R E G I O N: White House acknowledges Iran intelligence ‘hard to come by’
* White House national security adviser says Tehran’s behaviour ‘suspicious enough’ to warrant pressure over its nuclear programme
* Defends US nuclear charges against Islamic Republic
WASHINGTON: The White House acknowledged on Sunday the difficulty of gathering good intelligence in Iran but said Tehran’s behaviour was “suspicious enough” to warrant stepping up pressure over its nuclear programme.
“Intelligence in Iran is hard to come by. It is a very closed society. They keep their secrets very well,” White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley told CNN’s “Late Edition.”
Hadley was asked whether, given the intelligence failures in pre-war Iraq, he was convinced that US intelligence in Iran was good enough to declare that it was developing a nuclear bomb.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Hadley also cautioned the Iranian government against taking comfort in President George W Bush’s decision to back Europe in offering limited economic incentives to Tehran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms programme.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also appeared on the Sunday news shows, said the decision sends a message to Tehran that it now faces a united trans-Atlantic front.
After weeks of friction with Russia over its involvement in nuclear projects in Iran, Rice said Moscow’s deal to take back all spent nuclear fuel from Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr power plant “demonstrated, we believe, that they (the Russians) also do not believe that the Iranians should have this kind of activity.”
In return for US support for incentives, Britain, France and Germany said they would haul Tehran before the UN Security Council if it resumed uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing activities, which could be used to develop an atomic bomb.
“I do not think that the Iranian regime can take much comfort in this, because, as part of this arrangement, the Europeans now for the first time are talking about Iranian support to terror and the need for this Iranian regime to listen to their people and to give them a greater role in the political process,” Hadley said.
Rice set no deadline for the negotiations but said, “Everybody understands that there has to be a permanent arrangement in which the Iranians forgo the means by which to develop nuclear weapons, and that needs to happen sooner rather than later.”
The US intelligence community faces major credibility problems after reporting that pre-war Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear arms. The assertions were a main justification for the 2003 US invasion but no such weapons have been found.
Hadley defended US nuclear charges against Iran, citing the way it hid its uranium enrichment programme and other activities from international inspectors.
“The failure to disclose and the lack of compliance with their (international) agreements raises serious suspicions, in not only our mind, but in the Europeans’ mind,” Hadley said.
“Their behaviour has been suspicious enough that not only the United States but also the Europeans are concerned and think we need some guarantees ... that are clear that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon capability,” he added.
His comments come less than a week after The New York Times reported that a presidential commission investigating pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s weapons has concluded that US data on Iran’s arms is “inadequate.” reuters
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-3-2005_pg4_14
--------------------
Iran issues postal stamp honouring N-technology
TEHRAN: Iran’s postal service issued a stamp on Monday lauding the country’s achievements in nuclear technology, state-run television reported.
President Mohammad Khatami oversaw the ceremony launching the new stamp during a visit to Iran’s atomic energy organisation.
The stamp features a picture of the Bushehr nuclear power plant emblasoned over a map of Iran, along with emblems of the country’s atomic energy agency: a bunch of wheat and a book.
A lightning bolt meant to symbolise the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme _ Iran contends it is pursuing technology for civilian use _ is also featured on the stamp.
Television footage showed Gholamreza Aghazadeh, chief of Iran’s nuclear energy organisation and Saeed Faeghi, head of Irans postal department, joining Khatami in the ceremony.
Iran rejects accusations by the United States that its nuclear energy programme is a front to produce weapons. ap
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-3-2005_pg4_17
--------------------
Iran cash link to Israel attacksBy Marie Colvin
April 04, 2005
From:
PALESTINIAN fighters have revealed that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group is paying up to $US9000 ($11,600) for each attack aimed at breaking the fragile truce with Israel.
In the first concrete evidence of Iranian interference in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the men - all on Israel's most-wanted list - said the militant Lebanese group had sent the payments to the West Bank over the past four years.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made it clear that one suicide bomber in Tel Aviv could prompt him to abandon negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and might even delay Israel's disengagement from Gaza, which is planned for July.
The men said most of the money from Hezbollah had been sent to Islamic Jihad, the militant fundamentalist group that has sent suicide bombers into Israeli cities.
