-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Pursuing a Secret Nuclear Program
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), shows a map at a news conference in Brussels, February 20, 2008, of what NCRI says is a clandestine nuclear site in Iran.
An exiled Iranian opposition group today claimed that Iran is accelerating its nuclear weapons program, despite what the United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has said.
“The Iran regime entered a new phase in its nuclear project,” said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a representative of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
He claimed that, for the first time, Tehran had established a command and control center to work on a nuclear bomb and that southeast of the capital it was also setting up a center to produce warheads.
Iran has steadfastly denied it is working to obtain a nuclear bomb, arguing that its nuclear program is purely civilian. In December, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 because of international pressure.
Mohaddessin told a news conference that Iran had closed down one center only to open another later with the same purpose. He called the U.S. report “not accurate.”
In the meantime, on the eve of a new report of the IAEA, Iran President Ahmadinejad ups the rhetoric about its nuclear soverign rights and Israel.
Key graphs from Ahmadinejad:
- On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad defiantly vowed that Iran has no intention of ceding to the main demand of the UN Security Council that it suspends uranium enrichment operations and proclaimed the country had defeated world powers.“With the help of God, the Iranian nation with its unity, faith and determination stood and defeated the world powers and brought them to their knees,” he told cheering crowds in the speech.”World powers should know the Iranian nation considers nuclear energy its undeniable and definite right and will not accept any imposition or any additional cruel rules.”
- “World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region,” Ahmadinejad told a rally in the southern city of Bandar Abbas broadcast on state television.The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, on Monday had predicted Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah would destroy Israel in the near future.
Look for more rhetoric and spin by the Iranians to provide cover for their friends and economic partners China and Russia in the United Nations Security Council. The prospect for ANY meaningful sanctions coming from the UNSC is doubtful.
But, will the United States and EU decide upon their own course of action? Finally?
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Cancerous Israel to Vanish Soon
Iran Nuclear Watch: U.S. Intel – Iran Directly Engaged in Manufacture of a Nuclear Weapon
Iran Nuclear Watch: Uranium Gas Goes Into Iran’s Centrifuges
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israel – Iran Moving Forward with Nuclear Weapons
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Cancerous Israel to Vanish Soon
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) shakes hands with General Yahya Rahim Safavi — the former chief of the Revolutionary Guards — while his newly-appointed successor General Mohammad Ali Jaafari looks on during a meeting in Tehran. Khamenei pledged that Iran will never yield to Western pressure over its nuclear program, and it would outsmart “drunken and arrogant†Western opponents in the standoff. (September 2007)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Muhammad Ali Jafari does NOT heart Israel. In a letter to Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah he wrote: “The cancerous growth Israel will soon disappear.”
Why does anyone think that Iran is NOT developing nuclear weapons to utterly destroy Israel?
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: U.S. Intel – Iran Directly Engaged in Manufacture of a Nuclear Weapon
Iran Nuclear Watch: Uranium Gas Goes Into Iran’s Centrifuges
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israel – Iran Moving Forward with Nuclear Weapons
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: U.S. Intel – Iran Directly Engaged in Manufacture of a Nuclear Weapon
Machines use yellow cake to produce Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at the Iranian Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facilities (UCF), 420 kms south of Tehran, in 2007. Iran still possesses the capacity to produce nuclear weapons even though it may have stopped its atomic arms development program, a senior US intelligence official said Wednesday.
Now, the United States has suspicions that Iran is attempting to make a nuclear weapon and has passed along to the IAEA intelligence that directly implicates Tehran.
Shared in the past two weeks was material on a laptop computer reportedly smuggled out of Iran, said another diplomat, accredited to the IAEA. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.
He said that after declassification, U.S. intelligence also was forwarded on two other issues—the “Green Salt Project”—a plan the U.S. alleges links diverse components of a nuclear weapons program, including uranium enrichment, high explosives testing and a missile re-entry vehicle, and material in Iran’s possession showing how to mold uranium metal into warhead form.
Israel has already made the same point and today the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants further investigation.
In the meantime, Iran who has been sanctioned twice by the United Nations Security Council and continues uranium enrichment.
Unbelievable…….
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Uranium Gas Goes Into Iran’s Centrifuges
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israel – Iran Moving Forward with Nuclear Weapons
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Will Equip Iran with Anti-Missile Defense
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Stopped Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Uranium Gas Goes Into Iran’s Centrifuges
Iranians trample on a US flag during a rally in Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed Western threats on Iran’s nuclear programme and launched a bitter tirade on domestic opponents, in a pugnacious speech marking the Islamic revolution.
Iran is pursuing uranium enrichment for peaceful electricity generation purposes and advanced ballistic technology for a space program.
Iran’s new generation of advanced centrifuges have begun processing small quantities of the gas that can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Right…..
Israel is NOT fooled and neither should the American public.
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israel – Iran Moving Forward with Nuclear Weapons
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Will Equip Iran with Anti-Missile Defense
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Stopped Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israel – Iran Moving Forward with Nuclear Weapons
Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrive for a news conference following their talks in the Chancellery in Berlin February 12, 2008. Olmert said on Tuesday that all options should be considered in international efforts aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Iran is developing ever sophisticated ballistic missiles and is stepping up uranium enrichment for supposedly peaceful energy generating purposes. Does anyone REALLY believe that Iran is NOT secretly developing nuclear weapons?
