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Iran Cleric Suggests Nation Quit Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

By NAZILA FATHI
NY Times 9.20.2003

TEHRAN — An influential cleric suggested today that Iran opt out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, adding to signs that the difference over Iran's nuclear policy was increasing among the authorities here.

The head of Iran's nuclear energy agency, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting this week that Iran would continue working with the agency and was fully committed to its obligations within the treaty.

But Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the powerful Guardian Council, which is responsible for approving parliamentary bills before they can become law, said the demand by the international agency to allow unrestricted access to its inspectors was "extra humiliating."

"What is the problem with withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?" asked Ayatollah Jannati during Friday Prayers. "North Korea withdrew from the treaty. Many other countries have not even signed it."

Reuters reported, meanwhile, that Britain, Germany and France defied the United States last month by offering Iran the prospect of sharing technology if it stopped its disputed nuclear fuel enrichment program and accepted tougher United Nations inspections.

Western diplomats said a joint letter from the three countries was delivered to Tehran in early August despite intense lobbying by Washington.

A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said he could confirm that a letter had been sent to Iran, but he said it did not include any offer to cooperate on other issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/20/international/middleeast/20IRAN.html

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Protesters accost Iranian diplomat

Washington Times
LONDON, Sept. 19 (UPI) --

An Iranian diplomat accused in an Argentine bombing ran a gauntlet of protesters Friday outside a London court to appear at a 15-minute hearing.

Former Iranian Ambassador to Argentina Hade Soleimanpour, 47, is fighting extradition to the South American nation for the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that left 85 dead and 100 injured.

Soleimanpour is free on nearly $1.2 million bond on the condition he live in London from Monday through Thursday and report to a police station daily. He lives at another address in northeastern England Friday through Sunday.

Protesters from the National Council of Resistance of Iran greeted the diplomat, chanting "terrorist, terrorist, terrorist" and "one less terrorist out of U.K.," the London Daily Mail reported.

Soleimanpour's next court appearance is Oct. 23. He has denied involvement in the bombing, which Argentina alleges was financed by Tehran. Soleimanpour says he wasn't even in the country at the time.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030919-090336-5280r.htm

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Britain Defies US on Iran Weapons

September 20, 2003
Telegraph
Robin Gedye

Britain ignored American objections and joined France and Germany in offering Iran a deal to develop a non-military nuclear programme in exchange for dropping attempts to enrich its own fuel, it was disclosed yesterday.

The initiative, in a letter to the Iranian foreign ministry in August, was intended to encourage Teheran to agree to the International Atomic Energy Agency's additional protocol providing for unlimited inspections of its nuclear facilities.

Britain has long been at odds with the Bush administration in believing that dialogue with Teheran is preferable to Washington's more robust approach: comply or face the consequences.

"Washington believes that only compliance with a regime of immediate and full inspections of all its nuclear facilities will prevent an attempt by Teheran to draw out negotiations until it is too late," diplomats said.

But Washington understood that Britain preferred to work through diplomatic channels and that a joint effort with France and Germany was preferable to France and Germany operating alone again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/20/wiran20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/09/20/ixportal.html

[nuconvert]

Map of Iran locating nuclear facilities there after the IAEA imposed an October 31 deadline on Iran to prove that it is not developing atomic weapons.(AFP)

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9/11 Hatred

September 20, 2003
Townhall.com
Larry Elder

Exploring the roots and reason of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, two television specials, "Searching for the Roots of 9/11," hosted by The New York Times' Tom Friedman on the Discovery Channel, and "Why U.S.?" on the Discovery Times Channel, aired on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, respectively.

The specials explored the thoughts, sentiments, hopes, aspirations and anger of students, writers and others in several Arabic countries. One young Arab, while bemoaning the loss of "innocent lives," said that he and most Arab Muslims relished America's Sept. 11 "punch in the nose." One young female Arab student spoke of her resentment of how "American schools look down on us." One theme -- repeated again and again -- suggested that the resentment of America's dominance, power and exportation of its dominant culture converged to create the atmosphere that provoked 19 young Muslim men to hijack planes and crash them.

One Arab bitterly complained about America's "support" for Arabic dictators who deprive them of basic human rights. Several spoke of their yearning for democracy and accused America of hypocrisy for enjoying domestic democracy while propping up totalitarian governments that deprive their citizens of the basic rights enjoyed by Americans.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute, of course, came up repeatedly, with one Muslim suggesting that a small "Jewish lobby" dictated American foreign policy, resulting in her "one-sided" support for Israel.

The New York Times' Tom Friedman, host of "Searching for the Roots of 9/11," asked: To what extent do you Arab Muslims hold yourselves responsible for your poverty and your lack of civil rights? One student agreed that, yes, he held Arabs, in part, culpable for living under corrupt regimes that maintain power through force and intimidation. Put another way, Friedman asked, why do you hold Americans responsible for the inequality, poverty and lack of rights in your own country? On the one hand, you complain about American interference, and on the other, you imply that you expect America to secure -- for you -- these rights and a better life. Which way is it?

