http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&...&d=8&m=2&y=2006
US Diplomacy Over Iran Echoes Louis XVIII’s Court
Polly Toynbee, The Guardian

LONDON, 8 February 2006 — Now the mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear bombs, are we all doomed? Thumbing his nose at the impotent west, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taunts us: “Our enemies cannot do a damn thing. We do not need you at all. But you are in need of the Iranian nation.” And he is absolutely right. A frisson of panic shudders around the globe: He has already threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Do something, someone! But what and who? And if there is nothing to be done, what then?

The International Atomic Energy Agency has failed to stop Iran restarting its nuclear program. The matter has been referred to the UN, with a decision on any possible action in early March. But that may be yet another dismal reminder of UN incapacity. Meanwhile, the Americans are grinding out ritual bellicose statements, Donald Rumsfeld refusing to rule out airstrikes. The Israelis warn that Iran will pay “a very heavy price” and Iran replies that if anyone attacks “we will give the enemy a lesson that will be remembered throughout history”. Is this the way the world ends?

All this suggests that international diplomacy is not one whit wiser than it ever was. Talking to experts in the field, these appear to be a few key facts: Even if the US or Israel strike down the sites where they think Iranian nuclear weapons are being built, that can only delay their development. (How good are we at finding weapons anyway?) If Iran wants weapons above all else, it can get them by around 2010. Unlike Libya, Iran may well put national pride before economic growth, ignoring any harm sanctions can do them. If the world’s fourth largest producer sends oil prices through the roof, it can cause near-nuclear damage to the global economy. If this is how the West wants to play it, then Iran seems to hold some strong cards.

History sheds light, but offers few answers. The Anglo-American coup knocking over Mossadegh in 1953 to enthrone the Shah was another shining example of how Western crusaders for democracy prop up dictators in exchange for oil, afraid of the elections they pretend to champion. That is the paradox of the White House dream of turning Afghanistan and Iraq into “beacons of democracy” to spread their light across the Middle East. Yet — at least at first — democracy was always bound to bring mullahs and religious parties to power in Kabul and Baghdad or the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise in Egypt. More theocratic parties are the price of free elections, and the West has to accept it.

American pride is easily bruised, unused to taking such humiliations as the 1979 embassy-hostage crisis that lasted 444 shaming days and the Iran-backed Beirut Embassy attack that slaughtered 241 marines. On its side, Iran will never forgive the US for backing Iraq in the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war. So the two countries have barely attempted to speak in all these years: Admirable EU attempts at peacemaking could not bridge that historic bile. Without the US at the table, a deal was impossible.

On the face of it, Iran has every reason to feel insecure. While America occupies two of Iran’s neighbors and Israel’s nuclear weapons point at Tehran, paranoia seems as justified as it is dangerous. Yet Iran knows its strength. The Iraq adventure has exposed the painful limits to force, and America can no longer make a credible threat of invasion: It has forfeited the power to frighten.

What’s more, Iran is the true winner of that war. They only had to sit tight and smile as the West delivered on a golden plate all the influence Iran had always sought in the Middle East. The US and its allies will soon be gone from Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving Iranian-backed Shiites dominant in both countries, their influence well spread across Syria, a chunk of Saudi Arabia and other countries for decades to come. Historic Iranian ambitions have been fulfilled without firing a shot while the US is reduced to fist shaking. How foolish was that?

If Iran is determined, no one can stop it becoming a nuclear power, alongside Israel, Pakistan and India. The crazed dictator of North Korea shows the way: Nuclear weapons make nations unassailable. Why on earth would Iran not want them too?

It is much odder that Britain demands them. What for? Protection against whom? The UK Defense Secretary John Reid has said the submarine-launched Trident nuclear missiles will be replaced — and now the UK Finance Minister Gordon Brown has said he too would renew British nuclear weapons, despite the £20 billion price tag and a lack of anyone to point them at. If we can seriously consider such expensive folly in pursuit of strutting our stuff and punching above our weight to buy a UN Security Council seat, we can hardly pretend outrage at Iran’s ambitions.

But fantasy diplomacy is taking a grip. The pretense is that the world united can deflect Tehran: There is still a small chance that Russia’s offer to strike a deal could work. But the experts expect an aggressive standoff, with a risk of futile air attacks. Even if no blood is spilt, the West may find itself in a cold jihad with a nuclear-armed adversary, and no solution in sight. Nothing suggests that sanctions and fiery words will make the more moderate forces in Iran overthrow their mullahs and choose westernization: Under external pressure in this clash of civilizations, history suggests they will close ranks. Meanwhile, oil-hungry nations will do dirty backdoor deals: Oil tends to trump UN resolutions.

Fantasy diplomacy is ready to fight all the way to stop the mullahs getting the bomb. Reality suggests there is a difficult choice: If you cannot win, give up at once to minimize the damage. Get off the high horse and start to negotiate terms on which Iran can be allowed to enrich uranium. It amounts to turning a blind eye to their weapons potential while striking a deal that saves their face, affords them some dignity and entices them economically into becoming a more stable force. It takes some swallowing, but what if there is no alternative? Either they have nuclear weapons and we are at Cold War, or else they have nuclear weapons and we have an uneasy kind of peace. But that decision has to be made before UN sanctions ratchet up the rhetoric to no-turning-back resistance. It may be beyond the ability of this White House to climb down, but the US should remember Aesop’s fable The Sun and the Wind: when they competed to get a man’s coat off, the full force of a cold blast only made him hold on to it tighter, but the warmth of the sun made him take it off by himself. So far US diplomacy over Iran echoes Louis XVIII’s court: They seem to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.

Blair: "British Troops In Iran? We Can Never Say Never"

TONY Blair yesterday refused to rule out a British military invasion of Iran.
http://tinyurl.com/by8jx


UK: Military action on a nuclear Iran not inevitable:

Military action against Iran is not inevitable even if the Islamic state develops the technology to build a nuclear bomb, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said on Wednesday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11835.htm


Selling a war:

Iran Greatest Threat, Most Americans Think :

President Bush has been warning about Tehran's nuclear program - The poll found two-thirds or more of Americans think if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it's likely to attack Israel, Europe, or the U.S.
http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/2274236.html


Iran's missile tech suppliers named :

Two German businessmen, a former Russian military officer and North Korea are among those helping Iran develop missiles that the West fears could one day carry nuclear warheads, diplomats and intelligence officials say.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060208/ts_nm/...iran_germany_dc


Iran designs tunnel that could one day be used for atomic test:

Iranian engineers have completed sophisticated drawings of a deep subterranean shaft, according to officials who have examined classified documents in the hands of U.S. intelligence for more than 20 months.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3643805.html


Fixing The Intelligence For War With Iran:

State Department sees exodus of weapons experts:

State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11829.htm


More false evidence?

Suspected drawings of nuclear test site found in Iran: diplomats :

The document was part of US intelligence which has been made available to the UN nuclear watchdog and which has been presented to Iran, said a diplomat, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../192275/1/.html


An Interview with British MP George Galloway:

"If I have to choose between Iran and George Bush, I choose Iran."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11839.htm

Iran: A Clear and Present Danger to the Jewish People, Says World Jewish Congress

2/9/2006 8:17:00 AM

Iran: A Clear and Present Danger to the Jewish People, Says World Jewish Congress

To: National Desk

Contact: Avner Tavori of the World Jewish Congress, 212-755-5770 or 646-678-2954 (cell)

JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The World Jewish Congress has called upon Jewish Communities and Jewish organizations around the world to actively work with their respective governments to put a stop to Iran's development of nuclear weapons.

After hearing testimonies from renowned experts, the members of the World Jewish Congress Governing Board meeting in Jerusalem today issued on the following statement:

"Whereas Iran represents a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the people of the world, Jews everywhere and Israel in particular, The World Jewish Congress will work to inform governments and international organizations about the Iranian threat and contribute to the emerging world effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As part of this effort, the WJC will discuss with governments and international organizations how to utilize economic and political means against Iran and how to reduce the reliance on oil by developing alternative sources of energy."

---

About the World Jewish Congress:

The World Jewish Congress is the international federation of Jewish communities representing Jewish communities around the world. The WJC serves as the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people to world governments and international organizations.

For more information contact: Avner Tavori, director of communications, World Jewish Congress, 501 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022, Phone: 212-755-5770, Cell: 646-678-2954. Please visit http://www.worldjewishcongress.org.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Iran may need force, warns Hurd :

Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd has said Britain cannot "realistically" rule out using military force against Iran over its nuclear programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4698066.stm

===
Russia confirms missile defence contract with Iran:

Amid the escalating crisis around Iran's nuclear programme, Russia said on Thursday that it will still arm Tehran with missiles that can secure nuclear facilities from attacks.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1408706.cms

===
U.S. shield blunts Israeli military option on Iran:

Israel has long pursued a policy of preemptive attack as its preferred form of defence. But when it comes to tackling arch-foe Iran, that option may have been put on hold under a protective "umbrella" on offer from the United States.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09764669.htm

===
Iran poised to retaliate against UN referral:

Ahmadinejad vows his country will continue on the road to victory, labels Bush warmonger who should be put on trial.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15628

===
Iran dismisses US threat over nukes:

"We are not afraid of attacks by the United States or by other countries on Iran's nuclear installations because we have nothing to hide, we have no installations to produce nuclear weapons," Iranian Vice President Esfandyar Rahim Mashaee said
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/02/10/d60210012622.htm

===
Parallels Between Iran and Pre-War Iraq :

Iran is not Iraq, and the year 2006 is not the same as year 2003 for George Bush; but one cannot stop wondering about the uncanny similarities between Iraq at the verge of war, and the present state of affairs in Iran. Parallels are abound:
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/feb/1069.html

===
China says welcomes Iran-Russia nuclear talks:

China said on Thursday it welcomed talks between Iran and Russia next week on plans to defuse the crisis over Tehran's atomic programme, but refused to say whether it would join the meeting.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP103048.htm

February 10, 2006
Polls: Anti-Iran Propaganda Working

by Jim Lobe
The escalating crisis over Iran's nuclear program appears to have persuaded the U.S. public that Tehran now poses a greater threat to the United States than any other country, or even al-Qaeda, according to recent surveys.

And even though the public remains worried and unhappy about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, a significant percentage has already begun thinking of eventual military action against Iran.

"Americans are telling us that they would prefer we pack our bags and leave Iraq now, and yet they appear ready to do some damage to Iran if it proceeds with its nuclear program," said John Zogby, president of the polling firm, Zogby International, which released a survey last week in which nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) said they favored military action, preferably along with European allies, to halt Iran's nuclear program

Still, despite the high level of concern, the polls do not show eagerness to take military action now or unilaterally. The public appears to prefer an effort to settle the crisis diplomatically, preferably through the United Nations.

If that fails, the poll respondents indicated they would prefer for any military action to be undertaken in conjunction with other countries and, in any event, strongly oppose an invasion designed to overthrow the regime, as in Iraq.

"Are people clamoring for military action at this point? Definitely not," said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

"Between now and military action, the public would definitely be looking for more negotiations. And then they want to try to do something multilaterally," he said. "They'd have to cross a whole bunch of hurdles before you'd get military action."

Nonetheless, the latest poll, released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that some 27 percent of respondents cite Iran as Washington's greatest menace – three times the percentage who ranked it at the top of foreign threats just four months ago.

The same survey, which polled 1,500 adults during the first week of February, also found that nearly three in four (72 percent) believed Tehran was "likely" to launch attacks on Israel if it obtained nuclear weapons. An even higher percentage (82 percent) said they believed the Iranian government would likely transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists.

The latest results strongly suggest that the combination of belligerent declarations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Tehran's defiance of European appeals not to resume its uranium enrichment activities; and efforts by Israel and its allies here to mobilize international and U.S. opinion has moved the Islamic Republic to the center of the public's foreign-policy consciousness.

This shift in some ways echoes how the hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush focused the public's post-9/11 fears on former President Saddam Hussein in the yearlong run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003.

"How Dangerous Is Iran?" was the bold headline that ran along a photo of Ahmadinejad on the cover of this week's Newsweek magazine. "The Next Nuclear Threat" and "Radical Islam in Power" topped the cover.

Similarly, a familiar cast of Washington hawks – many of whom greeted Ahmadinejad's election and declaration that Israel should be "wiped off the map" as a godsend for their own efforts to rouse the public against Iran – has also been talking up the threat.

"An 'Intolerable' Threat" was the title of the neoconservative Wall Street Journal's lead editorial, while the Weekly Standard featured an article entitled "Iran or Bust: The Defining Test of Bush's War Presidency," which argued that Iran had become "the central crisis of the Bush presidency."

In an interview on the public television network PBS's Newshour this week, Vice President Dick Cheney, citing Ahmadinejad's "pretty outrageous statements," described the nuclear standoff as "dangerous" and warned that "no options are off the table," even as he rejected repeated questions by the host about "striking parallels" between the escalating crisis and the run-up to the Iraq war.

At the same time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed Iran for inciting this week's violent protests in the Middle East against offensive cartoons about Muhammad published in European newspapers.

In that respect, the Pew poll results were perhaps the most striking. Over the last 15 years, an average of only about 6 percent of respondents rated Iran as the "greatest danger" to the United States. In October, the same month that Ahmadinejad threatened Israel for the first time, that grew to 9 percent, still far below Iraq (18 percent), China (16 percent), and North Korea (13 percent).

But the latest survey found that the percentage had tripled to 27 percent compared to China (20 percent), Iraq (17 percent), North Korea (11 percent), and al-Qaeda/terrorists (4 percent).

Moreover, two-thirds of respondents listed Iran's nuclear program, which U.S. intelligence agencies believe is still a decade away from developing an actual weapon, as a "major threat" – compared to 60 percent who described North Korea's nuclear program that way, despite the fact that Pyongyang is believed to have built as many as a dozen bombs. Pew director Andrew Kohout, however, noted that 55 percent of respondents in the October poll said they believed that Iran already possessed nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, the public is divided about what to do about Iran, according to the survey's results. Nearly four in five respondents (78 percent) said they wanted the UN to deal with the situation, compared with only 17 percent who said the United States should.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they had heard about Iran's announcement that it would resume its enrichment activities. Nearly half of those who said they had heard a lot about it ranked Iran as the greatest threat to the United States, according to the poll.

"There's been so much written and broadcast about the intransigence of the Iranians, it would've been remarkable otherwise," Kohout told IPS.

A poll taken in late January by the Washington Post and ABC television network found strong support for diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program

Asked in the same poll whether they would support U.S. bombing of suspected nuclear sites if those steps don't work, 42 percent were in favor, while 54 percent opposed the idea.

In a similar poll taken at the same time by Fox News, nearly 60 percent of respondents said the United States should be prepared to "use whatever military force is necessary" to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons if diplomacy failed, and 47 percent said they considered Iran more of a threat than Iraq was when the U.S. invaded.

More than 90 percent of respondents said they were either "very concerned" (68 percent) or "somewhat concerned" (23 percent) that Iran would give nuclear weapons to terrorists; and more than 80 percent who said they were either "very" (54 percent) or "somewhat concerned" (27 percent) that it would attack a neighboring country.

Kull attributed these more dramatic results in large part to the impression created by Ahmadinejad since his election. "I think this is caused more by the personality of the president and his comments than specific developments in the negotiations over the nuclear program He certainly comes across as a hothead, and that has definitely focused people's minds."

At the same time, less than 20 percent in the Fox News poll and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted a few days before described Iran as an "immediate" or "imminent" threat.

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...11/ixworld.html
Iran plant 'has restarted its nuclear bomb-making equipment'
By Con Coughlin, Defence and Security Editor, in Washington
(Filed: 11/02/2006)

Iran's controversial Natanz uranium processing plant has successfully restarted the sophisticated equipment that could enable it to produce material for nuclear warheads, according to reports received by Western intelligence.


An aerial view of the Natanz plant
In the past few days Iranian nuclear scientists have reportedly restarted four of the centrifuges required to produce weapons-grade uranium, and have begun feeding them with uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas, a key component in the production of nuclear bombs.

This crucial development follows Iran's decision to withdraw its co-operation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna after the body decided last week to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Iranian officials have moved quickly to obstruct the work of the UN nuclear inspectors still working in the country's nuclear facilities.

Intelligence officials say restrictions have been imposed on the inspectors' movements between the various facilities at Natanz.

They have been specifically excluded from those areas where the Iranians have announced they would resume uranium enrichment, and have ordered the UN inspectors to report to officials running the plant on a daily basis. Security cameras installed by IAEA officials to monitor key facilities have been disabled.

Having effectively excluded the UN inspection teams from the most sensitive sites, Iranian nuclear scientists have removed the seals from the P-2 centrifuges that Iran acquired from Pakistan through the secret nuclear network operated by Dr A Q Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.

They have also begun installing tanks in underground bunkers that are designed for industrial enrichment.

In previous submissions to the UN inspectors, the Iranians insisted they had acquired the P-2 centrifuges merely for research purposes, They have continued to insist that their nuclear programme is solely aimed at developing alternative energy sources.

However, a senior Western intelligence official said: "Iran's recent activity is a clear escalation of its attempts to enrich uranium to weapons grade. With the UN inspectors out of the way they are basically free to do as they please."

7 February 2006: Iran tells watchdog to end snap inspections
5 February 2006: Iran raises the nuclear stakes after being reported to UN
5 February 2006: US turns screw as Iran atom row goes to UN

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8531

February 11, 2006
Smoking Laptop

by Gordon Prather
Since February, 2003, Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei and his inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency have been conducting intrusive investigations into Iran’s Safeguarded nuclear programs.

Since December, 2003, Iran has been voluntarily adhering to an (as yet) unratified Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement.

Furthermore, Iran has searched for and provided ElBaradei documentation of its past procurement activities for nuclear programs, going back two decades. Documentation that Iran had been under no obligation to provide the IAEA at the time, much less obligated to preserve for later inspection.

In effect, for more than two years Iran has been attempting to comply with a retroactive Additional Protocol.

Nevertheless, a year ago, ElBaradei publicly announced that – although he had found no indication that (a) there were any undeclared "source or special nuclear materials" in Iran nor that ( "source or special nuclear materials" were being or had ever been "used in furtherance of a military purpose" – he still had "concerns" that Iran had been unwilling to address.

ElBaradei still had concerns?

Perhaps it was time (in mid-July) for senior intelligence officials to brief ElBaradei and senior staff on some of the sensitive "intelligence" they had gleaned from a "stolen Iranian laptop computer."

However, ElBaradei didn’t buy their intelligence. "Sources close to the IAEA" said what they had been briefed on appeared to be aerodynamic design work for a ballistic missile reentry vehicle, which certainly couldn't contain a nuke if the Iranians didn't have any.

Bummer!

Unless "source or special nuclear materials" had been "used in furtherance of a military purpose" it was none of ElBaradei’s beeswax.

So, surprise, surprise.

Last week Dafna Linzer "revealed" that the smoking-laptop had, indeed, contained evidence that was ElBaradei’s beeswax.

According to Linzer;

"In the spring of 2001, a small design firm opened shop on the outskirts of Tehran to begin work for what appears to have been its only client – the Iranian Republican Guard. Over the next two years, the staff at Kimeya Madon completed a set of technical drawings for a small uranium-conversion facility, according to four officials who reviewed the documents.

"Several sources with firsthand knowledge of the original documents said the facility, if constructed, would give Iran additional capabilities to produce a substance known as UF4, or "green salt," an intermediate product in the conversion of uranium to a gas. Further refined in a large-scale enrichment plant, such as the one Iran says it intends to build for its energy program, the material could become usable for the core of a bomb."

According to Linzer, the CIA has had the smoking-gun laptop for twenty months, but it was not until last December that the CIA provided the IAEA the "intelligence" about the Green Salt Project and its alleged link to the Iranian Republican Guards.

Whereupon President Bush immediately called for an emergency meeting of the IAEA Board to consider an "update brief," [.pdf] dated January 31, 2006, prepared by ElBaradei’s deputy for safeguards, which included – among other things – these paragraphs about the Green Salt Project:

"On 5 December 2005, the Agency reiterated its request for a meeting to discuss information that had been made available to the Agency about alleged undeclared studies, known as the Green Salt Project, concerning the conversion of uranium dioxide into UF4 ("green salt"), as well as tests related to high explosives and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle, all of which could have a military nuclear dimension and which appear to have administrative interconnections.

"In the course of the meeting, which took place on 27 January 2006, the Agency presented for Iran’s review a copy of a process flow diagram related to bench scale conversion and communications related to the project.

"Iran reiterated that all national nuclear projects are conducted by the AEOI, that the allegations were baseless and that it would provide further clarifications later."

The Iranians were first confronted with the alleged Green Salt Project on January 27, and the IAEA Board issued its resolution [.pdf] on February 4.

The resolution did not "refer" Iran’s nuclear program to the Security Council for possible action, nor did it contain any mention of a military UF4 project.

Why not? Perhaps, because the just-in-time discovery on the Iranian laptop of a link between the IRG and UF4 production doesn’t pass the smell test.

Obviously – much too obviously – someone wanted the IAEA Board to be able to charge that Iran had used "source or special nuclear material in furtherance of a military purpose."

Mike Kress: The Urgency of Now: Stopping the War on Iran:

Innocent Iranians, our children, our military, and all the world waits for us to wrest America’s destiny from the hands of the warlords. There is no time to waste. Gradualism is a luxury we cannot afford. The architects of the war against Iran have a head start – but we can prevail if we put our demands for peace into action.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11868.htm

Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse:

It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam's long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining strategic control over Iraq's hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9698.htm

February 12, 2006
Bracing for Penalties, Iran Threatens to Withdraw From Nuclear Treaty
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Feb. 11 — Iran's president warned on Saturday that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if international pressure increased over its nuclear program.

