Posted on 12/11/2007 11:03:17 PM PST by familyop
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iran resumed its nuclear weapons program in 2004, according to a US-based dissident who said Tuesday that US intelligence had failed to include his findings in a surprise about-face downgrading the Iranian threat.
"The weaponization program is alive, is active, and has been resumed since 2004," Iranian opposition figure Alireza Jafarzadeh told AFP, contradicting the US National Intelligence Estimate released a week ago.
"The NIE was only partly right," said Jafarzadeh, formerly the US spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and author of a book released in January called "The Iran Threat."
"They (Iranians) were forced to pause in 2003 because of the tremendous pressure they were under," he said. "They suspended it to consider their next steps, and started again in 2004."
In August 2002, Jafarzadeh first reported the existence of secret Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak, prompting denunciations of Tehran by Washington and hurried inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Iranian regime maintains the NCRI is a "terrorist" front run by disaffected exiles. The group is the political wing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, which is banned in the United States and the European Union.
Jafarzadeh was speaking as the United States continued to press for a third round of UN sanctions against Iran despite the new intelligence estimate, arguing that diplomatic pressure caused Tehran to halt its program in 2003.
The NIE was a diplomatic bombshell that contradicted forceful US assertions that Iran's nuclear program was a gathering threat that raised the prospect of "World War III."
While the NIE expressed with "moderate confidence" that Iran was not now trying to build nuclear weapons, Jafarzadeh said the program had only been suspended in 2003 to evade IAEA inspections.
Under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the top-secret weapons program was in fact moved from one site at Lavizan-Shian and scattered across various underground installations in 2004, he said.
Jafarzadeh said he had shared his analysis with contacts in the US intelligence community before the NIE's publication, but suggested a "certain agenda" by some in the community anxious to downplay Iran's threat.
"We've gone back and checked every site that we knew of... since 2002 to see if any of those activities were halted in those sites," he told a press conference, presenting slides purporting to show ongoing nuclear activity.
"With the exception of Lavizan-Shian... no other site was ever shut down," the Washington-based Jafarzadeh said, arguing that the US intelligence assessment "needs to be fixed."
"I don't think the international community, I don't think the United States government can afford to make such mistakes and provide the opportunity for the mullahs to get the bomb before we all know."
Probably a far more accurate view. One would hope they’re not as insane as they are, but you got to assume the worst.
To some in the intelligence community and the Congress, it looks to be more import to stop Bush, appease the enemy and to gain power in the US than to protect America.
If you see an Iranian who is peaceful but tired and old, he’s probably one of the Shah’s men—our buddies. If you see a grinning, wild-eyed one who doesn’t stand still and enjoys running like the wind for miles, even at high altitudes, that’s probably either one of the mullah’s soldiers or an MEK soldier. We should be listening, though cautiously, to the MEK types.
“They suspended it to consider their next steps, and started again in 2004.”
Absolutely 100% accurate, considering US intelligence has said otherwise.
I don’t know whether Hillary would repeat our Republican Party’s mistake of sending a bunch of nice, feminist, Iranian-American, university instructor chicks to get captured by the clerics, or draft every working class man and woman as cannon fodder to send into battle. After Hillary hears about any rumored rape occurrences in Iran (as she heard about from Bosnia before screeching at Bill to bomb the Serbs), she’ll probably do the latter.
I knew the intelligence report was only half the story. Of course the Iranians stopped their program—only to start it up again when they had their methods for hiding it perfected.
We have the most dysfunctional government in the western hemisphere.
or draft every working class man and woman as cannon fodder to send into battle. After Hillary hears about any rumored rape occurrences in Iran (as she heard about from Bosnia before screeching at Bill to bomb the Serbs), she’ll probably do the latter.Why do you think that?
You are obviously juxtaposing the US to such countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia.
Hell yeah.
At least none of them constantly contradict themselves with warring bureaucracies. The CIA is certainly the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
She didn’t need troops for telling Bill what to do.
But she obviously knew of the rapes that were going on there too. Why the selective outrage?
The NIE qualified their report with a distinction between "civilian" and "military" purposes. Regardless of the stated "purpose" for which the uranium is being enriched, IT CAN BE USED IN A FAIRLY SIMPLE NUCLEAR DEVICE ONCE ENOUGH OF IT IS OBTAINED.
Wake up, America.
Why the selective outrage? Look to Bill’s history for the answer to that: things that his mother had in common with Hillary’s cause. To dig even deeper, research Shalala’s history. Shalala was the keystone of the whole operation long before Hillary...er, Bill was elected.
Iran is working hard to have nuclear weapons ...what do you think all those centrifuges are for making ice cream? These analysts will all be shocked when Iran explodes its first nuke in the very near future.
"Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side!"
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