Why have both the US and the UK have given Iran the materials it needs to go nuclear?

[align=left]Why have both the US and the UK have given Iran the materials it needs to go nuclear?[/align]

[align=left]Steve Watson | January 9 2006[/align]

[align=left]We are being constantly bombarded with propaganda over Iran and its intention to build a nuclear arsenal. We are told (contrary to intelligence reports) that they are just months away from doing so. And we have been told that they must be stopped.[/align]

[align=left]What we are not being told is that both the US and the UK have supplied Iran with the materials and the know how in order that they may build the bomb. [/align]

[align=left]With the news at the weekend of Iranian intentions to resume nuclear fuel research, despite international appeals not to do so, why is the EU surprised that Iran is forging ahead?[/align]

[align=left]The history of how Iran's path to nuclear proliferation began is a familiar story.[/align]

The 1953 CIA ouster of President Mossadegh, a leader who was conforming to westernized policy but made the mistake of asking to keep a small portion of his country's oil revenue, was achieved by means of staged bombings and shootings which were blamed on the Iranian government in order to antagonize the population and enable the coup.

After installing the Shah Globalists like Henry Kissinger opened the door for Iran to develop sophisticated nuclear energy programs which laid the foundation for today's crisis. Twenty three reactors were built with the help of American corporations like General Electric and Westinghouse.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford even authorized the Shah to buy and operate a plutonium-extracting and processing facility - a big step toward converting energy processing to weapons making.

After the revolution of 1979 the fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeni reversed westernized policy but maintained Iran's nuclear interest albeit staggeringly before the end of the war with Iraq. After the war ended Iran was again free to pursue its ends leading us to the impending crisis we face today.

Add to the history the more recent revelations penned by New York Times reporter James risen in a new book that six years ago the CIA simply gave Iran the blueprints to build an effective nuclear bomb.

Risen explains that in what appeared to be a "rogue operation" code named "Merlin", a Russian nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, who had defected to the US years earlier, had been given nuclear blueprints and had then been sent to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organization created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology.

The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognize their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran.

Obviously the Russian agent was bemused and more than a little apprehensive about the entire operation so, according to Risen's sources, a senior CIA official downplayed the operation telling the agent that it was just an intelligence-gathering effort, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them.

In truth, the CIA knew absolutely nothing about Iran's nuclear know how due to an earlier espionage disaster whereby information concerning virtually all CIA operatives inside Iran was leaked to Iran. As a result many were arrested, the rest pulled out and many are still missing. Porter Goss admitted to the Bush administration in a White Housebriefing last spring that the CIA had no knowledge of how close Iran was to becoming a nuclear power.

The idea behind Merlin was to give the Iranians flawed nuclear blueprints to set back their weapons program and help the CIA monitor more closely the paths they took. However, the Russian agent did not know this and was kept in the dark.

Upon reviewing the blueprints he immediately noticed the flaw and decided to provide the Iranians with a note of his own pointing out the flaw. Of course he thought he was doing the right thing in order to carry out his mission successfully. He thought the flaw was so obvious that they would have spotted it anyway and possibly smelled a rat.

Risen also contends that operation "Merlin' has been considered and possibly approved for use with other states such as North Korea.

Of course it is possible that operation Merlin was a double edged sword and has provided the rogue elements of the CIA, under NeoCon control, with the pretext they need to extend the war in the middle east into Iran.

With the blueprints in hand, the Iranian weapons program was apparently further bolstered by exports of radioactive material from the UK that experts believe could be used by the Islamic Republic as part of a nuclear weapons program.

The London Observer has reported that a truck carrying 1000kg of zirconium silicate from a British firm was stopped by customs officials in Bulgaria at the border with Turkey.

The Observer quoted an expert as saying that zirconium metal can be extracted from the substance, whose trade is usually tightly regulated, and used to prevent fuel rods corroding in nuclear reactors and as part of a nuclear warhead.

But the truck, which had traveled unchecked from Britain through Germany and Romania without being stopped, was allowed to continue its journey to Tehran after a two-month investigation found an export licence was not needed.

We have continually warned that the next target on the NeoCon checklist is Iran.

It seems almost inevitable now that the NeoCons will launch targeted military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. Whether Israel goes alone or has US support seems beside the point.

However, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted that he could consider a pre-emptive air strike against Iran's nuclear installations if he were to be re-elected.

