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

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Let's Not Forget About Iran's Students

Digital Freedom Network - by Luke Thomas
Sep 10, 2003

Iran's university students are in the midst of a rebellion.

Although they and their cause are generally unknown, Iran's student population has been engaged in a slow, but steady repudiation of Iran's current hard-line Shiite government. Thirsting for tastes of sovereignty and personal choice, the student protestors have immersed themselves in an uphill battle to have basic rights and freedoms acknowledged by their government. Student reformers acknowledge the process has been fraught with setbacks and failures, but have made notable strides worthy of international attention.

Presently, two-thirds of Iran's population of 65 million are under the age of 30, bringing the total young to over 40 million. In truth, only five percent of the 40 million are able to attend higher education (nevertheless, the almost 2 million students exercise significant political muscle). However, both groups have lived almost entirely under the Islamic regime, but with pervasive Western influences and ideas in an increasingly technological media. Iranian students access to Western media has resulted in shifted thinking towards substantially more democratic values. This "democratic alternative" is largely viewed as superior to the anachronistic version of Islam they perceive to be stymieing Iran's development. Consequently, they have grown profoundly discontented with their stagnant theocratic government.

Iranian students have essentially narrowed the focus of their cause into two requests: the need for government accountability and promotion of citizens' rights. Nearinternational.org claims that in a petition signed by Iranian university intellectuals, journalists and student activists, demands such as the ability to "supervise their rulers, criticize them and remove them from power if they are not satisfied" have been enumerated as well as that no leader's power is "absolute power". BBC.com reports students no longer believe in the ability of the present government to meet the needs of Iran, citing double-digit unemployment, a shortage of university placements and lack of proper housing.

What is evident from the students' protests are more than just a dislike for current policies, but rather, a paradigm shift in ideas. Current students have been very receptive to democratic vales and ideals and are particularly leery of "Velayet-e-Faghih": the notion that the supreme leader is both the religious and political authority. The adoption of Western ideas is intellectually antithetical to Islam and the current Iranian government. However, there exists no desire among the students to eliminate religion. The youth allege they are not attempting to dismantle Islam, but merely separate it from government affairs.

These protests, however, have not come without firm and determined reprisal from the government. BBC.com reports in July 1999, the government performed a raid on a student hostel at the University of Tehran where at least one student was killed and as many as 20 injured, some from beatings and others by being thrown from a window. Students then began a series of widespread protests, calling for the reinstatement of several banned publications, investigations into the deaths of murdered writers and dissidents and the release of jailed students. Additionally, there was a call for the removal of the clerical government, but this was met with little or no reception.

As a consequence of the July 1999 protests and subsequent student action, a large and enormously diverse demographic of Iran's population have begun supporting the students' cause and become increasingly vocal about their dislikes of their government. Coined the "Third Force", this nebulous group is both a social and political force comprised of essentially all those disaffected with the government. Notably, the group's members transcend gender, age and income. Their common belief is that the Shiite hard-liners do not have legitimately-sanctioned power and employ tactics of politics rather than beneficial policy. The Participation Front, the largest faction of the reform movement, has turned itself into a functioning political party outside the reach of the clerical government and attempted to institute reforms by urging current leaders for both social and economic change.

Reformers, whose trust was placed in the leadership of twice-elected President Khatami, have had their hopes wane. Although promising both social and economic reforms, Khatami have been largely unable to exercise any real power. In many cases, the Guardian Council (the ruling clerical body that has the ultimate power of veto) has either reversed his decisions or diluted their potency. Regardless, many Iranian citizens no longer feel President Khatami will be capable of fostering democracy and desired social reforms as long as the clerical Islamic government performs watchdog legislation.

President Khatami is particularly susceptible to the current religious and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (successor to the revolutionist Ayatollah Khomeini). Iht.com reports that following a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia (believed to be the work of Iranian political militants), President Khatami purged extremists from the Intelligence Ministry only to have Ayatollah Khamenei subsequently create the ad hoc Foreign Intelligence Service, a group where many of those extremists were able to recycle themselves back into the government. Such consistent undermining of President Khatami has engendered the status-quo contempt for the Islamic regime by students and ordinary citizens.

