Iranian Alert -- November 11, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

PS I have a daily ping list and a breaking news ping list. If you would like to receive alerts to these stories please let me know which list you would like to join.

UN agency says no evidence Iran was trying to make nuclear weapons

GEORGE JAHN
Canadian Press
Monday, November 10, 2003

VIENNA (AP) - A confidential United Nations nuclear agency report has found "no evidence" to back U.S. claims that Iran tried to make atomic arms, but it cannot rule out the possibility because of past cover-ups by Tehran, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.

In Moscow, a top Iranian official said his country is temporarily halting its uranium enrichment program and has agreed to tougher UN inspections.

Citing the report by the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the diplomats said the 29-page document faults Iran for not telling the truth in the past about its nuclear programs.

Prepared for a Nov. 20 meeting of the IAEA board of governors, the report was less than the clear condemnation of Iran's nuclear activities the United States had been looking for. Washington has argued that Iran should be declared in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at that meeting - a move that would lead to UN Security Council involvement and possible sanctions.

But the IAEA report also credited Iran for a change of heart since September, when the agency demanded it clear up suspicions it was running a covert weapons program by explaining contradictions and ambiguities in its nuclear activities.

"To date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities . . . were related to a nuclear weapons program," said one of the diplomats, reading from the report drawn up by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. "However, given Iran's previous pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

U.S. officials will likely seize on a passage in the report saying that Tehran's recent disclosures "clearly show that in the past, Iran had concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities, which resulted in breaches of its obligations of the safeguard agreement."

Safeguards, which are meant to ensure all nuclear activities are peaceful, are a key part of the NPT.

Under international pressure, Iran recently gave the agency what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities just days ahead of an Oct. 31 deadline. On Monday, it also handed over two letters pledging to sign an additional agreement throwing open its program to inspection on demand by agency experts and announcing it had suspended uranium enrichment.

The concessions were announced in Moscow by Hasan Rowhani, the head of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council.

"Atomic weapons are not important to our defence doctrine," Rowhani said before meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government helped build Tehran's nuclear program.

Washington has urged Moscow to freeze its deal to help build Iran's first nuclear reactor, saying the facility in Bushehr on the shore of the Persian Gulf could help Iran develop weapons. The Kremlin has said it shares some of the U.S. concerns and has prodded Tehran to accept tighter controls by the IAEA.

Tehran promised weeks ago to suspend its enrichment activities, a key concern.

Iran maintains that it has enriched uranium only to non-weapons levels, as part of purely peaceful nuclear programs meant to generate electricity.

While acknowledging IAEA finds of traces of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium on its enrichment centrifuges, it says the "contamination" originated outside Iran and was inadvertently imported with the equipment bought abroad. Washington claims it is evidence of a weapons program.

Diplomats said the United States and its allies would seize on any ambiguity in ElBaradei's report concerning enrichment and other suspicious activities in making a case against Iran. They said the ElBaradei report did not make a judgment on the source of the highly enriched uranium, saying more investigation was needed.

The report credited Iran with "active co-operation and openness," after the last board meeting demanded it unveil previous secrets and co-operate with agency inspectors, the diplomats said.

Before that, however, Iran "failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations" on honouring its safeguards agreements, of the diplomats said, citing the report. "Iran's policy of concealment continued until last month, with co-operation being limited and reactive and information being slow in coming."

By making his announcement in Moscow, Rowhani bolstered the prestige of the Kremlin, which had taken a position between Washington and Tehran in the dispute.

Putin said "we are pleased to note that Iran has itself resolved to limit itself" on uranium enrichment, and he suggested it cleared the way for further Russian-Iranian nuclear co-operation.

In a separate meeting with Rowhani, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Iran's pledges "will open up additional possibilities for Russian and Iranian co-operation in many spheres, including nuclear."

Rowhani added that Iran already had a project in mind. "In the nearest future, we will carry out discussions with Russia about building a second reactor at the Bushehr power plant," he said, after talks with Ivanov.

http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.asp?id=596C3160-326B-4366-B518-FD9DD9063E1A

Powell slams Iran religious leaders

From correspondents in New York
November 11, 2003

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has delivered a surprisingly sharp attack on Iran's conservative religious leadership, bluntly accusing them of sullying Islam for political means.

In a speech to the City College of New York focused on US efforts to promote democracy in the Arab and Muslim world, Powell said the "hidebound" mullahs would not be able to deny the Iranian people their desire for reform.