In Iraq, for example, the United States military suffers almost daily casualties as the coalition partners struggle to put together a representational government in Iraq -- presumably the type many Arabs claimed they desire. Doesn't this demonstrate America's wish for the very type of government many young Arabs claimed they want? What of America's willingness to sacrifice lives on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Somalia?

The specials showed scenes of American cola-vending machines and American fast-food signage, such as an apparently vandalized Kentucky Fried Chicken sign. Would the lot of the Arab world improve if U.S. business interests simply pulled out?

America helped to save the world from fascism and communism without becoming an imperial power. Yet, in the Arab world with its lack of free press, people -- from schoolchildren to adults -- receive a steady diet of America bashing and American hatred, as well as the "indictment" of American support for the "racist, Zionist" state of Israel.

Arabs complaining about evil America fail to confront this conundrum. With "the great Satan" so thoroughly infused with evil and ill will, why doesn't she use her unparalleled power to simply destroy her enemies? America could, if she wished, simply nuke its enemies, and since America presumably seems indifferent to international public opinion, what would hold her back? None of the Muslims interviewed showed the least concern about the loss of innocent Israeli lives by homicide bombers. If homicide bombing reflects acts of desperation by impoverished, disenfranchised people, why not use the same method to dislodge your own rulers, whom you claim to despise? No one posed that question.

One Arab, for example, complained bitterly of the decades-long rule of the Saudi royal family, and another of Hosni Mubarak's Egyptian government. Yet "punching America in the nose" made more sense to them than punching their own, presumably despised, governments in the nose.

Watching the specials, while attempting to keep an open mind about the plight, yearnings and hopes of the Muslims interviewed, one still reduced their anger to a single word -- irrational. One Muslim, for example, said he yearned for the day when the flag of Islam "flew over the White House"!

If American "interference" in the Muslim world created this hostility, how would a "Muslim flag" over the White House solve the problem? Do the Muslim critics of American policy truly care more about the plight of the Palestinians outside of their own country? Did Egypt or Jordan create a Palestinian state when, pre-1967, they held the Gaza strip and the West Bank, respectively?

A suggestion. On the third anniversary of Sept. 11, Al-Jazeera should run specials with Arabic hosts traveling throughout America. Suggested title: "Why Americans See Our Hatred Toward Them as Irrational."

Larry Elder is the author of the newly-released Showdown. Larry also wrote The Ten Things You Can’t Say in America. He is a libertarian talk show host, on the air from 3-7 pm Pacific time, on KABC Talkradio in Los Angeles. For more information, visit LarryElder.com.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9925

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Islamic Regime in Iran Linked to Argentine Bombing

September 20, 2003
Knight Ridder News
Kevin G. Hall

BUENOS AIRES - Nearly a decade after the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center killed 85 people in the worst anti-Semitic act since World War II, investigators have stunning new evidence that the culprit was a Lebanese-born suicide bomber aided by Iran.

Israeli diplomatic sources told Argentine investigators earlier this month that the bomber was Ibrahim Hussein Berro, a 29-year-old Shiite Muslim who has been honored with a plaque in southern Lebanon for his ''martyrdom'' on July 18, 1994, the date of the terrorist attack

The powerful ammonium nitrate bomb hidden in a van reduced to rubble a seven-story building that housed the Israelite-Argentine Mutual Association, known as AMIA, and the offices of the Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations, or DAIA, the political umbrella organization for Latin America's largest Jewish population.

Argentina suspected Iran from the outset because of its support for the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, notorious for its car-bomb attacks on Jewish and American targets. And there had been suggestions that the blast was the work of a suicide bomber.

But now, the theory of a suicide bomber has been confirmed, with a name and hometown. Both investigators and Jewish community leaders now think that after nine years of slow-moving court inquiries the pieces of the puzzle are coming together to strongly implicate Iranian diplomats in Buenos Aires.

The 1994 bombing, along with a March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 28, remain unsolved and a festering wound for Argentina. Court investigations have achieved little more than spotlighting corrupt police officers, petty thieves and stolen-car rings that might have provided the vehicle or the explosives.

At times, the Argentine probe has seemed circus-like. One key witness was an Iranian defector who fled to Cuba.

MENEM ACCUSED

A former Iranian spy, testifying under protection in Germany, said earlier this year that former Argentine President Carlos Menem took $10 million in hush money from Iran to quash any serious investigation. Menem denied the charge.

But now, new intelligence information, detailed phone records and a promise by new Argentine President Néstor Kirchner to share with Jewish groups intelligence files concerning the attack, are serving to rekindle the investigation and renew hopes.

