Iran the Next Battlefield - Thread Renamed

[American Patriot]

Centrifuge Force
IBD Editorials ^ | 10 April 2007 | Staff



Axis Of Evil: Iran's leader giddily claimed Monday that his nation has joined the nuclear club — a membership the civilized world should revoke as soon as possible.


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran can now produce nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale." Tehran reportedly has added roughly 1,000 of the centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium. The regime claims it will have 3,000 centrifuges installed by May.


Alarmingly, it has room for 54,000 at its nuclear facility in Natanz, a number that suggests it's more interested in nuclear weapons than nuclear energy.
Soon to be armed and dangerous. Anyone who thought the Iranian threat wasn't serious needs to reassess. With those centrifuges humming, Tehran could have enough nuclear material to make a bomb by 2009. That's about six years sooner than some previous U.S. intelligence estimates, though it's also a year later than Iran's own prediction.


(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...

[American Patriot]

Iran making nuclear fuel in underground plant - IAEA
Reuters by way of The Star (Malaysia) ^ | 19APR07 | Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has begun producing nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant, a confidential U.N. atomic watchdog document said on Wednesday, ratcheting up its defiance of the United Nations.

The paper, obtained by Reuters, also said Tehran had started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines, divided into eight cascades, or networks, in the Natanz complex, in an accelerating campaign to lay a basis for "industrial scale" enrichment.

Iranian soldiers are seen guarding on an anti-aircraft machine gun inside the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, 322 km south of Iran's capital Tehran, in March 9, 2006 file photo. (REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi)

Both moves flew in the face of U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium over fears Tehran's professed civilian nuclear fuel programme is a cover for mastering the means to build atomic bombs.

Tehran says it seeks only nuclear-generated electricity. But its past concealment of sensitive enrichment research from the International Atomic Energy Agency and continued stonewalling of IAEA inquiries have shaken confidence in its intentions.

Iran announced on April 9 that it had begun enriching in the Natanz hall, ramping up from a limited research operation above ground. But diplomats treated the disclosure sceptically pending word from the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency.

To that end, the document said, IAEA inspectors conducted a "design information verification" at the plant on April 15-16 and were informed that eight cascades -- 1,312 centrifuges in all -- were running and "some" uranium was being fed into them.

The three-paragraph note by IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen also said Iran had stopped letting inspectors verify design work at the Arak heavy water reactor, under construction and due for start-up in 2009.

PROLIFERATION RISK

Major powers see the reactor as a nuclear proliferation risk as it could be used to produce plutonium for the core of nuclear bombs, although Iran says it has only peaceful purposes such as production of radio-isotopes for medical care.

Iran blocked IAEA access to Arak under its decision a few weeks ago to stop giving inspectors early design detail on future nuclear facilities. The move retaliated for a March U.N. resolution widening sanctions on Iran over its nuclear defiance.

In his letter to Iran's IAEA envoy, Heinonen indicated that Tehran was not living up to transparency commitments by refusing to allow short-notice inspectors or camera surveillance at Natanz and restricting access to Arak.

Iran says such steps are not covered by its basic safeguards agreement with the IAEA and it is not legally bound to them.

Heinonen urged Iran to "reconsider" its reduction of cooperation with the IAEA to a legal minimum, well below what the agency sees as essential to clearing up longstanding questions about the nature of the Iranian nuclear programme.

Tehran vowed on Tuesday to pursue plans to heighten its uranium enrichment capacity and said U.N. sanctions would not hamper centrifuge installation in the Natanz complex, flanked by anti-aircraft guns against feared U.S. attack.

Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation chief suggested it could take 2-4 years to reach the goal of 50,000 centrifuges. Another senior official said Iran had assembled 3,000 centrifuges so far. Iran aims to have 3,000 up and running by next month.

That could be enough to refine uranium for one bomb within a year, if Iran wanted to and if the machines ran for long periods without breakdown -- a proficiency Iran has yet to demonstrate.

Centrifuges spin at supersonic speed to produce fuel for power plants or, if enriched to high levels, warheads.

The United Nations Security Council has passed two sanctions resolutions on Iran since December, targeting its nuclear and military sectors and severely impeding its financial transactions with the outside world.

Iran's April 9 announcement that industrial-scale nuclear fuel production had begun elicited a warning from the United States that Tehran could be hit with harsher sanctions.

[American Patriot]

Whoa....

John McCain speaks.. er... I mean sings...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg

[Jag]

Kuwait readies for possible US-Iran war
(AFP)

20 April 2007



KUWAIT CITY - US ally Kuwait is to form an emergency team to draw up contingency plans for any conflict between the United States and Iran, a senior minister said in comments published on Friday.
‘The team ... will devise a comprehensive contingency plan to deal withrisks that may result in case a war breaks out in the Gulf on the back of the rising US military escalation towards Iran,’ State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Faisal Al Hajji told the Al Watan daily.ffice:office" />:p>:p>
The cabinet will form the team at its weekly meeting on Sunday, drawing on officials from the defence, interior, oil and health ministries as well as the fire and civil defence departments, Hajji said.:p>:p>
The team is then due to hold its first meeting on Monday.:p>:p>
The Kuwaiti parliament is scheduled to hold a special debate on May 1 on the government’s readiness for any military confrontation between the United States and Iran.:p>:p>
Washington has said that it would prefer to address its concerns about Teheran’s nuclear programme diplomatically but has refused to rule out the option of military action.:p>:p>
It has beefed up its military presence in the Gulf and currently has a second aircraft carrier there for the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.:p>:p>
Kuwait served as the launchpad for that invasion and remains the main staging point for US-led troops in Iraq.:p>:p>
Around 15,000 US troops are stationed at a series of bases in the emirate, the largest of them at Arifjan, south of Kuwait City near the border with Saudi Arabia.
:p>http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...middleeast&col=:p>
:p>Jag:p>

[Jag]

May 14, 2007

Iran Stepping Up Nuclear Work

"The inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here."
By David E. Sanger in the New Duranty Times:

VIENNA, May 14 — Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency’s top officials.