Given the lack of genuine political power among the students, the vanguard movement is looking for international assistance to forward their cause, albeit in a limited scope. For example, students and leaders alike acknowledge the need for democracy in Iraq. With an Iraqi democratic neighbor protecting citizens' basic rights and freedoms, Iran would be under immense pressure to accommodate its' people by granting some of those same provisions. Additionally, students contend a push to open the Iranian national television network known as the IRIB and other media outlets would be instrumental. Young activists insist these various forms of media spread government propaganda that support its' hard-line Shiite outlook without scrutiny or counterpoint. Lastly, student protestors ask that when engaging in diplomacy with Iran, the middleclass should been kept firmly in mind. Often overlooked and undervalued, the Persian middleclass is a growing and already influential energy in Iranian society. With some external assistance, this group can have a colossal effect on Iranian domestic policy.

In an effort to accommodate some of these needs, a radio station known as "Radio Azadi", or "Radio Freedom", was created by the United States to give listeners an alternative to state-run media. Similar to Radio Free Europe, broadcasts from Prague are sent to Tehran where students can listen to American-controlled media that has frequently featured open debate, hourly news and scholarly commentary. Though recent programming selections have come under question, Radio Azadi (now known as "Radio Farda" or "Radio Tomorrow") nevertheless still commands the attention of Iranian youth.

It is unclear as to what the future holds for Iran and its' student rebellion. Experts widely disagree on possible outcomes for the movement. The more optimistic contend Iran has a strong possibility of experiencing a bloodless revolution where the current government implodes and is supplanted with a democratic replacement. Others fear the student rebellion could boil over and foment a violent clash between the ruling elite and those promoting democracy. Regardless, most experts agree the student protestors are a viable political group with bottomless determination whose requests for freedom are largely basic.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_2272.shtml

Violent clashes rock the western City of Sardashat

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Sep 10, 2003

Violent clashes have rocked the western City of Sardashat, on Monday and Tuesday, leading to the injuries and arrests of at least 25 demonstrators.

Several public buildings, such as, banks and the Center for Islamic Guidance have been dammaged during the clashes as the angry crowd retaliated to the brutal intervention of the regime's elite forces sent to smash their peaceful protest action.

The injured and arrested have been transferred to the regime's military facilities in the nearby Cit of Mahabad which was, also, scene of other bloody riots in the past months.

The tension in Sardasht has been reported as very tense and many shops have closed in sign of protest despite the heavy presence of security forces.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_2260.shtml

While Coca-Cola is not allowed in Iran, there is a cola company in Iran with a logo similar to Coca-cola. Iran has got lots of desire to bond with the WEST. Many kids from Iran went to school in the USA. With Iran trying to reform and IRAQ in a state of being freed from the Madman Hussain, the region is in the process of moving into the 21st Century with American Freedom as a Guiding Light.

A CIVIL WAR OF IDEAS

By AMIR TAHERI
NY Post
September 11, 2003

FOR the past few weeks, Islamist circles in the Middle East, Europe and the United States have been abuzz with rumors regarding a videotape from Osama bin Laden (remember him?). A middleman from Birmingham in the English Midlands launched an advance sales campaign for the tape last March. He began by asking $250,000, but ended up cutting the price to $25,000, a sure sign that OBL's stocks are not as high as on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

Yesterday, indeed, a tape of bin Laden was aired by al Jazeera, but it well may have been an old tape or a fake one. The best information available shows that Osama bin Laden died on Dec. 5, 2001, in Afghanistan and was buried the same day in an unmarked grave.

OBL is the only one of the seven top leaders of al Qaeda not to be fully accounted for. The organization's No. 2, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, is in Iran. Its No. 3, and military commander, Muhammad Atef, was killed in Afghanistan during the war that ended the Taliban rule.