"The Iranian people want their freedom back, of this there can be no doubt," he said at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of US statesman and diplomat Ralph Bunche.

"They do not want to banish Islam from their lives, far from it," Powell said.

"They want to be free from those who have dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter.

"They have been imprisoned for wanting this, they have been gagged for wanting this, they have been intimidated and threatened for wanting this, some have already died for wanting this," he said.

Powell noted that despite crackdowns on pro-reform students and media, tens of thousands of Iranians, many of them women, had turned out to greet Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi when she returned home last month.

"The hidebound clerics of Iran know what it means too," he said.

"Should they be worried? Does morning follow night? They should be."

Powell did not elaborate on the comments which came about midway through his lengthy address in which he defended President George W Bush's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanded on the President's call for democratic reform in the Middle East.

However, the remarks come at a critical time for Iran, which Bush branded a charter member of the so-called "axis of evil" two years ago along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and is now facing US-led efforts to stem its nuclear programs.

Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear energy program to develop atomic weapons in secret, a charge Iran vehemently denies.

Under heavy US pressure, the UN's nuclear watchdog called for Iran to meet an October 31 deadline to come clean on its program.

Earlier today, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that it had so far found no evidence that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons but could not say Tehran's atomic program was exclusively peaceful.

The report also details a series of breaches by Iran of international nuclear monitoring agreements.

The report said Iran had "concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities with resulting breaches of its obligation to comply with the provision of the safeguards agreement" of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The IAEA was still investigating the possibility that Iran was hiding an atomic weapons program, said the report, which is to be submitted to a meeting next week of the agency's 35-nation board of governors, which could declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT.

This could lead to possible UN sanctions against Iran.

Agence France-Presse

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7835476%255E1702,00.html

Iran 'hid data on nuclear programme'

Financial Times - By Roula Khalaf in London and Andrew Jack in Moscow
Nov 11, 2003

A new report by the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector says Iran continued to conceal information about its nuclear programme until last month and has repeatedly failed to meet its nuclear commitments.

But according to diplomats familiar with the confidential report from Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors have no evidence so far that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Given Iran's past concealment, the report says, more investigation is needed before the agency can conclude that the nuclear programme is "exclusively for peaceful purposes". "Iran confessed to everything the IAEA challenged it on but they're also saying they will correct things," said a western diplomat.

The report, to be discussed at an IAEA governing board meeting starting on November 20, came as Russia began talks about building a second nuclear reactor at Bushehr in southern Iran, a project likely to cost $1.2bn (?1bn, £718m), officials from both countries indicated yesterday. Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in charge of nuclear affairs, said talks were under way after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Rowhani said Tehran yesterday sent an official letter to the IAEA declaring its readiness to accept intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites by signing an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran, he said, had also temporarily suspended uranium enrichment as of yesterday. The suspension was a demand of a September IAEA board resolution.

Mr Putin, who has fiercely defended the construction of the $1bn Bushehr I plant as offering no threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, had also called on Iran to sign the additional protocol and insisted on the return of all nuclear fuel to Russia for reprocessing and storage.

Washington claims Iran is engaged in a clandestine pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Russia's ministry of atomic energy said a bilateral working group would now begin work on proposals for Bushehr II, which it suggested would have the same 1,000mw capacity as Bushehr I and could be operational by 2010.

The measures announced by Iran yesterday were part of an agreement reached in Tehran last month with the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany. The deal was designed to head off US pressure on its allies to declare Iran in violation of the NPT and refer the issue to the UN.

Iran also provided the IAEA with a declaration that was supposed to answer the agency's outstanding questions, including the finding of traces of weapons grade uranium at some sites. The IAEA said it appeared comprehensive, but Iran's answers still have to be checked. Tehran argues that the IAEA findings were due to contaminated material bought abroad from middle men, but only to generate nuclear energy.

"The IAEA has not found any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme but it's not in a position yet to draw conclusions," said a diplomat. "Iran is saying [it] bought things [on the black market] because it was the only way to build a peaceful programme and no western country was willing to sell them equipment on the open market."

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3488.shtml

U.N. Unit Details Iran's Clandestine Nuclear Program

Washington Post - By Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler
Nov 11, 2003

'No Evidence' That Weapons Were Sought

Iran manufactured small amounts of enriched uranium and plutonium as part of a nuclear program that operated in secret for 18 years, according to a confidential report by a U.N. agency. The report harshly criticizes Iran for deliberately hiding evidence of its nuclear program from international inspectors and for numerous "breaches" in its nuclear treaty obligations.