The findings may change the calculus of diplomacy in Europe and in Washington, which aimed to force a suspension of Iran’s enrichment activities in large part to prevent it from learning how to produce weapons-grade material.

In a short-notice inspection of Iran’s operations in the main nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday, conducted in advance of a report to the United Nations Security Council due early next week, the inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Jag

[Jag]

Atomic Agency Concludes Iran Is Stepping Up Nuclear Work
By DAVID E. SANGER
VIENNA, May 14 — Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency’s top officials.
The findings may change the calculus of diplomacy in Europe and in Washington, which aimed to force a suspension of Iran’s enrichment activities in large part to prevent it from learning how to produce weapons-grade material.
In a short-notice inspection of Iran’s operations in the main nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday, conducted in advance of a report to the United Nations Security Council due early next week, the inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here.
Until recently, the Iranians were having difficulty keeping the delicate centrifuges spinning at the tremendous speeds necessary to make nuclear fuel and were often running them empty or not at all.
Now, those roadblocks appear to have been surmounted. “We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich,” said Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency, who clashed with the Bush administration four years ago when he declared that there was no evidence that Iraq had resumed its nuclear program. “From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that’s a fact.”
It is unclear whether Iran can sustain its recent progress. Major setbacks are common in uranium enrichment, and experts say it is entirely possible that miscalculation, equipment failures or sabotage — something the United States is believed to have attempted in the past — could prevent the Iranian government from reaching its goal of producing fuel on what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran boasts is “an industrial scale.”
The material produced so far would have to undergo further enrichment before it could be transformed into bomb-grade material. To accomplish that, Iran would likely first have to evict the I.A.E.A. inspectors, as North Korea did four years ago.
Even then, it is unclear whether the Iranians have the technology to produce a weapon small enough to fit atop their missiles, a significant engineering challenge.
While the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all of its nuclear activities, and it has twice imposed sanctions for Tehran’s refusal to do so, some European nations, and particularly Russia, have questioned whether the demand for suspension still makes sense.
The logic of demanding suspension is that it would delay the day that Iran gained the knowledge to produce its own nuclear fuel — what the Israelis used to refer to as “the point of no return.” Those favoring unconditional engagement with Iran have argued that the current strategy is creating a stalemate that the Iranians are exploiting, allowing them to make technological leaps while the Security Council steps up sanctions.
The Bush administration, in contrast, has argued that it will never negotiate while the Iranians speed ever closer to a nuclear weapons capability, saying there has to be a standstill as long as talks proceed. In a telephone interview, R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for policy, who is implementing the Iran strategy, said that while he has not heard about the I.A.E.A.’s newest findings, they would not affect American policy.
“We’re proceeding under the assumption that there is still time for diplomacy to work,” he said, although he added that if the Iranians did not agree to suspend production by the time the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations meet next month, “we will move ahead toward a third set of sanctions.”
Mr. ElBaradei has always been skeptical of that strategy, telling European foreign ministers that he doubts the Iranians will fully suspend their nuclear activities and that a face-saving way must be found to resolve the impasse.
“Quite clearly, suspension is a requirement by the Security Council and I would hope the Iranians would listen to the world community,” he said. “But from a proliferation perspective, the fact of the matter is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping them from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events. The focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial scale production, to allow us to do a full-court-press inspection and to be sure they remain inside the treaty.”
The report to the Security Council next Monday is expected to say that since the Iranians stopped complying in February 2006 with an agreement on broad inspections by the agency around the country, the I.A.E.A.’s understanding of “the scope and content” of Iran’s nuclear activities has deteriorated. I
Inspectors are concerned that Iran has declined to answer a series of questions, posed more than a year ago, about information the agency received from a Pakistani nuclear engineer, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Of particular interest is a document that shows how to design the collision of two nuclear spheres — something suitable only for producing a weapon.
The inspection conducted on Sunday took place on two hours notice, a time period so short that it appears unlikely that the Iranians could have turned on their centrifuges to impress the inspectors. According to diplomats familiar with the inspectors’ report, in addition to 1,300 working centrifuges, another 300 were being tested and appeared ready to be fed raw nuclear fuel as soon as late this week, the diplomats said. Another 300 are under construction.
“They are at the stage where they are doing one cascade a week,” said one diplomat familiar with the analysis of Iran’s activities, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. A “cascade” has 164 centrifuges, and experts say that at this pace, Iran could have 3,000 centrifuges operating by June — enough to make one bomb’s worth of material every year. Tehran may, the diplomat said, be able to build an additional 5,000 centrifuges by the end of the year, for a total of 8,000.
The inspectors have tested the output and concluded that Iran is producing reactor-grade uranium, enriched to a little less than 5 percent purity. But that still worries American officials and experts here at the I.A.E.A. If Iran stores the uranium and later runs it through its centrifuges for another four or five months, it can raise the enrichment level to 90 percent — the level needed for a nuclear weapon.
In the arcane terminology of nuclear proliferation, that is known as a “breakout capability,” the ability to throw inspectors out of the country and then produce weapons-grade fuel, as North Korea did in 2003.
Some Bush administration officials and some nuclear experts here at the I.A.E.A. and elsewhere suspect that the Iranians may not be driving for a weapon but rather for that “breakout capability,” because that alone can serve as a nuclear deterrent. It would be a way for Iran to make clear that it could produce a bomb on short notice, without actually possessing one.
One senior European diplomat, who declined to speak for attribution, said Washington would now have to confront the question of whether it wants to keep Iran from producing any nuclear material or whether it wants to keep Tehran from gaining the ability to build a weapon on short notice.
“The key decision you have to make right now,” the diplomat said, “is that if you don’t want the breakout scenario, you would have to freeze the Iranian program at a laboratory scale. Because if you continue this stalemate, that will bring you, eventually, to a breakout capability.”
Those in the Bush administration who take a hard line on Iran make the opposite argument. They say that the only position that President Bush can take now, without appearing to be backing down, is to stick to the administration’s past argument that “not one centrifuge spins” in Iran. They argue for escalating sanctions and the threat that, if diplomacy fails, the United States could take out the nuclear facilities in a military strike.
But even inside the administration, many officials, particularly in the State Department and the Pentagon, argue that military action would prompt greater chaos in the Middle East and Iranian retribution against American forces in Iraq and possibly elsewhere. Moreover, they have argued that Iran’s enrichment facilities are still at an early enough stage that a military strike would not set the country’s program back very far. Such a strike, they argue, would only make sense once large facilities have been built.
Vice President Cheney, in an interview conducted with Fox News at the end of his trip to the Mideast, said today that Iran appears “to be determined to develop the capacity to enrich uranium in order to produce nuclear weapons.” But he issued no threats, saying simply “they ought to comply with the U.N. resolutions.”
He noted that President Bush personally made the decision to engage in talks with Iran, at the ambassadorial level, about Iran’s activities in Iraq. But those talks are supposed to specifically exclude the nuclear dispute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/wo...gewanted=print

