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  #21  
Old Sunday, January 08, 2006
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Israel Plans to Strike Iran N-Plants: Report

Arab News

RAMALLAH, 14 March 2005 — Israel has drawn up plans for a combined air and ground attack on Iranian nuclear installations should diplomatic efforts fail to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, a report in the Sunday Times said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s inner Cabinet gave “initial authorization” for an attack at a private meeting in February on his ranch in the Negev Desert, the weekly said.

“Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practice destroying it,” the Sunday Times said.

It added the operation would include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and air strikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

Israel has discussed its plans with American officials who have indicated that the United States would not prevent such an attack in the event that efforts by the international community fail to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure “objective guarantees” that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits to the Islamic republic.

Ideally, the Europeans would like to see Iran call a permanent halt to its uranium enrichment activities, which are currently suspended. Iran maintains it has the right to enrich uranium to produce atomic fuel, but once mastered the fuel cycle can be diverted to military purposes.

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No Green Light To Israel For Strikes On Alleged Iran Nuke Sites: Rice

The eastern battleground for what will the world's first de-facto nuclear war that will see both sides attack each other's nuclear weapons production facilities spreading radioactive fallout across the Middle East and beyond.
Washington (AFP) Mar 13, 2005
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Sunday said Washington has not backed a military strike by Israel against suspected Iranian nuclear sites, contrary to press reports.
When asked by ABC television's "This Week" program to respond to a report in the London Sunday Times that Israel may launch a unilateral attack on Iran if diplomacy fails, Rice insisted that Washington is committed to following a diplomatic course.

"The United States has now, with the European allies, put forward, I think, a strengthened diplomatic hand for the European three to play," she said, referring to Britain, Germany and France.

"It really is now up to the Iranians to do what they need to do. Obviously, the president of the United States always has his options open, but we really do believe that this can be resolved diplomatically."

"What we've forged with Europe is a common front, a common approach to dealing with Iran that says Iran must not develop a nuclear weapon, that Iran's international obligations must be upheld," Rice told ABC.

"That means they cannot develop a nuclear weapon under cover of civilian nuclear power," she said.

"It says that if Iran is not willing to live up to those obligations, then there will be a supported referral to the (UN) Security Council."

Israel Ready To Strike Iranian Nuclear Plant: Report


In a separate report, the Sunday Times said Israel has drawn up plans for a combined air and ground attack on Iranian nuclear installations should diplomatic efforts fail to halt Tehran's nuclear programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's inner cabinet gave "initial authorisation" for an attack at a private meeting in February on his ranch in the Negev desert, the weekly said.

"Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it," the Sunday Times said.

It added the operation would include raids by Israel's elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

Israel has discussed its plans with American officials who have indicated that the United States would not prevent such an attack in the event that efforts by the international community fail to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure "objective guarantees" that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits to the Islamic republic.

Ideally, the Europeans would like to see Iran call a permanent halt to its uranium enrichment activities, which are currently suspended.

Iran maintains it has the right to enrich uranium to produce atomic fuel, but once mastered the fuel cycle can be diverted to military purposes.


spacedaily.com


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  #22  
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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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Old Sunday, January 08, 2006
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Iran to buy Russian missiles

(Flight International)
Iran has signed a $700 million contract with Russia for the purchase of Tor M-1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) air-defence missile systems, say Russian officials quoted in Russian business daily Vedomosti.

The agreement is reported to cover the sale of 29 systems, which were options on a Greek order for the Tor M-1 in the 1990s. Greece took delivery of 21 systems at around $526 million, but declined its options on the other 29.

The Tor M-1 is designed to operate at medium, low and very low altitudes, against fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned air vehicles, guided missiles and precision-guided weapons. The systems 9K331 missiles can engage targets at a speed of up to 138,000ft/min (700m/s), at a range of 1-12km (0.5-6.5nm), at 30-19,700ft (10-6,000m). The system is produced by Russias Kupol plant in Izhevsk, and was designed by Almaz-Antei.