The 29-page report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says there is "no evidence" so far that Iran had sought to build a nuclear bomb, as asserted by the Bush administration, but the U.N. watchdog said it would keep investigating this claim. Given Iran's "past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," the report says.

The report's catalogue of Iran's nuclear activities shows that the Islamic republic had made significant strides in a program that until last year was barely understood by the outside world. The report, obtained by The Washington Post, documents numerous occasions when Iranian officials altered or reversed their explanations after being challenged by investigators or with conflicting evidence.

"Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge program, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment program," the report says, referring to two of the leading technologies for making fissile material for nuclear power plants or weapons. "In that context Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of LEU [low-enriched uranium], using both centrifuge and laser enrichment processes . . . and a small amount of plutonium."

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes.

The report says that Iran made the plutonium between 1988 and 1992 at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, a laboratory in the capital. Iran said the plutonium was produced during experiments intended to "gain experience in reprocessing chemistry," the IAEA report says. The equipment used in the experiment was dismantled in 1992.

While the amount of plutonium produced was likely minuscule -- far less than needed for a nuclear weapon -- Iran had previously denied conducting any such experiments. Plutonium production is generally associated only with nuclear weapons programs.

The IAEA report was delivered to the 35 member nations of the agency's Board of Governors, which will meet Nov. 20 to decide whether Iran should be declared in violation of its nuclear treaty obligations. At that meeting, the report will be weighed against new signs that Iran has decided to come clean about its past and cooperate with nuclear inspectors.

As the report was being finalized, Iran formally announced several measures intended to ease international concerns about its nuclear intentions. In a letter hand-delivered to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran agreed to snap inspections and unfettered access to its nuclear facilities under an enhanced safeguards agreement called the "Additional Protocol."

The letter also states Iran's commitment to suspend uranium enrichment for an unspecified period. Iran agreed in principle to the tougher inspections and suspension last month as part of a diplomatic initiative led by Germany, Britain and France. Yesterday, ElBaradei praised the Iranian move as "a welcome and positive development."

After meeting with ElBaradei on Saturday, Hassan Rouhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a statement that Iran was "determined to make sure that the international community is assured of the peaceful nature of its program."

The IAEA report, in assessing Iran's past practices, says the country had repeatedly breached its nuclear safeguard agreements under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. "Based on all the information currently available to the [IAEA], it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations," the report says.

"Iran's policy of concealment continued until last month, with cooperation being limited and reactive and information being slow in coming, changing and contradictory," the report says. "While most of the breaches identified to date have involved limited quantities of nuclear material, they have dealt with the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment and reprocessing."

The report notes that although the material would require further processing before being suitable for weapons purposes, "the number of failures by Iran to report in a timely manner . . . has given rise to serous concerns."

Because of that previous concealment, the report says, it is critical that Iran agree to a "particularly robust" verification program of surprise inspections and frequent, intrusive monitoring.

In documents turned over to the IAEA last month, Iran presented a picture of its nuclear history that contrasts sharply with earlier pronouncements. After repeatedly denying having enriched uranium, Iran acknowledged in the documents that it enriched a small amount in 1999 and 2000 at Kalaye, a pilot plant Iran once described as a watch factory. Highly enriched uranium can be used in weapons.

Iran also acknowledged for the first time that it had built a pilot plant to enrich uranium using lasers, something the IAEA had suspected for months. The plant had been dismantled, and soil from the site trucked away, by the time IAEA inspectors visited it last summer.

Weapons experts described the report as deeply troubling, mostly because of the disclosures about how Iran hid its activities from nuclear inspectors.

"It's quite clear now that Iran was engaged in willful and systematic deception over more than a decade," said Michael Levi, a science fellow at the Brookings Institution. "It's a damning report, and the IAEA should be given full credit for its persistence in exposing" the dishonesty.

While encouraged by Iran's recent candor, former IAEA inspector David Albright said he remained suspicious that Iran's leaders still had not told the full truth, especially about possible weapons research.

"Iran has admitted to activities that the IAEA had suspected had occurred, back in the spring of 2003. It may be guessing what it thinks the IAEA already knows," said Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "Overall, Iran's cooperation is a good sign, because it shows that a combination of pressure and incentives is leading to real results. But by no means can you have confidence that the whole picture is known."