Three other leaders, the Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, the Yemeni Ramzi bin Al-Shibha and the Kuwaiti Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were picked up between March 2002 and March 2003. Yussuf al-Ayyeri, the terror network's theoretician, was killed in a gun battle in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in June.

Last year this time, some sympathizers of al Qaeda were able to gather at a rented hall in central London to hear some of OBL's old tapes and compare notes on their doomed movement. This year, however, there will be no such gathering. Some of the al Qaeda stragglers are either in prison or have fled Britain. A walk up Edgware Road, London's "Arab street," reveals the end of almost two decades of al Qaeda-style terrorist presence in the British capital, once known as Londonistan.

The terrorists have suffered similar setbacks in other Western countries.

In military and police terms, the War on Terror has gone much better than anyone would have expected.

Of the dozens of bases the terrorists had in Afghanistan and Pakistan, only two or three may still be operational in the Mohand area, one of the seven mountain enclaves in Pakistan. The last place in the Muslim world where the terrorists could gather, as late as December 2002, is the dusty town of Rabat, a thieves bazaar located in the so-called "Devil's Triangle" where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet.

The liberation of Iraq has shattered the structures of two dozen terror organizations, at least one of which was directly linked to al Qaeda.

Some money is still flowing into the coffers of the radical organizations that, in turn, finance the half dozen terror groups still capable of launching sporadic attacks.

But even there, what money now flows into terror is but a trickle, compared to the flood before 9/11.

In the meantime, predictions that several Muslim countries would fall into the hands of the terrorists have proved unfounded.

Pakistan, regarded as the "ripest for a fall," is emerging from two decades of uncertainty and gaining self-confidence.

Saudi Arabia, far from inaugurating a new regime headed by terrorists, is beginning to fight them in earnest, for the first time.

Algeria, another candidate for a "fall," is arguably more stable now than two years ago. Indonesia, which was presented as the next target of the terrorists, is consolidating its newly won democracy.

Last but not least, there is Iraq, where the most brutal regime Islam had seen in more than a century collapsed like a house of cards, largely because the Iraqi people welcomed their liberation.

More important, the past two years have witnessed an unprecedented debate in the Muslim world. One weekly magazine recently ran a series based on a central question: Who are we?

For the first time, mainstream media in the Muslim world allow difficult questions to be raised, including whether Islam should remain on the sidelines of the modern world and sulk, throw bombs at it or take part in its development and improvement.

In almost every Muslim country what amounts to a civil war of ideas is shaping up. Reformists and modernizers have realized that rather than dismissing Islam as a "feudal relic," they should seek to understand it in modern terms and redefine some of its practices to reflect the existential realities of their societies.

The alienation of the modernizing elite from the largely illiterate and poor base of most Muslim societies created a vacuum that a small stratum of fanatics was able to fill with a message of hatred and terror. Many Muslim regimes, meanwhile, exploited Islam as a way of isolating and silencing their reformist critics. Those regimes have begun to realize that the monster they trained to eat their foes could also eat them.

No one can deny that the party of terror in the Muslim world has failed to attract any significant level of popular support. The liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq was largely approved by the silent majority of Muslims.

The loudest protests came from within Western societies, including the United States.

This civil war of ideas within Islam represents the most difficult, and ultimately the deciding, phase in the war against terrorism. Unless this war is won by people who wish to lead Islam out of its ghetto and into the mainstream of contemporary life, no number of military and publicity victories against terror will produce the safer world that we all want.

BUT a similar civil war is raging in the West. On one side there is a neo-Imperialist movement, which urges the Western democracies to leave the Muslim world alone to stew in its own juice of poverty, despotism and violence. The idea is that Muslims will never accept democracy and the rule of law and that the best the West can do is to ignore them in the name of cultural "alterity" (otherness) and political correctness.