His threat was a significant escalation of the government's previous position that it would only stop complying with spot inspections of military installations and sites it has not declared to be part of its nuclear program. The warning also raised the specter that Iran was considering following a strategy set by North Korea three years ago.

In a speech to tens of thousand of demonstrators who had gathered to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also staked out a broader path of resistance if penalties are imposed against Iran.

Evoking the possibility of penalties and international ostracism, he insisted that the country would continue its nuclear activities and urged Iranians to brace for tough times.

"The Islamic Republic has continued its program within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nonproliferation treaty," he said in the speech, which was broadcast live on state television. "But if we see that you want to use the NPT regulations to deprive us of our rights, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard."

"I ask our dear people to prepare themselves for a great struggle," he added, evoking the possibility of international penalties. "Fasten your seat belts and pull up your sleeves."

In interviews in recent days, American and European officials have said they have been looking for signs that Mr. Ahmadinejad's government might abandon the nonproliferation treaty.

American officials and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, have said that the treaty provision allowing countries to renounce it, with just 90 days' notice, constitutes a major flaw in the effort to keep nations from becoming nuclear powers.

That provision essentially allows nations to build up a civilian nuclear infrastructure under the protection of the treaty, and then convert it to military use as soon as the country abandons the treaty.

"It's the obvious hole in the treaty, and the Iranians may choose to exploit it," one senior American official said this week, before Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech. "From their perspective, the North Koreans didn't pay much of a price."

The Central Intelligence Agency has estimated that the North Koreans have produced fuel enough for six or more weapons since they left the treaty three years ago. But those are rough estimates, based more on the country's ability than knowledge of what they have produced, and it is unclear whether that fuel has been converted to weapons. Iran is further away from that ability.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Robert Joseph, the State Department official in charge of fighting nuclear proliferation, said that "a nuclear-armed Iran with this leadership does represent an existential threat to the state of Israel."

"We ought to make very clear not only that we find that repugnant," Mr. Joseph said, "but that that has policy significance, that that hardens our view, that we and the entire international community must band together and prevent this regime from acquiring nuclear weapons."

But he said he had no clear idea of when Iran might obtain a weapon.

The governing board of the atomic energy agency passed a resolution this month to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council for possible penalties over its nuclear program. But the resolution gave Iran until March to halt its atomic research and development work.

On Thursday, Secretary General Kofi Annan also called on Iran to freeze those activities and pursue a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia.

But in his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad again discounted proposals by Europe and Russia that countries could sell enriched nuclear fuel to Iran rather than have the country produce it itself.

"According to international regulations, every country that sells aircraft to other countries is required to sell its spare parts as well," he said. "For 27 years you have refused to give us aircraft spare parts. How can we be sure that you will give us nuclear fuel?"

Iran immediately reduced its cooperation with the United Nations nuclear agency after the referral resolution, saying that it would end compliance with the nuclear treaty's Additional Protocol, which allows intrusive inspections of nuclear sites. The government also announced that it was preparing to resume the enriching of uranium, which it had suspended for more than two years.

But at the time, some Iranian officials said they would not leave the treaty, in part because they feared that would bolster the West's argument that Tehran was racing toward production of a weapon.

All of Iran's senior officials have emphasized the country's right to have a peaceful nuclear energy program. But on Saturday, statements by two senior Iranian figures continued to show that differences were emerging over how to handle international pressure.

At the same rally where the president called for complete resistance regardless of the cost, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is head of the powerful Expediency Council, said that "instead of relying on strength, we must try to fix the situation wisely," the news agency ISNA reported.

A former speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, told demonstrators that officials must refrain from "imprudent" policies and must try to adopt dialogue and act wisely.

In his speech at the rally, Mr. Ahmadinejad repeated his much-publicized claims that the Holocaust was a myth, and he made reference to the wave of demonstrations in the Arab world over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in some Western newspapers.

"In some European countries and in America insulting Prophet Muhammad is acceptable," he said. "But questioning the Holocaust and formation of the Zionist regime is a crime. This is a myth with which the Zionists have blackmailed other countries and carried out their crimes for 60 years in the occupied territories."

He continued: "The real Holocaust is happening in Palestine where the Zionists are killing Palestinians. If you are looking for the crimes of Holocaust, find them in Iraq."

Angry protesters attacked the Norwegian, Austrian and Danish Embassies in Tehran in recent days over the cartoons. They also attacked the British and the French Embassies on Thursday with homemade bombs and stones.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington for this article.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jse...xportaltop.html

US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 12/02/2006)

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.

The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack.

Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear programme.



Iran was last weekend reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment - producing material that could arm nuclear devices.

The White House says that it wants a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated".

Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.

By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic.

In Teheran yesterday, crowds celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He was defiant over possible economic sanctions.

11 February 2006: Iran plant 'has restarted its nuclear bomb-making equipment'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036145,00.html

The Sunday Times February 12, 2006


Bush urged to stir rebellion within Iran
Sarah Baxter, Washington



NEOCONSERVATIVES in Washington are urging President George W Bush to drop diplomacy with Iran in favour of boosting internal dissent and opposition forces within the Islamic regime.
In an open breach with White House policy, they argue the multilateral diplomacy pursued by Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, is encouraging the Iranians to snub the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and develop a nuclear bomb under cover of a peaceful energy programme.

Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said: “The United States doesn’t have a policy on Iran. We should be looking for a way to address the people of the country.”

Rubin accused Rice of being tepid in her support for democratic reform and internal regime change. “I don’t believe Rice has ever put her neck out for freedom when the Soviet Union was dissolving or now,” he said.

Foreign policy hawks believe America should be assisting democratic forces inside Iran, much as President Ronald Reagan did with the trade union organisation Solidarity in Poland in the early 1980s.

Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative who helped to make the case for the invasion of Iraq, accused the Bush government of doing little “to exploit the evident weaknesses in the regime”.

The Wall Street Journal argued last week that “neorealists” such as Rice, who support diplomacy as the best way to project American power and interests, were consolidating their grip.

Rice helped to broker the agreement in London by recommending that Iran be reported by the IAEA to the United Nations security council for breaching the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, although it is unlikely to lead in the first instance to tough economic sanctions.

In response Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has told the IAEA to remove the seals and surveillance cameras at its nuclear development sites. Yesterday, in what could mark a further escalation in the crisis, he warned Iran might withdraw from the treaty.

Few foreign policy hawks believe the Iranian regime should be overthrown by force but they argue it could collapse from within.

There are signs of labour unrest in Iran. Mansoor Oslanloo, leader of a bus workers’ union, has been in prison since December last year and hundreds of union members have been arrested, prompting a wave of protests in Tehran.

The US state department spends roughly $4m (£2.3m) a year on the promotion of democracy and women’s rights in Iran — too little to make a difference, according to critics. A campaign for human rights and democracy in Iran is to be launched in the US Congress on March 2.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Military_ana...f_war_0211.html


Military analysts say price of war with Iran could be severe
RAW STORY
Published: February 11, 2006


A chilling new look at Iran's military capability in response to a U.S. strike will appear in Sunday editions of The Boston Globe, RAW STORY has learned. Headlined "Iran is called capable of launching strikes," the piece provides a sobering analysis of Iran's capabilities.

"Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists," the Globe's Brian Bender writes. Excerpts:

#
"US intelligence officials have said that Iran, which fought a war with Iraq from 1980-1988 that cost one million lives, still has the most threatening armed forces in the immediate region. Its combined ground forces are estimated at about 800,000 personnel. The CIA has concluded that Iran is steadily enhancing its ability to project its military power, including by threatening international shipping.

Advertisement


"A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

"The missiles could also be tipped with chemical warheads and threaten US military bases in the region. Iran is believed to have at least 20 launchers that are frequently moved around the country to avoid detection.

"Iran has an extensive missile-development program and has received support from entities in Russia, China, and North Korea," the Pentagon report said, estimating their range to be at least 800 miles.

"New missile designs under development could travel 400 miles farther, it said, while Iran purchased at least a dozen X-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine in 2001 that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy."

The Urgency of Now: Stopping the War on Iran

By Mike Kress

The neo-cons will use their tool at the UN, Ambassador John Bolton, to help create an international crisis and thereby justify attacks on Iran. Though there’s no evidence to prove that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, Iran’s refusal to halt its lawful nuclear programs will become the pretext for America’s next unnecessary war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11868.htm

Iran warns it may quit NPT :

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Saturday the Islamic republic could quit the Non-Poliferation Treaty if forced by the West to limit its disputed nuclear programme.
http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&...&RF=DefaultMain

===
Use of force debate persist on Iran:

In a private meeting with European diplomats this week, a former senior U.S. official raised the idea of launching a dozen B2 bombers in an air raid aimed at crippling key Iranian nuclear facilities.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11870.htm

===
Gingrich: U.S. Must Stop Iran:

Facing a potential nuclear holocaust at the hands of Iran, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich say the United States must do everything in its power to bring about regime change there, even if it means invading that nation.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/...3752.shtml?s=ic

===
World Jewish Congress launches anti-Iran campaign :

The World Jewish Congress has launched a campaign against Iran following the nuclear crisis and the anti-Semitic statements of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/681155.html

===
Karen Kwiatkowski: Why We Fight:

Why We Fight will eagerly be consumed and digested by millions and millions of real and loyal Americans who are now weary of strange endless wars in far away places and an economy wasting under the demands of voracious spending on "defense."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11874.htm

Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | February 12, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.

US and Israeli officials have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to thwart its nuclear ambitions. Among the options are airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations or covert action to sabotage the Iranian program.

But military and intelligence analysts warn that Iran -- which a recent US intelligence report described as ''more confident and assertive" than it has been since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution -- could unleash reprisals across the region, and perhaps even inside the United States, if the hard-line regime came under attack.

''When the Americans or Israelis are thinking about [military force], I hope they will sit down and think about everything the ayatollahs could do to make our lives miserable and what we will do to discourage them," said John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, referring to Iran's religious leaders.

''There could be a cycle of escalation."

President Bush has said military force should be the last resort in international efforts to deter Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Yet Bush has stated unequivocally that the United States would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear arsenal, which the CIA estimates could be in place in three to 10 years. Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely aimed at producing electricity, not weapons.

Israel, which Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to annihilate, asserts that Tehran is much closer to going nuclear and has been far more direct with its counter-threats.

The Israel Defense Forces, which destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, has said it is perfecting ways to launch a preventative strike against Iranian nuclear sites, including outfitting its Air Force with American-made, bunker-busting munitions.

US intelligence officials have said that Iran, which fought a war with Iraq from 1980-1988 that cost one million lives, still has the most threatening armed forces in the immediate region. Its combined ground forces are estimated at about 800,000 personnel. The CIA has concluded that Iran is steadily enhancing its ability to project its military power, including by threatening international shipping.

But it is Iran's unconventional weapons and tactics -- rather than its conventional military -- that would pose the greatest threat, according to the intelligence officials.

Bush's new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, outlining the conclusions reached by a variety of US spy agencies, warned in his first overall annual threat assessment this month to Congress that Iran is capable of sparking a much wider conflict it comes under threat.

A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

The missiles could also be tipped with chemical warheads and threaten US military bases in the region.

Iran is believed to have at least 20 launchers that are frequently moved around the country to avoid detection.

''Iran has an extensive missile-development program and has received support from entities in Russia, China, and North Korea," the Pentagon report said, estimating their range to be at least 800 miles.

New missile designs under development could travel 400 miles farther, it said, while Iran purchased at least a dozen X-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine in 2001 that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy.

Meanwhile, Iranian agents and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely believed to have a large presence in Iraq, could attempt to foment an uprising by the their fellow Shi'ite majority in Iraq or join insurgents in directly attacking US troops there, Negroponte warned.

He reported that Tehran has ''constrained" itself in Iraq because it is generally satisfied with the political trends in favor of the Shi'ite majority and to avoid giving the United States another excuse to attack Iran. But that could change if Iran were targeted militarily.

A leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has clashed with US troops and rival Shi'ite groups, vowed in a visit to Tehran last month to defend Iran if it were attacked.

The assessment presented by Negroponte said the Iranian regime already provides ''guidance and training" to militant groups in Iraq and ''has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anticoalition attacks by providing Shia militants with the capability to build" improvised explosive devices.

Government and private analysts assert that Iran's intelligence apparatus and Revolutionary Guard Corps could cause serious damage to US efforts to pacify Iraq.

''The Iranian ayatollahs may deploy an 'asymmetric' answer and incite a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq," the respected Russian military publication ''Defense and Security," warned last month, referring to a military strategy that employs such tactics as guerrilla warfare. ''That would be disastrous for the United States."

Iran, believed to be responsible for the bombing of a US Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, also would be expected to enlist its terrorist allies around the world to come to its aid if attacked, US officials and private specialists contend.

''Tehran continues to support a number of terrorist groups, viewing this capability as a critical regime safeguard by deterring US and Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening Israel, and enhancing Iran's regional influence through intimidation," according to Negroponte's assessment to Congress.

Primary among them is Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines when it bombed a Beirut barracks in 1983.

''Lebanese Hezbollah is Iran's main terrorist ally, which . . . has a worldwide support network and is capable of attacks against US interests if it feels its Iranian patron is threatened," according to the report.

''They have all kinds of people that would like to embrace martyrdom," Pike said of Iran, raising the specter that a terrorist group allied with Iran would be capable of launching attacks inside the United States to avenge a strike against Iran.

Intelligence officials also point out that Iran controls a small island at the mouth the Strait of Hormuz and could use missiles and gunboats to temporarily shut off access to the economically vital Persian Gulf, sparking an oil crisis.

''Military attack is not the solution to this problem," Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the leading dissident group, said in a telephone interview from Paris. ''The regime is absolutely focusing on nonconventional responses. Missiles and terrorist operations are the strong points."



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=8533

February 13, 2006
Iran: The Next War

by John Pilger
Has Tony Blair, our minuscule Caesar, finally crossed his Rubicon? Having subverted the laws of the civilized world and brought carnage to a defenseless people and bloodshed to his own, having lied and lied and used the death of a hundredth British soldier in Iraq to indulge his profane self-pity, is he about to collude in one more crime before he goes?

Perhaps he is seriously unstable now, as some have suggested. Power does bring a certain madness to its prodigious abusers, especially those of shallow disposition. In The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, the great American historian Barbara Tuchman described Lyndon B. Johnson, the president whose insane policies took him across his Rubicon in Vietnam. "He lacked [John] Kennedy's ambivalence, born of a certain historical sense and at least some capacity for reflective thinking," she wrote. "Forceful and domineering, a man infatuated with himself, Johnson was affected in his conduct of Vietnam policy by three elements in his character: an ego that was insatiable and never secure; a bottomless capacity to use and impose the powers of his office without inhibition; a profound aversion, once fixed upon a course of action, to any contradictions."

That, demonstrably, is Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabal that has seized power in Washington. But there is a logic to their idiocy – the goal of dominance. It also describes Blair, for whom the only logic is vainglorious. And now he is threatening to take Britain into the nightmare on offer in Iran. His Washington mentors are unlikely to ask for British troops, not yet. At first, they will prefer to bomb from a safe height, as Bill Clinton did in his destruction of Yugoslavia. They are aware that, like the Serbs, the Iranians are a serious people with a history of defending themselves and who are not stricken by the effects of a long siege, as the Iraqis were in 2003. When the Iranian defense minister promises "a crushing response," you sense he means it.

Listen to Blair in the House of Commons: "It's important we send a signal of strength" against a regime that has "forsaken diplomacy" and is "exporting terrorism" and "flouting its international obligations." Coming from one who has exported terrorism to Iran's neighbor, scandalously reneged on Britain's most sacred international obligations and forsaken diplomacy for brute force, these are Alice-through-the-looking-glass words.

However, they begin to make sense when you read Blair's Commons speeches on Iraq of Feb. 25 and March 18, 2003. In both crucial debates – the latter leading to the disastrous vote on the invasion – he used the same or similar expressions to lie that he remained committed to a peaceful resolution. "Even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament..." he said. From the revelations in Philippe Sands' book Lawless World, the scale of his deception is clear. On Jan. 31, 2003, Bush and Blair confirmed their earlier secret decision to attack Iraq.

Like the invasion of Iraq, an attack on Iran has a secret agenda that has nothing to do with the Tehran regime's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. That Washington has managed to coerce enough members of the International Atomic Energy Agency into participating in a diplomatic charade is no more than reminiscent of the way it intimidated and bribed the "international community" into attacking Iraq in 1991.

Iran offers no "nuclear threat." There is not the slightest evidence that it has the centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly said his inspectors have found nothing to support American and Israeli claims. Iran has done nothing illegal; it has demonstrated no territorial ambitions nor has it engaged in the occupation of a foreign country – unlike the United States, Britain and Israel. It has complied with its obligations under the Nonproliferation Treaty to allow inspectors to "go anywhere and see anything" – unlike the US and Israel. The latter has refused to recognize the NPT, and has between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons targeted at Iran and other Middle Eastern states.


Those who flout the rules of the NPT are America's and Britain's anointed friends. Both India and Pakistan have developed their nuclear weapons secretly and in defiance of the treaty. The Pakistani military dictatorship has openly exported its nuclear technology. In Iran's case, the excuse that the Bush regime has seized upon is the suspension of purely voluntary "confidence-building" measures that Iran agreed with Britain, France and Germany in order to placate the US and show that it was "above suspicion." Seals were placed on nuclear equipment following a concession given, some say foolishly, by Iranian negotiators and which had nothing to do with Iran's obligations under the NPT.

Iran has since claimed back its "inalienable right" under the terms of the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. There is no doubt this decision reflects the ferment of political life in Tehran and the tension between radical and conciliatory forces, of which the bellicose new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is but one voice. As European governments seemed to grasp for a while, this demands true diplomacy, especially given the history.

For more than half a century, Britain and the US have menaced Iran. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh, an inspired nationalist who believed that Iranian oil belonged to Iran. They installed the venal shah and, through a monstrous creation called SAVAK, built one of the most vicious police states of the modern era. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was inevitable and very nasty, yet it was not monolithic and, through popular pressure and movement from within the elite, Iran has begun to open to the outside world – in spite of having sustained an invasion by Saddam Hussein, who was encouraged and backed by the US and Britain.

At the same time, Iran has lived with the real threat of an Israeli attack, possibly with nuclear weapons, about which the "international community" has remained silent. Recently, one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, wrote: "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy."

It is hardly surprising that the Tehran regime has drawn the "lesson" of how North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, has successfully seen off the American predator without firing a shot. During the cold war, British "nuclear deterrent" strategists argued the same justification for arming the nation with nuclear weapons; the Russians were coming, they said. As we are aware from declassified files, this was fiction, unlike the prospect of an American attack on Iran, which is very real and probably imminent.

Blair knows this. He also knows the real reasons for an attack and the part Britain is likely to play. Next month, Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8 trillion and a trade deficit of more than $600 billion. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2 trillion. America's military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.


That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran's nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world's fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world's central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.

While the Pentagon has no plans to occupy all of Iran, it has in its sights a strip of land that runs along the border with Iraq. This is Khuzestan, home to 90 percent of Iran's oil. "The first step taken by an invading force," reported Beirut's Daily Star, "would be to occupy Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military's oil supply." On Jan. 28 the Iranian government said that it had evidence of British undercover attacks in Khuzestan, including bombings, over the past year. Will the newly emboldened Labour MPs pursue this? Will they ask what the British army based in nearby Basra – notably the SAS – will do if or when Bush begins bombing Iran? With control of the oil of Khuzestan and Iraq and, by proxy, Saudi Arabia, the US will have what Richard Nixon called "the greatest prize of all."

But what of Iran's promise of "a crushing response"? Last year, the Pentagon delivered 500 "bunker-busting" bombs to Israel. Will the Israelis use them against a desperate Iran? Bush's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review cites "preemptive" attack with so-called low-yield nuclear weapons as an option. Will the militarists in Washington use them, if only to demonstrate to the rest of us that, regardless of their problems with Iraq, they are able to "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-theater wars," as they have boasted? That a British prime minister should collude with even a modicum of this insanity is cause for urgent action on this side of the Atlantic.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB14Ak01.html
Iran plays Russian roulette
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

The genie of Iran's nuclear crisis may be contained if the much-anticipated meeting in Moscow between Iranian and Russian officials bears fruit on the Russian proposal for a joint venture with Iran to enrich uranium on Russian soil.

Officials from Iran and Moscow were due to meet on Tuesday, but Iran announced on Monday that the meeting had been postponed, though it stressed that it had not been canceled.

So far, this proposal has received mixed reviews in Iran and there are indications of a split within Iran's ruling establishment. Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, warned on the eve of the recent International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna that the Russian proposal would be "killed" if Iran's case were sent to the United Nations Security Council, which it duly was. Larijani also categorically stated that such a move by the IAEA would "end diplomacy".

Yet despite such dire warnings, fortunately neither the nuclear diplomacy nor the Russian proposal is dead, partly as a result of timely intervention by Iran's former presidents, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, as well as Hassan Rowhani, who until recently led Iran's nuclear negotiations and was the architect of the historic Iran-Europe agreement known as Paris Accord of 2004 that resulted, in part, with Iran voluntarily suspending its uranium-enrichment program, since, according to some reports, restarted.

