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Iran set for snap U.N. nuke checks

2003-11-07 / Reuters

Iran's representative to the United Nations atomic watchdog said on Wednesday his country would give the U.N. a letter formally accepting tougher, short-notice nuclear inspections within days.

"The letter has been prepared and we are going to hand it over to the IAEA Secretariat," Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters in an interview. "I would say it's in days."

Salehi also said Iran had given the IAEA original drawings of uranium-enrichment centrifuge parts on which IAEA inspectors had found traces of bomb-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU).

"They have enough clues now to make their own conclusions," he said.

The United States accuses Iran of secretly working on an atomic bomb. Tehran vehemently rejects this claim and insists its program is solely for peaceful generation of electricity.

Iran says the parts were contaminated with HEU before Iran purchased them abroad, an explanation that has met with scepticism among countries like the United States which believe Iran bought or purified the uranium itself for use in a bomb.

A diplomat familiar with the IAEA told Reuters delivery of the original drawings is significant, because they represent the "building blocks of Iran's centrifuge program" and can help the agency's investigation into the origin of the uranium.

Iran has repeatedly said it was about to hand over the letter of intent to sign a protocol accepting short-notice inspections, but has yet to do so. Salahi emphasised there was no question over Iran's intention to sign.

"We cannot specify exactly the date. But it's certainly going to be before the (IAEA board meeting on November 20) because they have to be informed before the board so they can put it on the agenda," he said.

The main item on the IAEA governing board meeting is IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report on inspections in Iran and compliance with an October 31 deadline for Tehran to make a complete declaration of its nuclear program.

After the board approves Iran's intention to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran can sign the document. Tehran has said it will allow the tougher inspections even before parliament ratifies the protocol.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/World/2003/11/07/1068169093.htm

Court rejects Iran claim on US reparations

By Nikki Tait in London
Published: November 7 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: November 7 2003 4:00

The US will not have to pay reparations to Iran for destroying three offshore oil production complexes belonging to the National Iranian Oil Company during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the International Court of Justice ruled yesterday.

But The Hague-based court threw out US arguments that the attacks were justified "as measures to protect the essential security interests of the US". And it dismissed a counterclaim against Iran in which the Americans sought reparations on the grounds that Iran had violated treaty obligations by attacking vessels in the Gulf.

The ICJ decision ends an 11-year-old claim by Tehran that its oil exports were damaged when the US navy attacked the three Iranian platforms in October 1987 and April 1988. Iran filed the complaint with the United Nations-backed court in 1992, arguing that the destruction of the rigs violated a 1955 friendship treaty between the two countries - although diplomatic ties had already been severed following Iran's Islamic revolution.

Iran had claimed that the US had taken sides during the Iran-Iraq conflict, and had supplied Baghdad with weapons - an embarrassing reminder of how US attitudes to Saddam Hussein's regime changed over the past two decades.

The US countered that it had remained neutral during the eight-year war and only acted to defend its own security interests. It counterclaimed that Iran had violated the friendship treaty by "attacking vessels in the Gulf and otherwise engaging in military actions that was dangerous and detrimental to commerce and navigation between the US and Iran".

The court said the US measures were not necessary to protect security interests "as interpreted in the light of international law on the use of force". But by a 14 to 2 majority it also rejected Iran's claims that the attacks amounted to a US breach of treaty obligations.

The court said that the platforms involved in the 1987 attack had been under repair and not operational, so there was no trade in crude oil from those platforms between Iran and the US at the time. It said the same applied to the 1988 attack, because by that stage all trade in crude between Iran and US had been suspended under the oil embargo.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1066565702738

Iran Says It Will Abandon Development of Longer-Range Missile

November 07, 2003
The Washington Post
Karl Vick

TEHRAN -- Iran will abandon development of a missile that could have carried a conventional warhead as far as Europe or threatened Israel with a heavier nuclear or biological payload, the Iranian government announced.