The sale, the biggest since 2000, when Russia withdrew from a voluntary agreement made under the so-called Gore-Chernomyrdin protocol covering restrictions on arms sales to Iran, is likely to dismay Washington.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/dec/1234548.htm


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Iran's RPG Surprise

Back on December 8, 2005, DID ran a story about Forecast International's market forecast for the $5.33 billion man-portable anti-armor and bunker buster weapons market over the next decade. We mentioned that the Russians were poised to dominate production with the RPG-26/27, and that the market itself was bifurcating into state-of-the-art, high cost designs (mostly from Europe) and cheaper, simpler weapons (mostly Russian and ex-Soviet) - but there was also a piece of interesting information embedded deeper in the report.

"Iran's Defense Industries Organization (DIO) will be the most significant player involved in RPG-7 production during the forecast period. Iranian licensed production of the RPG-7 will account for 4.25 percent of all new man-portable anti-armor and bunker buster weapons production, worth 2.88 percent of the total market value, through 2014."

That translates into a production total of over 80,000 weapons, with half of that estimated production occurring in the 2005-2008 period. Three guesses where many of those RPG-7s will end up.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...rise/index.php

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Iran Interested in Russian Weapons — Ambassador



Iran is interested in developing military-technical cooperation with Russia, the country’s ambassador to Russia, Gholamreza Ansari, said on Friday.

“Until now, our cooperation has mostly been established in the sphere of trade,” the ambassador was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. “But the Iranian government now wants to strengthen cooperation with Russia in the field of energy, in particular nuclear energy. We also intend to develop military-technical cooperation.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov earlier confirmed Russia’s intention to continue military-technical cooperation with Iran. He said that “Russia is supplying Iran with conventional armaments and military hardware such as armored vehicles and air defense equipment of a limited range. This is ordinary commercial trade and we are not going to end it.”

It was reported in the beginning of December that Russia had struck a deal to sell short-range, surface-to-air missiles to Iran. Ivanov said this did not change the balance of forces in the region.

The European Union has formally protested to Russia about the deal.

http://mosnews.com/news/2005/12/23/iranweapons.shtml

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SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE NICHOLAS BURNS

"Our Patience with Iran Is Not Unlimited"

Despite US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Europe recently, the continent remains up in arms about secret CIA prisoner transfers. SPIEGEL spoke to US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns about the CIA flights, the trans-Atlantic relationship, and just what should be done about Iran.

US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns: "She answered the questions in a very straightforward way."
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AP
US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns: "She answered the questions in a very straightforward way."
SPIEGEL: Mr. Undersecretary, there's tremendous outrage in Europe concerning transfers of CIA prisoners, secret prisons, kidnapping and torture. Is the anger valid?

Burns: Secretary of State Rice was in Europe and she gave straight answers to all those questions. Most of these questions were actually allegations made by sources in the press and sometimes individuals. They were not coming from governments. Many of them were quite unfounded and inaccurate. I know Secretary Rice feels that she's been straightforward and she's given a lot of information, and we hope very much that will satisfy both the European governments as well as the European public.

SPIEGEL: Are there or were there secret prisons in Europe?

Burns: She answered the questions in a very straightforward way...

SPIEGEL: ... and what was her exact answer?

Burns: She actually gave a lot of detail: that we face new security threats globally, we have to work differently in terms of using intelligence and law enforcement. But she clearly said the United States is a country of laws. We abide by our laws and we abide by international law.

SPIEGEL: Actually, Europe is still waiting for straight answers. So why don't you tell us if, for example, mock executions and waterboarding are included in CIA interrogation techniques?
Burns: There is no government in the world that discusses publicly anything pertaining to intelligence.

SPIEGEL: Do you really think the discussion is over?

Burns: I expect the discussion will continue knowing the press and knowing the interests that a lot of people have in these issues. But I think it's incumbent upon Europeans to give us the benefit of the doubt. We're your friends. We're your allies. We have been for 60 years defending Europe at Europe's darkest hours and I don't think it's appropriate that people just believe wild allegations made in the press that often times have no basis in reality.

SPIEGEL: You're considered one of the architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy of reconciliation between the United States and Central Europe. Is this project already in ruins given the outcry in Europe?

