Statements leaked anonymously ahead of next week’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear program warn that the study will reveal evidence that Iran has been working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
According to Western diplomats who refused to reveal their identity, the evidence will include satellite images of what of is supposedly a large steel container used for high-explosives tests related to nuclear arms as well as intelligence that Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead.
The statements have added fuel to the fire of US, European, and Israeli bellicosity towards Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allegedly been pushing his cabinet to support a unilateral attack on Iran, and on Wednesday Israel tested a ballistic missile while making public statements about an Iranian nuclear threat.
Meanwhile, Britain unveiled preparations and plans to attack Iran, supposedly in case of a U.S. attack in which they would play an assisting role. And a bipartisan House committee on Wednesday unanimously pushed forward two bills that would impose harsher sanctions on Iran’s energy and banking sector.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that the U.S. exerted pressure on the IAEA to reveal a biased result. “If the IAEA is impartial it should resist the pressures exerted by certain countries and do its job professionally,” Salehi said.
“The Americans raised documents like this in the past: the Niger scandal,” he added. “The documents were used as a pretext to invade Iraq,” Salehi added. “After killing tens of thousands of innocent people, it was discovered that it was a forged document.”
The Niger scandal, in which the U.S. claimed Iraq received material for weapons of mass destruction from Niger, was concocted with inaccurate US and Italian intelligence in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The IAEA at the time actually debunked the claims, noting indications of a crude forgery.
The IAEA report is due to be released to the public on Tuesday, so for now these anonymous statements claiming a serious Iranian nuclear threat are all the public has. If the claims are true, one wonders why such evidence has not yet been discovered.
Back in May, Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that “despite years of covert operations inside Iran, extensive satellite imagery, and the recruitment of Iranian intelligence assets, the United States and its allies, including Israel, have been unable to find irrefutable evidence of an ongoing hidden nuclear-weapons program in Iran.”
“A government consultant who has read the highly classified 2011 National Intelligence Estimate update,” wrote Hersh, “depicted the report as reinforcing the essential conclusion of the 2007 paper: Iran halted weaponization in 2003. ‘There’s more evidence to support that assessment,’ the consultant told me.”
Unfortunately, the anonymous leaks are being used to rally fear, anger, and certainty among the public about Iran’s nuclear weapons. Hans Blix, former head of the IAEA, recently urged caution on the part of the US, Israel and their western allies. He warned that Tehran was acting out of a perception of threat, and must be reassured that it does not need a nuclear deterrent. “I think the talks that will resume should give Iran insurance that they will not be attacked from the outside under any circumstances,” said Mr Blix.
Indeed, Israel and its Western allies have done all they can to make Iran feel threatened. For years now, a concerted covert US campaign of cyber-terrorism, commercial sabotage, targeted assassinations, and proxy wars has been under way in Iran, not to mention a harsh sanctions regime. Additionally, US-supported Israeli agents have admitted to committing terrorist acts, including assassinations, on people inside Iran.
The United States has long been garrisoning Iran’s surroundings with sophisticated weapons and military capabilities. Aside from two long and unnecessary wars directly to Iran’s east and west, the US has patrolled a fleet of Navy warships off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf and regularly sends significant amounts of security assistance to nearly all of Iran’s neighboring countries including Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan.
One way to ensure that all of these aggressive postures won’t eventually result in a unilateral attack or invasion of Iran, is if they have nuclear weapons capability. While sufficient evidence of such illicit activities has yet to be presented, the Iranian leadership certainly recognizes this logic of mutually assured destruction.
Furthermore, the notion Iran would work to attain nuclear weapons in order to deploy them against Israel or the United States is a virtual impossibility. They’re intention – if it exists as such – would be to deter aggression, not to have themselves incinerated in a retaliatory nuclear attack.
Incidentally, the US has failed to take opportunities to nullify the Iranian nuclear issue. Other than refusing to simply deescalate aggressive militaristic postures, the US has also had the opportunity to push for an agreement that would make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free-zone. Iran has repeatedly voiced support for such an agreement, so long as Israel complies as well. But the US and Israel refused to have Israel disarm its secret nuclear weapons program.
Attacking Iran could have disastrous results, which are hopefully not unfamiliar possibilities in the ranks of America’s national security state. As Robert Dreyfuss at Nation magazine recently explained, a unilateral, preemptive strike “would lead to a regional conflagration,” prompting retaliatory attacks from Iranian proxies and allies in the region, which could then give justification for further attacks from Israel and the west.
Dreyfuss explained “an attack by either the United States or Israel makes no strategic sense, especially since many analysts believe that even a sustained attack might not succeed in doing anything more than delaying Iran’s program while convincing Tehran to accelerate it and to move its facilities underground into hardened sites.”