The declaration that it would not manufacture the Shahab-4 missile came less than three weeks after Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment activities and open its mostly secret nuclear program to short-notice inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

By publicly discarding a possible delivery system, Iran's government appears intent on further reassuring an international community alarmed by Iran's nuclear program, whose swift development had taken proliferation monitors by surprise. Iranian officials insist their nuclear program has no military component.

"I believe that if the [missile] experiment were to be carried out, it would not be positive for our politics," said Habibollah Asgarowladi, general secretary of the Islamic Coalition Association, Iran's hard-line conservative political party. "I'm just speaking personally, but I believe that if we want to settle down our politics, it was a good move."

The Shahab-4 was being designed to carry a one-ton payload as far as 1,250 miles, or a heavier warhead -- such as a relatively crude nuclear device -- a shorter distance that would include Israel. Iran has said it has deployed the Shahab-3, which can carry a payload of one metric ton 800 miles.

Experts differed on whether the Iranian missile was a copy of North Korea's No Dong missile or the Russian SS-4. Both countries have shepherded Iranian military missile development in the past. Iran asserted that the Shahab-4 (Shahab is Farsi for "meteor") was intended for satellite launches.

Anthony H. Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said development of the Shahab-4 had not reached the point of mass production. The Shahab-4, he said, "in a lot of ways is a paper missile," in that it existed mainly in frame designs and possibly engine components.

Cordesman said the announcement that work on the missile was being scrapped appeared to indicate that Iran's usually divided government continues to speak with one voice. But he warned that "it doesn't meant this is something that's permanent." The missile's development could continue secretly, he said, just as a program aimed at producing atomic weapons could conceivably elude inspectors.

The Defense Ministry statement, quoted by the Iran Student News Association on Wednesday, said the announcement that it "does not have any plans for manufacturing Shahab-4 missiles" followed "certain expressions in society."

The statement did not elaborate, but it was published the same day Iran's ambassador to the IAEA was quoted as saying his government within "days" would sign the addendum to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allowing snap inspections of nuclear facilities. Iran agreed to adopt the addendum under the terms of an agreement signed Oct. 21 with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain, quelling a mounting crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

Davoud Bavand, a law professor and leading analyst in Iran's reform movement, called the Shahab-4 announcement "one more step toward rapprochement with the demands of the major powers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9900-2003Nov6.html

Defector Ties Iran to 1994 Bombing of Argentine Jewish Center

November 07, 2003
The New York Times
Larry Rohter

RASÍLIA -- Testifying in a public setting for the first time, a defector from Iran's intelligence agency has accused a group of senior government officials in Tehran of having "led, orchestrated and executed" a bomb attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina that killed 85 people and wounded 200 almost a decade ago.

"A special committee under the direction" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader, "made the decision to initiate an attack in Buenos Aires," the Iranian agent, Abdolghassem Mesbahi, told Argentine lawyers during eight hours of court testimony on Wednesday. Mr. Mesbahi, who is living in exile in Germany, was testifying in English via a video link to the Argentine Embassy in Berlin, according to Argentine broadcast and Internet news accounts from people who were inside the courtroom.

The death toll from the explosion of a powerful car bomb on July 18, 1994, outside the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association, known by the Spanish acronym AMIA, is the highest from an anti-Semitic incident anywhere since World War II. The attack came two years after 28 people died in a similar explosion outside the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that Mr. Mesbahi has said previously was also organized by Iran.

On three earlier occasions — 1998, 2000 and 2002 — Mr. Mesbahi made detailed depositions about the AMIA case to Argentine investigators. Based on his testimony and the leads he supplied to intelligence agencies, an Argentine judge in March issued arrest warrants for four Iranian government officials, though he shied away from a prosecutor's recommendation that more than a dozen others also be indicted, including Ayatollah Khamenei.