On the other side there is a neo-nationalist movement, which believes the only way to deal with terror is to teach Muslims a lesson they shall not forget. This neo-nationalist movement ignores the need for a broad alliance with Muslim reformists and democrats in a joint effort to curb and ultimately defeat terror. It forgets the fact that the principal victims of terrorism are Muslims themselves. (Saddam caused the deaths of over a million Iraqis, Iranians, Kuwaitis and other Muslims. The Taliban massacred tens of thousands of Afghans.)

Two years after 9/11 it is clear that the Muslim world has rejected the deadly message now associated with the name of Osama bin Laden, although he was but a small cog in a diabolical machine constructed over more than a century. Instead of understanding that vital fact and expanding people-to-people relations, some Western democracies have erected new barriers to keep out "the Muslim hordes."

Some Muslim governments, anxious to preserve their despotic hold on power, have seized the opportunity for distancing their societies from the West and keeping out dangerous ideas, such as democracy and human rights.

EVEN though a videotape of him was aired yesterday, Osama bin Laden has nothing new or interesting to say. Binladenism has no future in the Muslim world. But this does not mean that the Muslim world is ready to emerge from almost two centuries of confusion and crisis that led parts of it into the historic impasse of terrorism. In the war against terror, we are now witnessing only the end of the beginning.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/5484.htm

A CIVIL WAR OF IDEAS

By AMIR TAHERI
NY Post
September 11, 2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/980192/posts?page=6#6

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Don't worry, they are next....

Free Republic's 9-11 100 Hours of Remembrance
Click on the Link Above

A.N.S.W.E.R. too Busy Fighting 'Imperialism' to Help Iranian Democracy Activists"

The utter hypocrisy of the ''anti-war'' movement's members--who never met a dictator they didn’t like--has been exposed yet again. After trying desperately to keep both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in power, they now claim to be too busy fighting U.S. ''imperialism'' to help Iranian democracy activists.

James Taranto, writing for the Wall Street Journal’s ''Best of the Web,'' sheds light on the shenanigans of A.N.S.W.E.R.

How's This for an Answer?

Blogress Karol Sheinin reports that an Iranian democracy activist named Banafsheh contacted the most prominent ''antiwar'' group asking them to take a stand against Tehran's thuggish theocracy. In an e-mail (quoted verbatim), Banafsheh describes the answer she got:

Recently I contacted a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION which organizes marches. After having introduced myself and explained to them the situation in Iran (after 4 phone calls and messages) I was told that they won't help the Iranian activists and their friends in organizing marches against the Islamic Republic as they're afraid the Iranian student movement might be run by IMPERIALIST!!!!!
They claimed to be ''intelligent'' and very well informed though essentially they had NO IDEA what on earth I was talking about. They were not only unaware of the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic, they had never even heard that an organized group of hoodlums, called the BADR Brigade, trained by the KGB and Palestinians, armed and bankrolled by the Islamic Republic's ruling theocrats, were infiltrating Iraq to run a muck in killing American soldiers and destroy the future of Iraq! When I explained that the people of Iran are acting on their own but that encouragement from the PEOPLE of the west was crucial in holding anti-Islamic Republic demonstrations etc. (that's all I had asked them for: help in organizing demonstrations) the woman basically said that they won't help because their cause was to eradicate Imperialism! I explained that Iranian oil was being pilfered by member nations of the EU and other countries such as Japan, at which she replied: since we don't live in Europe or Japan, I cannot help! I guess imperialism is concentrated only in the U.S.!!!!! AND that Mullahs can't be ''Imperialists!''
I then explained that Hossein Khomeini (Khomeini's grandson) is now one of the biggest opponents of the Mullacracy in Iran... She told me that he was probably being bought by Americans!!! In other words, she was convinced that there could be no dissent among the Mullahs themselves!!!!!
I told her about my father and other political prisoners in Iran (not to mention the number of people stoned to death, hung, assassinated, raped...), she thought for a moment and said that my father is probably a dissident and that the Islamic Republic was possibly justified in putting him in prison!!!!! I don't know, but doesn't that seem oxymoronic coming from someone working at an ''activist/protestor'' organization?????
Well, not really. International Answer is the brainchild of America-hating ex-attorney general Ramsey Clark. As we've noted before, this group makes common cause with every one of America's enemies, from Fidel Castro to Saddam Hussein to Kim Jong Ill.