It appears they now know how to make the "bomb".......
Jag

[Jag]

'World heading towards Iran confrontation'


IAEA Head Mohamed ElBaradei: Iran is building knowledge, situation is deteriorating. We are unable to inspect Iranian facilities Yaakov Lappin

Published:

05.24.07, 14:26 / Israel News

LUXEMBURG - The international community and Iran are "heading towards confrontation" over Tehran's nuclear program, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned Thursday morning.


ElBaradei was speaking at a two-day conference in Luxembourg aimed at "preventing nuclear catastrophe," organized by Russian Jewish Congress Chairman Viatcheslav Kantor.

"Its very difficult to say how close a country is to nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said during a press conference. "Iran is expanding its knowledge and capacity. It now has over 1000 centrifuges. I have expressed concern over this because the Agency is unable to conduct a robust and full inspection," he added.

"My current priority is to carry out a comprehensive inspection," ElBaradei said, adding that he estimated Iran was "three to eight years" from being capable of producing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA chief has come under criticism in recent days for suggesting that Iran has made so much progress on its nuclear program that the world should accept as "fact" that Iran will have the independent ability to enrich uranium.

On Wednesday, the IAEA released a report saying Iran was operating 1600 centrifuges independently. US officials have described the report as "alarming," while Iran said the report was "devoid of any new points."

"We could end up with a major confrontation," ElBaradei reiterated. "Iran needs to listen to the international community and suspend enrichment, but the international community also needs to engage Iran. We need a comprehensive settlement," he added, saying, "the status quo is unacceptable."

The IAEA head added that the issue represents "an emerging threat in a region that is in an absolute mess right now."

Nuclear weapons expert Mark Fitzpatrick told Ynetnews that ElBaradei's estimates may be too optimistic. "If everything goes smoothly for Iran, it will be 2 - 3 years away from being able to produce nuclear weapons," he said. "It seems Iran is on track to having 3000 centrifuges by the middle of this summer. It will take them about a year to get a hold of the technical issues and another year to enrich the uranium, hence my estimate of two years," he added.

Fitzpatrick noted that up until 2003, no less than 10 indicators were found to strongly suggest that Iran's nuclear program had a military purpose. "After 2003, all those signs stopped," he said. "Did the Iranians stop? Or is it more secretive? There's no reason to believe they stopped," he added.

'Attack on Iran would be catastrophic'
Meanwhile, speaking to Ynetnews, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said a military strike on Iran would be a "catastrophic" option.

Blix, who is currently Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, said previous military operations at nuclear programs, such as Israel's strike on Iraq's Osirak plant in 1982, served to slow the nuclear program, but added that only a "durable occupation or regime change" could ensure that the program is not restarted.

"In all likelihood, an attack on Iran would be catastrophic," Blix said, adding that the strike would rally support for Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...403986,00.html

Jag

[Aplomb]

http://patdollard.com/2007/05/30/wha...lks-with-iran/

May 30th 2007
What No One Is Telling You About Our Talks With Iran



Watching the pundits discuss our historic meeting with Iran, you would have mostly heard despair at the notion that we have no leverage in these talks, and so therefor why would Iran give on anything? Why would they stop waging war against us in iraq if they have nothing to fear? To all the experts in the media, the whole thing seemed like some grand puzzlement.



Was it just an attempt to appease the administration’s domestic critics who have been chiding it for not engaging in diplomacy ( a vaguery if there ever was one ) with the world’s top terrorist? No one you heard from could really quite grasp what was going on.


For some reason, no one told you that just 5 days before Monday’s talks, an entire floating army, with nearly 20,000 men, comprising the world’s largest naval strike force, led by the USS Nimitz and the USS Stennis, and also comprising the largest U.S. Naval armada in the Persian Gulf since 2003, came floating up unnanounced through the Straight of Hormuz, and rested right on Iran’s back doorstep, guns pointed at them. The demonstration of leverage was clear. And it also came on the exact date of the expiration of the 60 day grace period the U.N. had granted Iran.