Warning of Iran's isolation and a global consensus against Iran, these and other leading figures, such as the former Speaker of Iran's majlis (parliament), Mahdi Karubi, have definitely leaned on the militants controlling the presidency and the Supreme National Security Council to pursue a less confrontational approach. Yet Iran is not alone in evincing apprehension about the Russian offer, which has come under fire in the United States as well as in Russia.

Last November, Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin discussed the Russian proposal for the first time, on the sidelines of an economic summit in South Korea. Subsequently, Stephen Hedley, the US national security adviser, clarified that Iran's role in this nuclear scheme would be "management participation and financial participation". In other words, the US does not favor a truly joint venture whereby Iran's nuclear scientists would gradually master the critical technology that could ultimately lead to developing a nuclear weapon.

In a recent commentary in the New York Times, Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin raised serious misgivings about the Russian proposal, their main argument being that (a) it would not stop Iran's drive toward nuclear weapons, ( Iran would exploit the Russian "sweetheart deal" to master the nuclear fuel cycle, and © it would simply adopt it as a short-term solution.

By all indications, the earlier White House enthusiasm for the Russian proposal has disappeared and one is struck by the peculiar absence of any meaningful follow-up on the part of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US policymakers.

Meanwhile, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in his press interview of last Friday, "Russia's suggestion to enrich uranium for Iran on Russian territory remains on the table." This is slightly different from the initial pitch for a "joint venture" by Putin, who is gearing up to lead the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg in July and, per the advice of the US ambassador to Russia, William Burns, needs to "demonstrate a sense of direction".

To open a parenthesis here, while non-proliferation is not on the G8's agenda for the moment, events surrounding Iran between now and July may force the issue, all the more reason for the G8 working committees to start on this matter immediately, in light of the recent meeting of G8 finance ministers, which addressed risks to oil markets as a result of Iran's nuclear crisis. One reason Russia may wish the subject outside the purview of the G8 summit is that it may complicate Russia's relations with the West and thus diminish Russia's chances for economic support from the West's financial institutions.

This aside, the Russian proposal has its own domestic critics, including Anton Khlopkov, the deputy director of the influential Center for Policy Studies in Russia, who stated on Russian TV last Wednesday: "The Iranian request to have access to enriched technology and centrifuges in the framework of a joint Russian-Iranian consortium is not acceptable to Russia. Russia insists on observing a moratorium on transfer of uranium-enrichment ... technologies."

Khlopkov and a number of other Russian nuclear experts have called for a "feasibility study" before any agreement between Iran and Russia can be reached on this proposal. This may take several months, however, hardly befitting the crisis-prevention momentum generated by Putin's initiative.

The IAEA is due to present a report next month to the UN Security Council on Iran's nuclear program. After this, the possible imposition of sanctions on Tehran will become an issue.

The Russian proposal scrutinized
If accepted, the proposed facility would probably be at Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant in Siberia, where there is already a uranium conversion plant, as well as operational enrichment facilities. Citing safety and economic reasons against the Iranian idea of transporting UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) from its facility near Isfahan to the proposed site, Russia insists on conducting uranium conversion for Iran on its own territory. Yet in the light of Iran's prior investment in the uranium-conversion facility and the question of national pride, Russia may need to compromise on this issue.

Iran has insufficient uranium ore for its power plant in Bushehr, which alone will deplete Iran's proven uranium reserves in about six years. This is not to mention the extremely uneconomical uranium mining near Ardakan. The Iranian media have recently reported the discovery of smaller uranium deposits in several provinces, including Isfahan, Khorasan, Azerbaijan and Sista-Balochistan.

To assuage Iranian concerns of nuclear-fuel disruption in light of their history of mistrust of Russia, this proposal has to be complemented with another proposal, for a nuclear-fuel bank under IAEA supervision, inside Iran, stockpiling several years of fuel, as well as an international guarantee to substitute Russian nuclear fuel in case there is a disruption in its flow to Iran. In turn, Iran would agree to implement its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty right to enrich uranium on a rolling basis.

One of the potential problems of the Moscow meeting is that it may focus too narrowly on the proposal to enrich fuel inside Russia, without tackling the other outstanding issues that may hamper its acceptance in Iran. Above all, this includes the national-security concerns of Iran regarding a possible US and/or Israeli attack on Iran.

Without a firm security guarantee, it is highly unlikely that the Russian proposal can go too far in today's rather militant political climate in Iran. The economic carrot of Western financial compensation to Iran to recover the costs of facilities in Isfahan and Natanz is also, if not equally, important.

From Iran's vantage point, the Russian proposal has several merits, given their own technical struggles with enrichment technology. According to IAEA inspectors, Iran's UF4 is tainted with a large amount of heavy metals, such as molybdenum, which "risks blockages of valves and piping". Iran's plan is to convert UF4, or yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) potentially to be separated into isotopes by centrifuges at Natanz. Iran prides itself for manufacturing key centrifuge parts and if the "voluntary" suspensions continue indefinitely, it may lose that scientific edge.

At present, Iran has assembled more than 1,000 P-1 centrifuges at Natanz and, once operational, the giant facility could manufacture 100-120 rotors per month. Henceforth, the incentives to Iran for giving up its cherished nuclear investments, which are a source of national pride, must be sufficiently high, eg, a guarantee of a steady fuel supply and technological cooperation with Russia and, perhaps, an international consortium. However, at this point it is doubtful that the West is willing to put such necessary incentives on the table. What then may be necessary is an alternative proposal.

Alternative Russian proposal?
As an alternative, Russia could conceivably propose to enrich uranium for Iran on Iran's territory, together with China and other participants. In so doing, Russia and China could build on their own history of nuclear cooperation. Russia has supplied China with an entire uranium-enrichment facility at Janzhun, including a gas centrifuge plant for the production of low-enriched uranium with an annual capacity of 200,000-300,000 separative work units (SWU).

Russian experts have also participated in the installation of a Russian-designed Tokamak-7 experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor at Hefei.

Also, Russia's nuclear transactions with Europe are instructive, in view of the strict stipulations for keeping aspects of technology "black-boxed" so that Russian firms' anxiety about patent control and re-export of technology by the recipient nation to third parties are addressed.

This alternative has the advantage of nuclear safety and likely acceptance by Iran, compared with the current Russian offer, which can be telescoped into a scientific feasibility study that would cover the issue of "objective guarantees" about non-diversion to illicit purposes.

This alternative has yet to be examined by either the IAEA, the US or the European governments, and yet the mere escalation of the nuclear standoff requires a broadening of their horizons to all peaceful options to put this genie back in the bottle.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB14Ak02.html
War with Iran on the worst terms
By Spengler

Europe has fought two Thirty Years' Wars. The first destroyed nearly half the population of German-speaking Europe between 1618 and 1648, and the second claimed 10 million casualties in its first phase (World War I) and 55 million lives in its second (World War II). In both cases, a century of well-meaning efforts to preserve peace ensured that war, when it came, would last until two generations of soldiers and civilians had been slaughtered. Washington wants to avoid a small war in the Middle East today, and instead may set in motion yet another Thirty Years' War in the region.

Iran cannot be persuaded to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Its peasants and urban poor gave an overwhelming electoral mandate to a government with imperial ambitions. The government cannot be overthrown, and cannot be derailed. But it can be beaten handily. A few hundred, or at worst a few thousand, sorties by US aircraft at this juncture could put an end to the matter now.

Why is Washington unwilling to take expeditious action? Iran's influence in Iraq is sufficient to throw the latter country into civil war should the United States attack the Islamic Republic. On October 25 (A Syriajevo in the making?), I warned that Iran kept Iraqi Shi'ite militias under its control in readiness to blackmail the United States. US intelligence, I observed, has accused Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of sponsoring the Shi'ite radical leader Muqtada al-Sadr. "If Washington believes that Muqtada is Khamenei's dog, then Khamenei can credibly promise to muzzle him," I wrote them.

US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte spelled out in essence the same scenario before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 1. Negroponte accused Tehran of arming Shi'ite militants in Iraq, warning that Iran has the capacity to broaden the conflict into a wider regional war.

The peace camp, meanwhile, hails Muqtada al-Sadr as the arbiter of civil peace in Iraq. Juan Cole, whose website (juancole.com) offers a running denunciation of the administration of US President George W Bush, reported on February 12 that the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament determined the choice of Ibrahim Jaafari as Iraq's new prime minister.

Writing in salon.com on February 3, Nir Rosen called Muqtada "America's unlike savior", explaining:
On the crucial issues that divide Shi'ite and Sunni, Muqtada sides with the Sunnis. He opposes federalism, which he believes will lead to the breakup of Iraq, and supports amending the constitution. SCIRI [the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq] and the other main Shi'ite party, Dawa, support federalism and refuse to amend the constitution. For Sunnis, federalism means the loss not just of the old Iraq, which they dominated, but also of oil revenue, and they are determined to resist it. Muqtada is their only Shi'ite ally. Inexperienced in foreign affairs and barely experienced in politics, Muqtada may nonetheless be the only figure capable of halting Iraq's steady descent into a civil war that could ignite the entire region.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah received the Shi'ite militant Muqtada in Riyadh last month, an extraordinary gesture from the Saudi monarchy that preceded another extraordinary gesture to Saudi Arabia's own Shi'ite population. For the first time in a generation they were permitted to observe in public the mourning day of Ashura on February 8 (see The blood is the life, Mr Rumsfeld!, October 12, 2005). On Ashura, Shi'ites whip and cut themselves to express in streams of blood their grief over the death of Mohammed's grandson Ali in AD 680.

Both the concession to the Saudi Shi'ites and the reception of Muqtada represent Saudi gestures to Iran, which is emerging as the arbiter of power in the region. Muqtada already has warned that if the United States attacks Iran, his militias will rise in Iraq. That is not the only warning. "Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists," wrote the Boston Globe on February 12.

Much as Washington complains about Iran's efforts to arm militant Shi'ites in Iraq, it cannot do anything to hinder this except to deliver and execute a military ultimatum. The longer Washington dallies, the more resources Tehran can put in place, including:
Upgrading Hezbollah's offensive-weapon capabilities in Lebanon.
Integrating Hamas into its sphere of influence and military operations.
Putting in place terrorist capability against the West.
Preparing its Shi'ite auxiliaries in Iraq for insurrection.

The problem with postponing war is that the belligerents gain more time to prepare for war. Russia could not abandon the Central European Slavs without losing faith in its own mission, and Austria-Hungary could not accommodate the Slavs without destroying a multi-ethnic empire. Germany could not permit Russia to walk over Austria, for it might not be able to defeat Russia a generation later; France could not let Germany defeat Russia, for it would lose its last chance to prevent German domination of the continent. War might have broken out a half-dozen times prior to August 1914. Postponing war allowed France to cement its alliance with Russia, and France and Russia to ensure Britain's support in the event of hostilities with Germany. A perfect balance of power gives each armed camp assurance if there is no ultimate motivation for war, but in the event of war, it ensures that war will be prolonged and thoroughly destructive.

The 30 Years' War of 1618-48, by the same token, culminated a century of efforts to establish a balance of power between Catholic and Protestant powers in Europe. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg responded to episodic fighting between Protestant princes and the Catholic Empire, agreeing that each prince would establish the religion in his own domain. That did not prevent France from massacring its Huguenots in 1572, or the Spanish from suppressing Protestantism in the Netherlands. As Europe formed into two great and equally balanced camps, a revolt by Bohemian Protestants against the Austrian Empire precipitated the most terrible war in European history.

Today's Shi'ites are the Serbs of the Middle East. Emerging from a millennium of oppression into majority power in Mesopotamia and Persia, the Shi'ites have their first and only opportunity to exact compensation for the humiliation of centuries. They have the misfortune to enter modern history at a point of maximum disadvantage for the peoples of the Middle East, who have few means to compete with the economic powers of East Asia. In Iran, as I have shown elsewhere (Demographics and Iran's imperial design, September 13, 2005), they face a devastating economic and demographic decline one generation from now. That is why these choose leaders such as Mahmud Ahmedinejad in Tehran and Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad.

Washington does not wish to fight but will if necessary. The Europeans, and even the Saudis, will fight rather than allow Iran to become a nuclear power, although they wish to fight much less than Washington.

If Washington were to deliver a military ultimatum to Iran tomorrow, the results would be a painful jump in oil prices, civil violence in Iraq, low-intensity war on Israel's northern border, and a wave of anti-Americanism in the Arab world - not an inviting picture.

But if Washington waits another year to deliver an ultimatum to Iran, the results will be civil war to the death in Iraq, the direct engagement of Israel in a regional war through Hezbollah and Hamas, and extensive terrorist action throughout the West, with extensive loss of American life. There are no good outcomes, only less terrible ones. The West will attack Iran, but only when such an attack will do the least good and the most harm.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB14Ak03.html
SPEAKING FREELY
Freedom dead, democracy dying
By Aseem Shrivastava

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

"Let us not speak falsely now, the hour is getting late." - Bob Dylan

Imagine: among the recent incidents following the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was one that went oddly unreported. In Tehran, Iranian police managed to catch a few European teenagers who were throwing glasses and plates at the crowd from the windows of the Danish Consulate when Danish flags were being burned on the street outside.

Later, police took the boys to the nearest station and gave them a thorough thrashing. One of the boys was kicked in his genitals by a policeman, while others held him down. Another was held against the wall and given a sound hammering with batons on his back. A third was kicked by several of them as he lay prostrate on the ground. "Naughty little boys" and various unmentionable abuses were barked at them by the policemen, who were obviously reveling in the sadistic enterprise.

All this was recorded on video by someone and handed over to the television channel that broadcast it this morning.

Back to reality.

Of course, the above story is made up, but not really, because all I did was make the characters involved switch roles, much as in role plays schoolkids are often asked to do in multicultural neighborhoods around Europe, in order to understand where "others are coming from".

The above is precisely what could be seen on TV screens across the world, after the British tabloid News of the World released the video clip of the beating of Iraqi teenage boys carried out by British soldiers some months back.

Let's have, if only for a change, the same rules for everyone.

Let us not fall into the temptation of the old alibi that it was the work of a few bad men in an otherwise decent establishment. In the video there are plenty of soldiers passing by as the beating is going on. None tries to stop it. How many times they must have seen such things, or done them themselves, or seen their superiors do or order them.

When brutalization is banal, it is too boring to talk about, let alone stop.

How many pictures and videos have been banned from the TV screens of the world at the orders of the Pentagon? If there were nothing to hide, we would indeed be living in a free world at the moment.

It won't do to pass the buck downward. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, the highest military officer to be punished ("scapegoated", in her own words) in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq (she was demoted to the rank of colonel), in her recent book One Woman's Army says the entire chain of command, starting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, must be held accountable for the crimes at the prison since the blame "goes all the way to the top". Her interview with Amy Goodman on the news radio Democracy Now! program speaks volumes for the depth of cover-up going on quietly.

The New Standard had reported some months back that a Federal Bureau of Investigation e-mail released by the US government at the demand of the American Civil Liberties Union in December 2004 revealed that President George W Bush had sent out an executive order permitting the use of new interrogation techniques. The White House has neither confirmed nor denied that torture orders were given from the very top.

When the rot is this deep, it is understandable that justice cannot be done: for each finger pointing down at someone who infringed, there will be many times more pointing up toward the bosses who, far from disallowing, actually appear to have encouraged the tortures.

Britain has boasted much about its standards of military justice being some of the highest in the world. Let us see how far up the chain of command investigations are able to reach. Let's see whether the defense secretary is called upon to answer for the crimes.

If we are serious about such matters as peace and security, let us stop denying what is obvious to people living in Muslim countries. Let us not just keep our attention anchored on the silly cartoons and their aftermath on the streets of the Middle East. Let us consider the far graver matters threatening the moral core of civilization itself.

Now the actions last week on the streets of Cairo, Jakarta and Tehran appear in quite a different light. It should have been obvious that the issue - for people living there - did not concern freedom of expression at all. It should have been evident that it wasn't just a matter of a few cartoons. The actions against the cartoons are only at the little-rippling surface of surging anger among people living in Muslim countries at the systematic injustices they continue to suffer at the hands of the West, especially the United States and the United Kingdom. The Muslim clergy is able to make hay only because the blazing sun of foreign injustices refuses to set.

The Abu Ghraib revelations took place almost two years ago - those at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba even earlier. More recently, it was learned that special Central Intelligence Agency flights were being routed through Europe to carry suspects to be tortured in places where it would be safe to do so. Illegal detentions and tortures continue in a global archipelago of prisons run by Washington.

No significant (by which I mean proportionate) justice has been done with regards to the torture revelations. Muslims, much more so than others, cannot forget that. Nor has there been any promise that the practices would be stopped. On the contrary, Washington has sought to legalize torture.

When one has come to live in such a brutalized global village, when men in suits and ties calmly impose barbarities on others in the name of defending something they call civilization and for passing on the torch of liberty to less fortunate souls in strange lands, the time has come to ask for a clear definition of "civilization".

If you reserve your brutality for bar-room brawls and post-soccer angst, or export it abroad in the shape of oil-seeking military missions masquerading as human-rights campaigns, it does not make you any less barbaric than those Muslims who were openly burning European flags and throwing stones at consulates last week. On the contrary, machines kill more effectively than machetes.

Much deeper things than just freedom of speech are at stake these days. The very dignity of human beings is under the sword - everywhere.

Long before the first atom had been split and the first-ever bomb dropped from the air (by the Italians on Libya in 1911), the great 19th-century American writer Herman Melville had written with self-critical honesty that few in this modern world (which, we are assured, is freer today than ever before) would dare, though the truth is far more grim today:
The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth ... it is needless to multiply the examples of civilized barbarity; they far exceed in the amount of misery they cause the crimes which we regard with such abhorrence in our less enlightened fellow-creature.
Times have moved on much since Melville. But the world is such that the integrity of a white man still has greater impact on human destinies than the honesty of others (who are by no means exempt from their duty to find and tell the truth). One shudders to imagine what Melville would have written today. But the rest of the world expects exactly such honesty from Western citizens today. And we know, from the example of numerous noble exceptions, that they are capable of it. It is for them to terminate their indoctrinated ignorance, seek the truth and make it count.

We are truly scratching the bottom of the barrel of civilization now.

Civilization is not just about good manners, about neat and tidy exteriors that conceal a beastliness that would put animals to shame. At least with the anti-cartoon protests in Islamic countries the barbarities were on the surface, obvious to onlookers. But how do you detect the insane, well-entrenched barbarism of civilized societies if you are only going to be allowed occasional peeks at the scale of organized evil, if the iceberg of dehumanized depravity pops up but once in a while, staying underground long enough to lull us all into the sleep of drugged babies - until the next set of revelations arrive? When dated defensive ideologies of freedom or human rights are used to defend indefensible state actions?

Freedom is dead. Democracy is dying. There are no human rights for those without power. The example of Iraq should teach us that there are things - loss of human dignity, for one, civil war for another - worse than dictatorship.

It is for the citizens of Europe and America to terminate their shameful silence, resume the struggles for freedom, peace and justice that have been in abeyance since the 1960s, and march in their millions on the streets of Western capitals.

Next month we await a show called Death to Iran. If it is allowed to be aired, Westerners will find little left in their pockets after they have paid their rising oil bills.

Beyond that, all bets are off.

Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

Jerusalem Newswirewww.jnewswire.com Print
Iran to West: Remove Israel, or we will
By Ryan Jones

February 12th, 2006

If the West fails to peacefully remove the “Zionist entity” from the Middle East, the “Palestinians” and their Islamic allies will do so through violent fury, warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a mass demonstration in Tehran Saturday.

Addressing the hundreds of thousands who turned out to mark the 27th anniversary of Iran's “Islamic Revolution,” the virulent leader, as reported by WorldNetDaily, said regarding Israel:

“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them. Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations.”
Islam dictates that formerly-Muslim dominated lands cannot revert to permanent non-Muslim control. It is this cornerstone of their faith that drives the murderous anti-Israel policies of Hamas and most of the Jewish state's Middle East neighbors.

But the threat is not only to Israel and other non-Muslim nations that have regained their sovereignty. Reconquering them is only the first step.

According to the Muslim faith, jihad must be waged until the entire world is under the thumb of Islam. Ahmadinejad declared that now is the time for the West to bow to this reality and submit to Allah:

“On the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation, numbering in the millions, calls upon those governments to worship Allah.”
Similar sentiment was expressed by Iran's Hamas allies in the Palestinian Authority last week.

Speaking at a Damascus mosque on February 3, overall Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal declared:

“We say to this West... By Allah, you will be defeated... Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. This is not a figment of the imagination, but a fact.”Copyright 2002-2004 Jerusalem Newswire Print Close

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Monday, 13 February 2006 close window

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Posted to the web on: 13 February 2006
US hones military strategy as last resort against Iran
Stefan Smith

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Sapa-AFP

LONDON — US military strategists are drawing up plans for an attack on Iran as a last resort to stop the Islamic republic from developing nuclear weapons, the Sunday Telegraph in London, reported yesterday.



In a front-page dispatch from Washington, it said US central and strategic command planners were “identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation”.


The planners are reporting to the office of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with a view to having a military option if diplomatic efforts fail to put the brakes on Iran’s suspected bid to make a nuclear bomb.


“This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment,” the newspaper quoted a senior Pentagon adviser as saying. “This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months.”


Iran’s outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also unleashed a fresh verbal assault against Israel — repeating his view that the Holocaust was a “myth” and predicting “Zionists” would soon be destroyed.

