Iran admits to buying components secretly

WASHINGTON - Faced with the imminent release of a report by international nuclear inspectors, Iran has acknowledged publicly that it secretly purchased components for its nuclear programme from a network of international suppliers.

But it continues to insist that its programme is for electricity production, not weapons.

The Foreign Ministry statement came after Mr Hassan Rohani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, met Mr Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna.

European and American diplomats believe Mr ElBaradei summarised the results of a report the IAEA is expected to release this week about Iran's nuclear programme.

These included details which Iran withheld last year when, under intense pressure from Europe and the United States, it revealed 18 years of secret nuclear activity.

'The Iranians are admitting to the dimensions of their programme bit by bit, as they are confronted with individual pieces of evidence,' said a senior US official involved in the investigations of the nuclear trading network set up by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

'Compare it to what the Libyans are doing. I'm convinced the Libyans are voluntarily showing us everything,' the official said, referring to Libya's decision to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme. 'The Iranians are still stonewalling.'

The spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Mr Hamid Reza Asefi, said on Sunday that 'we have bought some things from some dealers but we don't know what the source was or what country they came from'. He insisted that every purchase had been reported to the IAEA.

Iran's statements are significant because few US or European officials believe they understand how far along the country's nuclear programme is, or how close it is to producing a nuclear weapon.

As Dr Khan's network sold Libya equipment, full warhead designs and the raw uranium gas that must be enriched to produce bomb fuel, US officials said they assumed Iran received the same package of goods.

Iran's failure to declare all of its nuclear programme would be described, in muted terms, in the IAEA's report this week.

'The Americans will not like the fact that the agency does not declare that the Iranians were making a weapon. The Iranians will not like the fact that they are essentially accused of playing a shell game, only revealing the least they think they can get away with.'

Iran promised European nations last year that it would suspend all of its activities to enrich uranium while IAEA inspections continued.

But the Iranian government has defined 'suspend' very literally, and it continues to manufacture parts for centrifuges that could improve the capacities of its enrichment facilities at Natanz. -- New York Times

The spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Mr Hamid Reza Asefi, said on Sunday that 'we have bought some things from some dealers but we don't know what the source was or what country they came from'

"I did not-buy-those-centrifuges from that deal- Mr. Khan."

Seriously, are all islamic leaders this stupid?

I fear that they are very close to producing their first bomb, stalling for just a little while longer. Pakistan did so in complete secrecy, the world was astonished then and our intelligence is no better now.

3 posted on 02/23/2004 3:29:33 PM PST by Camel Joe (Proud Uncle of a Fine Young Marine)

Lemme' get this straght: Apparently every country in the region except Iraq was spending money like a drunken Democrat to buy materials to build nuclear weapons.

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