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=4195

A BIG lol!!!!!!!1

Iran issues a warning on nuclear cooperation

TEHRAN- Iran will be forced to reconsider its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency if it is denied the right to a peaceful nuclear program, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told IRNA, Iran's official news agency, on Wednesday.

http://www.iht.com/articles/109574.html

U.S. Judge Demanding That Iran Compensate Victims Of U.S. Embassy Bombing In Beirut

Mohamad Noun Al-Hayat 2003/09/10
Tehran, London

Yesterday, an American judge accused Iran of the U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut on April 18, 1983.

Meanwhile, London voiced a strong protest to the Iranian government yesterday, after the British embassy in Tehran came under fire for the second time in a week. It accused it of failing to protect the embassy's premises. Two days ago, unidentified people shot three or four times at the building, despite the tight security measures and the fact that the embassy has been closed since it came under fire last week.

This incident coincided with a significant development in the case of the Iranian diplomat Hadi Suleimanpur, detained in London. The British Higher Court decided to give Buenos Aires until next Friday to present its evidence on the relation of Suleimanpur, the former Iranian ambassador to Argentina, with the bombing of a Jewish mall in Argentina in 1994, provided it will release the former ambassador if the evidence is not presented within the due time.

In Washington, Judge John Bates insisted that Iran had given orders to the Lebanese Hezbollah to carry out the bombing at the embassy's entry. He demanded that Iran pay compensations estimated at 123 million dollars to 29 victims and victims' relatives of the attack. The judge's decision, which was published yesterday, stated that "the claim of the suitors, considering that Iran is a country that supports terrorism, is acceptable." The Washington Post mentioned that this file came after a series of legal measures initiated by several groups including the victims of the attack, in virtue of a law enacted by Congress, which grants the American victims the right to sue those countries that are considered to be responsible for terrorist actions.

In parallel, Ken Brill, the American delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared before the board of chairmen of the Agency in Vienna that his country has given the Iranians a last chance before announcing that it is not respecting its commitments stipulated in the Non-Proliferation Nuclear treaty.

Germany, France and Britain presented yesterday to the IAEA board of chairmen a bill that gives Tehran until the end of October to fulfill its commitments regarding the nonproliferation treaty. The text stipulates that Iran should address all the gaps, and calls upon the board to call Iran to identify all the sources of equipment and material used in the program of uranium depletion, to allow the agency to visit the (nuclear) sites of its choice without restrictions, in order to confirm Tehran's statements and give all the information relevant to uranium transformation experience.

http://english.daralhayat.com/world_news/09-2003/Article-20030910-8bc92fdd-c0a8-01ed-002a-cc148219f778/story.html

This disinformation from the egyptian weekl al-Osboay is distributed by the tehran times:

"The U.S. Central Command was sure that the agents of the Zionist intelligence service Mossad had planned and executed the assassination with the help of some elements from the U.S. and Iraqi spies, Al-Osboa weekly said.
and "that there are reports that the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is helping Zionist operatives in Iraq and is receiving direct help from U.S. troops, adding that there is a written agreement to this effect."

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/9/03&Cat=2&Num=028

Comment: Unfortunately several people on the Arab street thinks that this is true. The best remedy is to spread litteracy - less than 50 % can read - and democracy.

Here are some good news:
9 September Associated Press
Iranian Dissident Cleric to Teach Again

A leading Iranian dissident cleric will resume his religious teaching next week after spending five years under house arrest, his son said Tuesday.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, 81, will begin teaching advanced religious studies Sept. 17 at a mosque close to his hometown of Qom, Ahmad Montazeri told The Associated Press.