And with Ariel Sharon out of the picture, Benjamin Netanyahu has a better chance to become prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu is renowned for being slick, tough talking and putting his money where his mouth is. With fundamentalist Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad firing back threats to wipe "Israel off the map", it's not hard to see where that confrontation could lead.

Furthermore, we have previously exposed how members of The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) including Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among many others called not only for a War against Iraq in 2000, they called for a follow up on Iran. These people are now in control of American foreign policy.

The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest. It calls for "the direct imposition of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East with Iran topping the list.

Regime change is foremost on PNAC minds with regards to Iran and usually what PNAC wants to happen, the government makes happen.

In addition to PNAC's assertions we have been treated to The Pentagon's "New Map", a hellish vision of endless war that will incorporate the "gap", the third world states, into the "core" of already globalized powers.

The war map begins with domination and assimilation of the middle east "rogue states".

Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter has gone on record several times to suggest war with Iran is next on the agenda, indeed that it has already begun.

"President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran." Ritter has commented.

The London Guardian recently ran a piece suggesting the plans for a coming war were basically in the bag.

American Conservative magazine reported that Dick Cheney had given the authorization for a military strike on Iran immediately after the next terror attack in the United States.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi echoed the same sentiments.

There is a long list of NeoCons in the media pressing the Iran issue. Newt Gingrich was the last to raise his ugly head, calling for regime change in Iran.

However, Recent events and news developments paint a clear picture of an establishment under intense heat and backed into a corner with no perceivable escape route. It is hard to see how an attack on Iran now could possibly be accepted by the world and the American people.

Therefore at no greater time since 9/11 have we faced such an imminent danger of a staged terror attack being carried out to reign in the seeds of dissent and again rally the sleeping masses behind the elite.

The Globalists are like heroin junkies, every time they carry out an attack the gas mileage obtained from it in terms of getting a free pass from the public on anything they wish to push through gets weaker and weaker.

Will there, as George Galloway has warned could happen, be a staged terrorist attack either in Israel or the United States that is blamed on Iran?

Scott Ritter has also hinted that the notion of a staged terror attack is a very real possibility along with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

As things stand it looks increasingly likely that the pull out from Iraq is underway. The puppet democracy has been installed and the globalists have pretty much drained the country's resources, destroyed its infrastructure and demoralized its population beyond expectations.

The broadening of the war in the middle east is very very close at hand as the NeoCon machine knows it possibly only has a few years left to get the job done or at least further the agenda to the level it planned to when it was handed back the reigns of power in 2000.

So when they tell you Iran has WMD and must be stopped, you know why the US and the UK supplied the materials and the know how.

more fake wwf style politics...we're so mad at you for using the material we gave you...how dare you!

[align=left]Iran resumes nuclear research, angering West[/align]

Reuters | January 10, 2005
By Parisa Hafezi

Iran removed U.N. seals at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant and resumed nuclear fuel research on Tuesday, drawing sharp Western criticism but no immediate threats of punitive action.

Tehran denies wanting nuclear technology for anything but a civilian energy program aimed at satisfying the Islamic Republic's booming demand for electricity.

But the United States and the European Union doubt that Iran's atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful and are likely to ask the U.N. Security Council, which can impose economic sanctions, to take up the matter, Western diplomats said.

Western powers had called on Iran to refrain from any work that could help it develop atomic weapons.

"Iran's nuclear research centers have restarted their activities," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told state television.

He said work at the research facilities would be under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

Saeedi told a news conference Iran had come to an agreement with the IAEA on what work Tehran would do. He gave no details.

The IAEA in Vienna confirmed Iran was removing U.N. seals at Natanz, an underground plant in central Iran that Tehran concealed from U.N. inspectors until an Iranian exile group revealed its existence in August 2002.

"The Iranians have begun removing seals at Natanz in the presence of IAEA inspectors," said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

Gregory Schulte, Washington's ambassador to the IAEA, said Iran's move showed its "disdain for international concerns."

"The regime continues to choose confrontation over cooperation," he said in a statement.

The European Union was quick to denounce the resumption of research, which a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana labeled "a step in the wrong direction."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said German diplomats would meet Solana and British and French envoys in Berlin this week to decide "whether there is now any basis for further negotiations with Iran."

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said: "There was no good reason why Iran should have taken this step if its intentions are truly peaceful."

Russia, which is helping Iran build a nuclear power station at the southern port of Bushehr, said Tehran should abide by international commitments and that its decision to resume research caused concern.

