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The hours of congressional testimony, the speeches and the press conferences this week were all, nominally, about Iraq. But another, equally explosive question - what to do about Iran - loomed over the presentations by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the American military commander in Iraq, over U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and over U.S. strategy for the Middle East. Petraeus and Crocker, arguing that there has been progress in stabilizing Iraq since President Bush ordered a troop build-up there last year, fingered Iran's support for Shiite militias in Iraq, which they called "special groups," as the No. 1 threat...

WASHINGTON—Hillary Clinton, in her last months as secretary of state, helped open the door to a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: an acceptance that Tehran would maintain at least some capacity to produce nuclear fuel, according to current and former U.S. officials. In July 2012, Mrs. Clinton’s closest foreign-policy aide, Jake Sullivan, met in secret with Iranian diplomats in Oman, but made no progress in ending the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. In a string of high-level meetings here over the next six months, the secretary of state and White House concluded that they might have to let...

The freshly appointed chairman of a federal investigation into the Benghazi massacre is an apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. And to add insult to injury, at press time Tuesday evening the chairman of this new State Department panel, former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, was poised to participate in a panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia.” The news comes on the heels of a new report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism that found...

An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation, trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime, and reported by Reza Kahlili on Thursday. The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say.“The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned about the 20-percent enriched stockpile. The explosion occurred...

When President Obama was elected, he promised that he would free the world from nuclear weapons. In reality, and on the contrary, his policies are setting a dangerous stage for hyper-proliferation particularly in one of the most dangerous region of the world: the Middle East. Before the nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic and the six world powers (known as the P5+1:the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China) began, numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanded that the Islamic Republic put an end to its nuclear enrichment program. The economic sanctions brought the clerical government of Iran...

Obama Sees an Iran Deal That Could Avoid Congress By DAVID E. SANGER OCT. 19, 2014 WASHINGTON — No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it. Even while negotiators argue over the number of...

Is it really true that Saddam Hussein had no "stockpiles" of weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invaded in March 2003? Not exactly - at least not if one counts the 500 tons of uranium that the Iraqi dictator kept stored at his al Tuwaitha nuclear weapons development plant. The press hasn't made much of Saddam's 500-ton uranium stockpile, downplaying the story to such an extent that most Americans aren't even aware of it. But it's been reported - albeit in a by-the-way fashion - by the New York Times and a handful of other media outlets. And one...

AN IRAQI scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country’s dormant nuclear programme were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003.But their existence, Dr Mahdi Obeidi writes in a new book, is evidence that the international community should remain vigilant as other countries try to replicate Iraq’s successes before the 1991 Gulf war to develop components necessary for a nuclear weapon. In The Bomb in my Garden, Dr Obeidi details Saddam’s quest for a nuclear bomb: "Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the...

Saddam, the bomb and me Mahdi Obeidi NYT Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Iraq's nuclear program While the final report from Charles Duelfer, the top American inspector of Iraq's covert weapons programs, won't be released for a few weeks, the portions that have already been made public touch on many of the experiences I had while working as the head of Saddam Hussein's nuclear centrifuge program. Now that I am living in the United States, I hope to answer some of the most important questions that remain. What was really going on in Iraq before the American invasion last year? Iraq's...

Visiting in Israel ahead of continued talks with Iran, US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman said it is “possible that Iran might have a small, discreet enrichment program.” Elaborating on the possibility, Sherman said “the objective (of talks) is to ensure that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and that its program is exclusively peaceful. Whether, in fact, Iran will have a domestic enrichment program is part of the negotiations.” …

JERUSALEM—The red line drawn by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Iran’s nuclear program has been rendered obsolete by technology, according to Israeli officials who are pushing for a concerted new effort to block Iran’s possible acquisition of nuclear weapons. Netanyahu warned in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last year that if Iran enriches 250 kilograms of uranium to a level of 20 percent it would be in position to make a secret dash for nuclear weapon production before the international community could stop it. Netanyahu then hinted at Israeli military action if Iran tried it. Although...

