Iraq, Iran & North Korea: Who’s Next In The “War On Terrorism”?
By Gary Fitleberg
11/26/03
American Daily
Iraq, Iran and North Korea. All believed to pose serious nuclear weapons threats to peace and stability worldwide.
Now that Iraq is no longer an imminent threat who will be the next immediate target in the global “War on Terrorism”?
Iran is dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon that could be used by extremist fundamentalists in power presently. Imagine nuclear capability combined with long-range ballistic missiles. The precarious nature of this deadly combination is especially of grave concern for Israel.
Iran is in the late stages of its nuclear weapons program and could have an atomic bomb within the next two to three years, according to the Los Angeles Times. In a three-month investigative report, the paper discovered that Iran has been using front companies to mask its nuclear weapons ambitions as commercial activity. Iran also has received aid from Russia, Pakistan and North Korea, helping it achieve a capability that is "way ahead of where Iraq was in 1991," according to a U.N. official familiar with both programs. The United States and Israel have long been concerned with Iran's nuclear ambitions.
President Bush recently said that the United States would not "tolerate" a nuclear weapon in Iran.
Iran will have the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb by 2004 and will have an operative nuclear weapons program by 2005, a high-ranking military officer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the committee, "It is clearer than ever that the Iranians are making every effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
Israel disclosed its fears about Iran's nuclear capability on the same day that The Los Angeles Times published the report on its three-month investigation into the matter, stating that, "Iran appears to be in the late stages of developing the capacity to build a nuclear bomb."
The L.A. Times said its investigation uncovered "strong evidence that Iran's commercial program masks a plan to become the world's next nuclear power." According to the L.A. Times, Iran "has been engaged in a pattern of clandestine activity that has concealed weapons work from international inspectors. Technology and scientists from Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan have propelled Iran's nuclear program much closer to producing a bomb than Iraq ever was."
The report was less certain of a creation date for a nuclear bomb than Israeli military officials. The paper stated, "No one is certain when Iran might produce its first atomic weapon. Some experts said two or three years; others believe the government has probably not given a final go-ahead. But it is clear that Iran is moving purposefully and rapidly toward acquiring the capability."
According to the L.A. Times, "A nuclear-armed Iran would present the United States with a difficult political and military equation. Iran would be the first avowed enemy of Israel to possess a nuclear bomb and the first nuclear-armed country labeled by the administration as a state sponsor of international terrorism."
The L.A. Times also stated that, "Iranian nuclear weapons could shift the balance of power in the region, where Washington is trying to establish pro-American governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both of those nations border Iran, and are places where Teheran wants to exert influence that could conflict with US intentions, particularly Iraq.
According to the Times, "Foreign intelligence officers said that the Central Intelligence Agency, which has long contended that Iran is building a bomb, has briefed them on a contingency plan for US air and missile attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. 'It would be foolish not to present the commander in chief with all of the options, including that one,' said one of the officials."
According to the L.A. Times, "A CIA spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny that such a plan has been drafted. 'We wouldn't talk about anything like that,' she said."
Opinions vary as to Iran's intentions and capabilities regarding nuclear weapons. Former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer estimated that Iran will have nuclear a capability by 2005. A recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate states that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, although one participating agency, the Department of State, judges it will take longer. Analysts outside the intelligence community, though hardly unanimous, tend to agree with the State Department's estimate.
Only recently Iran denied Israel’s charges that leaders in Tehran were attempting to build a nuclear weapon.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi yesterday had rejected Israel’s prior charges that Tehran was seeking to build a nuclear weapon, saying Israel represented a nuclear threat to the region.
"It is clear for us that we do not have any program for nuclear weapons production," Kharrazi told a news conference in South Africa, where he held diplomatic meetings.
“Israel wants to justify its nuclear arsenal. They want to justify that they are under
threat when the source of the threat is Israeli capabilities. We don't find the development of nuclear weapons increases security. Contrary to that, we find it to be a threat to national security," Kharrazi said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters in Brussels that Tehran was "doing everything" to build a nuclear weapon and would pose a threat to the whole world unless it was stopped.
Speaking to reporters following a meeting in Brussels with his European Union counterparts, Shalom said that Tehran was enriching uranium and refusing to accept tougher inspections of its nuclear program.
Kharrazi said Tehran had embarked on a nuclear program as it was currently exporting most of its 3.8 million barrel-per-day oil output and realized the need to develop alternative sources of energy in the face of declining oil reserves and a rapidly growing population.
"Iran now is trying to do everything to have a nuclear weapon and that is threatening not only the Middle East, it is threatening Europe, the southern part of Russia," he said.
"And I think the EU should take a key role in the last efforts to prevent them from having this ability."
Iran has inaugarated a missile capable of reaching and striking targets within Israel.