“Iran has continued its nuclear drive within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but if we see that you want to deprive us of our right using these regulations, know that the people will revise their policy,” Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.




Earlier this month, the IAEA referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council after the oil-rich nation resumed its uranium enrichment programme.

SA abstained in the vote.


The treaty is the cornerstone of the global battle against the spread of nuclear weapons, prohibiting the development of the bomb and subjecting its signatories to IAEA inspections.

Iran is under intense pressure to agree to a moratorium on nuclear fuel work that can be extended to make weapons, but insists it only wants to generate electricity and argues that its nuclear ambitions are therefore entirely legal.

Although foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday that Iran was “still committed” to the treaty, he nevertheless repeated the warning that this position could soon change.


The IAEA left a one-month window for diplomacy, for Iran to return to a full suspension of enrichment-related work and cooperate more with IAEA inspectors.

So far Iran has done the opposite, setting the scene for a major showdown.

Iran’s parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel said nuclear research would be resumed yesterday or today, adding that an IAEA team was in Iran to supervise this process.










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http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/7793.htm

British think tank says attack on Iranian nuclear sites would kill thousands, spark war
By Associated Press February 13, 2006


An Iranian couple at a demonstration to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Tehran, Saturday Feb. 11, 2006. (AP)

A U.S. air assault on Iranian nuclear and military facilities would likely kill thousands of people, spark a long-lasting war and push Iran to accelerate its atomic program, a British think tank predicted in a report published Monday.

The Oxford Research Group, which specializes in arms control and nonproliferation issues, said military action against Iran, "either by the United States or Israel, is not an option that should be considered under any circumstances."

The Bush administration has refused to rule out the use of force if Iran does not comply with international diplomatic efforts to curb its contentious nuclear program. Iran says it is seeking only to generate electricity, but the United States alleges that the Islamic republic aims to build nuclear weapons.

The report by University of Bradford professor Paul Rogers said a U.S. attack would likely consist of simultaneous air strikes on more than 20 key nuclear and military facilities, designed to disable Iran's nuclear and air-defense capabilities. Such strikes would probably kill several thousand people, including troops, nuclear program staff and "many hundreds" of civilians.

The report said a military attack would spur Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, accelerate its nuclear programs and step up support to insurgents in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and would fuel anti-American sentiment around the world.

Escalating military confrontation would draw in other states in the region, it warned, making "a protracted and highly unstable conflict virtually certain."

"A state of war stretching over years would be in prospect," the group warned.

Nuclear-armed Israel views Iran as its biggest threat and has joined Washington in charging that Tehran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said last month that Israel was preparing for military action if diplomacy failed.

The Oxford Research Group report said an attack by Israeli forces, while on a smaller scale than a U.S. strike, also would have negative consequences.

"Alternative ways must be found of defusing current tensions and avoiding an exceptionally dangerous confrontation, however difficult it might be," said the group's director, John Sloboda.

Azerbaijan an ally in Iran nuke crisis


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yaakov katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 11, 2006

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In the latest development in the crisis over Iran's nuclear enrichment program, diplomats said that IAEA inspectors have stripped most surveillance cameras and agency seals from Iranian nuclear sites and equipment as demanded by Tehran in response to its referral to the UN Security Council.

With most surveillance equipment and seals from Iran's nascent uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz now removed - and Iran recently ending the agency's rights to in-depth nuclear probes at short notice - the IAEA has few means to monitor the progress of Tehran's enrichment efforts, which can create either nuclear fuel or the fissile core of warheads.

Meanwhile, foreign diplomats stationed in Azerbaijan said over the weekend that Azerbaijan was a strategic partner to the US and Israel and could play a major role in the current showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

US officials stationed in Baku said that Azerbaijan, wedged in between Russia in the north and Iran in the south, could possibly use the 20 million Azeris who lived in northern Iran to convince the radical regime and its extremist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to back down from developing nuclear arms.

"The Azeris in Iran could possibly lead a coup and assist in overthrowing the current regime there," one official told The Jerusalem Post. "They see that Azerbaijan life is improving and becoming more westernized while in Iran they are continuously suffering."

US officials said they had an "extraordinary relationship" with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev who granted them permission to use the country to flyover and stop in throughout the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In total, 142 US planes, officials said, flew over Azeri skies in 2005.

"Azerbaijan regards militant political Islam as a threat to itself," a senior US diplomat stationed here said. A Muslim and predominately Shi'ite but secular country, Azerbaijan, the official said, has been serving as a strategic partner to the US in the global war on terrorism since 9/11 and has troops stationed in Afghanistan.

The US military reportedly has listening stations along Azerbaijan's border with Iran. According to other media reports, the US and Israel have considered using Azerbaijan as a launching pad for an attack on Iran's nuclear reactors.

In public however, Azeri officials have ruled out the possibility that their land would be used in an aggressive attack on Iran. Last Monday, Aliyev told Iran's envoy to Baku that he would not allow the US to launch an attack from his country's territory.

US officials here said that if they wanted to attack Iran they could always use Iraq or Afghanistan where the army is already heavily stationed.

"We will probably not let the US use Azerbaijan to launch a strike on Iran," Azeri Minister of Emergency Situations Kamaladdin Heydarov told the Post Saturday night adding that an attack on Iran would destabilize the region. "We need to restrain Iran," the minister continued. "But if the US attacks [Iran] it will bring bad results to the entire region."

Local Jews said they were afraid of the Iranian situation and that its shock waves would reach Baku, which, until now, is a safe and anti-Semitic-free place for Jews. If Iran were attacked, especially by troops based in Azerbaijan, the Jews said, they might feel repercussions.

"All we want is for things to stay quiet and the way they have been for years," said Reuven Ismailov, a local Baku Jew. "We are afraid of anything that might unbalance the region."

Israel having an embassy in Baku, said it viewed relations with Baku to be of extreme importance.

Israel's Ambassador to Baku, Arthur Lenk, told a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations visiting here that Azerbaijan might use the Ashkelon-Eilat oil pipeline to transfer oil it plans to begin retrieving from the Caspian Sea to countries in the West.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference, said he was optimistic Azerbaijan would remain loyal to its relationship with Israel throughout the Iranian crisis. "The message from here has been very clear," Hoenlein said. "Azerbaijan takes its relationship with Israel very seriously and they could play a key role in the Iranian showdown."

Hoenlein was leading a 100-person delegation to Azerbaijan this weekend for talks with local Jewish leaders and government officials. "We looked forward to this very timely gathering in view of our heightened concern regarding the Jewish communities in Europe, Russia and Asia as the war on terrorism moves ahead," Hoenlein said of the trip.

On Monday, the group is scheduled to meet with President Aliyev and Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

[Copyright 1995-2006 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5518

February 10, 2006


Dubious Assumptions about Iran
by Ted Galen Carpenter

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of seven books and the editor of 10 books on international affairs.


A consensus is gradually emerging in the United States that Washington and its allies must take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Various options are advocated, from U.N.-mandated economic sanctions to airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations to active subversion of the mullah-controlled regime in Tehran.

All of these options are based on key assumptions about both the probable conduct of the Iranian government and the underlying political situation in Iran. Unfortunately, many of those assumptions are dubious at best.

A nuclear Iran would attack Israel. Advocates of a hardline policy toward Tehran argue that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it will use those weapons against Israel, its hated adversary. Fears of such a scenario have risen sharply in recent months following comments by Iran's president that Israel should be wiped off the map.

Such a comment is certainly reprehensible, but does it negate the long-standing realities of deterrence? Israel has between 150 and 300 nuclear weapons of its own. Even if Iran does go forward with its nuclear program, it will not be able to build more than a dozen or so weapons over the next decade.

It would be suicidal for a country with a tiny nuclear arsenal to attack a county with a large arsenal. One should not confuse repulsiveness with suicidal tendencies. The current government of Iran is certainly repulsive, but it has never given evidence that it is suicidal. In all likelihood, rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map is merely ideological blather. Israel has more than a sufficient capability to deter an Iranian nuclear attack.

Iran would pass along nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. Tehran has a cozy relationship with a number of terrorist organizations in the Middle East, most notably Hezbollah. The pervasive assumption in the West is that if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, sooner or later it would pass one along to a terrorist ally.

But how likely is it that Iran would make such a transfer? At the very least, it would be an incredibly high-risk strategy. Even the most fanatical mullahs in Tehran realize that the United States would attack the probable supplier of such a weapon--and Iran would be at the top of Washington's list of suspects.

Significantly, Iran has possessed chemical weapons for decades, yet there is no indication that it has passed on any of those weapons to Hezbollah or to Palestinian groups that Tehran supports politically. Why should one assume that the mullahs would be more reckless with nuclear weapons when the prospect of devastating retaliation for an attack would be even more likely? The more logical conclusion is that Iran, like other nuclear powers, would jealously guard its arsenal.

It would be easy to overthrow the mullahs. American proponents of regime change -- most prominently Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute -- insist that the current government in Tehran is ripe for overthrow. Indeed, advocates of regime change typically argue that an invasion of the country would be unnecessary; rather, American financial and political support for dissident groups, combined with destabilizing special forces operations, should be sufficient.

There is undoubtedly significant popular discontent with the dour and repressive mullahs, but it is easy to overestimate the extent and clout of the opposition. It is not reassuring that many of the loudest American enthusiasts for a strategy of regime change are the same people who argued that the Iraq mission would be brief and easy and that Ahmed Chalabi was the most popular politician in Iraq. Those predictions proved to be spectacularly wrong, and we therefore should be doubly cautious about following the advice of that faction regarding Iran.

A democratic Iran would renounce all nuclear ambitions. This is the favorite assumption of those Americans who believe that Washington should pursue an aggressive policy of regime change. They argue that Tehran's nuclear program is merely the pet initiative of the Islamic elite, while the bulk of the Iranian people are indifferent or hostile. Regime change, therefore, would not only remove an odious regime, but also provide the ultimate solution to the nuclear problem.

It is yet another dubious assumption. Tehran's nuclear ambitions date back to the Shah of Iran in the 1970s. The bulk of the evidence suggests that a "peaceful" nuclear program has widespread support in Iran for reasons of national pride and regional prestige. The goal of a nuclear-weapons arsenal is more controversial, but given the dangerous neighborhood in which Iran is located, support for that objective also goes well beyond the mullahs and their staunch allies. Washington could be making a serious miscalculation if it assumes that a democratic Iran would be content to remain non-nuclear.

The Iranian nuclear issue is a hellishly difficult problem, and the United States has no good policy options. But whatever course U.S. leaders ultimately adopt must at the very least be based on sound assumptions. Unfortunately, some of the most crucial assumptions appear to be anything but well founded.


This article appeared on Foxnews.com on February 8, 2006.

February 14, 2006
Iran Delays Talks With Russia on Enrichment of Its Uranium
By NAZILA FATHI and MARK LANDLER
TEHRAN, Feb. 13 — Iran announced Monday that it had postponed talks on letting Russia enrich its uranium, a proposal that Russia had offered as a way to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran also signaled that it was resuming the enrichment of uranium at one of its main nuclear sites, according to diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The enrichment move, while not unexpected, intensifies Iran's confrontation with the West over its nuclear ambitions, two weeks after the agency's 35-nation board voted to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council. Iran's hardening stance seemed to close off some options for diplomacy.

In Tehran, a government spokesman, Gholamhossein Elham, said during a weekly news conference that the Russian talks had been postponed because of the "new situation."

The talks were to resume Thursday on a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia up to low level to allay international concerns that Iran might try to make a nuclear bomb. The plan was supported by the United States, Europe and China.

Mr. Elham said talks with Russia had not been canceled, but the date should be discussed. "The date of the talks, considering the new situation and the government's plans to pursue peaceful nuclear program inside the country, should be examined and we are following the matter," the student news agency ISNA quoted him as saying.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksei A. Sazonov, said Moscow was not yet sure "whether this is a disruption or postponement of the talks."

"In any case, we still have three days before the 16th," he said in a telephone interview.

The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, including Russia, passed the resolution to report Iran to the Security Council for possible penalties over its nuclear program. But the resolution gave Iran until March to halt its research and development program.

As for the enrichment, "The I.A.E.A. has gotten signals that they're going to do it," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The only question is: how much, and how many machines?"

Depending on its level of purity, enriched uranium can be used either to produce electricity or as fuel for a bomb. Iran's initial enrichment, at the Natanz plant, is expected to be on a small scale, involving a few centrifuge machines, capable of producing a small amount of enriched fuel.

Nuclear experts say it would take several years for Iran to develop the capacity to enrich uranium on a large scale. But the Iranian government seems determined not to lose time, dimming the faint hopes of diplomats that Iran might be conciliatory before the issuance of the agency's report.

Inspectors from the agency were scheduled to visit Natanz on Tuesday, as part of a tour of Iran's nuclear sites. Their findings will become part of a report on Iran's activities that the agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, will deliver to the board early next month.

After that report, the Security Council is expected to debate what steps to take against the Iranian government.

Iran's move is the latest step in a steady reactivation of its nuclear program after the failure of negotiations over its program with Britain, France and Germany. In August, Iran began converting uranium yellowcake into gas. Last month, it reopened part of the Natanz plant for "research purposes."

The Iranian government has said it plans to eventually operate 50,000 centrifuge machines to generate fuel for its nuclear power plant at Bushehr. The United States and other countries have demanded that Iran suspend enrichment because the fuel can be used to make explosives.

Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran for this article and Mark Landler from Frankfurt. Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Moscow.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

Iran resumes enrichment work: Diplomats :

"Iran has continued its nuclear drive within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NPT, but if we see that you want to deprive us of our right using these regulations, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard," Ahmadinejad said.
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20060214/1402191.htm


Israel pushes urgency of UN Iran review:

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Monday to support discussing the Iranian nuclear issue at the United Nations Security Council immediately
http://tinyurl.com/9l58c


Iran Consequences Of War: :

This briefing paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive
http://www.iranbodycount.org/

Annan warns against Iran nuclear 'escalation' Mon Feb 13, 6:27 PM ET



UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Iran to help set the stage for a new round of talks on its nuclear program by March and warned against an escalation of Tehran's tense dispute with the West.

Annan's appeal came after he met here with US President George W. Bush for talks that also broached peacekeeping in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, UN reform, and pressure on Hamas to renounce violence against Israel.

But even as they met, diplomats told AFP that Iran had restarted uranium enrichment work by putting its feedstock gas into centrifuges, defying the West with a program that could make nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material.

While Bush was silent about the dispute with Iran, Annan volunteered: "We need to be able to work to resolve it, and I hope there will be no steps taken to escalate the situation."

Annan said he hoped Tehran would take steps to show that diplomacy is "not dead" before the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meets in Vienna next month to decide whether to recommend UN Security Council action.

Washington accuses Tehran of using a civilian nuclear program as cover for trying to develop atomic weapons. Iran denies the charge.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted his country was not worried about possible sanctions and Tehran said talks in Moscow aimed at finding an end to the standoff would not go ahead as planned later this week.

Uranium enrichment is seen as a red line by the United States and the European Union in the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, as it is crucial to making atomic weapons.

Putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into centrifuges, which distill out enriched uranium, is a major escalation by Iran, and comes amid threats by the Islamic republic to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Bush and Annan also discussed options for UN peacekeeping in Darfur, though neither leader mentioned a US military contribution to such an effort amid warnings from Washington that such talk is "premature."

"Of course this is an issue where all governments have to play their role," said Annan, who vowed last week to press Bush on helping to build such a force to replace a beleaguered African Union deployment.

"I'm very happy that we have agreed to work together on the Darfur issue, working with other governments from Europe, from Asia, and other regions, to ensure that we do have an effective security presence on the ground," he added.

Bush mentioned his meeting last week with Rebecca Garang, the widow of Sudanese rebel leader John Garang, and efforts to implement a January peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war, which left some two million people dead and displaced twice as many from their homes.

"I appreciate the secretary's leadership on that issue," the president said.

Annan also urged the militant Palestinian group Hamas to abandon violence against Israel and recognize that state's right to exist in the wake of the Islamists' landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections.

"I think there is an opportunity here for Hamas to transform itself into a political party and work with the international community and the Israeli government," Annan said.

The UN chief pointed to calls by the international "quartet" comprising the United Nations, United States, Russia and Europe for Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist and to disarm.

On UN reform, Bush vowed to keep pushing for overhauling the UN human rights commission, which Washington says is too-often packed with countries that violate human rights, and Annan said such reform needed to be carried out "as soon as possible."



Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

--------------------
Tehran Softens Nuclear Position
--------------------

After a veiled threat to exit the treaty aimed at nonproliferation, Iran reaffirms its allegiance.

From Associated Press

February 13 2006

TEHRAN Iran reaffirmed its commitment Sunday to a nuclear arms control treaty and urged a negotiated solution to international concerns that it is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...l=la-home-world

http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=8542

February 14, 2006
Who Will Blow the Whistle Before We Attack Iran?

by Ray McGovern
The question looms large against the backdrop of the hearing on whistleblowing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon by Christopher Shays, chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. Among those testifying are Russell Tice, one of the sources who exposed illegal eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, and Army Sgt. Sam Provance, who told his superiors of the torture he witnessed at Abu Graib, got no satisfaction, and felt it his duty to go public. It will not be your usual hearing.

I had the privilege of being present at the creation of the international Truth-Telling Coalition on Sept. 9, 2004, and of working with Daniel Ellsberg in drafting the coalition's "Appeal to Current Government Officials" to put loyalty to the Constitution above career and to expose dishonesty leading to misadventures like the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Whether or not encouragement from the Coalition played any role in subsequent disclosures, we are grateful for those responsible for the recent hemorrhaging of important information – from the "Downing Street Minutes," showing that by summer 2002 the Bush administration had decided to "fix" intelligence to "justify" war on Iraq, to disclosures regarding CIA kidnappings, secret prisons, and state-sponsored torture.

As former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who leads the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, keeps reminding us, "Information is the oxygen of democracy." And with this administration's fetish for secrecy and our somnolent Fourth Estate, we would likely all suffocate without patriotic truth-tellers (AKA whistleblowers).

Whistleblowing and Vietnam

There are several times as many potential whistleblowers as there are actual ones. I regret that I never got out of the former category during the early stages of the Vietnam War, when I had a chance to try to stop it. I used to lunch periodically with my colleague Sam Adams, with whom I trained as a CIA analyst and who was given the task of assessing Vietnamese Communist strength early in the war. Sam proved himself the consummate analyst. Relying largely on captured documents, he concluded that there were twice as many Communists (about 600,000) under arms in the South as the U.S. military there would admit to.

Adams learned from Army analysts that Gen. William Westmoreland had placed an artificial cap on the official Army count rather than risk questions regarding the prospects for "staying the course" (sound familiar?). It was a clash of cultures, with Army intelligence analysts following politically dictated orders, and Sam Adams aghast. In a cable dated Aug. 20, 1967, Westmoreland's deputy, Gen. Creighton Abrams, set forth the rationale for the deception. The new, higher numbers, he said "were in sharp contrast to the current overall strength figure of about 299,000 given to the press." Noting that "We have been projecting an image of success over recent months," Abrams cautioned that if the higher figures became public, "all available caveats and explanations will not prevent the press from drawing an erroneous and gloomy conclusion."

When Sam's superiors decided to acquiesce in the Army's figures, Sam was livid. He told me the whole story over lunch, and I remember a long silence as each of us ruminated on what might be done. I recall thinking to myself, someone should take the Abrams cable down to the New York Times (at the time an independent newspaper). The only reason for the cable's "SECRET EYES ONLY" classification was to hide the deception.

I adduced a slew of reasons why I ought not to: a plum overseas assignment for which I was in the final stages of language training; a mortgage; the ethos of secrecy; and, not least, the analytic work (which was important, exciting work, and which Sam and I both thrived on). One can, I suppose, always find reasons for not sticking one's neck out. For the neck, after all, is a convenient connection between head and torso. But if there is nothing for which you would risk your neck, it has become your idol, and necks are not worthy of that. I much regret giving such worship to my own neck.

As for Sam, he chose to go through grievance channels and got the royal run-around, even after the Communist countrywide offensive at Tet in January-February 1968 proved beyond any doubt that his count of Communist forces was correct. When the offensive began, as a way of keeping his sanity, Adams drafted a cable saying, "It is something of an anomaly to be taking so much punishment from Communist soldiers whose existence is not officially acknowledged." But he did not think the situation at all funny.

Dan Ellsberg Steps In

Sam kept playing by the rules, but it happened that – unbeknownst to Sam – Dan Ellsberg gave Sam's figures on enemy strength to the (then independent) New York Times, which published them on March 19, 1968. Dan had learned that President Lyndon Johnson was about to bow to Pentagon pressure to widen the war into Cambodia, Laos, and up to the Chinese border – perhaps even beyond. Later, it became clear that his timely leak – together with another unauthorized disclosure to the Times that the Pentagon had requested 206,000 more troops – prevented a wider war. On March 25, Johnson complained to a small gathering, "The leaks to the New York Times hurt us. … We have no support for the war. … I would have given Westy the 206,000 men."

Ironically, Sam himself played by the rules; that is, until he learned that Dan Ellsberg was on trial for releasing the Pentagon Papers and was being charged with endangering national security by revealing figures on enemy strength. Which figures? The same old faked numbers from 1967! "Imagine," said Adams, "hanging a man for leaking faked numbers," as he hustled off to testify on Dan's behalf.