Key questions about Iran's past nuclear activity remained unresolved. For example, IAEA inspectors still were not convinced by Iran's explanations for why traces of highly enriched uranium were found at two Iranian facilities during IAEA tests last summer. Iran has acknowledged making only low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used in weapons without further refinement. Iranian officials say the particles of highly enriched uranium came with used nuclear equipment that Iran imported from another, still-unnamed country. Iran has acknowledged purchasing sensitive parts from numerous countries, often using front companies or black-market dealers.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3487.shtml

UN says Iran produced plutonium

Guardian - By Ian Traynor
Nov 11, 2003

Iran said yesterday that it had frozen its uranium enrichment projects in response to pressure from the international community, which fears the programmes could culminate in a nuclear bomb.

The move by Tehran to ward off the threat of UN sanctions came as the director general of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, released a report containing fresh revelations about the Iranian nuclear programme.

Reuters reported last night that the IAEA assessment showed Iran acknowledged producing a small amount of plutonium, a material useable in a nuclear bomb. The report also said the country had "acknowledged that 'a limited number of tests using small amounts of [uranium hexafluoride] had been conducted in 1999 and 2002' at the Kalaye electric company", despite earlier denials from Tehran.

The report also said Iran had admitted establishing a laser uranium-enrichment plant that it kept secret from the UN nuclear watchdog. "Given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes," Reuters quoted the report as saying.

The IAEA said the nuclear declaration, delivered ahead of an October 31 deadline for Tehran to come clean about its atomic past, made "clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations".

Iran sent Dr ElBaradei a letter last night agreeing to sign an "additional protocol" allowing snap UN nuclear inspections. The concessions were announced by Iranian national security chief, Hassan Rohani, during a visit to Moscow.

Russia is Iran's sole nuclear partner and Mr Rohani was rewarded by a declaration from President Vladimir Putin that there were now no "obstacles to cooperating with Iran in the nuclear sphere", despite intense pressure from Washington for Moscow to halt its nuclear assistance to Iran.

"From today we are temporarily suspending our process of uranium enrichment," Mr Rohani said.

An IAEA meeting on November 20 will decide how to proceed on the issue of Iran. The Americans are pushing for the IAEA to declare Iran non-compliant with its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and to report it to the UN security council, which could decree punitive sanctions.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3484.shtml

Tipping Points in the War on Terror

The American Spectator
By Mark Goldblatt
Published 11/11/2003

The War on Terror, as it is currently being waged, has produced the most ironic paradox in the history of warfare: ordinary Americans, who sponsor a military capable of incinerating every Muslim city, town and village in which terrorists operate, lie awake at night worrying about the mood of the Muslim Street, but ordinary Muslims, who know full well what the American military can do, lose no sleep whatsoever worrying about the mood of the American Street.

The paradox derives, in part, from the very nature of terrorism. The terrorist explicitly acknowledges the military superiority, while implicitly relying on the moral superiority, of his enemy; he seeks, in other words, to inflict the most devastating damage possible knowing that his enemy will not respond in kind. In the mind of the terrorist, such restraint is his enemy's underlying weakness.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, highlighted this principle. That evening, as the World Trade Center and Pentagon still smoldered, President Bush announced that the United States would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." So when the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan refused to turn over Osama bin Laden, they were in effect calling America's bluff. Since the end of World War Two, our national security had largely rested on the belief that a major attack on the United States would be answered by retaliation on a biblical scale. But the war in Afghanistan, when it was launched, was proportionate, not vengeful. As counterintuitive as it sounds, our success in minimizing collateral damage while crushing the Taliban rendered us more vulnerable, not less, to terrorism because it established that we would come after whoever attacked us with a scalpel, not a terrible swift sword.

The war in Iraq was, in a strategic sense, necessitated by the war in Afghanistan. If a cockroach like bin Laden managed to kill 3,000 Americans, what might a sociopath like Saddam Hussein, with the resources of an oil-drenched country, accomplish? Since we could no longer depend on the threat of a cataclysmic response to deter him, Saddam simply had to be taken out. What's more, ousting Saddam would signal rogue regimes elsewhere that they might be next if they misbehaved -- as deterrents go, not exactly on par with the prospect of sudden annihilation, but really the best we could do. The fact that Saddam was in violation of the surrender terms which kept him in power in 1991 provided a useful fig leaf, acquitting us of the charge of disregarding international law.

