Formerly secret telexes offer window into Iran’s nuclear deceit

WaPo ^ | 2/22/12 | Joby Warrick,

[ColdOne]

The reason for the unusual purchase — 220 pounds of highly caustic fluorine gas — was never explained, but someone at Iran’s Sharif University was clearly anxious to collect. For months, the mysterious buyer bombarded a British supply company with telexes, demanding to know when his 45 canisters would arrive.

“We have not received your reply,” complained one telex, sent from the Tehran school’s purchasing department and written partly in broken English. “We are awaiting for hearing from you as soon as possible.”

But the telex, sent in 1992 and made public here for the first time, was not what it seemed. The real purchaser was not a university but a secretive research institute working for Iran’s military. The fluorine gas, investigators later concluded, was to be blended with uranium in a nuclear program that would remain hidden for 10 more years.

The document is part a trove of 1,600 formerly secret telexes obtained by nuclear researchers seeking to unearth the early history of Iran’s clandestine pursuit of nuclear technology. While nearly two decades old, the records offer an unusually detailed glimpse into Iran’s alleged efforts to defy sanctions to obtain sensitive technology — tactics that intelligence officials say continue even now.

Experts who studied the documents say they were struck by patterns of behavior that began early in the program and involved some of the same individuals who run the country’s nuclear efforts today, under the oversight of the same supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who came to power in 1989. The telexes and other records show Iranians using subterfuge and deception to obtain the parts they needed, and afterward issuing vigorous denials to U.N. nuclear officials, even when confronted with evidence.

[Signalman]

Not to worry. Obama will have Hillary send them a “strongly worded memo”, and the Iranians will realize the error of their ways.

[O6ret]

And this news comes as a surprise? To whom?

[kidd]

From the debate last night, Ron Paul stated that there is no proof that Iran is seeking to make a bomb.

If he had simply said that we have no right to stop Iran from making a bomb, I would have chalked it up to libertarian purism.

But saying that there is no proof that Iran intends to make a bomb is simply willful ignorance so that he doesn’t have to confront his libertarian beliefs with the sobering facts of modern warfare. The head in the sand approach.

Ron Paul may have a good head for the Constitution when it applies to domestic issues, but he is as dangerous as Obama on foreign policy when he downplays the ‘provide for the defense’ clause.

[jesseam]

For UF6?? A must for the centrifuges.

[mkjessup]

Ron Paul is an effin idiot, and anybody supporting him is likewise, an effin idiot.

[The Antiyuppie]

“For UF6?? A must for the centrifuges.”

Wrong!! It’s for toothpaste and fluoridated water.

Yeah...that’s the ticket...

[Mike Darancette]

complained one telex

telex? I haven't heard that word in years.

[bert]

fax had replaced most telex usage by 1992

rgds
bert