Burns: Not at all. At the beginning of this year, the war in Iraq and the divisions that it caused in the trans-Atlantic relationship were still present. The fact that President Bush visited Mainz as well as Brussels in February and had the summit with NATO cleared the air. It was rightfully seen by Europeans as an olive branch by the American administration and it was meant to be an olive branch. The problem seems to be in public opinion, and I would just hope that people wouldn't believe every wild story they hear about what the United States may or may not be doing.
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SPIEGEL: You have great expectations for the new German government. What should it do differently to the previous one?

Burns: Germany is one of our greatest allies and has been for 60 years. We have for many of those years had as close a partnership as any two countries can have. And I know that Secretary Rice believes that there is an opportunity now to work with the German government to rebuild the relations -- and that process already started at the beginning of the year with the former German government. We want to see the Kosovo and the Bosnia problem solved. We want to see good relations with Russia and Ukraine. We want to see democratic countries emerge in the Caucasus and Central Asia. We both want to be helpful in Middle East peace negotiations. There's a lot that unites Germany and the United States.

SPIEGEL: Your government would also like to see Germany take over a greater role in Iraq. There is a lot of talk that Berlin could take over sponsorship for the interior ministry or the parliament.

Burns: The German government can decide on its own without me giving advice as to what it should do. Germany has been for the last two years training Iraqi forces outside Iraq. That's been very helpful. Now we had the elections in Iraq -- a new government will be formed. It will need our support. My country has said we will keep our troops because we have to, because it wouldn't be right for us to pull out our troops when the job is not finished and when the Iraqis are depending on us. So we would appreciate it if the European governments would each decide what they can do and how far they can go. The important thing is that we should all want to support a democratic government in the Arab world. There are so few of them. Here is a government elected by its own people, that's revolutionary. We should all be happy about that.


Burns: We are in full support of the European Three (editor's note: Germany, France and England are leading the ongoing negotiations with the Iranian government); I have been the liaison. Our view is that Iran now has an obligation to return to the talks, and if Iran cannot do that, then of course the international community is going to find a way to apply greater diplomatic pressure on the Iranians. One very serious option would be to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. Why would we do that? We might have to do it to show Iran it cannot disregard the opinion of most countries in the world -- namely that Iran should not enrich uranium and should not develop scientific and technological know-how to enrich uranium and develop fissile material. And certainly there is not a single country in the world, with the possible exception of, I guess, Venezuela or Cuba, that would want to see Iran develop nuclear weapons.

SPIEGEL: But it seems difficult to get the votes you need in the Security Council. That's why the United States already proposed that Europe could impose sanctions without a UN mandate. Would this include an oil embargo?

The elections in Iraq came off mostly peacefully.
Zoom
AP
The elections in Iraq came off mostly peacefully.
Burns: The heart of the effort right now is to convince the Iranians to return to negotiations. We need to see a sign from Iran over the next several weeks or months that it's willing to do so. If it cannot do that, then I think our patience is not unlimited and we're going to have to consider ways to get the Iranians' attention. One of them certainly would be the Security Council, to pass a Presidential statement perhaps, and certainly a potential future option would be sanctions. We don't rule that out.

SPIEGEL: Including oil or excluding oil?

Burns: I don't want to be specific about that. We'll let the Iranians wonder what that might mean, but that hasn't been excluded by most governments in the world.

SPIEGEL: There is still some hope left in Europe that the United States will try to restart the negotiations with Teheran by offering a security guarantee or some other strong incentive.

Burns: No. We have nothing of the sort in mind. The United States is not part of the negotiations. The Europeans are at the table.

SPIEGEL: But the Europeans have very little to offer without the United States.

Burns: But there is no incentive for the United States to negotiate with Iran right now. Here is a country that, since August of this year, has unilaterally broken off its negotiations with the Europeans, insisted on its right to go forward with an advanced nuclear program. Its president has said that Israel should be wiped off the map of the world, doubted the Holocaust has taken place...

SPIEGEL: ...and said that the whole State of Israel should move to Germany or Austria.

Burns: So here is a president who makes outrageous statements with which no sensible and rational person would agree.

SPIEGEL: But why were incentives given to North Korea, ruled by a dictator who is for sure not better then the mullahs are.

Burns: We agreed to sit down with North Korea because five countries, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States, all had a common platform. North Korea said it was willing to give up its nuclear programs, and Iran is not willing to do that. They say they insist on their rights. It's interesting that the Iranian government only talks about its rights, but never about its obligations. All of us have obligations in the world, not just rights.