But the occupation of postwar Iraq has confronted us, again, with the asymmetrical nature of terrorism -- i.e., the terrorist's confidence that his enemy will respond to provocations with restraint. That confidence lurks behind the phrase gaining currency amid mounting U.S. losses over the last several weeks, the tipping point. The tipping point, in the mind of the killers now picking off American troops, relief workers and civilian bystanders in Iraq, is the moment at which the American public becomes so appalled by the casualties and costs of the Iraqi occupation that President Bush, who hopes for a second term, will feel compelled to cut and run … or else be defeated in the next election by a president who will cut and run.

It's hard to dismiss such reasoning. With the C-Span airwaves fouled on a monthly basis by hard-left demonstrators comparing Bush to Hitler, with a revered Democratic senator calling the justification for the war a "fraud … made up in Texas," and with half the opposition candidates for president in 2004 committed to immediate withdrawal of American forces, the tipping point must seem near indeed.

But what if there were another tipping point, a reverse-tipping point?

What if there were a moment at which the American public became so appalled by the casualties and costs of the Iraqi occupation that President Bush felt compelled to bring the hammer down … a moment when C-Span was filled with hard-right demonstrators demanding that Bush subdue the terrorists by any means necessary, a moment when a revered Republican senator quoted Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino, urging the president "to get medieval on their asses," a moment when conservative pundits clamored for Bush to, say, level Tikrit to pacify Fallujah, or level them both to pacify Baghdad?

Certainly, the prospect of such a reverse-tipping point would create a new dynamic in the War on Terror. The terrorist cannot operate without a sympathetic local population to supply provisions, stash weapons and keep secrets -- which is why he depends on the restraint of his enemy in the first place. But if his enemy is determined to come after him with disproportionate violence, regardless of the collateral damage, then those who aid and abet the terrorist will soon turn against him out of self-preservation.

Does such a reverse-tipping point actually exist? It's something to think about.

Mark Goldblatt (mgold@aol.com) is the author of Africa Speaks.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=5766

Iran: Powell knows nothing about Islam

2003-11-11
Middle East Online - UK

TEHRAN - The United States administration knows nothing about Islam or democracy, Iran's foreign ministry said Tuesday in a furious response to an attack by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on the Islamic republic's ruling clerics.

"The various comments made by the US officials on Islam and Muslims clearly prove they do not know Islam and Muslims, just as they do not know Iraq, the Middle East and democracy," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the state news agency IRNA.

On Monday, Powell delivered a surprisingly sharp attack on Iran's religious leadership, who he said were guilty of having "dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter".

"With these sort of comments they are disgracing themselves," Asefi responded, saying the Islamic republic "strongly condemns this open intervention in Iran's internal affairs."

"It is astonishing that the current US administration, which came into power through a tampered election, keeps on talking about democracy," the spokesman added in a jibe at the disputed presidential election that brought US President George W. Bush into office.

Less than a week ago, Bush called on Iran to embrace democracy, in comments that were also angrily condemned here in what has been a mounting rhetorical slanging match between the two old enemies.

Among other things, Iran has also been accused by Washington of harbouring fugitive members of the al-Qaeda terror network, undermining the Middle East peace process, hampering post-war security in Iraq and Afghanistan and using an atomic energy programme as a cover for a secret bid to develop nuclear weapons.

Diplomatic ties were suspended between Washington and Tehran after Islamist students stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capital on November 4, 1979, in the wake of the Islamic revolution, and held its staff hostage there for 444 days.

Habitual chants of "Death to America" are still heard in Iran, where hardliners still refer to the United States as the "Great Satan".

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=7755

Iran's secret nuclear research had foreign help -UN

MSNBC
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA, Nov. 11

In decades of clandestine atomic research, Iran received help from sources in four countries with sensitive technology that could be used to develop weapons, the U.N. nuclear watchdog says in a confidential report.

The countries were not identified.

In the report, obtained in full by Reuters, the U.N. said it had not so far found evidence of an atomic weapons programme in Iran, but Tehran had dabbled in activity often associated with bombs like plutonium production and uranium enrichment.

The United States has long accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy programme as a front to build a bomb. Iran denies this and says it was forced to hide some nuclear activities because of decades of sanctions, which it says were illegal.

''Iran acknowledged that, starting in the 1970s, it had had contracts related to laser (uranium) enrichment with foreign sources from four countries,'' the International Atomic Energy Agency said in its 30-page report.