And it came just a few weeks after Vice President Dick Cheney had swept through the region and delivered a very clear and pointed message to the Saudi King Abdullah and others: George Bush has unequivocally decided to attack Iran’s nuclear, military and economic infrastructure if they do not abandon their drive for military nuclear capability. Plain and simple. Iran heard the message as well, and although a lack of leverage may seem clear to America’s retired military tv talking heads, it is not so clear to the government in Tehran.


The message to both Iran and Syria is that if the talks in Baghdad fail, the military option is ready to go.


The administration is almost freakishly confident, in marked contrast to media reports like the one featuring Newt Gingrich’s attack on the President below. The U.S. is in the midst of another dipolomatic surge through the region to bolster allies for the final showdown with Iran. Moqtada Al Sadr has sent signals he may be ready to break with Iran. And, frankly, the military turnaround in Al Anbar province is of greater strategic significance than the increase in U.S. casualties this month. In addition, the surge is still not entirely deployed, and whole key neighborhoods of Baghdad have yet to be entered. While John McCain was being mocked for having to wear a flak jacket in a Baghdad market, the bigger story was that his son, a Marine newly deployed to the Al Anbar province, and a frontline grunt at that, was more likely than not to never see a shot fired in an area that until just weeks ago was called “the most dangerous place on earth”.


Oh, and preparations are under way for the construction of new U.S. airbases in Kurdistan, so we are not, under any circumstances, giving up a firmbase posture throughout Iraq.


And special props to VP Cheney who had nearly been ordered by his doctors to not even make the first trip. A compromise was had and he flew with a physician. He is preparing for a trip to Iran’s various northern neighbors like Uzbekistan and Khazekstan to shore up our position for offensives from the north.


We want to have them entirely surrounded.


Video Of Iran’s Surprise Guests:
Posted by Pat Dollard

[Jag]

Iran president sees "countdown" to Israel's end

Sun Jun 3, 2007 3:18PM EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Sunday the Lebanese and the Palestinians had pressed a "countdown button" to bring an end to Israel.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map", has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state but says Iran is not a threat.

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine," Ahmadinejad said in a speech.

"By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future," he said. He did not elaborate.

Iran often praises the Palestinians for what it says is their resistance against Israeli occupation. Tehran also described the war last summer between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel as a victory for the Iranian-backed group.

"If you make a mistake and create another war against the oppressed Lebanese nation, this time the angry ocean of the nations of the region will remove your rotten ... roots from the region," the president said in another speech on Sunday night.

Ahmadinejad's speeches were made ahead of ahead of Monday's anniversary of the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, whose words Ahmadinejad echoed when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

The president's comments caused consternation in Israel and the West, which also fear Iran is seeking to build an atomic arsenal under cover of a civilian nuclear power programme, a charge Tehran denies.

Although Ahmadinejad has said Iran is not a threat to Israel, Iranian officials have said Tehran would respond swiftly to any Israeli attack. Some analysts have speculated Israel could seek to knock out Iran's atomic sites.

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...ype=RSS&rpc=22

Jag

[Sean Osborne]

Read this report in its entirety!!!



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1977470.ece

June 24, 2007


Iran supplied missile that hit UK helicopter

Richard Miniter in Washington and Michael Smith


A ROYAL NAVY helicopter that crashed in flames in Basra last year, killing all five on board, was shot down by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile supplied to Iraqi militants by Iran, according to US officials.

America knew that the Mahdi Army, the radical Shi’ite militia, had obtained the shoulder-launched missile from the Iranians but failed to tell the British because of a row between the State Department and the CIA over the reliability of the source, US intelligence sources said.

The Lynx helicopter, from 847 Naval Air Squadron, based at Yeovilton, Somerset, was carrying a three-man crew plus Wing Commander John Coxen, the most senior officer to die in Iraq, and Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, the first British servicewoman killed in action since the second world war.

Witnesses told an inquest in Oxford last week that they saw a ball of yellow flame, typical of a particular type of missile, heading for the Lynx. Private Stuart Drummond said: “I thought it was a missile. The helicopter exploded. It was engulfed in flames and went down.”

The families of those killed were frequently asked to leave the inquest as secret details of the missile and the failure of the helicopter’s defensive systems were discussed. The report of a board of inquiry into the incident is heavily edited and was classified Top Secret Codeword, the highest UK classification.

This was because telephone intercepts, intelligence reports and pieces of the missile recovered from the scene confirmed that it came from Iran, the American sources said.

Three days before the attack, State Department officials interviewed an Iraqi linked to the Mahdi Army who told them Iran had supplied the militia with the Russian surface-to-air missile.

It was intended specifically for the Mahdi Army to shoot down a British helicopter, codenamed Operation Hawk-Taking.

The intelligence was not passed on to the British because the CIA dismissed the Iraqi detainee as “a well-known fabricator”, the sources alleged.

The allegations of Iranian involvement come amid increasing concern over Iran’s role in disrupting coalition operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Des Browne, the defence secretary, confirmed the scale of Iranian involvement in southern Iraq earlier this month. “Well over 80% of the violence is targeted against the British forces, much of it quite specifically influenced by the Iranians,” he said.

“We stand between them and their ambitions to share the spoils of what is potentially one of the richest cities in the world and to show the local population that they can force us out would be quite a coup for them. It’s in their interests to have their proxies drive us out of Iraq.”

British and US troops fought pitched battles with the Mahdi Army near the southern town of Amara last week as they broke up a network smuggling equipment from Iran to make armour-piercing shaped-charge bombs.

While it is widely known that Iran has been attempting to influence events in southern Iraq by backing attacks on British forces, suggestions that Iran is backing the Taliban in Afghanistan have, until recently, been given less credence by UK officials.