SPIEGEL: IAEA head Baradei also said that a military solution doesn't exist. Would you agree?

Burns: I would refer you to what President Bush and Secretary Rice have said consistently over the course of the past years. The United States is seeking a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, and we are supporting a diplomatic process to that end. But they have both also said we don't take any option off the table, and that's appropriate. A powerful country like ours would never exclude options in advance. But we would like to see a peaceful resolution to this problem.

Interview conducted by Georg Mascolo

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...391484,00.html


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Russia to honor Iran arms deal despite US objection


MOSCOW, Dec. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia will fully comply with a deal with Iran to supply it with the Tor-M1 air defense systems despite US objections, a senior Defense Ministry official said Friday.

"The Russian side, despite objections from the United States, will honor its contract with Iran for the supply of the upgraded version of the Tor system," the official was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

The official said delivery of the 30 Tor-M1 systems will begin in January and be completed by the end of next year.

The deal is believed to be worth 1.4 billion US dollars and is the biggest ever arms deal between Russia and Iran.

The Tor-M1 system is capable of identifying up to 48 targets and tracing and firing at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 6,100 meters.

US officials have called the deal a source of concern and said the United States strongly opposed the missile sale.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov earlier confirmed and defended the deal saying Russia did not violate any international obligations in signing the deal because Iran is subject to any international sanction.

"That was an absolutely legal deal, like it or not," he said. Enditem

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_3962969.htm


Israel ready to strike Iran

In October, a Russian rocket carried Iran’s first spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit. This launch accelerated Israel’s plans to strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities; the Jewish state is now getting ready for an attack by the end of March.

While Iran’s nuclear program is Israel’s main concern, its space capabilities are also considered a “point of no return”, which determined the actual timing of the Israeli strike. “The Iranians’ space program is a matter of deep concern to us,” said an Israeli defense official. “If and when we launch an attack on several Iranian targets, the last thing we need is Iranian early warning received by satellite.”

Iran wants to master space technology as soon as possible, amid fears the West will seek to impose restrictions on its satellite program like those placed on its NUCLEAR PLANS. According to an article on Global Research.ca, the Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months. The Islamic republic is also working on a Shahab-4 missile that could carry an Iranian-built satellite on its orbit.

Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack. However, Iran‘s satellites won’t be as efficient as more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movements; cameras on Israel’s Ofek-5 spy satellite have been monitoring the activities in Arab countries and Iran since 2002.

Moreover, Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months.

The timing of the Israeli attach is closely linked to Israel’s political situation. With a parliamentary elections on March 28, Prime Minister ARIEL SHARON, who quit the right-wing Likud to form a new centrist party, wants to look strong. Former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the newly elected Likud leader, pledged that if Sharon doesn’t act against Iran, “then when I form the new Israeli government, we’ll do what we did in the past against Saddam’s reactor, which gave us 20 years of tranquility.”

This all pushed SHARON to rally the country, and stave off this lunge from the right, with a strike against Tehran. “Israel — and not only Israel — cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” the Israeli Prime Minister said recently. “We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”

A strike against Iran would be popular in Israel, where everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have the kind of nuclear weapons that Israel itself possesses in such bristling abundance. By the late 1990s, the U.S. intelligence community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 nuclear weapons, including missiles and bombs, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Israel did its homework. The March deadline also comes with an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s NUCLEAR PROGRAM, which could lead to UN sanctions against Tehran, as Israel and the United States want. According to the Sunday Times, SHARON had already ordered Israel’s special forces to be at the “highest stage of readiness” for the strike. Commenting on the report, a top White House official said that the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda, and the question “what next?” would have to be answered in the next few months. (Meaning: Sure, March could work for us.)

Only a fool would believe that the Bush administration gave up its ambitions for “full-spectrum dominance” in the Middle East just because Iraq turned into a disaster. To Washington, Iraq has always been a step towards Iran; which was never punished for removing the U.S.’s puppet, the shah, and seizing the American Embassy in Tehran. In fact, Iran is the first step to Washington’s ultimate goal; planting U.S.-controlled hands on Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, thus halting the political rise of China and India, and ensuring a “new American century” of unchallenged profit and privilege. For the elite, of course; as always, those back home have to deal with the bills and the body bags from these war games.