Dreyfuss had an excellent article.The idea that Iran might have had a nuclear weapons program before 2003 was based in the information found in a laptop computer of uncertain origin. Nothing too technical. The Russiuns refused to accept that dubious information as any evidence that Iran had ever had a nuclear weapons program. This is all PSY OPS from the Isrealis to distract the local home folks from their real problems.
The brain-trust of US government seems hellbent on poking sticks into the hornets nest. Heave help us all.
I wonder if the "Western diplomats" who are so frequently quoted in these articles are actually western- and not Israeli- diplomats? Do Israelis get that title?
These war-mongers should have t-shirts made that read, "Iran: six months away from nuclear weapons for the thirtieth straight year".
A large steel container and some computer programs. Wow, that's nearly as iron-clad as those mobile labs.
But as the old saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm the American public and I have a very short memory."
And another question: if it's a secret program- and it's location is unknown- how do they propose to attack it?
A prolonged war in the Middle East will spell the financial end of America. Borrowing a couple trillion more just to blow it up is not in the cards so to speak. The rest of the world will suffer for it too – all so Israel can continue to expand.
they want to delay irans piece of cr@p nulcear energy program by bombing the country into smithereens??
Good logic. Lets kill hundreds of thousands of people, destroy the world economy and start WW3 because we are stupid
Now were have I heard this before?
Anonymous sources, here we go again.
like Niger sources all the same craps as long as American ignorant public keep believing controlled media it will help the Empire go down faster.
Iran is not Iraq,many people of Iran would love to die for Iran & thats what will happen.
Dead has been romanticized & west and America should know this.
Again this is more reason for Iran to have a nuclear weapon & they will have it if America and Israel play this tune.
Look at the North Korea nothing happens to them. Because they have the bomb.
Moral if the history is that if you want to keep America & Israel out get the BOMB.
Bingo! We have a winner. I've said the same for years. If you have "Da Bomb" Uncle Scam keeps his pecker in his pants.
There will be NO attack on Iran! Israel never ever attacks by first telegraphing their intentions. They always attack by stealth and surprise. What is going on now is merely bombastic pressure applied to Iran. NO attack.
Perhaps the real goal is to threaten Iran so much, that they DO try to get their hands on nuclear wepons. The whole mess with the israelis and the US claiming Iran is very dangerous sounds a little stretched, when in fact those counbtries do hold nuclear weapons.
It is fairly obvious for anybody to realise, that they behave like psycopaths! Iran has not attacked another country for 200 years. Compare that to USA and Israel, an now tell me, who represents the most serious dangers to the world!
"Perhaps the real goal is to threaten Iran so much, that they DO try to get their hands on nuclear weapons."
You got it exactly right, Montaigne.
The US policy is to dominate the region. This policy, born of Israeli subversion of the US government — the "special relationship" — is, in truth, as much about Israeli security interests as about US imperial interests. Dominating the region necessarily means eliminating any regional power's capacity to challenge that domination. Thus the overthrow of Mosaddegh and installation of the Shah in '53, and the follow-on quarter-century subjugation and looting of Iran as American puppet. Thus the bombing of Iraq back into the stone age in '92, the follow -on sanctions, and the subsequent invasion and occupation of '03.
Now, Iran challenges that dominance and must be dealt with.
The Iranian strategy for defense is interesting and exceedingly smart. Develop a very substantial uranium enrichment capability, for exclusively peaceful purposes, as authorized under the terms of the NPT. A completely legal program, comprehensively and transparently monitored by the IAEA. And to then secure this enrichment capability where it cannot be destroyed, even by a nuclear attack.
Since such an enrichment capability, completely legal, is THE KEY COMPONENT of a nuclear weapons program, it's all that's necessary for the Iranians to achieve the same goal as an actual weapons program: deterrence. With a substantial, survivable enrichment capability, the Iranians, if threatened or attacked, could turn on a dime, reconfigure the enrichment cascade, feed in their stores of legal 20% enriched uranium, and have a deployable nuclear weapon inside of a month. A sizable enrichment capability thus becomes a nuclear-weapons-free nuclear deterrent. How can you not be impressed by such cleverness.
This why the US and Israel are unalterably opposed to Iran acquiring an enrichment capability. It is why they are going all the way with their sanctions and threats. And it is why the Iranians are — again, masterfully — playing it so cool, and NOT RISING TO THE PROVOCATIONS. The Iranians will not give the US/Israel what they want: an excuse, anything, no matter how flimsy, to justify an attack on Iran. (Of course the US/Israel keep trying to provoke, keep up the demonization, keep employing every tool at their disposal, keep trying even to "manufacture" — for instance, the ridiculous "assassination plot" against the Saudi Ambassador — something that will "stick", but the Iranians appear to know the game, and remain "frosty".)
It's an interesting and dangerous business. Particularly considering the bat-crap crazy — some might say "incurably suicidal" — Israelis (and their hoodwinked American enablers).
