adding that
he had informed the UN atomic agency of Iran's intent in a letter.
Iran's student-run news agency ISNA further quoted Ahmadinejad as rejecting
Western influence on Iranian policies because "research has no restrictions
or red lines."
"We cannot base our national interest on their policy," he said.
The deputy head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Mohammad Saidi, also said the
UN nuclear watchdog has already been informed of the step, which risks creating
further strains in talks with European negotiators.
"In a letter, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has been informed
that Iran will start research on the technology of nuclear fuel in a few days,
with the cooperation and coordination of the agency," Saidi told state
television.
"We think our experts have undergone lots of losses during this period
(of suspension). Many of our researchers have lost their jobs," he added.
Saidi did not specify exactly what the research concerned, but said that the
Islamic republic had "voluntarily" suspended such activities for around
"the past two-and-a-half years."
This timescale would correspond to the date when Iran announced in October
2003 that it was temporarily suspending uranium enrichment, a process that can
be used to create nuclear fuel for reactors and also the cores of atomic bombs.
Diplomats have said that were Iran to resume enriching uranium it would deal
a fatal blow to the negotiating process, already fragile after Tehran restarted
uranium conversion last year - the precursor step to enrichment.
In a statement confirming receipt of the letter, the IAEA said its director
general Mohammed ElBaradei "recalls the importance placed by the IAEA Board
that Iran maintains its suspension of all enrichment-related activity as a key
confidence building measure."
It said "he continues to call on Iran to take the steps the IAEA requires
to resolve outstanding issues regarding the nature of Iran's nuclear programme."
However Saidi insisted that the decision was not linked to the production of
nuclear fuel.
"This issue... has nothing to do with production of nuclear fuel. These
two are separate things from one another. No decision has been made about nuclear
fuel production."
The IAEA said it was seeking clarifications from Iran as to the "implications"
of the decision.
France on Tuesday called on Iran to reverse its move, saying if Iran was to
observe a suspension on enrichment it also had to halt research.
"We would like Iran to abide by the suspension of all activities related
to the enrichment and reprocessing... which includes centrifuges and research,"
foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.
Meanwhile, a delegation from Moscow is to visit Tehran on Saturday amid continued
Russian efforts to break the deadlock between Iran's insistence on maintaining
its right to enrichment and EU demands it renounces the practice.
"A Russian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister (Sergei) Kisliak,
is due to come on January 7 to discuss the Russian proposal," said foreign
ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.
Moscow has suggested allowing Iran to conduct uranium enrichment in Russia,
giving it access to the nuclear fuel cycle while guaranteeing its nuclear program
is for peaceful purposes only.
However Asefi reaffirmed Iran would not consider the offer unless it acknowledges
the country's right to conduct uranium enrichment operations in Iran, so far
the key sticking point in negotiations with the European Union.
"It's not a structured proposal it is still an idea, we have to discuss
it. There are ambiguities but if it says that enrichment can only happen in
Russia it's not acceptable, but if it's a parallel and complementary plan we
will consider that."
The United States accuses Iran of trying to master the civil nuclear fuel cycle
as a cover for a military programme to obtain atomic weapons - a charge vehemently
denied by Tehran.
Iran is set to have new talks with EU negotiators on January 18 but both sides
have acknowledged that wide differences remain.
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