The United States and Israel have already begun a covert war against Iran. With defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, BUSH and SHARON will have little trouble gaining support for such an attack. In the next few months, we’ll see the usual charade of “diplomacy” as military plans are being finalized.

aljazeera

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Iran's victory in Iraq

World press acknowledges what America refuses to see

For the Bush White House, the good news from Iraq just never stops. But the joy that President Bush has expressed over the country's latest election, though more restrained than his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, will similarly come back to haunt him.

Soon after Bush spoke of the Iraqi election as "a landmark day in the history of liberty," early returns representing 90 percent of the ballots cast in the Iraq election established that the clear winners were Shiite and Sunni religious parties not the least bit interested in Western-style democracy or individual freedom -- including such extremists as Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fanatical followers have fought pitched battles with U.S. troops.

The silver lining, of course, is that the election did see broad participation, if not particularly clean execution. And because all of the leading parties say they want the United States to leave on a clear and public timeline, this should provide adequate cover for a staged but complete withdrawal from a sovereign country that we had no right to invade in the first place.

What we will leave behind, after hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lost lives, will be a long ways from the neoconservative fantasy of creating a compliant democracy in the heart of the Middle East. It is absurd for Bush to assert that the election "means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror," ignoring how he has "lost" Iraq to the influence and model of "Axis of Evil" Iran.

Tehran's rogue regime, which has bedeviled every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, now looms larger than ever over the region and most definitely over its oil.

"Iran wins big in Iraq's election," reads an Asia Times headline, speaking a truth that American policy-makers and much of the media is bent on ignoring: "The Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), not only held together, but also can be expected to dominate the new 275-member National Assembly for the next four years," the paper predicts based on the returns to date. "Former premier Ayad Allawi's prospects of leading the new government seem virtually nil. And Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Accord suffered a shattering defeat."

Allawi and Chalabi are the Iraqi exiles and U.S. intelligence "assets" who played such a huge role in getting the United States into this war. Chalabi, in particular, will go down in history as one of the great con artists of all time, managing to feed phony intelligence to the White House, The New York Times and countless other power players who found his lies convenient for one reason or another.

Now, despite -- or, more likely, because of -- their long stints on the U.S. payroll, both of these wannabe George Washingtons have been overwhelmingly rejected by their countrymen. Chalabi, long the darling of the Pentagon, seems headed to obtaining less than 1 percent of the vote nationwide and will fail to win his own seat. Allawi's slate, favored more by the CIA, will end up in the low teens.

As much as one should despise the role played by those two men in getting us into this mess, their abject failure is not a good thing, for they carried the banner of a more modern and secular Iraq, which is essential to peace and human rights progress. But the Iraqi people will have to come to that truth on their own and not as a result of foreign intervention that only fuels the most irrational political and religious forces.

Unfortunately, it is hardly an advertisement for our democratic way of life that the American people were so easily deceived as to the reasons for this war. Or that our president resists the condemnation of torture, renders captured prisoners to be interrogated in the savage prisons of Uzbekistan and Syria, and claims an unrestrained right to spy on U.S. citizens.

Nor does it help that this president is so publicly bent on intruding government-imposed religious values into American civil life, while urging secular tolerance upon the Islamic world. Or that he remains so blind to the reality of life in that world that he still does not grasp that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were on opposite sides of the enormous struggle over the primacy of religion in the Arab world.

Iraq, for all of its massive deficiencies, was not a center of religious fanaticism before the U.S. invasion, and the Islamic fanatics that are the president's sworn enemy in the so-called "war on terror" did not have a foothold in the country. Now, primitive religious fundamentalism forms the dominant political culture in Iraq, and the best outcome for U.S. policy is the hope that Shiite and Sunni fanatics can check each other long enough for the United States to beat a credible retreat and call it a victory, albeit a pyrrhic one.

http://www.workingforchange.com/arti...m?itemid=20108


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Russia formally offers to host Iran’s uranium enrichment program(AP)

25 December 2005


MOSCOW - Russia formally proposed to Iran that it move its uranium enrichment facilities to Russian territory, raising pressure on the Teheran regime to accept the Western-backed plan for restraining its nuclear program.