Browne went further than any British official on Iranian support for the Taliban. He said: “It is a changing pattern in that the Iranian influence is very important. We have evidence to suggest that they support the Taliban.”

Robert Gates, his US counterpart, made similar accusations, saying the extent of arms shipment across the Iranian border into Afghanistan suggested that the Iranian government was aware they were taking place.

Gates, a former CIA director, said he had seen recent intelligence analysis “that makes it pretty clear there’s a fairly substantial flow of weapons”.
Coalition forces have intercepted at least two large shipments of weapons coming into Afghanistan from Iran, one close to the border with Iran and the other near Kandahar.

It was left to the State Department to make the strongest allegations, with Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state, claiming there was “irrefutable evidence” that the Iranian government was involved in shipping weapons to the Taliban.

British officials, who had previously hesitated to suggest that Iran supported the Taliban, said they were seeing evidence of a shift in Tehran’s position.

That appeared to be confirmed by Admiral Ali Shamkhani, principal defence adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. Shamkhani told the US journal Defense News that Iran had “blocked US moves” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While Iran’s “partner of choice” in Afghanistan is the United Front, the Taliban’s most implacable foe, Tehran is hedging its bets. It is also friendly with the government of President Hamid Karzai and invests heavily in Afghanistan, particularly in the west around Herat.

Its support for the Taliban is seen as similar to that of Paki-stan’s, based on a recognition that in five or six years’ time America and its allies will be gone and the Taliban will not only still exist but could be in control of much of Afghanistan.

Officials said that Iran was also happy to be seen to be “tweaking the tail” of Britain and America.

[Backstop]

Officials said that Iran was also happy to be seen to be “tweaking the tail” of Britain and America.

Soon enough, they're gonna see exactly what's on the other end of that tail.

[Backstop]

More lies from Iran.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/me...l?eref=edition

Iran heaps scorn on U.S. claim of Hezbollah in Iraq

Story Highlights

Iranian spokesman accuses U.S. officials of "false and ridiculous claims"

Charge comes in response to questions about U.S. Hezbollah announcement

U.S. said Monday a top Hezbollah explosives expert was captured in Iraq

U.S. says Iran using Hezbollah as surrogate; Iran denies it

(CNN) -- An Iranian official slammed what he called "ridiculous and false claims" from U.S. officials about the "arrest of a foreign citizen in Iraq and his relation with Iran."

CNN reported in an exclusive on Sunday that a top special operations officer from Lebanon's Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah had been captured in Iraq. The U.S. military later publicly confirmed the report and provided details about the arrest.

Remarks from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini were reported Tuesday by the Islamic Republic News Agency and the Iranian Student News Agency.

"Unfortunately, U.S. statesmen are in the habit of repeating false and ridiculous claims without presenting any documents," said Hosseini. He did not specify precisely whom or what he meant.

His comments were made after CNN and other media asked him for a reaction to the arrest of Ali Mussa Daqduq.

U.S. officials identified the Hezbollah operative as an explosives expert who played a key role in the January 20 attack that killed five American troops in Karbala, a southern Iraqi city that is one of the most revered to Shiites.

Daqduq was captured in March in the southern city of Basra, where he allegedly was helping train and lead Shiite militias fighting coalition troops.

He pretended to be deaf and mute when captured, and his identity was not known for weeks, the officials said. Once it was uncovered, however, he began to talk, they said, and they now believe he played a crucial role in the attack.

Intelligence officials say Daqduq is one of Hezbollah's top special operations commanders, an expert in the use of roadside bombs. The Americans say he, along with the Iraqi militia commanders he worked with, has admitted working with Iran's elite Quds Force special operations unit.

"The Iranian Quds force is using Lebanese Hezbollah essentially as a proxy, as a surrogate, in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said on Monday. "The specific motivations behind those operations ... we're still learning about."

Hezbollah fought Israeli troops in a monthlong war in southern Lebanon in 2006. The conflict ended with a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.

U.S. commanders have said for months that Iraqi militants have been receiving weapons and training from members of the Quds Force, an element of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Washington has demanded Tehran stop the flow of arms and militants across its border, which, along with the diplomatic standoff over Iran's nuclear fuel program, has raised fears of a wider war in the region.

Iran, which has close ties to the Shiite parties that control Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, has repeatedly denied the allegations.

But U.S. intelligence officials said the Quds Force has been backing the creation of Shiite "special groups" modeled on Hezbollah, which holds sway over much of southern Lebanon.

CNN's Shirzad Bozorgmehr, Michael Ware and Thomas Evans contributed to this report.

[Jag]

Tunneling Near Iranian Nuclear Site Stirs Worry




By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 9, 2007; Page A01


The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside in central Iran might have passed for ordinary road tunneling. But the site is the back yard of Iran's most ambitious and controversial nuclear facility, leading U.S. officials and independent experts to reach another conclusion: It appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside the mountain.

The question is, why? Worries have been stoked by the presence nearby of fortified buildings where uranium is being processed. Those structures in turn are now being connected by roads to Iran's nuclear site at Natanz, where the country recently started production of enriched uranium in defiance of international protests.

As a result, photos of the site are being studied by governments, intelligence agencies and nuclear experts, all asking the same question: Is Iran attempting to thwart future military strikes against its nuclear facility by placing key parts of it in underground bunkers?

The construction has raised concerns at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog that monitors Iran's nuclear program. On Friday, an IAEA spokeswoman confirmed that the agency has broached the subject with Iranian officials. "We have been in contact with the Iranian authorities about this, and we have received clarifications," said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman. She declined to elaborate.

Calls to Iran's U.N. mission in Vienna were not returned. IAEA officials plan to press the issue further in a previously scheduled visit to Tehran later this week, according to informed sources.