European diplomats have said they would seek an emergency meeting of the IAEA to consider referring Tehran to the Security Council for failing to allay fears it is seeking an atom bomb.

It is unclear if Iran will simply test equipment or actually produce small amounts of nuclear fuel in a laboratory. The IAEA did not specify any of the work the Iranians were undertaking.

One EU and one non-EU diplomat said Iran was planning to get 164 centrifuges running at Natanz to try to master the technique of producing nuclear fuel. Centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speed.

However, such a small cascade would take many years to produce enough bomb-grade uranium for a single weapon.

If enriched to a low level, uranium can be used in power stations such as the one at Bushehr. If enriched further, it can be used in atomic warheads.

An intelligence source said Iran intended to feed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into the cascade at Natanz soon, but had not informed the IAEA about this.

A Western diplomat close to the IAEA said agency inspectors were at Natanz and would report anything the Iranians did there to the IAEA board of governors. "The facility is fully safeguarded," the diplomat said.

However, Saeedi denied any suggestion that Iran was resuming the production of nuclear fuel at the Natanz facility.

"There is a difference between research and producing nuclear fuel ... The production of nuclear fuel is still under suspension," he told the news conference.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Berlin, Mark John in Brussels, Madeline Chambers in London, Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris, Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Guo Shipeng in Beijing)

So they can have a reason to blow them up for democracy.....

uh..Russie is giving Iran its nuclear material, they got the knowledge to use it From Pakistan. So uh..where is the US/Uk Link...besides in your head

Like I said if Foxnews didnt report it, it just never happened baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa go watch foxnews myth you sheopple bushite...


UK nuclear export sent to Iran: claim
From correspondents in London
January 08, 2006
BRITAIN has allowed the export to Iran of a cargo of radioactive material that experts believe could be used by the Islamic Republic as part of a nuclear weapons programme, The Observer reported.

The newspaper said a truck carrying 1000kg of zirconium silicate from a British firm was stopped by customs officials in Bulgaria at the border with Turkey.

It quoted an expert as saying that zirconium metal can be extracted from the substance, whose trade is usually tightly regulated, and used to prevent fuel rods corroding in nuclear reactors and as part of a nuclear warhead.

But the truck, which had travelled unchecked from Britain through Germany and Romania without being stopped, was allowed to continue its journey to Tehran after a two-month investigation found an export licence was not needed.

British and Bulgarian officials in Sofia reportedly looked into whether the cargo had breached technical rules on how much of the substance contained another rare metal, hafnium.









The Observer quoted a Department of Trade and Industry spokeswoman as saying analysis of levels of hafnium in the substance meant a licence was not required.

"This particular case raise no WMD (weapons of mass destruction) end-use concerns," she added.

The Observer's dispatch came as Iran looked set to end its two-and-a-half year suspension of nuclear fuel research Monday or Tuesday, despite calls not to from the international community, including the EU.

Talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Government are currently deadlocked over the issue, with the West fearing Iran's fledgling nuclear programme is a front for developing atomic weapons.

Independent nuclear consultant John Large told The Observer: "It is not a very sophisticated process to extract the zirconium from such material.

"Even though it appears that technically this cargo does not fall within the international controls, I would still be concerned.

"Zirconium is used for two purposes: one for cladding nuclear fuel rods inside a reactor and as a material for a nuclear weapon.

"If Iran wanted this material for any illicit purposes, this would be one way it could get its hands on it."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...1702%2C00.html

George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?

In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco

Thursday January 5, 2006
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...html?gusrc=rss
She had probably done this a dozen times before. Modern digital technology had made clandestine communications with overseas agents seem routine. Back in the cold war, contacting a secret agent in Moscow or Beijing was a dangerous, labour-intensive process that could take days or even weeks. But by 2004, it was possible to send high-speed, encrypted messages directly and instantaneously from CIA headquarters to agents in the field who were equipped with small, covert personal communications devices. So the officer at CIA headquarters assigned to handle communications with the agency's spies in Iran probably didn't think twice when she began her latest download. With a few simple commands, she sent a secret data flow to one of the Iranian agents in the CIA's spy network. Just as she had done so many times before.

Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But this time, the ease and speed of the technology betrayed her. The CIA officer had made a disastrous mistake. She had sent information to one Iranian agent that exposed an entire spy network; the data could be used to identify virtually every spy the CIA had inside Iran.
Mistake piled on mistake. As the CIA later learned, the Iranian who received the download was a double agent. The agent quickly turned the data over to Iranian security officials, and it enabled them to "roll up" the CIA's network throughout Iran. CIA sources say that several of the Iranian agents were arrested and jailed, while the fates of some of the others is still unknown.