Government officials were not available for comment.

The senior Montazeri was placed under house arrest in 1997 after telling his students that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was incompetent to rule.

The Supreme National Security Council lifted the house arrest in late January as Montazeri's health deteriorated.

Montazeri is one of just a few grand ayatollahs, the most senior theologians of the Shiite Muslim faith, and has huge followings in the holy city of Qom and Isfahan, his birthplace.

Montazeri was once the hand-picked successor of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed monarchy. But he fell out with Khomeini shortly before the leader's death in 1989.

Ruling clerics denounced Montazeri as a traitor in 1997 after he accused them of monopolizing power and ignoring the revolution's democratic ideals.

http://www.iranexpert.com/2003/dissidentclericiran9september.htm

And here are some news that make you LOL:

8 September By Sally Jones and Hashem Kalantari Dow Jones
Iran Plans To Open Stock Exchange To Foreign Investors

Foreign investors will be able to invest directly on the Tehran Stock Exchange by the end of this year, the head of the exchange told Dow Jones Newswires.

But Hussein Abdoh Tabrizi, the exchange's secretary general, also said the rules drafted for the opening require foreign investors to keep their money in the market for three years and would prohibit them from holding more than 10% of the market's value.

The plan, which would open the Tehran market to foreigners for the first time since the 1979 revolution, will be presented to the Ministry of Economy and Financial Affairs in coming weeks, he said.

With the government and the Majlis, the country's legislature, in favor, approval is expected.

The plan could be a signal that Iran is adopting a more liberal, western- oriented market under President Mohammed Khatami. Although Tabrizi didn't give an exact date on when the opening would take place, he was confident it would be before the end of 2003.

"We are opening up gradually," he said, adding that the "gradualist approach" is meant to protect the exchange from price shocks like those seen in Asia in recent years.

The exchange already suffers sharp movements and froze prices for two weeks in early August in the wake of surging prices.

TSE's index had gained around 80% since the start of the Iranian fiscal year March 21.

Foreigners Locked Into 3 Yr Investment

Tabrizi said the three-year investment requirement reflects concern about the instability foreign money could bring.

"We are concerned that foreigners may want to take money out quickly," he said. "It would be a drain on our reserves."

Tabrizi said capping foreign ownership at 10% of the market's value is meant to give the Iranian government time to open up the state-controlled foreign exchange market, a move he said would attract foreign capital.

The Central Bank of Iran controls the hard currency injected into the foreign exchange market. Khatami's government has indicated that it is considering floating the rial.

Tabrizi said foreign investors are already eyeing investment on the exchange. He predicted the exchange's market capitalization would rise to $40 billion by the end of 2003 and to $100 billion by 2005 from $30 billion today.

One analyst said the forecast is far too optimistic.

"Investors are generally still cautious about investing in the TSE," the Tehran analyst said.

The TSE has established a $58 million foreign investment company in Bahrain to attract new investors into high growth stocks in the automotive, cement and pharmaceutical sectors.

U.S. investors will be free to invest along with all other international investors, said Shadi Sedghinejad, head of the exchange's International Affairs Department. But she added that U.S. sanctions may prevent such investments.

http://www.iranexpert.com/2003/tseforeigninvestors8september.htm

comment: "require foreign investors to keep their money in the market for three years" It seems that they are adviced by optimists that do not understand that share prices can go down!

This is just an idea to sell the shares presently owned by Rafsanjani to ill informed foreigners.

Diplomats Concerned with Iran Laser Tests

September 11, 2003
Tri-Valley Herald
Ian Hoffman

As U.N. diplomats debate Iran's intent for 50,000 uranium-gas centrifuges, they also confront clues that Tehran could be exploring a more sophisticated path to nuclear-weapons materials that is more efficient and easier to conceal.

International inspectors report that Iran's nuclear-energy scientists have produced uranium metal and are testing powerful green lasers -- potential steps toward an exotic means of harvesting weapons fuel that so far has been the exclusive province of developed nuclear nations.