"The tunnel complex certainly appears to be related to Natanz," said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit group that provided copies of the photos to The Washington Post. "We think it is probably for storage of nuclear items."

U.S. officials at several military and intelligence-gathering agencies said they are aware of the construction and are watching it closely, though none would comment publicly or speculate on the purpose of the tunnels.

A tunnel complex would reduce options for a preemptive military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear program, according to U.S. officials who closely follow Iran's nuclear activities. It also could further heighten tensions between the Bush administration and the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said he is committed to pursuing a peaceful use of nuclear power.

In response to suggestions by Vice President Cheney and others that the United States might consider using force to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, Ahmadinejad has shrouded the program in additional secrecy and threatened to suspend cooperation with international nuclear inspectors.

Iran has been enriching uranium at Natanz on a small scale for more than four years, creating a less-enriched product that can be used for generating electricity. With further enrichment, the uranium could be used in making weapons.

The commercial satellite photos, taken on June 11 by the firm DigitalGlobe, show two new roads leading to a construction site on the side of a mountain closest to the nuclear site's southern boundary. Although tunnel entrances are not directly visible, the photos show rocks and debris in large piles near the dig sites. There are no signs of construction in similar photos taken of the area six months ago.

In a report analyzing the photos, officials of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) compared the new Natanz construction with a tunnel built by Iran inside a mountain near another key nuclear site. That site, located about 80 miles to the south and known as Esfahan, is home to a major nuclear research center and a factory that converts uranium to a form that can be enriched at Natanz.

Iran began the work at Esfahan quietly in 2004, digging a large, two-entrance mountain tunnel that it later acknowledged was meant for nuclear storage. Iran eventually allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the then-empty tunnel. Having separate underground bunkers near both sites would allow Iranian officials to rapidly evacuate sensitive materials to safe storage if an attack were believed to be imminent, Albright, the ISIS president, said.

The intended use of the Natanz tunnel cannot be ascertained from the photos. But "such a tunnel inside a mountain would offer excellent protection from an aerial attack," said the report by ISIS, which produces technical assessments of nuclear programs. "This new facility would be ideal for safely storing" natural and enriched uranium and the specialized equipment needed to make it, ISIS said.

A less likely possibility, according to the ISIS report, is that Iran might seek to use the tunnels to house centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Iran's existing centrifuges at Natanz are in heavily fortified buildings built partly underground. Iran has acknowledged plans to expand its uranium enrichment, requiring tens of thousands of fast-spinning centrifuges.

In April, Iran unilaterally withdrew from an international treaty that would have required it to publicly disclose design plans for any new nuclear-related construction.

The ISIS report said that Iran nonetheless "should disclose to the [IAEA] any activity in this area related to its efforts at the nearby Natanz site or another nuclear purpose."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...administration

Jag

[Jag]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Jul. 10, 2007 0:47 | Updated Jul. 10, 2007 8:36
'Time running out for Iran strike'
By YAAKOV KATZ



Predicting that sanctions will ultimately fail to stop Teheran's nuclear program, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of Military Intelligence's Research Division, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that time to launch an effective military strike against Iran's nuclear installations was running out.

According to Kuperwasser, who stepped down from his post last year, Iran is "very close" to the point that it will cross the technological threshold and have the capability to enrich uranium at an industrial level. Once they master the technology, the Iranians will have the ability to manufacture a nuclear device within two to three years, he added.

"The program's vulnerability to a military operation is diminishing as time passes," Kuperwasser said, "and they are very close to the point that they will be able to enrich uranium at an industrial level."

Report: Iranian general providing top intel. to US

In an article entitled "Halting Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program: Iranian Vulnerabilities and Western Policy Options" published this week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - run by former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dr. Dore Gold - Kuperwasser spells out what he believes is the only course of action that will stop Iran's race to nuclear power.

Thanks to technological sophistication, advances in producing raw materials as well as intermediate products and the improvement in protection of the program's components, the Western world is beginning to find it difficult to plan an effective strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, he said.

On Monday, The Washington Post revealed new satellite photos of Iran's enrichment facility at Natanz which showed the digging of a tunnel that analysts said could be used to hide and protect key nuclear components.

Iran, Kuperwasser said, was working on two parallel tracks - one at Natanz to enrich uranium and the plutogenic track being worked on at the Arak heavy water facility.

As long as Russia was not aligned with the United States, Kuperwasser said sanctions would not work on their own to stop Iran.

"For significant sanctions to be effective the world needs to at the same time threaten the use of military force," he said. "Iran needs to be made to understand that if the sanctions won't work, the world is prepared to use military force to stop the nuclear program."

He said Iran was preparing for the possibility of war, but that deep down the Islamic leadership did not believe that either the United States or Israel were in a position of strength that would enable them to launch such a complicated military operation. Iran, he said, was purchasing Russian air defense systems and was fortifying its nuclear facilities and moving key elements to underground bunkers in preparation for the possibility that its assessments were wrong and it would in the end be attacked.

"The Iranians are working around the clock on improving military capabilities and they are also moving centrifuges to underground facilities," he said.

Kuperwasser said that a real threat of military action - backed up by credible threats by world leaders as well as the deployment of a large military force to the region - could have the right effect in deterring Iranian leaders from continuing with their nuclear program.

A credible military threat combined with economic leverage had a chance at preventing the need for a future clash with a nuclear Iran and perhaps could also make it unnecessary to deal today with an Iran that is close to nuclearization, he said.

Jag

[RavenLyke]

Accordign the DEBKafile -> http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4436
The U.S. Air force is trying to refit the B-2 bomber to carry the 15-tonne Massive Ordinance Penetrator Bombs. And Israel is doing some of the same type of Ordinance enhancments since the following:

The unveiling of these super-weapons comes shortly after satellite pictures showed new digging efforts in the mountains just outside Iran’s Natanz facility. Analysts worldwide believe a tunnel complex is under development.