Ellsberg, who copied and gave the Pentagon Papers – the 7,000-page top-secret history of U.S. decision-making on Vietnam – to the New York Times and Washington Post, has had difficulty shaking off the thought that, had he released them in 1964 or 1965, war might have been averted.

Like so many others, I put personal loyalty to the president above all else – above loyalty to the Constitution and above obligation to the law, to truth, to Americans, and to humankind. I was wrong.

And so was I, it now seems, in not asking Sam for that cable from Gen. Abrams. Sam, too, eventually had strong regrets. When the war drew down, he was tormented by the thought that, had he not let himself be diddled by the system, the left half of the Vietnam Memorial wall would not be there, for there would be no names to chisel into such a wall. Sam Adams died prematurely at age 55 with nagging remorse that he had not done enough.

In a letter appearing in the (then independent) New York Times on Oct. 18, 1975, John T. Moore, a CIA analyst who worked in Saigon and the Pentagon from 1965 to 1970, confirmed Adam's story after Sam told it in detail in the May 1975 issue of Harper's magazine:

"My only regret is that I did not have Sam's courage. … The record is clear. It speaks of misfeasance, nonfeasance and malfeasance, of outright dishonesty and professional cowardice. It reflects an intelligence community captured by an aging bureaucracy, which too often placed institutional self-interest or personal advancement before the national interest. It is a page of shame in the history of American intelligence."

Next Challenge: Iran

Anyone who has been near a TV in recent weeks has heard the drumbeat for war on Iran. The best guess for timing is next month.

Let's see if we cannot do better this time than we did on Iraq. Patriotic truth-tellers, we need you! In an interview last year with U.S. News and World Report, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said that on Iraq, "The White House is completely disconnected from reality. … It's like they're just making it up as they go along."

Ditto for an adventure against Iran. But the juggernaut has begun to roll; the White House/Fox News/Washington Times spin machine is at full tilt. This is where whistleblowers come in. Some of you will have the equivalent of the Gen. Abrams cable, shedding light on what the Bush administration is up to beneath the spin. Those of you clued into Israeli plans and U.S. intelligence support for them might clue us in too. Don't bother this time with the once-independent congressional oversight committees; you will have no protection, in any case, if you choose that route – CIA Director Porter Goss's recent claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Nor should you bother with the once-independent New York Times. Find some other way; just be sure you get the truth out – information that will provide the oxygen for democracy.

Better Late Than Never?

Don't wait until it's too late – like Dan Ellsberg and Sam Adams did on Vietnam. Any number of people would have had a good chance of stopping the Iraq war, had they the courage to disclose publicly what they knew BEFORE it was launched.

One of them, Paul Pillar, was national intelligence officer for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, and has just published an article in Foreign Affairs titled "Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq." It is an insider's account of his tenure and the "disturbing developments" he witnessed on the job. In substance, it tells us little more than what we have long since pieced together ourselves, but it provides welcome confirmation.

Sadly, Pillar speaks of the politicization of intelligence as though it were a bothersome headache rather than the debilitating cancer it is. Interviewed on NPR, he conceded without any evident embarrassment that, with respect to Iraq, "intelligence was not playing into a decision to be made. It was part of the effort to build support for the operation." So, in the vernacular of Watergate, Pillar's article is "modified limited hangout," in which he pulls many punches. Nowhere in Pillar's 4,450 words, for example, appears the name of former CIA director George Tenet, whom he now joins at Georgetown University.

It should qualify as another "disturbing development" that Pillar parrots the administration's default explanation for what drove its decision to topple Saddam: "namely, the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures in the Middle East and hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region." The word "oil" appears once in Pillar's article: "military bases" and "Israel" not at all. He splits hairs to be overly kind to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. "To be fair," writes Pillar, "Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN never explicitly asserted that there was a cooperative relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda." Pillar seem to have forgotten how Powell used that speech to play up "the potentially more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder," and spoke of a "Saddam-bin Laden understanding going back to the early and mid-1990s."

Truly Disturbing

Generally absent is any sense of the enormity of what the Bush administration has done and the urgent imperative to prevent a repeat performance. With no perceptible demurral from inside the government, George W. Bush launched a war of aggression, defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal as "the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" – like torture, for example.

If this doesn't qualify for whistleblowing, what does? Let us hope that administration officials, or analysts – or both – will find the courage to speak out loudly, and early enough to prevent the "disconnected-from-reality" cabal in the Bush administration from getting us into an unnecessary war with Iran.

This article originally appeared on Truthout.com.

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/154...id=154&nid=3758

ATTACKING IRAN WILL PUT THE US AT RISK AS NEVER BEFORE

Monday, February 13, 2006


Word that Iran has plans to retaliate abroad with secret commando units should give pause to the neo-con hotheads in the Bush administration who are slavering for war against the Middle East's most formidable military power.

The fantasy prevailing in the White House and the Pentagon (and among some pandering Democrats in Congress) is that the U.S. can cripple Iran's nascent nuclear weapons development program by aerial bombardment of its enrichment facilities and scientific centers, and that this can be done at little cost or risk to the U.S.

In fact, the doctrine of legitimate response to attack gives Iran a wide range of responses to any attack, which should make Americans very leery about playing such games.

If the U.S. were to bomb an Iranian nuclear power facility, Iran would have the legal right to do the same to vulnerable American nuclear facilities. And while the U.S. might do its attacking with B-52 bombers, stealth aircraft or missiles, Iran could accomplish the same thing with trained commando units. Furthermore, under the international laws of war, if the commandos wore uniforms during their assault on U.S. facilities, they would have to be considered legitimate soldiers fighting for their country. The president would not be able to simply call them enemy combatants and order their fingernails ripped out.

Nor would he be able to accuse them of war crimes for spewing nuclear fallout across vast stretches of the United States, if our own attack on Iranian nuclear facilities did the same thing there.

Well, let me correct that. This president has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't give a rat’s ass about international law, so he could declare captured Iranian commandos terrorists, deny them POW status, and start the torture he is so fond of, but he'd only make more enemies by so blatantly flaunting international law.

Meanwhile, Iran would not be limited to attacking U.S. nuclear facilities. If the U.S. were to attack Iranian territory, it would be as much an act of war as was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and it would enable Iran to respond in kind against any legitimate U.S. target, which could include U.S. shipping (including the targeting of oil tankers in the Persian Gulf bound for the U.S. or for U.S. allies), port facilities, transport centers like airports and rail stations, factories, oil storage facilities, chemical plants, etc. Civilian casualties? Well, as the Pentagon is wont to say, those are just unfortunate side effects—collateral damage, you might say. Iran could also turn the U.S. occupation force in Iraq into sitting ducks for attack by its allies, the Shiites in Iraq, whose forces already demonstrated their courage and capabilities in an earlier uprising against U.S. forces early in the occupation. This time, they'd have overt Iranian assistance and weapons.

During the days leading up to the Iraq war, the same warning was made about Iraq, but clearly, the Iraqi government, hobbled by years of sanctions, and massively unpopular at home, was in no position to mount such a counterstrike campaign against the U.S. The whole White House story about Iraq’s posing a threat to America was a big lie. But Iran is another story. Not only does it have a battle-tested army of some 800,000 people, and plenty of arms and money, thanks to its being the second largest oil exporter in the world. It also has a democratically elected government that--whether we like it or not-- has the support of a large segment of the population.

Add to that the fact of Iranian nationalism. Where Iraq is basically a hodgepodge of tribes and ethnicities cobbled together by British colonial rulers and then held together by the use of state terror and brute force, Iran is an ancient civilization and culture with an intense sense of national pride and identity. Attack Iran, and the U.S. will instantly galvanize most Iranians--even those who may despise the current theocratic leadership--into blood enemies of America.

That is the kind of enemy that can successfully mount covert campaigns against this country.

Surely no one wants to see yet another country in an unstable region acquiring nuclear weapons, but the solution is not the Bush default of war, which Iraq and Afghanistan have shown us tends to follow the law of unintended consequences.

This is an administration of chickenhawk policymakers and leaders who have never met a war they didn’t weasel their way out of, and who seem to be trying to compensate for their youthful cowardice and lack of patriotism by displays of wanton violance and aggression. If they aren't stopped, they could well be responsible for losing a few more American cities by the time Bush's second term mercifully ends.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/salon005.html



Out-hawking Bush on Iran
Saber-rattling Evan Bayh has joined Hillary Clinton in running to Bush's right on Iran. Will this tough stance pay off in 2008 -- or backfire?
By Walter Shapiro

Feb. 13, 2006 | Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh was well aware of just who was at a neighboring table in the Senate dining room last Thursday as he tried to explain why he advocates force as a last resort to halt the Iranian nuclear program. In the corner was John McCain, a hard-liner on Tehran who has taken the lead in stressing that "the military option cannot be taken off the table."

Both senators are probable presidential contenders (McCain the favorite in the Republican winter book and Bayh one of several centrist Democrats vying to become the pragmatic alternative to Hillary Clinton). And it does not take much of a leap to imagine Bayh and McCain sounding similar refrains in the New Hampshire primary as Iran replaces Iraq as the dominant foreign-policy issue of the 2008 campaign.

McCain's no-nukes-nohow position flows naturally from his promise of "rogue-state rollback" in his 2000 race for the White House. But Bayh's stance symbolizes something simultaneously politically intriguing and potentially dangerous for the out-of-power party. For suddenly the Democrats see in Tehran's ill-concealed quest for nuclear weapons an issue that allows them to boast, "I ran to Bush's right on national security."

As we talked about Iran over lunch, Bayh took pains to underscore his "awareness that the use of force is not a panacea and there will be adverse consequences to that as well." But the two-term senator and former governor also stressed, "We're talking about nuclear weapons in the hands of a state that aids and abets terrorism, with an apocalyptic and unstable leader who is also deeply hostile to us." Bayh may have been picturing what it might be like to sit in the Oval Office weighing conflicting recommendations about how to forestall a nuclear-armed ayatollah when he said with a sigh, "It's going to be a tough one."

Bayh may be a bit more open than other Democrats about discussing the implications of militarily confronting Iran, but he is far from alone in his get-tough stance. The always-square-in-the-middle-of-the-road Sen. Clinton declared in a foreign-policy address at Princeton last month, "We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran -- that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons." It is easy to draw such lines in the dust three years before any Democratic president would be forced to act on them, but there is also a risk that such threats may ultimately sound as hollow as demanding Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

Just as Iraq was always a neoconservative obsession, Democrats can easily get caught up in an I-told-you-so single-mindedness about Iran. Even early Iraq war critics like Howard Dean always took pains to ridicule the president for ignoring the threat from the other two charter members of the Axis of Evil. With the administration only now belatedly remembering that Iraq is not the only four-letter-word country in the region -- and still looking to, yes, Old Europe for leadership on the nuclear issue -- it is easy for Democrats to ridicule the spineless diplomacy of Condi Rice.

Democrats like Bayh can find support for their unyielding approach to Tehran from some foreign-policy veterans in the party. Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national security advisor, told me in an interview, "There are a lot of downsides to force, but you can't eliminate it as an option because we can't tolerate a nuclear Iran." Tipping his hat to Bayh, Berger said, "I think this is a situation where Evan's hawkishness serves him well."

At a time when former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner is winning the new-face-in-town buzz as a presidential prospect, Bayh advanced himself in the 2008 mix with a Feb. 2 appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Normally, a Democratic senator giving a luncheon global-affairs address at a D.C. think tank is an opportunity for graduate research into adult sleep patterns. But Bayh pulled off a feat as unlikely as C-Span sponsoring a wet T-shirt contest by delivering a foreign-policy talk that people other than Senate staffers actually noticed. It was here that Bayh attracted attention by demanding U.N. economic and political sanctions against Iran -- and pointedly adding, "If its nuclear activities persist, there will be consequences beyond that, including the use of force."

Bayh is a moderate in both ideology and style, but something about this Feb. 2 speech caught the wave. Maybe it was Bayh's in-your-face challenge to Karl Rove's claim that the Democrats were weak on national security or the senator's muscular language -- "This administration has undermined the nation's security and bungled the war on terror." The New York Times highlighted Bayh's critique in its monthly installment of that journalistic evergreen: Whither the Democrats? Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who circulated excerpts to all his Democratic colleagues, went out of his way to praise Bayh's speech last Friday in a meeting with left-liberal reporters.

There is an understandable hunger in the Democratic Party for a national-security issue that makes the Bush administration look like incompetent wimps. Small wonder that Berger views Iran as that rare situation "where good policy and good politics converge." But, in truth, there is also the awkward reality that threatening military action against Iran only works if Tehran believes the bluster. As Ivo Daalder, a Clinton national security staffer now at the Brookings Institution, put it, "I'm a pretty hawkish person, but I don't think there is a military option with Iran."

Sen. Joe Biden, another potential Democratic presidential candidate, made a similar point about the limits of "military action" in an NPR interview last week. These days it is near heresy for any Democrat with national ambitions to applaud any aspect of Bush foreign policy. But Biden bravely abandoned the easy political road by also praising (yes, praising) the administration for recently switching to "the correct policy with regard to Iran," which is a patient effort through diplomacy to develop an international consensus in favor of sanctions.

Ray Takeyh, an Iran policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, is skeptical about both military action and easy rhetoric that threatens it. As Takeyh points out, the Democrats have erred tragically in the past by trying to out-hawk the Republicans. "You're replaying the JFK card," he said. "In 1960, Kennedy tried to get to Nixon's right on Cuba. The problem is that once Kennedy became president, he was locked into the Bay of Pigs invasion."

Bayh, Clinton and the other all-options-on-the-table Democrats have not yet Krazy-glued themselves into any precipitous course such as, say, threatening airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. But in the 33 months (yes, we are already counting down) to the 2008 election, there will be many tempting opportunities for national-security Democrats to ratchet up their guns-blazing rhetoric on Iran. But the last thing the Democrats need -- especially when so many of them proved so compliant for so long over Iraq -- is to give way to I-ran-amok posturing in their quest for the White House.

-- By Walter Shapiro

.



Copyright 2006 Salon Media Group, Inc

Iran crosses 'red line' in nuclear stand-off:

Iran has started to inject uranium feedstock gas into centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear facility, crossing an internationally agreed "red line" on the path to producing the material for atomic weapons.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-2038502,00.html

===
Iran says enrichment-related nuclear activity resumed :

"But this does not mean a full scale as technically it is impossible at this phase to inject uranium into the 60,000 centrifuges in Natanz," Vaeidi said, referring to press reports that the full enrichment process had already started.
http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=9781

===
Iran sets new date for atomic talks with Russia:

ran announced on Tuesday it was deferring until next week talks with Russia on its nuclear plans, but gave no sign it was ready to stop enriching uranium on its own soil -- the key element in Moscow's plan.
http://tinyurl.com/9ak6a

===
Iran can progress despite enemies, president says :

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to USA TODAY's Barbara Slavin in an interview that touched on U.S.-Iranian relations, the Holocaust and Iran's nuclear aspirations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11908.htm

===
Iran: The Media Fall Into Line:

Western journalists are once again falling obediently into line as the British and American governments begin the long, arduous process of demonising another oil-rich target.
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060209_iran_the_media.php

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...13-102116-4827r


Corridors of Power: Iran's conflicting signals
By Roland Flamini
UPI Chief International Correspondent
Published February 13, 2006


WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has never been able to buttress its warnings of Iran's nuclear ambitions with an accurate assessment of how close to their goal the Iranians really are, and recent remarks by two senior officials shed little light on that key question. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph, considered a leading defense hawk, came closer than anyone before to saying that Iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.

"I would say that Iran does have the capability to develop nuclear weapons and the delivery means for those weapons," Joseph said. "We have watched Iran proceed step by step, conversion to enrichment-related activities, in a way that demonstrated very clearly that they are moving forward to a nuclear weapons capability."


But on his first appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee as director of National Intelligence last week, John Negroponte was more circumspect. "Tehran probably does not have a nuclear weapon and has not yet produced or acquired the necessary fissile material," he said. However, he went on, "the danger that it will acquire a nuclear weapon, and the ability to integrate it with the ballistic missiles Iran already possesses, is a reason for immediate concern."

The concern was heightened Monday when (a) there were reports that the Iranians had resumed some uranium enrichment work at the Natanz plant in defiance of the recent call by the International Atomic Energy Agency to freeze its nuclear program; and ( Tehran postponed a meeting in Moscow to discuss a Russian compromise proposal whereby Iran's nuclear fuel would be produced in Russia which would ensure closer control on its use. The reports of Iran picking up where it left off three years ago when Tehran voluntarily halted nuclear development during talks with three European Union governments quoted diplomats in Vienna, Austria, where the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, has its headquarters.

But an IAEA spokesperson told United Press International: "We're not in a position at this point to confirm whether the Iranians have begun the enrichment process, but we will have inspectors there soon."

As for the Moscow meeting, which had been scheduled for Thursday, Iranian and Russian sources both said that although it was postponed, the Iranians have not rejected the Russian offer. Talks could be restarted "by mutual agreement," according to a spokesman in Tehran, Gholamhossein Elham.

IAEA sources said Natanz is a pilot scheme monitored by IAEA inspectors, and although capable of processing uranium hexofluoride gas into enriched uranium would not turn out enough for weapons manufacture. Even so, the IAEA resolution of Feb. 4 called on Iran to "re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities" and the Iranians seemed Monday to have done the opposite. Iran has until early March to pull back from the brink, when the IAEA governing council convenes to hear Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's report on the situation before he forwards it to the U.N. Security Council.

Iran has been under threat of U.N. action since September when the IAEA found it was not complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States and the European Union are concerned that Iran's nuclear program is a front for developing nuclear weapons: the Iranians insist that what they are after is civil nuclear power.

But Iran has sent conflicting signals about its intentions, making it hard to determine what it really wants, and where it is going. On Saturday, typically, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened Iran's withdrawal from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty because the international community refused to recognize his country's right to develop a nuclear program. "There is no reason to continue our current nuclear policy while we are deprived of the positive aspects of the treaty," he said. But on Sunday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki expressed his support for the NPT, indirectly contradicting his president.

The United States agreed to holding off sending the report to the Security Council until March instead of immediately after the earlier governors' meeting on Feb. 4 in order to win more member support for transferring the issue to the United Nations, according to Washington diplomatic sources. The ostensible argument for postponement was to give the Iranians more time to contemplate the consequences of their intentions. But another possible ploy for keeping the issue out of the Security Council in February was the fact that Washington's Representative to the United Nations, John Bolton, who holds tough views on how to deal with Iran's intransigence, is this month's council president, a post that rotates among the 15 members. In March, the presidency passes to the ambassador from Argentina -- and hopefully less danger of a confrontational outcome.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b43b6ff2-9d61-11d...00779e2340.html

Russia-Iran nuclear talks back on
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: February 14 2006 13:57 | Last updated: February 14 2006 14:40

Iran confirmed on Tuesday it had resumed uranium enrichment but agreed to the resumption of talks with Russia aimed at defusing the international stand-off over its nuclear programme.


Javad Vaeedi, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said the talks would take place on February 20. They aim to discuss proposals to enrich his country’s uranium in Russia to allay international concerns it might divert the material into weapons use.

In a joint statement release by the Kremlin during a visit by Dominique de Villepin, French prime minister, Russia and France called on Iran to stop work linked with nuclear fuel, urging Tehran to “fulfil the February resolution and the demands of the governing council of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the full cessation of all activities connected with enrichment and processing. ”

Separately, the European Union on Tuesday applauded Moscow’s initiative on the eve of talks with Russia in Vienna. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner, said Russia was “playing a constructive role in the search for a diplomatic solution”.

Though Tehran confirmed it had resumed uranium enrichment at its Natanz plant, it denied production was on an industrial scale.


Origins of the dispute
Click here

The enrichment, which is apparently being done in the plant’s research facilities, is not enough to make fuel for reactors or produce weapons, but it signals Iran’s determination to press ahead with its nuclear programme despite the February 4 decision of the IAEA to refer it to the UN security council.

Mr Vaeedi said Iran needed time “to have 60,000 centrifuges” – referring to the devices used to spin uranium hexafluoride gas into enriched uranium. But he added it had begun “the preliminary stage”.

The announcement by Mr Vaeedi on the Moscow talks seemed to contradict a government spokesman’s statement on Monday that they had been postponed indefinitely because of the “new situation”, a reference to Russia voting at the IAEA for Iran’s referral to the security council.


Iran’s nuclear programme
- Click here

Iranian officials have blown hot and cold on the Russian idea, which is incompatible with Tehran’s insistence that it enrich at home. Mr Vaeedi said Iran wanted a “formula to prove we will not divert uranium enriched on Iranian soil”.

Mohammed ElBaredei, the IAEA director general, is due to produce another report on Iran’s programme in early March.

While the US and the EU strongly back referral to the security council, which could impose sanctions, Russia and China are less keen.

Liu Jianchao, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman, on Tuesday reiterated China’s preference for “diplomatic efforts under the IAEA framework ..[and] … a solution through dialogue”.

Iran Downplays Nuclear Enrichment as International Concern Mounts
By Michael Bowman
Washington
14 February 2006
Voice of America


Iran confirms that it is enriching uranium, but insists that the process is going forward on a very small scale. Word of Iran's nuclear activities came as Russia, France and the United States called on Tehran to halt the program.

The head of Iran's nuclear program, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, says uranium enrichment at the country's Natanz facility south of Tehran is limited to research and involves just a few centrifuges. He says the program is not on an industrial scale, and that several months would be required to utilize all of the 164 centrifuges the country possesses.