Unlike Iraq and its dozens of Calutrons, the old workhorses of electromagnetic separation invented by Berkeley physicist and Nobel laureate E.O. Lawrence, Iran is overwhelmingly banking on thousands of stan-dard European-style centrifuges capable of fueling nuclear reactors or producing dozens of nuclear weapons by the end of the decade.

Yet some U.S. and foreign intelligence analysts worry that Iran also is pursuing a more modern, compact source of bomb material.

That source is AVLIS -- atomic vapor laser isotopic separation -- devised in the 1970s at Lawrence's namesake lab in Livermore. France, the United States and Russia spent billions perfecting laser separation in the 1980s and '90s, yet scientists never saw its commercialization due to a glut in enriched uranium left over from the Cold War.

But an AVLIS factory in the Third World would offer an indigenous source of weapons-grade uranium while consuming so little real estate and electric power that it could be easily hidden from spy satellites that monitor weapons programs abroad.

"This is a top-notch, high-tech, sophisticated approach and it's really dangerous," said former weapons inspector Victor Mizin, a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "It's a very serious development."

Evidence that Iran is pursuing AVLIS program is hazy, however. Tehran denies any interest in laser enrichment or, for that matter, in nuclear weapons. Yet the Clinton administration had to press aggressively to persuade Russia to cancel contracts in 2000 to supply AVLIS to Iran.

"If it's shown that Iran really does have or is developing a substantial, working laser program, that would add a whole new dimension to the internal proliferation problem. But that's a big if," says Joseph Cirincione, head of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Weapons fuel expert David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, also is skeptical.

"I think it does show a very large commitment to the entire nuclear fuel cycle and things nuclear-related in general, but I don't think it shows they had a large commitment to laser enrichment for military or civilian uses," he said.

The clues are still tantalizing, he said.

Inspectors for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency recently visited two sites identified by opponents of the Tehran's Islamist government as related to uranium enrichment.

One turned out to be an agricultural research facility. In the second, inside tall security fences, inspectors found scientists building and testing copper-vapor lasers. Iranian off-icials said the site was originally intended for laser fusion research and laser spectroscopy.

But experts say copper-vapor lasers, while offering high-powered visible light, are largely useless for laser fusion, which generally uses invisible light beams. And Iran's scientists have their pick of cheaper, easier-to-use lasers for spectroscopy.

In AVLIS, scientists vaporize metal uranium with an electron beam, then fire chemical dye lasers through the vapor to selectively excite atoms of uranium-235, scattered in a cloud of uranium-238. The U235 atoms take on a negative charge and accumulate at a positive electrode inside the separator chamber, later harvested as metal coins.

In early forms of AVLIS, scientists used the bright green light of copper-vapor lasers to pump the chemical dye lasers.

IAEA inspectors found that Iran also had produced hundreds of pounds of natural uranium metal. Iranian scientists said the metal was for shielding in its nuclear reactors, but inspectors found that it had an exceptionally high purity that was inconsistent with shielding.

"There is a reason to wonder about the laser because the rationale for making the metal at the purity they're making it does raise questions," Albright said. "Iran knew it wasn't going to need metal at this purity, and so why make metal at this scale?"

One possibility is for Iranian scientists to practice making weapons components. "The other answer is to feed a laser-enrichment program," Albright said.

By far, weapons experts are more worried about Iran's centrifuges.

Tehran plans to have 1,000 gas centrifuges operating in a pilot plant at Natanz by year's end.

Inside the same security fences, workers are finishing two sprawling, underground complexes that would house more than 50,000 centrifuges, piped together in "cascades."

Iran's leaders say these subterranean cascade halls, each enclosing almost eight acres, would supply fuel for nuclear reactors planned or under construction by Russian workers on Iran's coast. At full capacity, Iran's cascades could produce enough enriched uranium for at least 25 nuclear weapons a year sometime before 2010.