On Sept. 2, Israel passed via diplomatic channels to judicial investigators in Argentina vital information that helped identify Hussein Berro as the alleged suicide bomber.

Attorney Marta Nercellas, who represents bombing victims in court proceedings and oral testimony, said phone records presented to the court show a call made from Buenos Aires to Hussein Berro's family home in the Beirut neighborhood of al Ouzai just hours before the attack. There were no prior calls from Argentina to the Beirut number, nor any after the attack.

''We believe this was a good-bye call,'' Nercellas told Knight Ridder.

A former Argentine policeman who converted to Islam, Miguel Alfredo Barcia, testified Aug. 28 that he met and befriended Hussein Berro days before the 1994 blast at the Al Iman mosque and religious center funded by the Iranian government in the town of Canuelas, about an hour outside Buenos Aires.

Transcripts of Barcia's testimony are not yet available, but Nercellas made her notes from the session available to Knight Ridder. Testifying before a three-judge panel investigating alleged police support for terrorists, Barcia reportedly said Hussein Berro confided that his eight brothers had been ''martyred'' in suicide bombings or clashes with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

DEPRESSED

Barcia described Hussein Berro as depressed because he had failed in a previous attempted suicide bombing, Nercellas said. Investigators are combing through immigration records in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay to check whether Hussein Berro entered legally under his own name.

Barcia also testified that Hussein Berro disappeared from Canuelas shortly before the AMIA attack, according to Nercellas' notes. In earlier testimony before Judge Juan Jose Galeano, who has conducted the principal investigation into the 1994 bombing, Barcia did not provide such details, Nercellas said.

The new details from Barcia add to evidence being used in court to implicate Iran in the attack.

Acting on an arrest warrant signed by Judge Galeano on Aug. 13, Great Britain on Aug. 21 detained Iran's former ambassador in Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour, 47. His extradition proceedings began Friday but were postponed until Oct. 23 to give British officials time to consider the evidence that Argentina has presented against him.

Galeano also signed arrest warrants for seven other Iranians employed in the embassy at the time of the bombing. Also wanted is Ali Fallahijan, who headed Iran's state intelligence apparatus at the time of the 1994 bombing.

Citing diplomatic immunity, Soleimanpour refused to cooperate with Argentine investigators in the weeks and months after the 1994 bombing.

CALLS TO MOSQUE

Among the circumstantial evidence linking Soleimanpour to the bombing is a flurry of calls to the mosque where Hussein Berro was living, made by Soleimanpour and others in the Iranian embassy days before the attack.

Argentina has sent Tehran five requests for legal comment on the alleged involvement by Soleimanpour or others but received no reply, Jorge Palacios, Argentina's top anti-terror officer, said in an interview.

''They need to justify a ton of [strange] circumstances. This is not a capricious move by the judge,'' said the head of the anti-terror directorate of Argentina's national police. ``If you really don't have anything to hide, why not answer?''

Iran has insisted vehemently that it had no hand in the bombing, and that the United States and Israel are behind Argentina's attempts to prosecute former Iranian diplomats.

Argentine Jewish groups believe there is strong, albeit circumstantial, evidence that Iranian diplomats were involved in the attack.

They point to a strange change in diplomatic procedure in the weeks before the blast. Like many other embassies around the world, Iran's mission in Buenos Aires routinely received official mail in diplomatic pouches shipped through air carriers. Weeks before the bombing, however, diplomatic couriers began to bring in all mail in person, said Nercellas.

Testifying on Aug. 28, the imam, or spiritual leader of the Canuelas mosque, confirmed that the Iranian embassy had asked him to look into the purchase of a Renault van -- similar to the vehicle used to attack the mutual association offices -- to transport the mosque's eight members to prayer.

Imam Abadallah Madina, an Argentine convert to Islam who was born Ruben Abal Medina, testified that in the end, embassy officials told him they would buy a vehicle in Buenos Aires.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6817336.htm

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Putin Says Western Firms Helping Iran Nuclear Industry

September 20, 2003
Reuters
MSNBC News

MOSCOW -— President Vladimir Putin, hitting back at accusations Russia is irresponsibly supplying nuclear technology to Iran, said on Saturday he has proof western firms are also working in Iran's atomic sector.

Iran has come under pressure to show its nuclear programme is peaceful and U.S. officials have been lobbying Russia to stop work in the Islamic republic.

But Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying: ''Many western firms are working with Iran in the atomic technology sector, including dual-use technology.''

Dual-use technology is atomic equipment that can have peaceful or military applications. Russia has not finished the atomic power station it is building in Iran, a country that Washington has dubbed part of an ''axis of evil'' seeking illegal arms, and says it will not deliver nuclear fuel until Tehran promises it will be returned.

Putin said he would happily share information about western firms' Iranian activities with other countries.

''We think that we do not need a complete monopoly on this and will share it with our partners,'' he added.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters09-20-112446.asp?reg=EUROPE

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