Centrifuges are used to generate nuclear material that could either be used in reactors to generate energy, or to build atomic weapons.

But assurances from Tehran are not assuaging Western apprehensions. In a joint declaration in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called on Iran to halt all activities linked to uranium enrichment and to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Separately, Germany urged maintaining the cohesion of the international community with regards to Iran's nuclear ambitions, while China urged all sides to show restraint.

Iran has long insisted it only wants to provide for the energy needs of its growing population.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the international community cannot take Iran at its word. "It is an issue of trust. The regime in Iran has shown that it cannot be trusted. For two decades, it hid its activities from the international community. It did not follow its safeguard obligations. And the International Atomic Energy Agency spelled out very clearly what Iran needs to do. It also referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council. Now Iran has an opportunity to respond to what was passed by the [I.A.E.A.] board of governors," he said.

McClellan added that it is time for Iran to cooperate in good faith rather than play games with the international community.

At the U.S. Congress, Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said the United States must not be afraid to restrict access to the U.S. market for nations that refuse to take a tough stand against Iran's nuclear activities.

"Both Russia and China need international technological and management support to keep their activities going, not the least of which is access to the U.S. marketplace. And no international company is going to treat lightly exclusion from the U.S. market in exchange for a contract with the Iranian government."

The Senator said the United States must maintain a strong military and make a concerted push towards energy independence.

February 15, 2006
Rice Asks Congress for $75 Million for Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:23 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Congress on Wednesday for $75 million this year to build democracy in Iran, saying the U.S. must support Iranians who are seeking freedoms under what she called a radical regime.

The money, to be included in an emergency 2006 budget request the White House is expected to send to Congress as early as this week, will be used for radio and satellite television broadcasting and for programs to help Iranians study abroad.

''The United States wishes to reach out to the Iranian people and support their desire to realize their own freedom and to secure their own democratic and human rights. The Iranian people should know that the United States fully supports their aspirations for a freer, better future,'' Rice testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Over the past two years, Rice said, the State Department has invested more than $4 million in projects aimed at empowering Iranian citizens in their call for political and economic freedoms and in the current budget year will invest at least $10 million in such efforts. The $75 million is in addition to that money, which Congress already has approved.

Rice said the United States is working with non-governmental organizations to develop a support network for political dissidents and human rights activists while paying for programs that train labor activists and help protect them from the ''radical regime'' in Tehran.

The United States has not had diplomatic ties with Iran since the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and maintains broad economic sanctions against the Islamic regime. She said the State Department is working with the Treasury Department to ensure barriers are open that allows the United States to pay for scholarships and fellowships for Iranians.

''Through its aggressive and confrontational behavior, Iran is increasingly isolating itself from the international community,'' Rice said.

An Iranian official said Tuesday that his country has resumed small-scale enrichment of uranium, putting that nation on a path that others fear could be a step toward producing fuel for an atomic bomb. The U.S. and many European countries are maneuvering to bring Iran before the U.N. Security Council in hopes of pressuring Tehran into backing away from its nuclear program.

''They have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance of the international community,'' Rice said.

She declined to detail what sanctions the United States is pursuing, although she did acknowledge that the United States has analyzed the impact of oil sanctions on Iran.

Whatever the result, Rice said, the international community must be united in a punishment that sends a strong message to the Iranian regime without hurting the Iranian people. ''You will see us trying to walk a fine line in actions we take,'' Rice said.

In addition to Iran, senators were expected to pepper Rice with questions on a host of international issues, many of which have arisen since she last appeared before Congress in October. Those include an impending takeover of the Palestinian government by Hamas, an Islamic group that won a decisive majority in Palestinian legislative elections last month.

''We will continue to insist that the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace,'' Rice said.

On Tuesday, United States and Israeli officials denied reports that they were plotting ways to topple the militant group's incoming government unless it renounces its violent ideology and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

Also on the agenda during the hearing was the political and economic situation in Iraq.

In Iraq, the fledgling democracy's leading Shiite bloc has chosen Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to serve another term and lead the country's new government. The U.S. wants al-Jaafari to form a national unity government with Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, hoping that will rein in the violence that has raged since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003.

Although lawmakers acknowledge progress politically in Iraq, some express frustration over what they say is the administration's lack of adequate action on repairing Iraq's oil production infrastructure and fully restoring its water and electrical power.

Rice was to appear before the committee on Tuesday, but the session was postponed a day because of Senate floor votes.

------

Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti in Washington contributed to this story from Washington

^------

On the Net:

Department of State: http://www.state.gov



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Voice of America News


Rice Says US Will Confront Aggressive Iranian Policies
By David Gollust
State Department
15 February 2006

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told senators Wednesday the United States will actively confront what she said are the aggressive policies of the Iranian government. At the same time, she called for sharply increased U.S. spending to try to promote political freedom in that country.


Condoleezza Rice discusses US foreign policy priorities before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Feb. 15, 2006
Secretary Rice says the Bush administration will ask Congress for $75 million in supplemental money this year to increase U.S. broadcasting to Iran and other pro-democracy programs, to counter what are described here as the radical policies of the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the secretary said Iranian activities including its nuclear program, support for regional terrorists, influence in Iraq and close ties to Syria pose what is probably the United States' biggest strategic challenge.

She said the trend is alarming not only to the United States and Europe, but also to key allies in the Middle East and will be a key issue in a trip she makes next week to the region, with stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

"No one wants to see a Middle East that is dominated by an Iranian hegemon, particularly one that has acquired nuclear weapons technology," she said. "And in fact, the face of Iran now, President Ahmadinejad, has crystallized the concern of the international community about Iran, because he speaks in blunter ways about Iranian ambitions than did prior Iranian governments."

On the nuclear issue, Secretary Rice said the latest Iranian steps to restart uranium enrichment and reprocessing activity have crossed a point to where Tehran is now in open defiance of the international community.

She said the decisions of Russia, China and India earlier this month to support referral of the matter of the U.N. Security Council amount to a major diplomatic breakthrough.

She said Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns will try to further build a consensus for Security Council action at a Moscow meeting next week of political directors of the G-8 industrial powers.

Under questioning from senators, Rice would not be specific about potential punitive measures against Iran in the council, but said they would have to balance punishment of the Tehran government with concern for global economic stability and the interests of everyday Iranians.

"The international community is going to have to act and act decisively if Iran is to know that there's a consequence for their open defiance of the international community," she said. "And so we are working on precisely that. We want to do things that are at least in the first instance, we want to look at the effect on the international community as a whole of any actions that we take, economies and the like. But we also want to try and not hurt the Iranian people. And so I think you will se us trying to walk a fine line in what actions we take."

The administration's $75 million request for promoting Iranian democracy and human rights would be a huge increase over the $10 million already approved for the current fiscal year.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters here said the funds would go mainly to increase satellite television broadcasting to Iran by the U.S. government and private Iranian-American groups, and broadcasts of the U.S.-funded Radio Farda.

There would also be money for grants to non-governmental organizations for democracy-promotion activities in Iran, and increased opportunities for Iranian students to study in the United States.

The secretary lamented in her Senate testimony that the number of Iranians enrolled in U.S. schools had plummeted from 200,000 in the 1970s to only about 2,000 today.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle....AR-IRAN-USA.xml

Iran owns China, Russia UN votes - US senator
Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:53 PM ET



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia and China have too much riding on commercial relations with Iran to help the West in curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, a U.S. senator said on Tuesday, calling for tough measures with Moscow and Beijing.

"The two countries that are sending the wrong signals today are Russia and China," said Kansas Republican Sam Brownback.

"Part of the problem is Iran ... has effectively bought U.N. Security Council vetoes from China and, very likely, Russia," Brownback, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Experts at a symposium at the conservative think tank said Moscow is a major arms supplier to Iran, while Beijing has struck energy deals worth as much as $100 billion with Tehran.

Both of those large powers have also embraced Iran as part of a strategic policy of blunting U.S. influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, the experts said.

"I don't think China and Russia are going to make serious efforts to stop Iran or North Korea," said Stephen Blank, a China expert at the U.S. Army War College.

Brownback said that to pressure countries that support Iran, Washington should initiate a campaign of sanctions modeled on a 1980s campaign targeting companies that helped the Soviet Union build a pipeline to Western Europe.

"Like the former Soviet Union, both Russia and China need international technological and managerial support to keep their activities going," said Brownback.

"No international company is going to treat lightly exclusion from the U.S. market in exchange for contracts with the Iranian government," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iran resumed feeding uranium gas into centrifuges for nuclear-fuel enrichment after a break of 2-1/2 years and announced it was deferring until next week talks on a Russian proposal to defuse the nuclear standoff.

The West suspects Tehran of trying to develop atomic bombs under cover of a civilian program and persuaded the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board last week to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible action, which could include sanctions.

Iran says its nuclear work is designed solely to generate electricity for its economy.



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

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3216252,00.html

Report: Iran ready to use missiles, terror

American intelligence assessments warn Iran will launch long-range missiles, initiate global terror wave in case of attack on its nuclear facilities
Yitzhak Benhorin

Iran is prepared to launch long-range missiles and initiate a global terror wave using secret commando units in response to an American or Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, the Boston Globe reported based on U.S. intelligence assessments.

Iran Threat

Study: Thousands would die in Iran strike / Reuters

Report by independent Oxford Research Group says bombing of Iran by U.S. forces, or Israel, would have to be part of a surprise attack on a range of facilities including urban areas that would catch many Iranians unprotected

According to the newspaper, both Israel and the United States do not discount he possibility of a military operation that would sabotage the Iranian nuclear effort should diplomacy fail, but experts warn the Iranian regime could respond in kind by launching strikes in the Middle East or even in America.

American intelligence chief John Negroponte recently presented before Congress an assessment warning Iran could initiate a large-scale confrontation if attacked. The CIA reached the conclusion Iran is gradually boosting its military capabilities, including threats on shipping lanes.

Hizbullah danger

However, the most severe threat possessed by Iran comes in the form of non-conventional weapons, including long-range Shahab 3 missiles, which are capable of carrying chemical warheads. Currently, Iran is also developing new missiles with an even longer range.

In 2001, Iran also purchased at least twelve X-55 cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching as far as Italy. The Boston Globe says Iran has at least 20 missile launchers that are constantly being moved around the country in order to prevent detection.

Meanwhile, Negroponte warned Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces are present in Iraq and could initiate a revolution there through guerilla warfare, with the assistance of the country's Shiite majority.

According to intelligence reports, Iran may also make use of Hizbullah in order to carry out attacks against American interests worldwide, including in the U.S.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgere.../printstory.jsp

Russia warns U.S. against striking Iran

VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press

MOSCOW - Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.

With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.

"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the use of force against Iran."

"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev, meanwhile, said that cooperation with China could help push Iran toward accepting Moscow's offer to host Iran's uranium enrichment program.

The Russian proposal has become a centerpiece of international efforts to defuse tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"We are counting on the continuation of close contacts with our Chinese colleagues and other interested countries," Alekseyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. He added, however, that the Iranian nuclear issue recently had become "sharper," and "it is too early to assess the effectiveness of our joint steps to resolve it."

Iran's ambassador to Moscow said Thursday that Tehran hoped Russia would be able to help resolve the international crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.

"Taking into account the good relations between Russia and Iran, I hope that together we can overcome this crisis which has arisen recently," Gholamreza Ansari said at a meeting with Russian lawmakers.

Ansari confirmed that a delegation is expected to travel to Moscow on Monday to discuss the proposal. He would not say who will lead it, but the Interfax news agency quoted Vyacheslav Moshkalo, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Tehran, as saying that the team will be headed by Javad Vaeidi, Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said after his discussions with the ambassador that he was satisfied that the Iranians would be coming in good faith.

"Iran understands the seriousness of the situation and is ready to continue discussions between experts to reach a compromise on the Russian proposal," he said. He said he had received assurances that "the delegation is getting ready for talks and will have all the necessary authority for conducting negotiations."

Kosachev also sharply criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks in which he called for Israel's destruction and questioned whether the Holocaust occurred.

"Such statements don't help strengthen Iran's international prestige," he said with Ansari standing at his side.

A Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the strong international consensus developed so far, including Russia, "is probably the strongest instrument we have going right now in trying to influence Iranian behavior."

Moscow is deeply concerned about the current Iranian regime's prospects for acquiring nuclear weapons, not only because Russia is geographically located close to Iran, but also because of the impact that could have on other Middle East players' nuclear aspirations, including Saudi Arabia's, the diplomat said.

The diplomat also noted that by aspiring to a central role in resolving the Iran crisis, Russia wanted to show that it could use the contacts it has built up over the years - including direct communications with the Iranians - to advance the concerns of the international community.

The next war?

by Geov Parrish

02.15.06



In the last four and a half years since 9-11, critics of the Bush Administration's aggressive foreign policy have been playing defense. The invasion of Afghanistan, overthrow of the Taliban, and subsequent near-abandonment of that country to its vicious warlords and drug barons (generally the same people) have been all but ignored. We're approaching the third anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion that we now incontrovertibly know was sold with egregious lies and planned and executed with stunning incompetence. Even after three years of ever-escalating anti-American and inter-religious violence in Iraq, the White House is as divorced from reality in its public pronouncements as ever, and the domestic so-called opposition is as ineffectual as ever. Meanwhile, a host of other War on Terror failures -- from the appalling escape of Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora to the U.S.-fueled rise of Islamist parties in elections across the Middle East to 9-11 itself -- mark the Bush administration as perhaps the most incompetent managers of American (let alone global) security interests in modern history. What more could go wrong?

Plenty. Brace yourself for a big new war. And start working to prevent it.

As incomprehensible as it might seem to most Americans in the wake of its Iraq failures, the Bush cabal is pushing full speed ahead for a military attack on Iran, perhaps as soon as next month. For the last year, it has been diligently laying the groundwork, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to use the International Atomic Energy Agency as a bully pulpit to portray Iran as a country intent on illegally developing nuclear weapons. The IAEA hasn't bought it thus far, due mostly to a notable lack of evidence, but the campaign has done two things: it has enraged and emboldened Iran's hardliner cleric leadership, and it has planted the idea of Iran as an "axis of evil" rogue state firmly in the mind of the American public, the only audience in the world the Bushies really care about.

Even so, the IAEA/nuclear Iran rumblings have been background noise to most Americans, noise lost in a year of White House scandals and disasters. There has been no real groundswell of support for an attack on Iran -- but there has also been no serious opposition so far. The topic simply isn't on most Americans' radar. But it is very clearly on Bush's.

Domestically, we already know -- because Karl Rove told us -- that Republicans plan to make fear, terror, and national security the lynchpin of their midterm electoral strategy this year. It's hard to imagine their doing so with the thin, familiar gruel of Iraq's failures and a year-old NSA spying scandal. To make such a strategy work, Republicans will need a good, fresh example of their supposed stalwartness in the face of criticism. Like an attack on Iran.

Internationally, the Bush White House would like nothing better than to behead the rising Islamist tide that has swept through recent elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and, most explosively, now Palestine. The radical clerics in Tehran are not only the spiritual fathers to this revolution, but are directly tied to the new Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and to the Palestinian resistance; Washington wants regime change in Iran. It preferably wants regime change before Tehran follows through on its threat to convert the currency in which it sells its oil from dollars to euros -- a precedent-setting move that could have dire global consequences for the dollar as the international currency of choice, and, hence, ugly long-term consequences for the debt- and trade-deficit-riddled American economy. Fortunately for Bush, the case for military action need not involve such inconvenient truths. Even after the embarrassment of Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, to the Bush White House Iran's alleged nuclear program provides an ideal excuse for intervention.

At least initially, few expect the U.S. to launch an actual invasion of Iran. Much more likely is a strike by some combination of U.S. and Israeli forces, using U.S. intelligence, on some 40 sites identified as key to Iran's developing nuclear energy (and possibly weapons) program. Such a strike wouldn't be easy; the sites are widely scattered, often deeply buried, well-defended, and most are located in densely populated areas. Iranians learned from the Israeli strike on Iraq's developing nuclear program in 1981. There is thus talk of the use of American "bunker-busting" bombs, hundreds of which were provided recently to Israel.

Any attack on Iranian facilities would surely be answered, and probably escalated. And if war escalates, there is another prize: Iran's massive oil reserves, 90 percent of which are massed in one province along an Iraqi border crawling with U.S. troops.

The problem, of course, is that Iran is no Iraq, with a hated regime, crippled by decades of war, bombings, no-fly zones, and economic sanctions. The Tehran regime, for all its religious oppressiveness and rhetorical belligerence, has popular support, especially in the face of American (or Israeli) aggression. The savage American-installed Shah dictatorship (which was overthrown by the revolution in 1978) is still remembered and despised. Iran is a much larger, more populous, and more prosperous country. Its military is well-equipped; invaders cannot roam the skies unchallenged. Any attack on Iran would have even less international "coalition of the willing" support than the invasion of Iraq did. And Iran has links with terror groups around the world happy to target U.S. facilities.

Most importantly, Iran shares borders with both Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as it would be easy for American troops to cross from neighboring countries into Iran during any hostilities, Iranian and pro-Iranian forces could easily make U.S. forces' lives hell in the already-tenuous situations of the two countries.

In other words, what Bush is playing with -- practically unnoticed by the American public -- is a conflagration that could involve Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and the entire Middle East, and perhaps beyond. It has the potential to dwarf (on all sides) the body count thus far in Afghanistan and Iraq; inspire further generations of terrorism and anti-Ameican jihadism; severely damage the American economy; and decimate an American military already stretched thin and reeling from a badly mismanaged, relatively low-intensity insurgency in Iraq.

Why risk it? Stopping Islamism, oil, short-term domestic politics, and Iranian regime change, in that order. With their PNAC dreams of remaking the Middle East, it just might be too much of a honey pot for Bush's hawkish neo-cons to resist. The only minor complication is that such an imbroglio is not only by definition unwinnable, but is likely to be disastrous -- to the point where it could end America's status as a global superpower. (Which might well be a good thing, but for the horrific loss of mostly civilian life it would entail.)

How can such an outcome be prevented? The most likely scenario has nothing to do with political opposition at all -- it has to do with the willingness of Asian countries that covet Iranian oil, especially China, to countenance another U.S. military adventure. The U.S. is now so badly in debt to countries like China, Japan, and South Korea that while a limited raid is simple enough, any massive new military expenditure would literally require the Asian countries to be writing the checks, and they're not about to do so for a war that threatens their own strategic interests. Bush may well be finding out the limits of a global empire erected on other people's money.

But that scenario relies on stopping hostilities from expanding. To prevent them entirely requires domestic popular opposition. For a country already palpably tired of the Iraq war and wanting troop reductions (if not total withdrawal) there, a military incursion leading to a broader regional conflict will be pure madness. The only way it can play out politically for Bush is if it unfolds in stages. If a "justifiable" U.S. attack on "nuclear weapon" facilities leads to Iranian retaliation (which we, in turn, just have to respond to), such a war might float. If the probability of a broader and disastrous war becomes an issue ahead of time, the question then becomes the advisability -- or foolishness -- of the original raid. And especially in an election year, such public perceptions just might derail the whole thing.

Iran needs to become a political issue. It seems like a tall order, given the lack of Democratic leadership on anti-war issues and the unending swamp of Bush administration scandals and cock-ups revealed on what is essentially a daily basis. But consider the consequences of not acting.

The Bush administration's hostility to negotiation and the possibility of its attack on Iran, and the likely result, must be widely publicized. Now. Before it's too late, and we're stuck with another deadly disaster America will regret for generations.


http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20367

Iran Was on Edge; Now It's on Top
--------------------

The war in Iraq has bolstered the regime's influence in the region and made it bolder.

By Megan K. Stack and Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writers

February 17 2006, 9:17 PM PST

BAGHDAD; The Islamic government in neighboring Iran watched with trepidation in March 2003 when U.S. troops stormed Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime and start remaking the political map of the Mideast.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8569

February 18, 2006
Not Another No-End-in-Sight War

by Gordon Prather
Last week, Representative Ron Paul (R, TX) pleaded with the House to not pass the House Concurrent Resolution entitled "Condemning the Government of Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council":

"Those reading this bill may find themselves feeling a sense of deja vu. In many cases one can just substitute 'Iraq' for 'Iran' in this bill and we could be back in the pre-2003 run up to war with Iraq.

And the logic of this current push for war is much the same as was the logic used in the argument for war on Iraq.

As earlier with Iraq, this resolution demands that Iran perform the impossible task of proving a negative – in this case that Iran does not have plans to build a nuclear weapon."

As Ron Paul notes, there are no violations of Iran’s "international nuclear nonproliferation obligations" for the House to condemn.

As a signatory to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since 1968, Iran has undertaken

"not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly;

not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and

not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

As of this writing, there is no evidence that Iran has violated any of these "undertakings."


Furthermore, Iran – as a non-nuclear-weapons party to the NPT – concluded in 1974 a Safeguards Agreement [.pdf] with the International Atomic Energy Agency "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

The IAEA Statute requires IAEA inspectors to report any observed non-compliance with Safeguards Agreements to the Director-General "who shall thereupon transmit the report to the Board of Governors".

The Board is then required to call upon the recipient State or States "to remedy forthwith any non-compliance which it finds to have occurred."

Until 2003 the Director-General apparently never had occasion to make such a report to the Board. However, in December, 2003, Iran signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, and although not required to do so, immediately began to adhere to it provisions.