The only official on the list who has been detained is Hadi Soleimanpour, who was the Iranian ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing. He was taken into custody in England in August but was released on bond, though he remains in England while officials there consider Argentina's request that he be extradited to stand trial in Buenos Aires.

Even that limited action, however, has led to a major diplomatic rift. Iran has repeatedly and angrily denied any role in the terrorist attack, accusing Argentina of acting in concert with "Zionist interests" and warning the government there it would "adopt appropriate measures" if Argentina did not revoke the indictments. Iran has also threatened Britain with retaliation.

Nonetheless, Mr. Mesbahi described the Iranian ambassador as having been "very, very involved" in "supporting all aspects of the operation" in 1994. Mr. Soleimanpour is widely reported — and Argentine intelligence has confirmed — to have been one leader of the students who in 1979 kidnapped and held hostage a group of American diplomats, and later entered the Iranian diplomatic service.

In his testimony, Mr. Mesbahi also reiterated an earlier accusation that the former Argentine president, Carlos Saúl Menem, sent a secret emissary to Teheran to negotiate a $10 million bribe in return for shifting the focus of the Argentine investigation away from Iran. He described the emissary as bearded and middle-aged, but when shown pictures of several aides to Mr. Menem who fit that description, he said he did not recognize them.

Mr. Mesbahi said that the Iranian government was eager to reduce the scrutiny of its actions and approved the payment. But he said he could not personally confirm that the bribe was actually delivered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/07/international/americas/07ARGE.html

Studying Saudis
Lots of non-useful reading.

By Amir Taheri
November 07, 2003, 9:16 a.m.
National Review Online

During the past two years a growing industry has emerged producing reports, articles, books, and documentaries on Saudi Arabia. Holding conferences on the kingdom is the fashion in the world of research institutes. The number of authors described as "specialist in Saudi affairs" at the bottom of opinion-page articles has multiplied.

This sudden interest in Saudi Arabia, one of the least-studied societies in the contemporary world, would have been welcome if it had been motivated by scholarly concern.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The mass of material on the Kingdom could be divided into three categories.

The first consists of James Bond-style thrillers disguised as political studies. They portray the kingdom as a giant-size version of Dr. No with a hidden agenda either to buy or to destroy the Western civilization and seize control of the world.

Osama Bin Laden and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists make cameo appearances in all such studies.

The second category belongs to articles and books that portray the kingdom as a cross between a hedonist paradise and a desert concentration camp.

In the third category we find works that, signed by self-styled experts, bear a scholarly veneer but offer little or no serious analysis of the situation in the kingdom today.

The first two categories could be regarded as propaganda and must be discussed elsewhere. Our focus here is on the third category.

These works suffer from a number of flaws. Almost all follow a standard pattern for studying the kingdom.

This starts with a long introduction on Islam.

To be sure, understanding Islam is important for any analysis of the present situation in Saudi Arabia. But this does not mean that the two issues are identical. The traditional approach to studying Saudi Arabia tends to give the enterprise a theological dimension that is neither necessary nor helpful.

Having discoursed about Islam at length, the standard work on Saudi Arabia proceeds with an equally lengthy account of the life of Muhammad Abdul Wahhab. Since Abdul Wahhab did not leave behind much written theological work, let alone political treatises, the standard writer on Saudi Arabia is forced to concoct a Wahhabist ideology out of his imagination.

Next we come to a lengthy chapter on the late King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, founder of the current Saudi state. Here we get an account of battles fought in the last century along with a portrayal of the poverty that afflicted the desert kingdom in its early days.

The standard writer then moves to a fourth "imperative" of Saudi studies: Oil. This is presented as a source of fabulous wealth, which flows on its own, requiring almost no management, no investment, no technology, and no policies.

Next comes a chapter on the members of the royal family, which is variously said to have between 5000 and 30,000 members. The assumption is that this is a monolith in which everyone thinks and acts alike.

The typical book on Saudi Arabia will contain other clichés and images: Philby, camels, palm groves, the Empty Quarter, and the Bedouin.