It did not name the countries, but diplomats have said Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state that has opted out of signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was almost certainly one.

Enrichment involves purifying uranium to make it usable as nuclear fuel or in weapons. It can be done with centrifuges that separate the fissile uranium atoms through high-speed spinning, or with lasers.

Diplomats said it was too early to say whether the IAEA Board of Governors would report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, for violating its obligations under the NPT, which Tehran signed in 1970.

''This is a very stiffly-worded report that shows clear non-compliance by the Iranians,'' a Western diplomat said. But he said it was unclear if France, Germany and Britain would want to anger Iran by supporting a verdict of non-compliance when the board meets on November 20 to discuss the Iran report.

On October 21, the European Union's three biggest states agreed with Iran that Tehran would suspend its uranium enrichment programme and sign a protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections.

On Monday, Tehran announced it had fulfilled its end of the deal. Diplomats said France, Germany and Britain were now bound by a tacit agreement not to support a U.S.-backed non-compliance vote.

JURY STILL OUT

The IAEA made it clear it was still engaged in an inspection process and the jury was still out on whether Iran had at some point in the past attempted to secretly develop an atomic bomb as Washington alleges.

''To date there is no evidence that (Iran's) previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons programme,'' it said.

''However, given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.''

After months of evasive statements about suspicious findings by U.N. inspectors in Iran, the IAEA Board of Governors on September 12 gave Iran until the end of October to come clean about all its past nuclear activities.

A European diplomat said the results of Iran's disclosure of activities, many commonly connected to bomb-making, were ''a very serious matter.''

''Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of low enriched uranium ...and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium,'' the report said.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-11-032218.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Russia is nearing deal on Iran nuclear plant

Seth Mydans
The New York Times
Tuesday, November 11, 2003

MOSCOW Russia and Iran appear closer to an agreement that would clear the way for the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russians are building in Iran.

On a visit here, Hassan Rowhani, leader of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Monday that his government had halted its uranium-enrichment program and was ready to sign a protocol that would be a safeguard against having Iran develop nuclear weapons.

"I can see no obstacles to nuclear cooperation with Iran in this situation," President Vladimir Putin said after meeting Rowhani, although he did not say specifically that construction would proceed.

Putin accepted an invitation to visit Iran in what would be the first visit there by a Russian head of state.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said: "The announced readiness of Iran to freeze the uranium-enrichment program is a fundamental decision by the Iranian administration. Russia was actively working on the fulfillment of these conditions, and now we are satisfied that the important decisions have been announced in Moscow."

Rowhani also said Iran was prepared to agree to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants on short notice by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

These assurances were similar to those given last month in Tehran to the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany. At that time Rowhani said, as he did Monday, that the suspension of uranium enrichment would be for an "interim period."

A State Department official said then that there was reason for "healthy skepticism" over Iran's real intentions.

The United States has opposed Russia's program to build nuclear reactors at Bushehr, on the Gulf, arguing that Iran, as a major oil producer, does not need nuclear energy and that the reactors could indirectly help a nuclear weapons program.

In an interview last month with The New York Times, Putin said that the American concerns were justified and that Russia was seeking a stipulation that spent fuel must be returned to Russia.

But he said, "This doesn't imply that without agreeing upon the principles of our cooperation in this sphere, we're going to suspend all of our programs."

Rowhani said Russian officials had assured him that construction of the Bushehr plant's first power-generating unit would be completed in the near future. "They are telling us that they will finish construction of the Bushehr reactor and we will start negotiations on building a second," he said at a news conference.

Separately, Iran agreed on Monday to allow surprise international inspections of its nuclear facilities and also said it had suspended its uranium enrichment programs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Iran recently said it would accede to those demands but until Monday had not said exactly when.

The findings by the United Nations' nuclear agency falls short of backing up the Bush administration's claims that Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for its nuclear weapons program.

But the report concluded that "given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

At American insistence, the agency gave Iran until Oct. 31 to reveal all the details of its nuclear program. It is not clear, experts say, whether the voluminous materials turned over to the agency represent all of the evidence that the Iranian government has in its possession, or, in the words of one American diplomat, "all that they think we know about."

The New York Times

http://www.iht.com/articles/117219.html

Iran Brushes Off UN Criticism of Its Nuclear Plans

Wired News
Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:11 a.m. ET
By Paul Hughes

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Tuesday brushed off charges by the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it had engaged in activities associated with atomic bomb production, saying the violations it was accused of were "insignificant."