Iranian officials tell citizens to vacate city located near nuke site Iranian officials have instructed residents of Isfahan to leave the city, renewing concerns that a nearby nuclear site could be leaking radioactive material. An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported. However, outside observers suspect that the evacuation order may corroborate previous reports indicating that a uranium enrichment facility near Isfahan had been leaking radioactive material. Tehran went to great lengths in December to deny these reports, telling state-run media outlets...

The portfolio of embattled United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice includes investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in several energy companies known for doing business with Iran, according to financial disclosure forms. Rice, a possible nominee to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she steps down, has come under criticism for promulgating erroneous information about the September 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Rice has the highest net worth of executive branch members, with a fortune estimated between $24 to $44 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. A Free Beacon analysis of Rice’s...

Iran has suspended the enrichment of uranium stockpiles to the 20% purity needed to bring it a short step from building a nuclear device, news services in the region have reported. Mohammad Hossein Asfari, a member of parliament responsible for foreign policy and national security, was quoted as saying that the move was a "goodwill" gesture, aimed at softening Iran's position before a new round of scheduled talks with the United States after this week's presidential elections. Asfari said he hoped sanctions would be lifted in return for Iran's actions, otherwise it would resume the programme, according to a website...

The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble written by Khosrow B. Semnani, and published by the Hinckley Institute of Politics, University of Utah has concluded a strike would include four sites and irradiate up to 100,000 Iranian citizens and soldiers. The four locations include: Isfahan: The Nuclear Technology/Research Center in Esfahan (ENTC) is supposed to be the main location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Semnani predicts 1,000 workers here will be killed, and up to 70,000 casualties in the surrounding areas from toxic plumes: 71,000 Natanz: One-hundred miles north of Isfhahan, this location has been in use for about 12 years and...

How America can stop what the New York Times calls “Israel’s March to War” is the hot topic this month. The issue—for the Times—is whether Israel is on the verge of bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, or can be persuaded to delay that decision and rely on the United States instead. This is what a parade of U.S. officials visiting Jerusalem this summer have counseled (and pressured) Israel to do. But the comments of Israel’s top officials suggest that its patience is wearing thin and that it may act soon, in weeks if not months. As the Associated Press put it,...

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards discovered an electronic monitoring device near the Fordow nuclear site in northern Iran last month, The Sunday Times reported Sunday, citing western intelligence sources. Soldiers were checking on communications terminals at Fordow when they discovered a rock, according to the report. When the soldiers attempted to move the rock, it exploded, presumably self-destructing. The device was reportedly capable of intercepting data from computers in Fordow. The Iranians did not report the discovery, according to the Times. Iran uses the Fordow facility to enrich uranium to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, the part of its work...

Iran has begun enriching uranium deep inside a mountain and sentenced an American to death for spying, angering the West and undermining hopes that diplomacy could avert further sanctions or war. The start of enrichment at the Fordow bunker near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom was confirmed on Monday by an Iranian official in Tehran and by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says its nuclear program is purely non-military but the West believes it is designed to produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic's decision to carry out enrichment work deep underground could eventually make it much...

A US federal grand jury has indicted two men, one from Iran and the other from China, on charges of conspiring to send materials from the United States to Iran for the purpose of enriching uranium, the US Justice Department said on Friday. Using a Chinese company as a go-between to avoid trade sanctions, the men tried for three years to obtain US materials, such as high-strength steel, that could be used in an Iranian nuclear program, the department said. Iranian citizen Parviz Khaki was arrested in May in the Philippines, while the other man, Zongcheng Yi of China, remains...

Computer experts from Europe and the United States said on Tuesday that they believe engineers in Iran’s nuclear program were able to completely neutralize their computer systems from the Stuxnet virus which seriously damaged Iranian nuclear equipment about two years ago. According to the experts, the virus was implanted in the computer systems already in 2009 and disrupted...