The author would not forget Mecca and Medina, even though he may never have visited them or understand their significance in religious terms.

By the time those imperatives have been covered, little space is left to deal with Saudi Arabia as it exists now. The impression is of a society in which the last page of the calendar was torn off sometime in the 1950s.

It is as if the latest studies on the United States were limited to a history of Protestant Christianity, the Puritans, George Washington, Lafayette (The U.S. Philby), the Civil War, Caryl Chessman, and the California gold rush.

What is needed is an understanding of Saudi Arabia today.

Here is a nation of 20 million people with one of the highest rates of urbanization in the world. Relative to its population, it has a larger middle class than most other Arab countries. It is also one of the few countries that tried to develop their specific models of society in the pre-globalization era.

For the average Western reader it is hard to imagine Saudi Arabia as a society with workers, farmers, managers, businessmen, poets, writers, lawyers, doctors, artists, architects, civil servants, soldiers — in short, all the categories that exist in any other modern nation.

The really useful book on Saudi Arabia would limit the historic part to no more than a fifth.

Because Saudi Arabia has changed faster than the records of its change, the useful book would be based on personal observation and countless interviews with people from all walks of life. It would reflect the tensions, some creative, some not, that affect a society in transition from the traditional to the modern.

Instead of focusing on abstractions it would deal with concrete issues such as the kingdom's need for an overhaul of its defense doctrine, a review of its foreign-policy strategies, a thorough reform of its social and economic structures, and the definition of its place in a world in which it is becoming more and more difficult to be different.

— Amir Taheri is an Iranian author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam. He's available through www.benadorassociates.com.

http://nationalreview.com/comment/taheri200311070916.asp

When it comes to Iran, why engage in double-speak?

By Reza Pahlavi | 07-11-2003
Gulf News

The US blessing for the joint trip by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany to Tehran demonstrates a spirit of unity absent in their recent past.

It is understandable that the spectre of the foremost state sponsor of terrorism acquiring nuclear weapons should unite the EU and the US in great fear.

But which is the greater component of that fear: Is it the nuclear state or the regime?

In Iran's immediate neighbourhood, in one of the least technologically advanced regimes, the Taliban's allies demonstrated that all they need is box cutters to use the free world's own resources against it.

Yet nuclear-armed Pakistan is frequently praised as an ally in the war against terror.

So it is the character of the regime, rather than the technology it possesses, that constitutes the greater part of the threat.

Then why doesn't the international community come together on the greater part of its fear, and declare its unambiguous opposition to a regime in such a strategic region?

Why doesn't it unite with Iran's people, whose loudly demonstrated wish is to be rid of the only regime in the world whose theocratic constitution specifically rejects popular sovereignty?

Why the double talk from the West? Sometimes it is recognised that Iran is governed by an unelected few.

But we also hear that Iran is democratic because it holds elections – even though unelected cabals veto candidates; more journalists are in jail than in any other country; a self-styled judiciary is accountable to none; and, most importantly, the elected president, now in the second half of his last term, confesses that he never had the power to carry out his mandate.

The explanation may be the belief that the 50 theo-crats who rule Iran are tough enough to keep Iranians enslaved for years to come, and so the world must content itself with damage limitation and containment.

That belief is as wrong as it is cynical, and it is seen as such by my compatriots. It also means living in continuous fear of a catastrophe, possibly delayed by relying on "nuclear fact-finding" in a country four times Iraq's size, with deeper valleys and higher mountains than bin Laden's hideouts.

Even more ominous is Iran's approach to nuclear technology.

Whereas with Saddam's paranoid compartmentalisation, knowledge developed and resources accessed were confined to a tightly controlled few, Iran has a souq approach. There are mullahs who compete for public slush funds by developing networks for sourcing nuclear material and skills. No one knows who will use these networks in the future, or where and for what purpose. We only know that the theocrats have provided a safe haven and funds for nurturing terror networks.