[Ryan Ruck]

That is some interesting news... A B-2 with that capability would be most helpful, and not just against Iran.

Also, RavenLyke!

[RavenLyke]

Thanks for the welcome.

And I agree I am sure it would do a good deal of damage in many other fronts we are engadged in. Such as the mountains in Pakistan. And from reading things Mr. Osborne has written here and in other sites we need everything we can get because Iran and their proxy governments are scaring me more and more each day.

[Backstop]

Ulama my ass...

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/men...2013173859.htm

President: Rule of Islam only way for salvation of mankind



Kabul, Aug 14, IRNA

Iran-Afghanistan-Ahmadinejad

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that rule of Islam on mankind is the only way for salvation of human beings.

"There is no truth on earth but monotheism and following tenets of Islam and there is no way for salvation of mankind but rule of Islam over mankind," said Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Afghan Sunni and Shiite ulama at Iranian Embassy in Kabul.

President Ahmadinejad said nations are today distancing themselves from culture of materialism and selfishness and look for a new way for their prosperity, that is the path of Islam.

He said that the world is on verge of a great upheaval and ulama at this juncture shoulder a heavy responsibility that is introducing genuine Islam as it is.

"Nations today have no haven but religion," the Iranian president announced, cautioning Muslim nations against enemies' divisive plots.

He said, "All of us have the duty to resist the enemy by closing our ranks."

He said that the Iranian nation today feels more than ever the need to stand beside the Afghan nation.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has kindly received their Afghan brothers and will continue to do so in future. Minor issues will cannot affect Iran's policies on Afghanistan," he added.

The president said Islam belongs to all generations and Muslims should get ready for global mission of Islam.

[American Patriot]

Cheney Orders Corporate Media To Sell Iran Attack
The Intelligence Daily ^ | September 5, 2007 | Kurt Nimmo



Buried in the New Yorker and yet uncovered by Paul Joseph Watson is an item by George Packer about "instructions" handed-down from on-high by Cheney's office -- call it Neocon Central -- to sell the attack of Iran to the American people. Packer quotes Barnett Rubin, described as having "connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington," and this institution, likely the American Enterprise Institute, has instructed the complaisant corporate media to sell the attack.


"They [the source's institution] have "instructions" from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day," Packer quotes Rubin, "it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this -- they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty"...

(Poster note: Sounds like a loopy liberal who wrote this, and reminds me of the crap they used to post on Anomalies)

[American Patriot]

Tick, Tock, Michael Ledeen on The Iranian Time Bomb
NRO ^ | September 05, 2007

Tick, Tock, Michael Ledeen on The Iranian Time Bomb

September 05, 2007

National Review Online

An NRO Q&A

Most people…do not realize that, for nearly thirty years, the Iranians continuously attacked us, and, aside from some harsh rhetoric from time to time, we never responded.” So writes NRO contributor and American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen in his new book The Iranian Time Bomb. The book is an analysis of Iran’s ongoing war with “the Great Satan” and a blueprint for finally fighting back. Ledeen took a few questions on the book and the current scene from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez over Labor Day weekend.

Kathryn Lopez: Let me channel some Senate Democrats: Is there anything the Bush administration has done right on Iraq?

Michael Ledeen: Sure. Embracing what is now known as the Petraeus strategy was certainly right.

Lopez: What’s been the biggest mistake?

Ledeen: The failure of strategic vision, which endures still: believing “the war” was in Iraq alone, and that we could liberate and protect Iraq from inside her borders. It always was a regional war, but we keep denying it, above all to ourselves.

Lopez: How can it be remedied ASAP?

Ledeen: Call for regime change in Damascus and Tehran, and threaten Riyadh with grave actions if the Saudis don’t stop funding the jihadi global network.

Lopez: Why hasn’t there been another big attack on the U.S. homeland if the Iranian “terror masters”: are as evil as you say?

Ledeen: Nobody knows. Maybe we caught some of them. Maybe they decided not to do anything that would strengthen Bush. Maybe — this one is fairly likely, actually — there’s a rift within top leadership and the two sides (Hit America; no, hit Americans abroad and American allies first, then and only then go after America directly) paralyze each other.

Lopez: “There has been no break in ideological or operational continuity from Khomeini to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad; only the public face of the Revolution has changed.” Is there something more dangerous about Ahmadinejad? Brashness and nukes?

Ledeen: Iran, not a single individual, is getting more dangerous. Ahmadinejad is the mask currently worn by the regime.

Lopez: If the Iranian regime is opposed by literally “millions” of Iranians, why haven’t they taken action already? Why does what George Bush says and does matter? How would they even know what he does and says?

Iranians believe that nothing of consequence can happen in the world without American support (some of them add the queen of England). Millions of Iranians have protested against the regime and called for its downfall, but no country outside Iran has supported them. If Bush were to stand up and say “we want regime change in Iran,” I think there would be a fundamental change in the world, including inside Iran.

You ask how the Iranians would know what George Bush does and says? We can tell them directly, via radio and television. We should also tell them what’s going on in their own country.

Lopez: Who are the dissidents from Iran we should be supporting? How can we?

Ledeen: They are the Iranian people, probably upwards of 80 percent of them, more than fifty million. We should broadcast to them, assemble strike funds for them, get them laptops, servers, anti-censoring software, etc.

If we could overthrow the Soviet Empire with a small fraction of the population, why should we be pessimistic about Iran, where we’ve got most of the population with us?

Lopez: Tell me about the bus workers and union organizers. Are they poised to for a solidarity redux?