All of these are more reliable sources of reactor fuel or bomb ingredients than AVLIS. It looks like a backup plan in case the centrifuges don't work, Cirincione said. So far, the centrifuges seem to be working very well for them.

But suspicions about Iran's laser enrichment pursuits could lead the United States and allies to insist on Iran allowing more intrusive inspections.>

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86%7E10669%7E1624695,00.html

Diplomats Concerned with Iran Laser Tests

September 11, 2003
Tri-Valley Herald
Ian Hoffman

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/980192/posts?page=17#17

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Iran Vows to Fight Any Nuclear Deadline

September 11, 2003
The Associated Press
George Jahn

Iran warned Thursday that it will resist any deadline to prove its nuclear programs are peaceful, even as support for such a measure grew among leading members of the U.N. atomic agency.

Chief Iranian delegate Ali Akbar Salehi spoke as the board of governors' meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency adjourned for the second day to allow member nations to hold informal talks on how to get to the bottom of Iran's nuclear activities.

Iran, however said it would fight any attempt to impose a deadline, in an implicit warning that it might break off all ties with the agency.

"We will oppose that," Salehi told The Associated Press. "Nobody is in a position to impose a deadline on a sovereign country."

Backers said that by Thursday about 20 members of the 35-nation board had indicated they would vote in favor of a U.S-supported draft resolution essentially requiring Iran to disprove by October that it is running a covert nuclear weapons program.

Tehran warns such a demand could aggravate nuclear tensions. But the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday that the agency's board of governors generally favored the October deadline.

"I think there is broad agreement that the board would like to see a deadline," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said, adding he personally favored "an immediate disclosure of all nuclear activities" on the part of Iran.

Underlying the need for quick action, ElBaradei, in separate comments, said that unless Iran cooperated, he and his agency might soon be unable to verify whether Tehran was diverting nuclear material into a weapons program. Those fears, expressed at a closed session of the board meeting, were relayed by diplomats present.

In Sarajevo, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters any resolution coming down hard on his country "could make the situation more complicated."

While not outlining consequences, the draft indirectly threatened U.N. Security Council involvement if the board rules at its next meeting in November that Iran ignored IAEA demands.

The United States says Iran has violated provisions of the treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons. Chief U.S. delegate Kenneth Brill called Iran to task based on a report outlining discrepancies between its past statements on its nuclear program and IAEA findings.

The report, by ElBaradei, lists the discovery of weapons-grade enriched uranium and other evidence that critics say point to a weapons program.

Tehran insists its programs are for generating electricity and says its equipment was "contaminated" with enriched uranium by a previous owner.

The United States, which accuses Iran of working on a secret weapons program, had been pushing for a resolution finding Iran in noncompliance of a part of the treaty banning the spread of nuclear arms. That would have brought the matter before the Security Council, which in turn could have called for sanctions. But lack of support at the board meeting scuttled that plan.

The U.S.-backed draft resolution submitted by France, Germany and Britain to the closed meeting called on Iran to "provide accelerated cooperation" with agency efforts to clear up Tehran's nuclear question marks.

It also urged Iran to "ensure there are no further failures," in reporting obligations and called on it to "suspend all further uranium enrichment-related activities, including the further introduction of nuclear material," into a facility where IAEA inspectors found traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium.

Besides expressing concern about the weapons-grade uranium, the IAEA report to the board also questioned the purpose of tests and programs that experts say make little sense unless the country was pursuing nuclear weapons.

Opening the conference, ElBaradei pressed the Iranians for a complete list of all imported equipment and components they contend were contaminated as well as their countries of origin, the dates they were acquired and where they have been used or stored since.

The nuclear agency also needs to know more about Iran's uranium conversion experiments and its testing of gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, he said.

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030911/API/309110643&cachetime=5

Yet the Clinton administration had to press aggressively to persuade Russia to cancel contracts in 2000 to supply AVLIS to Iran.

Did Clinton really press aggressively on any issue that was important to America's national security?