But the world need not live in fear of a nuclear regime: I have no doubt that if it unites in support of democracy in Iran, it will unleash a popular force that will overwhelm the theocrats and sweep away their regime.

Pahlavi is the son of the late Shah of Iran. He can be reached through authors@benadorassociates.com

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/Opinion.asp?ArticleID=102273

Iran calls for end of US sanctions

2003/11/07
IRIB News

Tokyo, Nov 7 - Vice-president and head of the department of the environment Ms Masoumeh Ebtekar in statements published on Friday called for an end to the US sanctions against the Islamic Republic saying many things would change if Washington shifts its Iran policy.

The daily Yomiuri, Japan's highest circulation newspaper which conducted an interview with Ebtekar, quoted the Iranian presidential advisor as saying that to change anything as for the relations between Iran and US, Washington has to lift sanctions it has imposed on Iran.

Ebtekar, the one time student taking part in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, said in today's world the mutual respect constitute the cornerstone of the relations among countries.

She said unfortunately the conservatives in the United States are not after making up for their past mistakes toward Iran.

Asked to comment on the reasons for the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, she said in that time, conspiracies had been hatched to overthrow Iran's Islamic system and that is why the Iranian students decided to take over the US embassy.

The Iranian students in that time, she added, were convinced that the holding of rallies and sit-ins outside the US embassy would not settle the crisis sparked by the United States and then they chose to take the embassy over.

Commenting on the reformation drive in Iran, she said the democracy has found vast dimensions in the Islamic Republic and the Iranian constitution has provided the favorable grounds for the growth of democracy.

He said however that reforms should be enshrined in many areas including the judicial apparatus.

Iranians enjoy the freedoms of expression and though while these freedoms had not existed during the Shah regime, she noted.

The United States has been since long to contain Iran's Islamic Revolution since the Islamic Revolution had endangered the US interests in the region, she said.

She went on to say that the Revolution has left behind tough times and it will be faced with many challenges and dangers in the future too.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=191930&n=34

A Statement of purpose

New York Post - Editorial
Nov 7, 2003

'Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

So said President Bush yesterday in a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy that should be required reading for those who see the War on Terror only in terms of casualties and costs.

An eloquent, often moving restatement of American foreign policy at its most generous and idealistic, the speech put the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a historical context that went way beyond narrow conceptions of national interest or, for that matter, partisan politics.

In proclaiming the spread of liberty to be both America's national mission and the foundation of her future security, the president linked democracy building in Iraq with the 1947 defense of Greece against Communism as well as the Berlin Airlift.

And he deliberately evoked his predecessor, Ronald Reagan - who was once mocked as naive for espousing the rollback of Communism, but whose idealism was eventually borne out in the fall of the Soviet bloc.

Bush recalled a June 1982 speech in England's Westminster Palace, when Reagan "argued that Soviet Communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people - their creativity, their genius and their rights" and that a turning point in history had arrived.

That speech, dismissed at the time as simplistic and overly optimistic, turned out to be . . . correct.

As Bush noted, "In the early 1970s there were about 40 democracies in the world." But then, in "the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy," that form of government came to places like Portugal, Spain and Greece, to Korea and Taiwan, to Nicaragua and South Africa, and of course to the former Soviet empire: "As the 20th century ended, there were about 120 democracies in the world. And I can assure you that more are on their way."

Bush reminded his listeners that countries that once seemed extremely barren ground for the growth of representative government - Germany, Japan, India - now enjoy the fruits of democracy. And that the same could someday be true of Cuba, Burma, North Korea, China, Iran and the Arab societies of the Middle East.

He insisted that when skeptics say that democracy is incompatible with Islam, they are engaging in what Reagan called "cultural condescension."

Bush also stressed something that many people forget - namely that one of history's lessons is that political freedom, prosperity and stability are inextricably linked, and together they lead to peace.

"Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth," he said.

Too often those who talk about foreign policy fail to look at the big picture or the long view.

Not President Bush: "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country."

Stirring words for a stirring cause in an era of challenge - and opportunity.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/10140.htm

Washington reserved over Iran's Shahab-4 missile comment

AFP - World News
Nov 7, 2003

WASHINGTON - The United States expressed reservations over statements by Iran's Defense Ministry that Tehran has no plans to manufacture a successor to its medium-range Shahab-3 missile.

The comments "are a reiteration of previous assertions that it will not embark on the production of the Shahab-4 missile," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

"It remains unclear what tangible effect this will have on Iranian missile development," he said.

"We've repeatedly expressed our concerns about Iranian behavior, including its development of weapons of mass destruction and missile capabilities," Boucher added.

"But we'll just have to see whether it becomes a positive development or not, in terms of what the Iranians actually do."

Tehran said in a statement Wednesday, "As we have said on several occasions and contrary to certain statements, Iran has no programme to build a Shahab-4 missile."

During a major military parade on September 22, Iran showed off six of its Shahab-3 missiles, which recently went into service with a touted range of more than 1,500 kilometers (932 miles).

According to a commentary given over loud-speakers lining the parade route, the missiles -- decorated with anti-Israeli and anti-US slogans -- have "a range of 1,700 kilometers" (1,060 miles) and "are capable of hitting the heart of the enemy".

The development of the missiles has sparked widespread concern in Israel.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3431.shtml

Indignant Arabs Say Bush Democracy Speech a Sham

Fri November 7, 2003 01:19 PM ET
By Miral Fahmy
DUBAI (Reuters) -

President George Bush's calls for democracy rang hollow in the Middle East, where many said on Friday they were appalled Washington was preaching liberty for Arabs while occupying Iraq.

The war on Iraq and Washington's support for Israel in its bloody conflict with the Palestinians have antagonized many Arabs and Muslims who were already seething at the United States' war on terror, seen by many as a battle against Islam.

And Bush's sweeping foreign policy speech on Thursday, in which he challenged ally Egypt and foes Iran and Syria to adopt democracy, fueled Arab indignation.

"Bush's speech is like a boring, broken record that nobody believes," said Gulf-based political analyst Moghazy al-Badrawy.

"He wants democracy and the U.S. is occupying Iraq and its ally Israel is killing Palestinians? Arabs just don't buy it."

Abdel-Monem Said, director of Egypt's Al-Ahram Center for Political Strategic Studies, said the perceived U.S. dishonesty in justifying the Iraq war had also tarnished its credibility.

"Democracy is all about legalities, rule of law and legitimacy," he said. "There is an issue of double standards."

Mohammad al-Bsairi, a Kuwaiti member of parliament and spokesman for the Gulf state's Muslim Brotherhood, told Reuters Washington's blind bias for Israel -- battling a Palestinian independence uprising -- also flew in the face of democracy.

Lebanon's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, scornfully described Bush's call as an attempt to ensure compliancy in the region, rather than better lives.

"It's the democracy of the American administration to preserve its strategic interests in the Middle East and not to preserve the interests of the people," he said at a sermon.

In an editorial, Saudi Arabia's leading Al-Riyadh daily said it was ironic that Bush was now concerned with the welfare of the Arab people after the United States vetoed almost all U.N. resolutions that would benefit them.

"America is traveling in a path that is totally opposite to the economic and political future of the Arabs," it added.

"DOUBLE STANDARDS"

Some commentators said Bush's Middle East assessment -- in which he praised many authoritarian governments and criticized Iran and Syria -- was based on which nations backed U.S. policies rather than their democratic credentials.

"Praising Saudi Arabia and criticising Iran. It's not fair at all," said Egyptian analyst Gamal A.G. Soltan. "The spectrum of freedom available in Iran is much wider than Saudi Arabia."