Iran insists the program has the sole aim of making fuel for atomic reactors that would generate electricity and denies US charges it is trying to develop nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Washington is pushing for Teheran to be brought before the United Nations Security Council, where it could face economic sanctions over the dispute.

But Russia and China, which have vetoes on the council, oppose referral and the West has stopped short of forcing the matter.

In a diplomatic note sent to Iran’s government on Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that “an earlier Russian offer to Iran to establish a joint Russian-Iranian enrichment venture in Russia remains valid,” the ministry said. The note was delivered by the Russian Embassy in Teheran.

Iranian officials didn’t immediately comment on the offer. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Organization of Iran, dismissed the proposal as unacceptable earlier this month.

Germany, France and Britain, which are representing the European Union in negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue, suggested shifting Iran’s enrichment activities to Russia, where nuclear material would be enriched to the level needed to fuel reactors. That, in theory, would reduce the possibility the technology also could be used to make weapons-grade uranium.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said its formal proposal represented a “Russian contribution into the search for mutually acceptable solutions in the context of settling the situation around the Iranian nuclear program by political and diplomatic means.”

Russia is building a nuclear power plant in Iran in a deal that has drawn strong US criticism.

Iran’s enrichment program is viewed with suspicion because the country hid that work from U.N. inspectors for nearly two decades before its secret nuclear activities were revealed nearly three years ago.

Since then, a probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has unearthed Iranian experiments, blueprints and equipment that either have “dual-use” applications or seem to have no nonmilitary function. That has further added to concerns, even though no firm evidence of a weapons program has been found.




http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...iddleeast&col=


Pro-Israel Group Criticizes White House Policy on Iran
At Issue Is New Stance on Tehran's Nuclear Program


After years of unwavering support for the Bush administration, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has begun to sharply criticize the White House over its handling of Iran's nuclear program.

In lengthy news releases and talking points circulated to supporters on Capitol Hill, AIPAC describes the Bush administration's recent policy decisions on Iran as "dangerous," "disturbing" and "inappropriate." One background paper suggests that White House policies are actually helping Iran -- a sworn enemy of the Jewish state -- to acquire nuclear weapons.



The tough words from one of Washington's most well-connected and influential lobbies come at a difficult time for President Bush, who has been struggling with low poll numbers and growing public discontent over the war in Iraq.

Bush raised AIPAC's concerns in a recent telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair when the two discussed Iran, U.S. officials said.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has tussled with past administrations -- Democratic and Republican -- but not with Bush, who has staked his presidency on a vow to bring democracy to a region dominated by Israel's enemies -- chiefly Iran, Iraq and Syria.

At issue for AIPAC is Bush's decision last month to hold off on pushing to report Iran's nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council. The president and Israel have favored reporting it for the past two years. But with little support from other key U.S. allies, Bush reversed course and endorsed a Russian offer that would allow Iran to conduct some, but not all, of the nuclear work it says it needs for an indigenous nuclear energy program.

Iran has not been receptive to the Russian offer. Iranian diplomats met with their European counterparts in Vienna on Wednesday to discuss the offer. Diplomats said there were no breakthroughs, but the parties agreed to meet again in January.

If Iran accepts the terms, it would be allowed to produce unlimited quantities of converted uranium. That material would be shipped to Russia for enrichment and then returned to Iran to fuel a nuclear power reactor.

In a statement to members of Congress, AIPAC said that it "is concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said he hopes the plan "may provide a way out" of a two-year crisis over a nuclear program that Iran says is peaceful but was secretly built over 18 years.

Critics of the Russian plan, including some inside the administration, argue that it would allow Iran to master a critical component that could be diverted for atomic weapons work. Converted uranium, if enriched to bomb-grade, can be used for the core of a nuclear device.

U.N. nuclear inspectors are on the third year of an investigation of Iran's nuclear program. They have not found proof of a weapons program, but mounting evidence suggests that the Iranians have spent the past two decades acquiring the knowledge and technology that could be used to build an atomic bomb.

"This decision will facilitate Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and undermines international efforts to stop Iran from achieving such a capability," AIPAC told supporters and policymakers in a paper circulated after Thanksgiving. The position paper urged the Bush administration to work quickly toward reporting Iran's case to the Security Council, where it could face sanctions or an oil embargo.