Israel’s prime minister on Tuesday brushed aside suggestions that the threat from Iran’s nuclear program has receded, saying he remains convinced that Tehran is “moving forward” with plans for an atomic weapon.
A U.S. intelligence report in December found Tehran had halted its program in 2003. However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters that “nothing that we know has changed our attitude on this issue.”
“Tell me, why does Iran need enriched uranium at a time when they are supplied by (the) Russians the nuclear fuel for the civilian projects? … What else do they plan for which they need the most sophisticated ballistic missiles?”
President Bush has “PUNTED” the Iran nuclear issue to the next President with the December NIE. But, Israel has their very existence at stake.
This issue will be debated and stalled in the IAEA and UNSC but will be on the front burner for the next President in February 2009.
Stay tuned……
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Will Equip Iran with Anti-Missile Defense
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Stopped Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Will Equip Iran with Anti-Missile Defense
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=YrGHGOGmL-8[/youtube]
Iran says Moscow could soon start supplying it with the Russian S300 missile air defence system. The announcement was made by Iran’s Defence Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, who was speaking to the Fars news agency.
For a country that confirms they stopped their nuclear weapon development program over three years ago, Iran is unexplainably increasing their defense posture to protect what?
Could it be the CIA’s Iran NIE was WRONG?
The United States needs better intelligence and must make it clear to Russia that a resumption of Cold War surrogate development with Iran will be met with renewed American efforts to undermine the Putin dictatorship.
Stay tuned…….
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Stopped Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
Technorati Tags: Iran
Your comments are welcome below and at My Dental Forum
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Stopped Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks at a ceremony in Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, 300 kms 186 (miles) south of capital Tehran, Iran, Monday April, 9, 2007. Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior intelligence officials said Monday, Dec. 3, 2007.
Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure, but is continuing to enrich uranium and could be capable of developing a weapon as early as late 2009, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded.
The nuclear clock is set back from the precipice of WAR. But, Iran continues to enrich uranium with 3,000 centrifuges spinning as we wait for the IAEA and United Nations to take action.
But, what has changed since the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).
“Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005,” states the unclassified summary of the secret report. “Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”
Officials said the findings show diplomacy is effective in containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“This is good news in that the U.S. policy coupled with the policies and actions of those who have been our partners appear to have had some success. Iran seems to have been pressured,” one official said. “Given that good news we don’t want to relax. We want to keep those pressures up.”
The key judgments conclude with “high confidence” that:
- Until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons
- In fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program
- The halt lasted at least several years
- Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do reverse course
- The halt, and Tehran’s announcement that it has suspended its declared uranium enrichment program and signed additional safeguards relating to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are “primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work”
- Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.
The United States must continue the pressure on Iran – economic and political. This is “good news” but America must be positive that Iran has not resumed a nuclear weapon program.
Stay tuned…..
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R) announces economic sanctions on Iran to pressure it to halt its nuclear program as U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson stands next to her at the State Department in Washington October 25, 2007.
Update:
Britain says pressure on Iran justified.
“The report’s conclusions justify the action already taken by the international community to get to the bottom of Iran’s nuclear program and to increase pressure on the regime to stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities,” a British Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
Technorati Tags: Iran
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Will Israel Strike Iran?
Machines produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at the uranium conversion facilities in Isfahan, Iran. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has called for Mohamed ElBaradei to be removed as head of the UN nuclear watchdog, saying he had turned a blind eye to archfoe Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The United States and Israel are done with El Baradei and the United Nations. The question is NOT IF but WHEN Israel with help from the United States strikes Iran’s nuclear program.
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
Technorati Tags: Iran
-
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Boasts of 3,000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech during a visit the Natanz uranium enrichment facility some 300 kms, south of the capital Tehran, in April. Iran has built a landmark 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, Ahmadinejad announced 07 November 2007, despite international pressure to halt its atomic work.
If Ahmadinejad is to be believed, Iran NOW possesses the capability of producing a nuclear weapon within a year.
Will the United States continue to fiddle around with economic sanctions? Or will Israel ACT?
Previous:
Iran and North Korea Targeted by American Nuclear Weapons
Iran Nuclear Watch: Are the Latest U.S. Sanctions the Last Stop Before Military Action?
Technorati Tags: Iran
-
Iran and North Korea Targeted by American Nuclear Weapons
Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facilities at Isfahan. Bahrain’s crown prince has claimed that Iran is developing atomic weapons or the capability to do so — the first time an Arab state in the Gulf has openly accused Tehran of lying about its controversial nuclear drive.
Iran and North Korea’s choice for continued negotiations to rid the world of their nuclear ambitions with the United States.
The nuclear warheads resting on ballistic missiles in silos, circling the globe in submarines or carried—sometimes mistakenly—by aircraft hail from an era when the U.S. targeted its largest foe, the U.S.S.R. and, more recently, Russia and China. But a document newly obtained by the Washington, D.C.–based Federation of American Scientists (FAS)—founded by the creators of the original nuclear bomb in 1945 and monitoring the weapons ever since—reveals that in recent years the U.S. target list has expanded to include so-called “regional proliferators,” smaller states seeking to acquire such weapons of mass destruction.
The United States has options but MUST press these rogue regimes to accept peaceful resolution of non-proliferation.
Surrender is NOT an option for America.
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Are the Latest U.S. Sanctions the Last Stop Before Military Action?
Technorati Tags: Iran, North Korea, Federation of American Scientists