Bush also appeared to add insult to injury when he said the United States had made a mistake by supporting non-democratic governments in the region for the past 60 years, analysts said.

Washington has for decades backed governments throughout much of the Middle East which are seen by their own citizens as totalitarian, corrupt, politically illegitimate and un-Islamic.

"Mr. Bush has not read history. Who supported and still supports the very governments whose oppressive rules breed extremism and terrorism?" asked an Arab analyst based in Dubai.

Other Arab commentators read the speech as a precursor for U.S.-backed aggressions in the Middle East aimed at justifying the U.S. presence in Iraq despite mounting casualties.

"As the crisis in Iraq deepens, the United States is trying to open a new front in the region, especially with Syria," Qatar's Al-Sharq newspaper said in an editorial.

However, some Arabs put a positive spin on Bush's speech, saying it might be the first step toward democracy.

"Democracy is a demand and I think that Middle Eastern countries will never grant it to its people without international pressure," said Saudi employee Abdulrahman Nasser.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DXCQNURJKBDKOCRBAEOCFFA?type=reutersEdge&storyID=3779293

Iran 'Vigorously' Pursued WMD First Half 2003 -CIA

Fri November 7, 2003 03:42 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

Iran "vigorously" pursued programs to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and sought help from Russia, China, North Korea and Europe, a CIA report said on Friday.

"The United States remains convinced that Tehran has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program," according to a semi-annual unclassified report to Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction.

"Iran sought technology that can support fissile material production for a nuclear weapons program," said the report, covering the period Jan. 1 to June 30.

Satellite imagery showed Iran was burying a uranium centrifuge enrichment facility at Natanz, a town about 100 miles south of Tehran, probably to hide it in case of military attack, the CIA report said.

Iran says its uranium enrichment program is only for the peaceful generation of electricity and not for atomic weapons. Earlier this week, it said it had handed over to the U.N. nuclear watchdog drawings of equipment to help prove that.

The CIA said it was concerned about uranium centrifuges discovered at Natanz capable of enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons.

Iran was believed to be pursuing nuclear fuel from both uranium and plutonium, the report said. A heavy water research reactor pursued by Iran "could produce plutonium for nuclear weapons," it said.

The report had only one paragraph on Iraq, noting that the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein occurred during that period. "A large-scale effort is currently underway to find the answers to the many outstanding questions about Iraq's WMD and delivery systems," it said.

Critics have suggested the White House may have exaggerated the threat Iraq posed due to weapons of mass destruction, used to justify the war, because no such weapons had been found.

NORTH KOREA, SYRIA, TERROR GROUPS

The report also briefly discussed North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In late February, Pyongyang restarted its five-megawatt nuclear reactor, which could produce spent fuel rods containing plutonium.

In April, North Korea told U.S. officials that it had nuclear weapons and signaled its intent to reprocess the spent fuel for more. "We continued to monitor and assess North Korea's nuclear weapons efforts," the CIA said.
Syria has a nuclear research center at Dayr Al Hajar and broader access to foreign expertise provides opportunities to expand capabilities, "and we are looking at Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern," the report said.

The threat of terrorists using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials "remained high" during the first half of 2003, the CIA report said. But terror groups would probably continue to favor conventional tactics like bombings and shootings, it said.

Documents and equipment recovered from al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan showed that Osama bin Laden had "a more sophisticated unconventional weapons research program than was previously known," the report said.

Al Qaeda also had ambitions to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, it said. Also it was possible that al Qaeda or "other terrorist groups" might try to launch conventional attacks against the chemical or nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United States to cause panic and economic disruption.

China has over the past several years taken steps to improve on nonproliferation, "but the proliferation behavior of Chinese companies remains of great concern," the report said.

While China in 1997 agreed to end nuclear cooperation with Iran, the CIA said it remained concerned that some interactions continued.

The report also said the possibility of contacts between Chinese entities and entities associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons program could not be ruled out.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3779900