The Additional Protocol allows for intrusive snap-inspections of Safeguarded sites, as well to inspect – upon presentation of cause – non-Safeguarded sites, import and export records of dual-use materials, technologies, equipment, etc.

Consequently, IAEA inspectors began to discover activities – some taking place as early as 1985 – that the IAEA contended should have been made subject to Iran’s original Safeguards Agreement.

Nevertheless, by December, 2004, the Director-General was able to report to the Board that Iran was now in compliance with its original Safeguards Agreement, that there were no un-safeguarded "source or special nuclear materials" in Iran and that none of those activities the IAEA contended should have been reported involved the use of source or special nuclear materials "in furtherance of any military purpose."

The IAEA Statue requires the Board to report non-compliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations.

Apparently, the Board has yet to make such a report about Iran.

Now, the NPT imposes certain requirements on the IAEA Board, too. In particular:

"The safeguards required by this article shall be implemented in a manner designed to … avoid hampering the economic or technological development of the Parties or international cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear activities, including the international exchange of nuclear material and equipment for the processing, use or production of nuclear material for peaceful purposes…"

In other words, the IAEA Board, itself, is violating Article IV of the NPT when it "deems it necessary" – as in did in its resolution of 6 February, 2006 – for Iran to

"re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development,"


"reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water" and


"implement transparency measures … which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include…access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, and certain military-owned workshops
So, if the House wants to condemn someone for "violating its international nonproliferation obligations," why not condemn the IAEA Board? That’s not likely to result in another no-end-in-sight war.

Published on Saturday, February 18, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

WWIII or Bust: Implications of a US Attack on Iran


by Heather Wokusch



"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous... Having said that, all options are on the table."
-- George W. Bush, February 2005
Witnessing the Bush administration’s drive for an attack on Iran is like being a passenger in a car with a raving drunk at the wheel. Reports of impending doom surfaced a year ago, but now it’s official: under orders from Vice President Cheney’s office, the Pentagon has developed “last resort” aerial-assault plans using long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles with both conventional and nuclear weapons.

How ironic that the Pentagon proposes using nuclear weapons on the pretext of protecting the world from nuclear weapons. Ironic also that Iran has complied with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing inspectors to “go anywhere and see anything,” yet those pushing for an attack, the USA and Israel, have not.

The nuclear threat from Iran is hardly urgent. As the Washington Post reported in August 2005, the latest consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies is that “Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years.” The Institute for Science and International Security estimated that while Iran could have a bomb by 2009 at the earliest, the US intelligence community assumed technical difficulties would cause “significantly delay.” The director of Middle East Studies at Brown University and a specialist in Middle Eastern energy economics both called the State Department’s claims of a proliferation threat from Iran’s Bushehr reactor “demonstrably false,” concluding that “the physical evidence for a nuclear weapons program in Iran simply does not exist.”

So there’s no urgency - just a bad case of déjà vu all over again. The Bush administration is recycling its hype over Hussein’s supposed WMD threat into rhetoric about Iran, but look where the charade got us last time: tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, a country teetering on civil war and increased global terrorism.

Yet the stakes in Iran are arguably much higher.

Consider that many in the US and Iran seek religious salvation through a Middle Eastern blowout. “End times” Christian fundamentalists believe a cataclysmic Armageddon will enable the Messiah to reappear and transport them to heaven, leaving behind Muslims and other non-believers to face plagues and violent death. Iran’s new Shia Islam president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, subscribes to a competing version of the messianic comeback, whereby the skies turn to flames and blood flows in a final showdown of good and evil. The Hidden Imam returns, bringing world peace by establishing Islam as the global religion.

Both the US and Iran have presidents who arguably see themselves as divinely chosen and who covet their own country’s apocalypse-seeking fundamentalist voters. And into this tinderbox Bush proposes bringing nuclear weapons.

As expected, the usual suspects press for a US attack on Iran. Neo-cons who brought us the “cakewalk” of Iraq want to bomb the country. There’s also Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, busy coordinating the action plan against Iran, who just released the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review calling for US forces to “operate around the globe” in an infinite “long war.” One can assume Rumsfeld wants to bomb a lot of countries.

There’s also Israel, keen that no other country in the region gains access to nuclear weapons. In late 2002, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran should be targeted “the day after” Iraq was subdued, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, recently warned that if he wins the presidential race in March 2006, Israel will “do what we did in the past against Saddam’s reactor,” an obvious reference to the 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. It doesn’t help that Iran’s Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a myth and said that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

In the eyes of the Bush administration, however, Iran’s worst transgression has less to do with nuclear ambitions or anti-Semitism than with the petro-euro oil bourse Tehran is slated to open in March 2006. Iran’s plan to allow oil trading in euros threatens to break the dollar’s monopoly as the global reserve currency, and since the greenback is severely overvalued due to huge trade deficits, the move could be devastating for the US economy.

So we remain pedal to the metal with Bush for an attack on Iran.

But what if the US does go ahead and launch an assault in the coming months? The Pentagon has already identified 450 strategic targets, some of which are underground and would require the use of nuclear weapons to destroy. What happens then?

You can bet that Iran would retaliate. Tehran promised a “crushing response” to any US or Israeli attack, and while the country – ironically - doesn’t possess nuclear weapons to scare off attackers, it does have other options. Iran boasts ground forces estimated at 800,000 personnel, as well as long-range missiles that could hit Israel and possibly even Europe. In addition, much of the world’s oil supply is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of ocean which Iran borders to the north. In 1997, Iran’s deputy foreign minister warned that the country might close off that shipping route if ever threatened, and it wouldn’t be difficult. Just a few missiles or gunboats could bring down vessels and block the Strait, thereby threatening the global oil supply and shooting energy prices into the stratosphere.

An attack on Iran would also inflame tensions in the Middle East, especially provoking the Shiite Muslim populations. Considering that Shiites largely run the governments of Iran and Iraq and are a potent force in Saudi Arabia, that doesn’t bode well for calm in the region. It would incite the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Iran’s, potentially sparking increased global terrorism. A Shiite rebellion in Iraq would further endanger US troops and push the country deeper into civil war.

Attacking Iran could also tip the scales towards a new geopolitical balance, one in which the US finds itself shut out by Russia, China, Iran, Muslim countries and the many others Bush has managed to piss off during his period in office. Just last month, Russia snubbed Washington by announcing it would go ahead and honor a $700 million contract to arm Iran with surface-to-air missiles, slated to guard Iran’s nuclear facilities. And after being burned when the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority invalidated Hussein-era oil deals, China has snapped up strategic energy contracts across the world, including in Latin America, Canada and Iran. It can be assumed that China will not sit idly by and watch Tehran fall to the Americans.

Russia and China have developed strong ties recently, both with each other and with Iran. Each possesses nuclear weapons, and arguably more threatening to the US, each holds large reserves of US dollars which can be dumped in favor of euros. Bush crosses them at his nation’s peril.

Yet another danger is that an attack on Iran could set off a global arms race - if the US flaunts the non-proliferation treaty and goes nuclear, there would be little incentive for other countries to abide by global disarmament agreements either. Besides, the Bush administration’s message to its enemies has been very clear: if you possess WMD you’re safe, and if you don’t, you’re fair game. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded, Iran doesn’t as well and risks attack, yet that other “Axis of Evil” country, North Korea, reportedly does have nuclear weapons and is left alone. It’s also hard to justify striking Iran over its allegedly developing a secret nuclear weapons program, when India and Pakistan (and presumably Israel) did the same thing and remain on good terms with Washington.

The most horrific impact of a US assault on Iran, of course, would be the potentially catastrophic number of casualties. The Oxford Research Group predicted that up to 10,000 people would die if the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, and that an attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor could send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf. If the US uses nuclear weapons, such as earth-penetrating “bunker buster” bombs, radioactive fallout would become even more disastrous.

Given what’s at stake, few allies, apart from Israel, can be expected to support a US attack on Iran. While Jacques Chirac has blustered about using his nukes defensively, it’s doubtful that France would join an unprovoked assault, and even loyal allies, such as the UK, prefer going through the UN Security Council.

Which means the wildcard is Turkey. The nation shares a border with Iran, and according to Noam Chomsky, is heavily supported by the domestic Israeli lobby in Washington, permitting 12% of the Israeli air and tank force to be stationed in its territory. Turkey’s crucial role in an attack on Iran explains why there’s been a spurt of high-level US visitors to Ankara lately, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director Porter Goss. In fact, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported in December 2005 that Goss had told the Turkish government it would be “informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened” and that Turkey had been given a "green light" to attack camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran “on the day in question.”

It’s intriguing that both Valerie Plame (the CIA agent whose identity was leaked to the media after her husband criticized the Bush administration’s pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq) and Sibel Edmonds (the former FBI translator who turned whistleblower) have been linked to exposing intelligence breaches relating to Turkey, including potential nuclear trafficking. And now both women are effectively silenced.

While the US public sees the issue of Iran as backburner, it has little eagerness for an attack on Iran at this time. A USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll from early February 2006 found that a full 86% of respondents favored either taking no action or using economic/diplomatic efforts towards Iran for now. Significantly, 69% said they were concerned “that the U.S. will be too quick to use military force in an attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.” And that begs the question: how can the US public be convinced to enter a potentially ugly and protracted war in Iran?

A domestic terrorist attack would do the trick. Just consider how long Congress went back and forth over reauthorizing Bush’s Patriot Act, but how quickly opposing senators capitulated following last week’s nerve-agent scare in a Senate building. The scare turned out to be a false alarm, but the Patriot Act got the support it needed.

Now consider the fact that former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi has said the Pentagon’s plans to attack Iran were drawn up “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States.” Writing in The American Conservative in August 2005, Giraldi added, “As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.”

Chew on that one a minute. The Pentagon’s plan should be used in response to a terrorist attack on the US, yet is not contingent upon Iran actually having been responsible. How outlandish is this scenario: another 9/11 hits the US, the administration says it has secret information implicating Iran, the US population demands retribution and bombs start dropping on Tehran.

That’s the worst-case scenario, but even the best case doesn’t look good. Let’s say the Bush administration chooses the UN Security Council over military power in dealing with Iran. That still leaves the proposed oil bourse, along with the economic fallout that will occur if OPEC countries snub the greenback in favor of petro-euros. At the very least, the dollar will drop and inflation could soar, so you’d think the administration would be busy tightening the nation’s collective belt. But no. The US trade deficit reached a record high of $725.8 billion in 2005, and Bush & Co.’s FY 2007 budget proposes increasing deficits by $192 billion over the next five years. The nation is hemorhaging roughly $7 billion a month on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is expected to hit its debt ceiling of $8.184 trillion next month.

So the white-knuckle ride to war continues, with the administration’s goals in Iran very clear. Recklessly naïve and impetuous perhaps, but clear: stop the petro-euro oil bourse, take over Khuzestan Province (which borders Iraq and has 90% of Iran’s oil) and secure the Straits of Hormuz in the process. As US politician Newt Gingrich recently put it, Iranians cannot be trusted with nuclear technology, and they also "cannot be trusted with their oil."

But the Bush administration cannot be trusted with foreign policy. Its military adventurism has already proven disastrous across the globe. It’s incumbent upon each of us to do whatever we can to stop this race towards war.


http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0218-28.htm

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB18Ak02.html
Ahmadinejad on the warpath
By Mahan Abedin

As the Iranian revolution enters its 28th year this month, the Islamic Republic stands at the most critical stage of its history. While power is being transferred to second-generation revolutionaries, the country is on a collision course with the United States over its controversial nuclear program.

At the center of this unfolding drama is the perplexing figure of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has managed to isolate,



enrage and frighten important domestic and external constituencies in the space of only six months.

Left to their own devices, Ahmadinejad and the second-generation revolutionaries who stand behind him are likely to change the Islamic Republic beyond recognition in the years ahead. But the complicating factor in all this is the increasing possibility of some form of military confrontation between Iran and the United States within two years. The key question is whether Ahmadinejad and his inner circle believe that military confrontation serves their long-term political and socio-economic agenda.

A controversial president
Ahmadinejad's first six months as president have had a mixed reaction. Domestically, he has tried to buttress his position among his core constituency, namely the urban poor and the lower classes who rallied around his calls for the revival of the Iranian revolution's egalitarian message.

While it is clearly too early to judge his performance as a champion of a more egalitarian society, it is important to point out that the Ahmadinejad government has not undertaken a single serious policy that would reverse the country's widening wealth gap. That said, there has been no let-up in the populist rhetoric and sloganeering that marked his election campaign.

Lack of progress on the economic and social-justice front notwithstanding, Ahmadinejad has introduced massive changes to the face and operations of the executive branch. Virtually all provincial governors have been replaced by Ahmadinejad loyalists, who tend to be young and hail from the Islamic Republic's security establishment, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC - or the Sepah-e-Pasdaran).

Moreover, Ahmadinejad has replaced most senior bankers and other important figures in charge of the country's finances. Furthermore, many of the country's most experienced diplomats have been recalled from abroad and replaced by less experienced figures, with backgrounds in the Sepah-e-Pasdaran and other security outfits.

At a superficial level it appears that the Ahmadinejad government is preparing for conflict and is reordering the entire machinery of government accordingly. But the changes introduced since August have a deeper meaning; they signify the coming of age of so-called "second-generation" revolutionaries who were propelled into a position of leadership by Ahmadinejad's surprise election victory last June.

The most important feature of the second-generation revolutionaries is that they developed their political consciousness in the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and not in the revolutionary struggle against the Pahlavi regime. While they are intensely loyal to the memory of the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (the leader of the Iranian revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic), the second-generation revolutionaries have tenuous ties (at best) to the conservative clerical establishment that controls the key centers of political and economic power.

Contrary to Western reporting, Ahmadinejad's performance has generated more controversy and ill-feeling within the corridors of power in Tehran than in the crucible of Western public opinion. Arguably, the most surprising development in the past six months is the extent of Ahmadinejad's independence and freedom of action.

Originally dismissed as the lackey of the clerical establishment, Ahmadinejad has proved time and again that the only agenda that drives him is his own. In the space of a few months the former IRGC commander has emerged as certainly the most independent and arguably the most powerful president in the republic's 27-year history. Even the Islamic Republic's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, does not seem to have any appreciable influence over Ahmadinejad and his inner circle.

While liberals and reformists are, broadly speaking, in opposition to the Ahmadinejad government, it is the conservative establishment that has emerged as the second-generation revolutionaries' most formidable adversary. This is not surprising, given that the latter aspire to reorder fundamentally the socio-economic system in the Islamic Republic, changes that would fatally weaken the conservatives.

The conservative establishment hoped to delay the coming of age of the second-generation revolutionaries by positioning Hashemi Rafsanjani in the presidency. But Rafsanjani lost to Ahmadinejad, and he has since played the part of a bad loser. Indeed, the most vociferous opposition to the changes of the past six months has been made by Rafsanjani in his unofficial capacity as the public head of the conservative establishment.

Consequences of war
While Iranian-US relations have reached an all-time low, it is important to note that not even the most committed anti-American elements in Iran see war as a foregone conclusion. Near-universal public support for the country's nuclear program notwithstanding, Iranians are acutely aware of the consequences of military confrontation with the US. Insofar as Iran's standing in the region and the wider world is concerned, the stakes could not be higher.

Reformists and conservatives alike are desperate to avoid war, for diametrically opposed reasons. For the former, aggression by the US would spell the end (at least for another generation) of the country's emerging grassroots democracy movement. Reformists fear that war would entrench the conservatives domestically and enable radical elements to seize control of the country's foreign policy and reverse the gains of the past 16 years. Ironically, conservatives fear war more than the reformists, even though they are confident of being entrenched politically, at least in the short term.

What the conservatives fear losing (as a result of war and its concomitant extreme international isolation) is their economic and commercial privileges. Contrary to Western reporting, the conservative establishment is not held together by ideology, but by vast (and impossibly complex) networks of patronage and economic/commercial monopolies. These networks thrive in a wider context of socio-economic stability; stability that would be blasted away by conflict and its repercussions.

The central question is how the second-generation revolutionaries led by Ahmadinejad view potential conflict with the US. The answer to this question lies in a better understanding of the second-generation revolutionaries' background, ideology and socio-economic agenda.

The key personalities in this vast network are former IRGC commanders; this includes Ahmadinejad and nearly all members of his inner circle. This military-ideological background is accentuated by a strong sense of Iranian nationalism and Shi'ite supremacism. Some influential second-generation revolutionaries (including Ahmadinejad himself) even harbor millenarian beliefs.

While they do not welcome conflict, they see it as an opportunity for a full-scale catharsis. To men like Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic is unconquerable; with its ability to project power well beyond its size and resources, rooted in its "undeterrable" nature.

On a more practical level, the second-generation revolutionaries may see conflict as an opportunity for entrenchment and a context-generator for their long-term socio-economic policies. They would certainly see it as an opportunity to reverse Westernization and bring Iran more in line with developments in the wider Muslim world (where anti-Western feelings proliferate and Islamic movements are increasingly on the rise).

While a US assault on Iran would probably engender all the above, it also runs the risk of unleashing dynamics that will elude the control of the Islamic Republic. First and foremost, conflict will almost certainly strengthen militant Islam in Iran, but of the kind that even the most hardline elements in the regime would not countenance.

There are already many small networks of Shi'ite extremists in the country, but they are kept in check by the country's stability and an effective security establishment. Any weakening of the state will enable these networks to widen and deepen their influence exponentially.

More worrying, conflict would significantly strengthen Sunni militancy on the country's fringes, particularly in the near-lawless Sistan va Balochistan province (bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan). A US assault on Iran would run the very real risk of enabling al-Qaeda to gain a foothold in the country.

While Ahmadinejad and his supporters are correct in their belief that war would not fatally undermine the Islamic Republic, it is not at all clear whether they have properly thought through the potential consequences.

At a time when the Americans are giving every indication of preparing for a long-term containment strategy over the controversial Iranian nuclear program (likely characterized by periodic bombings followed by long spells of tense standoff - eerily reminiscent of the containment strategy employed against Iraq from 1991-2003), Iranians of all political persuasions ought to be thinking of avoiding this scenario, at unacceptable costs if necessary.

Mahan Abedin is the editor of Terrorism Monitor, which is published by the Jamestown Foundation, a non-profit organization specializing in research and analysis on conflict and instability in Eurasia. The views expressed here are his own.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

Charley Reese : What Bush Is Up To :

I'm going to tell you what the real Bush administration policy is.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11986.htm

===
West may have to live with low-level Iranian atom work :

The crisis over Iran's atomic agenda is deepening, but the world's nuclear watchdog chief has warned there may be no choice but to accept limited uranium enrichment by Tehran, diplomats say.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11979.htm

===
In case you missed it:

Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb:

U.S. Intelligence Review Contrasts With Administration Statements
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11982.htm

===
Suicide Bombers Warn U.S., U.K. of Attacks :

An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.
http://tinyurl.com/pd2f9

===
World Jewish Congress launches anti-Iran campaign :

The World Jewish Congress has launched a campaign against Iran following the nuclear crisis and the anti-Semitic statements of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/681155.html

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=8576

February 20, 2006
A Sense of Déjà Vu
Anti-Iran legislation seems quite familiar
by Rep. Ron Paul
I rise in strong opposition to this very dangerous legislation. My colleagues would do well to understand that this legislation is leading us toward war against Iran.

Those reading this bill may find themselves feeling a sense of déjà vu . In many cases one can just substitute "Iraq" for "Iran" in this bill and we could be back in the pre-2003 run-up to war with Iraq. And the logic of this current push for war is much the same as the logic used in the argument for war on Iraq. As earlier with Iraq, this resolution demands that Iran perform the impossible task of proving a negative – in this case that Iran does not have plans to build a nuclear weapon.

There are a few things we need to remember when thinking about Iran and this legislation. First, Iran has never been ruled in violation of its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations.

Second, Iran concluded a Safeguards Agreement more than 30 years ago that provides for the verification of Iran's fulfillment of its obligation to not divert nuclear energy programs to nuclear weapons development. Since this agreement was reached, the International Atomic Energy Agency has never found any indication that Iran has diverted or attempted to divert source or special nuclear materials from a peaceful purpose to a military purpose.

But this does not stop those eager for conflict with Iran from stating otherwise. As the Washington Post reported last year, "U.S. officials, eager to move the Iran issue to the UN Security Council – which has the authority to impose sanctions – have begun a new round of briefings for allies designed to convince them that Iran's real intention is to use its energy program as a cover for bomb building. The briefings will focus on the White House's belief that a country with as much oil as Iran would not need an energy program on the scale it is planning, according to two officials."

This reminds us of the quick move to justify the invasion of Iraq by citing Iraq's "intentions" when actual weapons of mass destruction could not be found.

The resolution's second resolved clause is a real misrepresentation of the Iran/EU3 talks. The "efforts of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom" were not "to seek … suspension of enrichment and reprocessing related activities." As the EU3-Iran Paris Agreement makes very clear, the suspension of enrichment is a purely voluntary measure taken by Iran and is "not a legal obligation."

This is similar to the situation with Iran's voluntarily observation of the Additional Protocols (allowing unannounced inspections) without legally being bound to do so. Suspending voluntary observance of the Additional Protocols is not a violation of the NPT. But those seeking to push us toward war with Iran are purposely trying to connect the two – to confuse voluntary "confidence-building" measures taken by Iran with the legally binding Treaty itself.