All members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the mainstream Fatah group founded by Yasser Arafat, the men knew of the payments because they liaised with Islamic Jihad in their area, near the West Bank city of Nablus.
"They would send Islamic Jihad money in amounts of something like $US4000," said Ala'a Sanakreh, the 27-year-old leader of the group. "It's easy - they just use Western Union," he said, referring to the global money transfer service.
Sanakreh and his fellow fugitives spoke to The Sunday Times in a house in the Balata refugee camp, which is under Israeli security control. Despite the present truce, the Israelis could come after them at any moment.
The group has a primitive but effective warning system of placing boys on rooftops overlooking the alleys of the camp.
Sanakreh said he had taken the money from Hezbollah when former Palestinian leader Arafat had stopped paying Fatah's fighters.
"We disagreed with the Islamic Jihad people because Hezbollah would send money only for attacking Israel. They did not take care of the shaheed (martyr) families. So we then stopped taking the money."
According to Sanakreh, those who had since been offered money by Hezbollah had turned it down. Their leaders had made it clear that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should be given a chance to negotiate with the Israelis.
But Sanakreh said he had received a call from a Hezbollah representative in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Other militants in the West Bank, who would not be named, said the same man had called groups offering money to get them to mount an attack.
Mr Abbas solidified an agreement to keep the peace two weeks ago in Cairo by persuading 13 of the most radical Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to co-operate.
Since then, the price of a bullet in Gaza has fallen from about $US9 to $US5. The sermons in the mosques are also evidence of a new era. Preachers are no longer calling for sacrifice, but guiding the faithful on which way to vote in Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for this year.
Islamic activists are mounting a strong challenge to Fatah, and Hamas is debating whether to accept ministries in a post-election Palestinian government negotiating with Israel, which it does not recognise.
Sanakreh said that although he was not privy to politics on any senior level, he believed from his discussions with local Islamic Jihad members that the money offered for fresh attacks came from Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard.
Even though the truce is holding, the money from Hezbollah, which takes its orders from Tehran, appears to be evidence of Iran's desire to stop a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...-38201,00.html
--------------------
Northwest plane makes emergency landing in Iran
A Northwest Airlines DC-10 made an emergency landing in Tehran, Iran, this morning.
Jeff Smith is a spokesman for Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines. He says the crew diverted because an indicator showed there was a fire in the plane's cargo hold. But in fact, there was no fire, and the problem was that the electrical indicator system was giving a false warning.
There were 255 passengers and crew on board. No injuries were reported. The plane was en route from Bombay, India, to Amsterdam, Netherlands. It landed in Amsterdam safely about eight hours late.
U.S. carriers do not serve Iran because of American economic sanctions. Washington broke ties with Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when militants seized the U.S. Embassy and held 52 hostages for 444 days.
http://www.fox9.com/news/story.asp?1646240
--------------------
Ukrainian Cruise Missiles Transported Via Russia to Iran — Israel
MosNews.com
Ukrainian cruise missiles with a range of 3,000 kilometers and capable of carrying nuclear warheads have ended up in Iranian hands after being transported via Russia, Israel’s Director of Military Intelligence Major General Aharon Ze’evi (Farkash) said on Tuesday.
Ze’evi said that Iran had recently received 12 of the cruise missiles. 18 such missiles were transported from Ukraine to Russia, of which 12 had somehow managed to end up in Iranian hands. The other six were received by China, Haaretz.com quoted Ze’evi.
The diplomatic pressure the international community has exerted on Iran had delayed the Islamic state’s nuclear development plan by two years, Ze’evi added.
Ze’evi, who was making his last appearance before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that Iran was, nevertheless, determined to secretly continue its bid to develop a nuclear bomb.
He also said that today Iran’s nuclear aspirations constitute a real threat to western countries.
According to the military intelligence chief, there are growing fears that Palestinian terror groups would smuggle into the Gaza Strip weapons, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles as well as Katyusha rockets. The introduction of such weapons in the conflict would break the existing weapon-balance, Ze’evi said.
Terror groups are making every effort to get such weapons into the Strip, he said, that being despite the great efforts the Palestinian and Egyptian security forces are putting into preventing it.
The Israel Defense Forces must prepare for such a possibility, he said.
http://mosnews.com/news/2005/12/21/israeliran.shtml
--------------------