Iran equipped its elite revolutionary guards with a locally made ballistic missile - the Shihab-3 - capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces stationed in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The missile was officially inaugurated during a military parade before Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is in charge of the country's armed forces. State-run Tehran television reported. "Today, the Iranian nation and armed forces ... is prepared to stand up to the enemy with a firm resolve anywhere," Khamenei was quoted as saying.
The missile's official deployment comes after its final testing several weeks ago, Iranian officials said. The Shihab-3 has a range of about 810 miles (1,296 kilometers), making it able to reach Israel and U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey.
Earlier, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the missile's recent testing was its most successful of seven or eight launches during the past five years. The last time Iran declared a test of the missile was in May, 2002 when Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said the country conducted a test to "enhance the power and accuracy of (the) Shihab-3 missile."
The missile technology is allegedly based on North Korea's No Dong surface-to-surface missile, but Iran says it is entirely locally made. "Shihab" means shooting star in Farsi. U.S. intelligence officials have said Iran can probably fire several Shihab-3's in an emergency, but that it has not yet developed a completely reliable missile.
The missile's inauguration also comes as the United States accuses Iran of working to build nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the claims, saying its nuclear program is for electricity production, not weapons making. Iran launched an arms development program during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz reassured Knesset members that Israel's Arrow missile defense system was adequate to counter any threat by Iranian missiles, and promised that missile defense would not be affected by budget cuts, Army Radio reported.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, Israel - with U.S. financial backing - has developed the Arrow anti-missile missile, the only operational missile killer system in the world.
The Arrow-2 interceptor, which works in conjunction with Green Pine all-weather radar targeting system, was successfully tested in August 2001, when it shot down a live missile dropped from an IAF F-15 fighter jet at high altitude on the flight path of an incoming Scud missile.
The missile's official deployment comes after its final testing several weeks ago, Iranian officials said. Earlier this month, the daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported that the missile's recent testing was its most successful of seven or eight launches during the past five years.
The U.N. International Atomic Energy nuclear agency and its experts have began talks aimed at getting Tehran to permit unrestricted inspections of its nuclear facilities even as a published report said Iran was moving toward developing a nuclear weapons capability. Three members of the legal team met with Iranian government lawyers, according to Saber Zaeimian, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
The United States has accused Iran of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program and wants the IAEA to declare Tehran in violation of thenon-proliferation treaty. Iran insists itsnuclear program is for peaceful, electrical power purposes.
But in a report Monday, the Los Angeles Timessaid Iran "appears to be in the late stages of developing the capacity to build a nuclear bomb." The Times said its three-month investigation found that Iran has been involved in a pattern of activity that has concealed weapons efforts from international inspectors.
The newspaper - citing sources ranging frompreviously secret reports, international officials, independent experts and Iranian exiles - reported that Iran made use of technology and scientists from Russia, North Korea, China and Pakistan to bring it closer to building a bomb than Iraq ever was. Among its findings, the paper said a confidential French report concluded that "Iran is surprisingly close to having enriched uranium or plutonium for a bomb."
The paper also reported that samples of uranium taken by arms inspectors in June tested positive for enrichment levels to be consistentwith attempt to build a bomb. Commenting onreports of Iranian nuclear efforts, White Housespokesman Scott McClellan said the U.S.government is "working with the IAEA to make sure that they do not continue on this course, which is unacceptable."
Iran has said it would agree to unfetteredinspections if it is granted access to advanced nuclear technology as provided for under thetreaty. Tehran says Washington is keeping Iranfrom getting that technology. In recent weeks, conservatives in Iran's Islamic establishmenthave said Iran would withdraw from the treatyaltogether if the IAEA forces Iran to sign the protocol.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid RezaAsefi has said Iran's withdrawal was out ofquestion. Monday's talks focused on anadditional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allowing openinspections that the IAEA is pressing Tehran to sign, the official Islamic Republic News Agency cited Zaeimian as saying
Iranian officials have said reports that enriched uranium found in samples taken by UN inspectors in Iran were questionable.
Iran insists its nuclear facilities are geared to producing electricity, and diplomats say the presence of enriched uranium in the samples may in fact be the result of contamination.
EU foreign ministers last month demanded that Iran accept tougher inspections of its suspect nuclear program, and linked compliance to progress on a pending trade deal.It was the most serious warning the EU had sent Tehran since they began negotiating a trade and cooperation agreement late last year.
Iran said it had no intention of pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, despite calls from some hardliners in the country to do so.
Now that the imminent threat of Iraq and a nuclear weapon is stabilized, the U.S. needs to closely look at Iran and monitor the developments of nuclear weapons with and “eagle eye”!!!
Iran may very well be the next “axis of evil” target in the international “War on Terrorism”!!!
http://www.americandaily.com/item/3636