This espionage disaster, of course, was not reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the most critical issues facing the US - whether Tehran was about to go nuclear.

In fact, just as President Bush and his aides were making the case in 2004 and 2005 that Iran was moving rapidly to develop nuclear weapons, the American intelligence community found itself unable to provide the evidence to back up the administration's public arguments. On the heels of the CIA's failure to provide accurate pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the agency was once again clueless in the Middle East. In the spring of 2005, in the wake of the CIA's Iranian disaster, Porter Goss, its new director, told President Bush in a White House briefing that the CIA really didn't know how close Iran was to becoming a nuclear power.

But it's worse than that. Deep in the bowels of the CIA, someone must be nervously, but very privately, wondering: "Whatever happened to those nuclear blueprints we gave to the Iranians?"

The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna's winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb.

To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a "firing set", for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.

The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn't believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organisation created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology.

The Russian was a nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, which had arranged for him to become an American citizen and funded him to the tune of $5,000 a month. It seemed like easy money, with few strings attached.

Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front line of a plan that seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the US, and it had taken a lot of persuading by his CIA case officer to convince him to go through with what appeared to be a rogue operation.

The case officer worked hard to convince him - even though he had doubts about the plan as well. As he was sweet-talking the Russian into flying to Vienna, the case officer wondered whether he was involved in an illegal covert action. Should he expect to be hauled before a congressional committee and grilled because he was the officer who helped give nuclear blueprints to Iran? The code name for this operation was Merlin; to the officer, that seemed like a wry tip-off that nothing about this programme was what it appeared to be. He did his best to hide his concerns from his Russian agent.

The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognise their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran.

The plan had been laid out for the defector during a CIA-financed trip to San Francisco, where he had meetings with CIA officers and nuclear experts mixed in with leisurely wine-tasting trips to Sonoma County. In a luxurious San Francisco hotel room, a senior CIA official involved in the operation talked the Russian through the details of the plan. He brought in experts from one of the national laboratories to go over the blueprints that he was supposed to give the Iranians.

The senior CIA officer could see that the Russian was nervous, and so he tried to downplay the significance of what they were asking him to do. He said the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find out where the Iranians were with their nuclear programme. This was just an intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them. It was all a game. Nothing too serious.

On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran's goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran's reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran's weapons programme, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.

In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw."

"Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter."

The CIA case officer couldn't believe the senior CIA officer's answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission.

After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA's instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game.

The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.

In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn't tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.

The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA's operation in the only way he thought would work.

The Russian soon found 19 Heinstrasse, a five-storey office and apartment building with a flat, pale green and beige facade in a quiet, slightly down-at-heel neighbourhood in Vienna's north end. Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: "PM/Iran." The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity. An Austrian postman helped him. As the Russian stood by, the postman opened the building door and dropped off the mail. The Russian followed suit; he realised that he could leave his package without actually having to talk to anyone. He slipped through the front door, and hurriedly shoved his envelope through the inner-door slot at the Iranian office.

The Russian fled the mission without being seen. He was deeply relieved that he had made the hand-off without having to come face to face with a real live Iranian. He flew back to the US without being detected by either Austrian security or, more importantly, Iranian intelligence.

Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian mission, the National Security Agency reported that an Iranian official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule, making airline reservations to fly home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear blueprints were now in Tehran.

The Russian scientist's fears about the operation seemed well founded. He was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the "axis of evil".

Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states.

Several former CIA officials say that the theory behind Merlin - handing over tainted weapon designs to confound one of America's adversaries - is a trick that has been used many times in past operations, stretching back to the cold war. But in previous cases, such Trojan horse operations involved conventional weapons; none of the former officials had ever heard of the CIA attempting to conduct this kind of high-risk operation with designs for a nuclear bomb. The former officials also said these kind of programmes must be closely monitored by senior CIA managers in order to control the flow of information to the adversary. If mishandled, they could easily help an enemy accelerate its weapons development. That may be what happened with Merlin.

Iran has spent nearly 20 years trying to develop nuclear weapons, and in the process has created a strong base of sophisticated scientists knowledgeable enough to spot flaws in nuclear blueprints. Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.

"If [the flaw] is bad enough," warned a nuclear weapons expert with the IAEA, "they will find it quite quickly. That would be my fear"