Ledeen: Unions are illegal, and the heads of the workers’ organizations are being tortured. The head of the bus workers’ organization is one of the bravest men in Iran, he recently went around Europe trying to get support for Iranian workers, knowing full well he would be arrested upon his return.

Lopez: Who is Akbar Mohammadi and what happened to him?

Ledeen: Akbar Mohammadi was one of the founders of the independent student movement. He was tortured to death by the mullahs about a year ago, and miraculously — despite a truly shameful performance by the State Department — his brother Manoucher escaped and is now in this country.

Lopez: You’ve been criticized by bloggers for having never been to Iran. Is that a problem?

Ledeen: I have never been to fascist Italy either, but I’m considered an expert on it.

Lopez: How important is the success of Hezbollah to Iran?

Ledeen: Very. Very very. Hezbollah provides many of the footsoldiers and most of the strategic planning for their international terrorist operations. I think we will eventually find that Hezbollah has been the spinal cord of the “insurgency” in Iraq.

Lopez: Why should I think “Iran” when I hear “al Qaeda”?

Ledeen: Because they’ve been working together since 1994, and we are now up to our uvulas in evidence showing Iran’s support for al Qaeda in Iraq. The 9/11 Commission — as Tom Joscelyn has written for years — found striking evidence of the al Qaeda/Iran partnership, starting with the sensational discovery that Imad Mughniyah, the operational chief of Hezbollah, was on the plane that took some of the 9/11 terrorists out of Saudi Arabia, en route to the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Lopez: So does bin Laden and crew work for Iran? Have they always?

Ledeen: I don’t know about “always.” Certainly they have worked closely with Iran for quite a while. I think the Iranian domination of al Qaeda started when we destroyed al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The key leaders ran to Iran and have mostly been there ever since.

Lopez: Was Iran involved in 9/11?

Ledeen: I don’t know. It’s possible, but certainly unproven. The most tantalizing factoid is the story of Ramzi bin al Shibh, the logistics officer for the 9/11 operation. He went to Iran for a month in late December, 2000, and then he returned to Iran less than a week before 9/11.

Lopez: This war on terror — how akin is it to the Cold War?

Ledeen: It’s similar in that our major enemy sees itself as the inevitable winner of an historic conflict with us. in that conflict, both Iranians and Soviets became major sponsors of international terrorism. it’s also similar in that the Iranians, like the Soviets, have a great talent for wrecking their own country and turning their own people against the regime.

It’s different in that Iran’s army isn’t remotely on a par with the Red Army. nobody’s worried about being invaded by Iranian armed forces.

Lopez: Speaking of: If Reagan was a disaster on Iran, as you say in the book; we’re most definitely not looking for another Reagan for president?

Ledeen: Long question about which I once wrote a book called Perilous Statecraft. The Reagan administration fell into the same self-delusion as every other American president since Carter: he came to believe that we could surely reach a modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic. Nothing new there, just a few years later Clinton was busy approving Russian arms sales to the mullahs, and signing off on Russian help with the Iranian nuclear project.

Lopez: How would Hillary be on Iran?

Ledeen: Who knows? We don’t even know if she’s really a Yankee fan. Certainly her husband was a great appeaser of Iran, and she was said to have had input into all his policies. If that is true, then you’d have to decide if she would repeat her earlier appeasement or if she learned something useful from it.

Lopez: Is it a problem and most Americans do not know the name of just released Haleh Esfandiari?

Ledeen: All is well; now they can read The Iranian Time Bomb and get educated.

Lopez: You do a little criticizing of General Petraeus on Iran. How’s he been doing this summer?

Ledeen: Magnificently. and I am told his report is particularly brilliant on Iran.

Lopez: How much better might have the Iraq war gone if we had addressed Iran differently?

Ledeen: I thought at the time that if we supported revolution in Iran, it would almost certainly succeed, and then we would not have had to face the jihad from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia when we went into Iraq. I also thought that our strategy in Iraq was excessively military and insufficiently political.

What drives me crazy is that even our most brilliant analysts — among whom I count some very close friends — still aren’t talking about the regional war. They still talk about Iraq alone. And down that road only misery lies.

Lopez: If there’s on message you hope to effectively get out to members of Congress, especially this month, what might it be?

Ledeen: That they’re debating the wrong question. We have to win the war, but the real war, not the battle for Iraq. We must have a winning strategy for Iran and Syria. I don’t think it requires the use of massive military power, although I do think we should attack both the terrorist training camps in Iran and Syria and the sites in Iran where the new explosive devices are being manufactured and assembled.

In other words, I agree with Lieberman, although I don’t think he is yet prepared to talk about a regional war.

Lopez: If we bombed Tehran tomorrow, what might happen?

Ledeen: There is no intelligent answer to that question, except: we’d kill a lot of people. there’s a recent poll according to which the general attitude is, if you’re going to bomb us to bring down the regime, that’s O.K. but if you’re going to bomb us to shut down some nuclear facilities, we’re against it.

But I have no idea if those polls are reliable. it makes sense to me, but I’m not in Tehran.

Lopez: If the administration would listen to you on one point, what would you pray it be?

LEDEEN: Tell the world that we want an end to the regime in Tehran. And keep saying it. And help the millions of Iranians who want to be free.

Lopez: You dedicated your book to Simone, Gabriel, and Daniel Ledeen. What should your fellow Americans know about them?

LEDEEN: That they are the most terrificly inspirational children anyone could imagine. Simone has served, as a civilian, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Gabe is a Marine 1st Lieutenant currently on his second deployment in Iraq. Daniel will be a Marine officer when he graduates from college in a year and a half. Three amazing overachievers, very close to each other, a testament to the greatness of America. And of course to the wonder of their mother.