Well, I am not convinced they have a secret programme, however, I HOPE THEY DO.
North Korea has shown that any nation threatened by the murderous Empire and its NATO imperial guard has a better chance of survival with a nuke than bowing your knee, grovelling and handing in all your defenses as did a late, and I do lament, Col Gaddaffi.
Big mistake!! and he paid dearly – sadly so have his people.
Who ever wrote Star Wars saw the 'Empire' coming alright.
I would be interested to know how many other fourth world countries are doing a fair bit of nuclear research or black market dealing as their best means of defence.
Certainly many in South America, whom the 'Empire' virtually destroyed again and again in past decades, must be taking the idea seriously.
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina..
Add to that the chap who sold nuclear technology out of Pakistan must have succeeded with an islamic bomb or two.
Attack Iran and the west will soon find out the nasty way.
Frankly if we were to pre-emptively attack terrorist states and put them beyoond causing mass destruction, a poll in Europe has just shown which one is top of the European's list.
It ain't North Korea.
It ain't Iran.
Let us just say its a vile little occupying country on the eastern edge of the Med.
Iran and the rest of the world need a nuke….or 100
to protect it from the zionist intruders
"large steel container" & "computer models" Is that the best evidence they have? What about satellite images of people driving cars around? You know those things can be used to transport nuclear materials to bombs, a smoking gun if ever there were.
The IAEA helped debunk the Niger documents because it was truly an unbiased organization under Mohammed al Baradei. It was a major goal of US policy to get him out of that role and replace him with a stooge, which the US succeeded in doing a couple years ago. Ever since, the IAEA has been making statements unsubstantiated by its own evidence. Now apparently the US has provided it with some probably ambiguous satellite data and told the IAEA it's irrefutable proof of a weapons program. I'm sure it's every bit as irrefutable as the Iraqi aluminum tubes, which turned out to be for rockets, not centrifuges as the US claimed.
I won't be convinced that Iran has a nuclear weapons program until there is irrefutable proof that they possess aluminum tubes that can be used in a uranium centrifuge.
Incidentally, the last time an attack on Iran looked imminent, Russia demonstrated they can cut through Georgia like a hot knife through butter.
Read it carefully: "working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability"
since the IEAE is no longer an honest broker in this charade and has been arm-twisted by USrael to dissemble their findings, this statement can be roughly translated as: they are working to be capable of building Nukes, NOT that they are building nukes.
Of course the lying, war-mongering lunatics who could sit out the next World War in Argentina or somewhere underground, will go berserk over this totally orchestrated fabrication and the American -citizen-morons will quake with fear that neutralizes their higher brain functions and will drink more beer and watch more football but will continue t do nothing to stop the insanity that is destroying their ability to exist and will likely soon destroy their existence.
" You better RUN"
Pink Floyd"
An attack on Iran is illegal immoral and stupid.America is faceing problems they never would have though the citizens anyway.Iran is no threat to America and would not attack Israel unless in self defence.It would be nice if America was not controlled by outside interests and did the right thing for once in a long time.
Iran would have to be crazy not to be trying to get nukes. When you live next to a crazed war mongering psychotic nation backed by their stupid but powerful slave "ally" you need nukes.
Names, names give us the names of the plumbers doing this "leaking;"
The whole pt. of this exercise is not to accumulate facts/proofs but to accumulate fears. It is psy-ops, but it is not only aimed at Iran but also at the Israeli and American public. If they succeed in making us fearful enough we will have to attack. Our fears will overpower us. The ghost of Hitler walks the ramparts at night. Some people claim they have seen him in the shadow of Ahmedinejad. Hitler with nukes! Hitler with religious zeal! Hitler, the anti-Christ, 666, the recurring nightmares of all our superstitions. That's where this is trying to herd us. The stampede of war.
war is not necessary and not feasible. Americans and Israelis will regret it in the long term. Where's the money going to come from? why is war the answer to all of our problems? America seemed to get a lot more mileage out of the M.E. by showing some respect, than with its current Israeli-style occupy-torture-murder-pee on the Quran routine.
If Israel starts a war and America does NOT stand by and let them become the sick lonely pariah state that it so richly deserves, then America doesn't deserve another chance.
This patriot came up with an interesting solution:
Iran Invasion Will Require 4 Million New Troops
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/11/05/vt-restor…
Iraq repeated, fabricating false pretexts to start an other war of aggression. That has always been the name of the war games. But this time things will most likely be quite different. Iran is not Iraq. However a war against Iran will have devastating consequenences for the rest of the world, in particular the oil dependant western economies, already in dire financial straits and a China, reluctant to bail them out. Hopefully this will be Israel's 'Stalingrad' and an end of Zionist domination of the American Congress and its disastrous foreign policies.
"Sniff… Sniff…." It's got that rank Mossad stench all over it.