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report obtained by Reuters it had not so far found evidence of a bomb program in Iran, but Tehran had dabbled in possibly linked activities like plutonium production and uranium enrichment.

Tehran's chief critic, the United States, did not immediately comment on the report. But Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear U.S. hostility to Iran was undimmed, accusing "hidebound clerics" in Tehran of dragging Islam into "the political gutter."

Iran condemned Powell's statements, in a speech in New York on Monday night, as an interference in its affairs.

Washington has long accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy program as a front to build a bomb. Iran denies this and says it was forced to hide some nuclear activities because of decades of sanctions, which it says were illegal.

Diplomats said the U.N. report gave ammunition to both sides in the dispute and that at a key meeting of the IAEA governors on November 20 major European countries might not support U.S. calls to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council.

The council could impose sanctions on Iran for violating its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Reacting to the IAEA report, a senior Iranian official said failures by Tehran to declare past nuclear activities that it detailed were trivial, state television reported.

"The failures attributed to Iran are insignificant and are at the level of gram and microgram of nuclear materials," the television quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, as saying.

Salehi said it was normal for the IAEA to report countries for failing to declare certain nuclear activities, but this had not led in the past to major repercussions.

But diplomats said production of even small amounts of plutonium proved Iran had the know-how to make a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon. "This is a very serious matter...(it) can't just be dismissed in a few lines and forgotten," said a Western diplomat in Vienna.

HELP FROM FOUR COUNTRIES

The IAEA report said: "To date there is no evidence that (Iran's) previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons program.

"However, given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

The report said that over decades of clandestine atomic research, Iran had received help from sources in four countries on laser enrichment of uranium. It did not name the countries but diplomats have said Pakistan was probably one.

Diplomats said it was too early to say whether the IAEA Board of Governors, at its meeting next week, would decide to report Iran to the Security Council for failure to comply.

France, Germany and Britain agreed with Iran last month that Tehran would suspend its uranium enrichment program and sign a protocol allowing more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections.

On Monday, Tehran said it had fulfilled its end of the deal. Diplomats said the three European states were bound by a tacit agreement not to support a U.S.-backed non-compliance vote.

Powell, speaking at his alma mater, City College of New York, said that "the Iranian people want their freedom back."

"They do not want to banish Islam from their lives. Far from it. They want to be free of those who have dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter," he said.

Iran condemned the remarks. "American officials' interpretations of Islam and Muslims clearly prove that, like many other issues such as Iraq, the Middle East and democracy, they know nothing about Islam and Muslims," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=797954&tw=wn_wire_story

A furious response to Powell's criticism

Iran: Powell knows nothing about Islam

Middle East Online
First Published 2003-11-11,
Last Updated 2003-11-11 15:04:52

Asefi says US officials' comments on Islam clearly prove they do know nothing about Islam, Muslims.

TEHRAN - The United States administration knows nothing about Islam or democracy, Iran's foreign ministry said Tuesday in a furious response to an attack by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on the Islamic republic's ruling clerics.

"The various comments made by the US officials on Islam and Muslims clearly prove they do not know Islam and Muslims, just as they do not know Iraq, the Middle East and democracy," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the state news agency IRNA.

On Monday, Powell delivered a surprisingly sharp attack on Iran's religious leadership, who he said were guilty of having "dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter".

"With these sort of comments they are disgracing themselves," Asefi responded, saying the Islamic republic "strongly condemns this open intervention in Iran's internal affairs."

"It is astonishing that the current US administration, which came into power through a tampered election, keeps on talking about democracy," the spokesman added in a jibe at the disputed presidential election that brought US President George W. Bush into office.

Less than a week ago, Bush called on Iran to embrace democracy, in comments that were also angrily condemned here in what has been a mounting rhetorical slanging match between the two old enemies.

Among other things, Iran has also been accused by Washington of harbouring fugitive members of the al-Qaeda terror network, undermining the Middle East peace process, hampering post-war security in Iraq and Afghanistan and using an atomic energy programme as a cover for a secret bid to develop nuclear weapons.

Diplomatic ties were suspended between Washington and Tehran after Islamist students stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capital on November 4, 1979, in the wake of the Islamic revolution, and held its staff hostage there for 444 days.

Habitual chants of "Death to America" are still heard in Iran, where hardliners still refer to the United States as the "Great Satan".

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=7755

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