Resolved clause four of this legislation is the most inflammatory and objectionable part of the legislation. It lowers the bar to initiating war on Iran. This clause anticipates that the U.S. may not be successful in getting the Security Council to pass a Resolution because of the potential of a Russian or Chinese veto, so it "calls upon" Russia and China to "take action" in response to "any report" of "Iran's noncompliance." That is right: any report.

This resolution is a drumbeat for war with Iran. Its logic is faulty, its premises are flawed, and its conclusions are dangerous. I urge my colleagues to stop for a moment and ponder the wisdom of starting yet another war in the Middle East.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8577

February 20, 2006
America and Iran:
At the Brink of the Abyss
We can stop a "preemptive" nuclear strike
by Jorge Hirsch
Whether the U.S. will use nuclear weapons against Iran if a military confrontation erupts is in the hands of a single person, President Bush, as stated in NSC 30 from 1948: "the decision as to the employment of atomic weapons in the event of war is to be made by the Chief Executive when he considers such decision to be required." Bush will certainly not ask Congress nor the public permission once hostilities start. Whether or not tactical nuclear weapons should be deployed and used against Iran is a matter that needs to be faced by America right now!

So are U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in the Persian Gulf, on hair-trigger alert, and ready to be launched against Iran at a moment's notice?

I posed the question in December, arguing that every other element needed for a nuclear strike on Iran was "deployed" and ready. On Feb. 3, 2006, an answer was kindly provided by the Chief of Naval Operations in the form of OPNAVINST 5721.1F [.pdf], which states:

"Military members and civilian employees of the Department of the Navy shall not reveal, purport to reveal, or cause to be revealed any information, rumor, or speculation with respect to the presence or absence of nuclear weapons or components on board any specific ship, station or aircraft, either on their own initiative or in response, direct or indirect, to any inquiry."

Oh well then, we don't know for sure, and there is no way to know. Really?

We do know. Because it would be inconsistent with every fiber of the current administration, and with all the circumstances surrounding the Iran scenario, if tactical nuclear weapons were not deployed in the Persian Gulf, following NSPD 35, on high alert and ready to be used in a confrontation with Iran. So we may safely assume they are deployed and they will be used, and make our choices accordingly. Once it happens, it cannot be undone.

The Impending Nuclear Attack

All the elements have been put in place carefully and methodically for the U.S. to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran in a way that will seem "acceptable" at first sight, as discussed in previous columns: the new nuclear doctrine, the nuclear hitmen, the weapons, the justification, the legal framework, and the public mindset. The IAEA resolution of Feb. 4 [.pdf] has paved a smooth road to confrontation, paralleling the events after the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of November 2002. The use of low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons will appear to be a military necessity, one that will save thousands of American and Israeli lives, deter an Iranian response, and achieve "rapid and favorable war termination on U.S. terms."

The public mindset has been thoroughly prepared for war by a barrage of untrue propaganda against Iran, extending over many years and gradually escalating in volume and tone. Iran has been demonized as the pure incarnation of evil: the foremost sponsor of terrorism, pursuing nuclear weapons, intent on harming America, harboring al-Qaeda, hiding arsenals of chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery, oppressing its own people, intent on destroying Israel and the West. Max Boot just wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "In sum, a terrorist-sponsoring state led by an apocalyptic lunatic will soon have the ability to incinerate Tel Aviv or New York," which "leaves only one serious option – air strikes by Israel or the U.S." Niall Ferguson wrote a few days earlier in the same newspaper that a U.S. preemptive strike against Iran today would prevent an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel in 2007, ignoring among other things the reality that it is physically impossible for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon in a year. Nicholas Goldberg, who edits the Times' opinion page, studiously avoids publishing any alternative viewpoints. A similar approach is taken by the rest of the mainstream media in the U.S. and Western Europe. Is it surprising that a few days after these two opinion pieces were published the Los Angeles Times found that 57 percent of the U.S. public backs a military strike on Iran?

Whether Iran has nuclear weapons today, 10 years from today, or never is not the issue anymore. The U.S. has declared that Iran will not be allowed to have a "nuclear weapons capability." How? Perhaps the CIA will supply Iran with misleading documents indicating that E=m2c rather than E=mc2? Unlikely. The nuclear weapons "capability" will be defined as broadly as needed, no matter what Iran agrees to, to justify the military option, which has already been endorsed by senators on both sides of the aisle.

However, neither the media nor Congress are bringing up the inconvenient little fact that the military option will necessarily lead to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. And they are unwilling to weigh the fact that using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country like Iran will likely have disastrous consequences for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

The Fallacy of Nuclear "Deterrence"

We are told over and over that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to "deter" adversaries, which surely provides some comfort to otherwise moral people who devote their efforts to building up the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. The argument made some sense before: an adversary like the Soviet Union could arguably be deterred by the U.S. nuclear arsenal from launching a nuclear attack against the U.S. or its allies, or even a massive conventional attack against Western Europe.

However, the "deterrent" role of U.S. nuclear weapons has recently been extended to deter WMD (e.g., chemical weapons) attacks, and the administration argues that "low-yield" nuclear weapons make deterrence more "credible" [.pdf], and low-yield earth penetrating weapons (B61-11) are already in the U.S. nuclear stockpile [.pdf]. Where does this lead?

As Keith Payne, a proponent of the current U.S. Nuclear Posture well puts it, "deterrence is inherently unreliable: prepare for its failure." This means that if an adversary undertakes an action that the U.S. nuclear threat was meant to deter, the U.S. will respond by making good on its threat and use its nuclear weapons. Couple this with the recently adopted preemptive National Security Strategy, and the fact that the U.S. accuses Iran of having chemical weapons and that it can "deploy chemical warheads on its long-range missiles," and you are led to the following scenario: If in response to an aerial attack on Iran's facilities, Iran fires or threatens to fire a single missile against Israel or against U.S. forces in Iraq, the U.S. will attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons.

Why is this a realistic expectation? Because no matter what the political cost, it would support the much broader role desired for the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the "second nuclear age," which currently has no credibility. According to the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is now also supposed to "dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends." Well, it has already failed in this regard. Iran is pursuing its nuclear program, undeterred by all overt and less overt U.S. threats. Once the U.S. makes good on its nuclear deterrence threat once and uses its nuclear weapons, the validity of the nuclear deterrence policy against any action opposed by the U.S. will be established for future contingencies. There is a good reason why U.S. documents emphasize that "there is no customary or conventional international law to prohibit nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict."

Tactical Nuclear Weapons Deployment

The Navy instruction OPNAVINST 5721.1F [.pdf] just released concerning "the release of information about nuclear weapons and nuclear capabilities of U.S. forces" is an update of the earlier 1993 version [.pdf] with some changes. One is this added paragraph:

"The current NCND [neither confirming nor denying] policy mirrors the original policy taking into account employment and program policy changes. In general, it is U.S. policy not to deploy nuclear weapons aboard surface ships, naval aircraft, attack submarines, or guided missile submarines."

Note the "in general" wording, which clearly allows for exceptions. That phrasing was conspicuously absent in the 1993 version, which instead stated "It is general US policy not to deploy nuclear weapons…." Note also that the new statement explicitly mentions that it is issued in view of "employment and program policy changes," which presumably refers to the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and the associated "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," which envision the U.S. use of tactical nuclear weapons in vastly expanded circumstances.

The policy's purported rationale is that

"Uncertainty as to the location of nuclear weapons complicates an adversary's military planning and reduces his chances of successful attack thereby increasing the deterrent value of our forces and the security of the weapons."

Perhaps. But it also serves the clear function of allowing preparations for a tactical nuclear strike against Iran without raising public alarm. The same considerations that were being made back in 1948 – "The novel nature of atomic war nevertheless made it advisable to refrain from openly declaring an American atomic strategy, because that would alarm the American public, triggering a moral debate…" – apply today. Americans would vehemently oppose the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to be used against Iran if such action was publicly disclosed.

Blaming the Military

The principal responsibility for what is about to happen will be assigned to the military. Linton Brooks, the National Nuclear Security Administration director, stated that "recently funded research into earth-penetrating bombs came at the request of military leaders who have seen potential uses for them against rogue states that hide sensitive sites deep underground." The weapons that will be used are B61-11 nuclear earth penetrators, in the U.S. nuclear stockpile since 2001 [.pdf].

The Pentagon draft document "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" provides "guidance for the employment of U.S. nuclear forces" and states, "Geographic combatant commanders may request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions," then proceeds to list several conditions that will undoubtedly apply in a military confrontation with Iran:

"An adversary using or intending to use WMD against U.S., multinational, or alliance forces or civilian populations"
"Attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons"
"To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces"
"For rapid and favorable war termination on U.S. terms"
"To ensure success of U.S. and multinational operations"
"To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD."
Bush and Rumsfeld often emphasize that their decisions on military operations in Iraq rely on recommendations of military commanders on the ground. As Bush recently put it,

"The people don't want me making decisions based upon politics; they want me to make decisions based upon the recommendation from our generals on the ground. And that's exactly who I'll be listening to."

When Rumsfeld was accused of overruling advice from Gen. Tommy Franks on preparations for the war on Iraq, the BBC reported that he "flatly denied overriding military commanders," instead stating,

"You will find, if you ask anyone who has been involved in the process in the central command, that every single thing that they [military commanders] have requested has, in fact, happened."

This shameful approach of shifting responsibility from the policymakers to the commanders on the ground will be an essential element in the nuking of Iran. The motivation is transparent: the administration's hope that the strong American inclination to "support the troops" will blunt criticism of the political decision to nuke Iran.

The mere possibility that Iranian missiles targeting U.S. troops could carry chemical warheads, suggested by faulty or even true intelligence and already assumed by U.S. officials, could prompt a geographic commander to request authorization from the president to use low-yield nuclear weapons against Iran, particularly if such weapons are already deployed in the theater. Or such a request could be prompted by "intelligence" that chemical weapons hidden in underground facilities in Iran will be supplied to terrorists to be used against Americans, and can only be destroyed by nuclear bunker-busters. It is obviously unconscionable to demand that a military commander, whose prime concern is the safety of the troops under command, take into account the long-term consequences for America of crossing the nuclear threshold.

How will President Bush respond to such a request? Will he not authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons after the military commander has stated that thousands of soldiers under his/her command could be at risk? We're talking about the president whose "top priority is the safety and security of the American people" and who has proclaimed that "[t]he greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." This is the same man who year after year has requested that Congress lift the ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons (he finally succeeded), who year after year asks Congress to fund new, more "usable" nuclear bunker-busters [.pdf], who has said that "[i]f America shows uncertainty and weakness in the decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch."

A decision that will determine the future of humanity and its possible annihilation lies in the hands, mind and soul of a geographic combatant commander.

Make No Mistake About It: Nuking Iran Is Wrong

Attacking Iran with nuclear weapons, no matter how small, is evil for the following reasons:

It will not be the result of military necessity, but a premeditated act, the circumstances to make it possible having been methodically put in place by the United States over the course of many years.
Iran does not have ready-to-use chemical nor biological weapons, just like Iraq didn't in 2003, despite identical U.S. accusations, no matter what "intelligence" tells you. Iran is party to international treaties proscribing chemical and biological weapons and terrorism.
Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons; it is pursuing a civilian nuclear program. Even if it wanted to, it is many years away from the ability to make nuclear weapons.
Iran advocates a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; it does not threaten the use of force against Israel. The U.S. may not agree with Iran's advocated political solution (elimination of the state of Israel), but that does not give the U.S. the right to attack Iran, just as the Spanish claim over Gibraltar does not entitle Britain to attack Spain.
Iran has never attacked nor threatened to attack another state in modern times.
Iran has no more connection to al-Qaeda than do the U.S., Spain, or Germany, and a lot less than the state of Florida.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state, does not have nuclear weapons, and does not threaten to use them, unlike the U.S.
Iran's missiles serve the purpose of deterring an Israeli attack (like the Israeli attack on Osirak), not an offensive purpose.
Iran's government was democratically elected and has popular support. Attacking Iran will not result in Iranians rebelling against their government, despite the LA Times' (here we go again, Nick) claim to the contrary.
The U.S. has just declared that it will defend Israel militarily against Iran if needed. Presumably this includes a scenario where Israel would initiate hostilities by unprovoked bombing of Iranian facilities, as it did with Iraq's Osirak, and Iran would respond with missiles targeting Israel. The U.S. intervention is likely to be further bombing of Iran's facilities, including underground installations that can only be destroyed with low-yield nuclear bunker-busters. Such nuclear weapons may cause low casualties, perhaps only in the hundreds [.pdf], but the nuclear threshold will have been crossed.

Iran's reaction to a U.S. attack with nuclear weapons, no matter how small, cannot be predicted with certainty. U.S. planners may hope that it will deter Iran from responding, thus saving lives. However, just as the U.S. forces in Iraq were not greeted with flowers, it is likely that such an attack would provoke a violent reaction from Iran and lead to the severe escalation of hostilities, which in turn would lead to the use of larger nuclear weapons by the U.S. and potential casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Witness the current uproar over cartoons and try to imagine the resulting upheaval in the Muslim world after the U.S. nukes Iran.

The Military's Moral Dilemma

Men and women in the military forces, including civilian employees, may be facing a difficult moral choice at this very moment and in the coming weeks, akin to the moral choices faced by Colin Powell and Dan Ellsberg. The paths these two men followed were radically different.

Colin Powell was an American hero, widely respected and admired at the time he was appointed secretary of state in 2001. In February 2003, he chose to follow orders despite his own serious misgivings, and delivered the pivotal UN address that paved the way for the U.S. invasion of Iraq the following month. Today, most Americans believe the Iraq invasion was wrong, and Colin Powell is disgraced, his future destroyed, and his great past achievements forgotten.

Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, played a significant role in ending the Vietnam War by leaking the Pentagon Papers. He knew that he would face prosecution for breaking the law, but was convinced it was the correct moral choice. His courageous and principled action earned him respect and gratitude.

The Navy has just reminded [.pdf] its members and civilian employees what the consequences are of violating provisions concerning the release of information about the nuclear capabilities of U.S. forces. Why right now, for the first time in 12 years? Because it is well aware of moral choices that its members may face, and it hopes to deter certain actions. But courageous men and women are not easily deterred.

To disobey orders and laws and to leak information are difficult actions that entail risks. Still, many principled individuals have done it in the past and will continue to do it in the future ( see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9].) Conscientious objection to the threat and use of nuclear weapons is a moral choice.

Once the American public becomes fully aware that military action against Iran will include the planned use of nuclear weapons, public support for military action will quickly disappear. Anything could get the ball rolling. A great catastrophe will have been averted.

Even U.S. military law recognizes that there is no requirement to obey orders that are unlawful. The use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country can be argued to be in violation of international law, the principle of just war, the principle of proportionality, common standards of morality ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]), and customs that make up the law of armed conflict. Even if the nuclear weapons used are small, because they are likely to cause escalation of the conflict they violate the principle of proportionality and will cause unnecessary suffering.

The Nuremberg Tribunal, which the United States helped to create, established that "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

To follow orders or to disobey orders, to keep information secret or to leak it, are choices for each individual to make – extremely difficult choices that have consequences. But not choosing is not an option.

America's Collective Responsibility

Blaming the administration or the military for crossing the nuclear threshold is easy, but responsibility will be shared by all Americans.

All Americans knew, or should have known, that using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country like Iran was a possibility given the Bush administration's new policies. All Americans could have voiced their opposition to these policies and demand that they be reversed.

The media will carry a heavy burden of responsibility. The mainstream media could have effectively raised public awareness of the possibility that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons against Iran. So far, they have chosen to almost completely hide the issue, which is being increasingly addressed in non-mainstream media.

Members of Congress could have raised the question forcefully, calling for public hearings, demanding public discussion of the administration's plans, and passing new laws or resolutions. So far they have failed to do so and are derelict in their responsibility to their constituents. Letters to the president from some in Congress [1], [2] are a start, but are not likely to elicit a meaningful response or a change in plans and are a far cry from forceful action.

Scientific organizations and organizations dealing with arms control and nuclear weapons could have warned of the dangers associated with the Iran situation. So far, they have not done so ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]).

Scientists and engineers responsible for the development of nuclear weapons could have voiced concern [.pdf] when the new U.S. nuclear weapons policies became known, policies that directly involve the fruits of their labor. Their voices have not been heard.

Those who contribute their labor to the scientific and technical infrastructure that makes nuclear weapons and their means of delivery possible bear a particularly heavy burden of moral responsibility. Their voices have barely been heard.

The Nuclear Abyss

The United States is preparing to enter a new era: an era in which it will enforce nuclear nonproliferation by the threat and use of nuclear weapons. The use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran will usher in a new world order. The ultimate goal is that no nation other than the U.S. should have a nuclear weapons arsenal.

A telltale sign that this is the plan is the recent change in the stated mission of Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons are developed. The mission of LANL used to be described officially as "Los Alamos National Laboratory's central mission is to reduce the global nuclear danger" [1] [.pdf], [2] [.pdf], [3] [.pdf]. That will sound ridiculous once the U.S. starts throwing mini-nukes around. In anticipation of it, the Los Alamos mission statement has been recently changed to "prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and to protect our homeland from terrorist attack." That is the present and future role of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, to be achieved through threat (deterrence) and use of nuclear weapons. References to the old mission are nowhere to be found in the current Los Alamos documents, indicating that the change was deliberate and thorough.

It is not impossible that the U.S. will succeed in its goal. But it is utterly improbable. This is a big world. Once the U.S. crosses the nuclear threshold against a non-nuclear country, many more countries will strive to acquire nuclear weapons, and many will succeed.

The nuclear abyss may turn out to be a steep precipice or a gentle slope. Either way, it will be a one-way downhill slide toward a bottomless pit. We will have entered a path of no return, leading in a few months or a few decades to global nuclear war and unimaginable destruction.

But there are still choices to be made. Up to the moment the first U.S. nuclear bomb explodes, the fall into the abyss can be averted by choices made by each and every one of us. We may never know which choices prevented it if it doesn't happen. But if we make the wrong choices, we will know what they were. And so will future generations, even in a world where wars are fought with sticks and stones.

February 20, 2006
Iran to Pursue Atomic Research Despite Russian Plan
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:03 a.m. ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Iran vowed on Monday to pursue nuclear research even if talks in Moscow lead to agreement on a Russian offer to enrich uranium for Iranian power plants -- a plan aimed at calming fears Tehran wants atomic bombs.

``If we reach some compromise... (on the Russian proposal), we continue our preparation from where we are now. That is, the research department will continue its activity,'' Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news briefing in Brussels.

His remarks poured more cold water on the talks that began in Moscow on Monday on the Russian plan, which had been seen as a chance to defuse the row over Iran's atomic ambitions.

Moscow's offer to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil would prevent Tehran from diverting the material for weapons. Iran says it needs atomic power for electricity, not bombs.

Russia hopes its formula can keep Western threats of sanctions against Iran at bay, but the low-key format of the Moscow talks and the tone of officials' comments suggested little prospect of an immediate breakthrough.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told President Vladimir Putin he felt ``reserved'' about the outcome of the meeting, but promised Moscow would do all it could to stop the dispute between Iran and the West turning violent.

Russia says it will insist Iran reinstate a moratorium on uranium enrichment before creating a joint venture to supply it with low-enriched fuel which could not be used for bombs.

Mottaki said the Russian plan must satisfy four criteria. Iran wanted to know who would take part in the project; where enrichment would take place; how long the project would take; and whether the West accepted its right to peaceful nuclear activities.

TALKS WITH EU

Earlier, Mottaki met EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, whose spokeswoman said afterwards the European Union remained keen to find a diplomatic solution.

``We have no wish to isolate Iran, we hope Iran will not choose to isolate itself,'' the spokeswoman said, calling on Iran to return to a suspension of uranium enrichment.

Mottaki was accompanied by senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi, who had been expected to join the Moscow talks.

``There is still time for all the parties to reach a compromise and I hope they use that time,'' Mottaki said.

The leader of Iran's delegation to the Moscow talks made clear he was not ready to give ground.

``We will not step back one inch from our obvious right (to nuclear technology),'' Ali Hosseinitash, a deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian television as saying before the meeting in Moscow began.

Valentin Sobolev, deputy secretary of Putin's Security Council, was representing Russia at the closed-door talks.

Russian officials said they hoped a visit to Iran later this week by Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, Russia's nuclear agency, would produce progress in negotiations.

The United States and the European Union trio of France, Britain and Germany -- the countries pressing Iran hardest on its nuclear program -- have welcomed the Russian plan.

But privately Western diplomats are skeptical, saying Tehran is keeping the Russian offer on the table to buy time.

Mottaki said it was wrong for the West to use the U.N. Security Council to promote punitive measures against Iran.

``We believe the time of threats is over. The Security Council should not be considered as a tool in the hands of some countries,'' he said.

The 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency this month reported Iran to the council, which is awaiting a report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on March 6.

The U.N. watchdog sent the dispute to the Security Council after Iran removed IAEA seals on uranium enrichment equipment at its Natanz facility in January after suspending work there for 2 1/2 years while it negotiated with the three EU powers.

Russia has often said it opposes sanctions and says the dispute should be solved via negotiations under the umbrella of the IAEA. As a permanent member of the Security Council it could veto any U.S. or European-backed resolution seeking sanctions.

Russia does not want to forfeit its close diplomatic and commercial ties with Tehran but neither does it want Iran's hardline leaders to acquire nuclear weapons. Only the Caspian Sea state Azerbaijan separates the two countries.



Copyright 2006 Reuters Ltd.