AIPAC, which describes itself as nonpartisan, has criticized nearly every administration's Middle East policies, often speaking out when Israeli government officials express private frustration with U.S. policies.

But the news releases mark the first major criticism of the Bush White House and come as the administration is focused on problems in Iraq and has no clear path on Iran.

At the same time, Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has become increasingly hostile toward Israel. In October, two months after he took office, Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Earlier this month, he told Iranians in a nationally televised speech that the murder of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis during World War II is "a myth."

"AIPAC is taking the public statements seriously. They're alarmed by a nuclear capability, and the administration appears to be adopting an approach that isn't changing Iranian behavior," said Dennis Ross, a U.S. envoy to the Middle East during the Clinton administration.

Ross said the criticisms, though serious, are unlikely to lead to an all-out rift between AIPAC and the administration. "At the end of the day, every administration does what it needs to do, but obviously they will have to pay attention to this," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...v=rss_politics


Iran, Russia discuss purchase of Tupolev-204
Moscow, Dec 25, IRNA

Iran-Russia-Plane
Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Qolamreza Ansari discussed on Saturday purchase of Tupolev-204 planes from Russia with the managing director of 'Aviastar Aviation Company' in Oliyanovsk province in Russia.

Last year, the representatives of the Russian company visited Tehran for finalizing the sale of 5-10 Tupolev-204.

Iran flag carrier Iran-air is interested to use the planes in its domestic routes.

Iran and Russia signed an agreement last year on technical aspects of TU 204-100.

Iran officially inducted the first Iran-140 passenger plane, built with the help of Ukrainians, into its aviation fleet at Mehrabad airport last year.

The airliner is groomed for flights in semi-state owned Safiran and Caspian airlines, the official added.

Iranian airlines are seeking to refurbish their aging fleet and meet demand in the face of rising passenger numbers despite their financial troubles and US sanctions which bar the sale of aircraft and parts to the Islamic Republic.

Ansari also visited the Vaz Vehicle manufacturing company in the province and talked to the officials on cooperation in automobile production.

The factory produces 'Patriot' model with the glove compartment build by Iran-Khodro Industrial Group under dlrs 20-million agreement signed last year.

Ansari also held a meeting with the provincial governor general on expansion of industrial cooperation between Iran and the Russian province.

The TU-100-204 is similar to the Boeing 757 and Airbus A-320 but its price and the expense for servicing are less than the two mentioned planes, said a Russian aviation committee official.

Managing Director of Iran Air Saeed Hessam said here last month that Iran Air expansion should be one of the priorities in the sustainable development drive.

He added that crating value-added of the transportation sector will also boost value-added in the economy as a whole.

Iran-Air faces problems due to sanctions imposed on the country, Hessam added.

He said that modernization of the fleet and upgrading of the services, improving security, reducing flight delays and increase in operational productivity are among his program for Iran's flag carrier.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu...0000005532.htm

Gas venture begins production


TEHRAN, Dec 24: Senior Iranian energy officials on Saturday celebrated the Islamic state’s first gas production from the North Sea as part of a joint venture with BP.

The Rhum field is the UK’s largest undeveloped gas deposit. Production began on Tuesday with 130 million cubic feet a day and is expected to rise to 300 million cubic feet a day.

Iranian officials said the field was developed jointly by BP and a subsidiary of the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), at a cost of £350m. Each company holds a 50pc stake.

“Based on today’s international gas market price, the gas deposit is worth around $4 billion,” deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian told the ISNA students news agency.

“The two companies signed a Production Service Association (PSA) contract making them partners in production and revenue,” he added.

NIOC Managing Director Mehdi Mirmoezi told ISNA the joint venture “will boost the Iranian National Oil Company’s financial situation and will strengthen the government.”—Reuters


Moscow wants to help Tehran enrich uranium

Source ::: Reuters

MOSCOW: Moscow told Iran yesterday that it remained ready to build a joint venture plant to enrich uranium in Russia, just days after an EU diplomat said Tehran had dismissed the compromise plan at talks in Vienna.

The plan, which would allow Tehran to establish a civilian nuclear energy programme but transfer enrichment to Russia, is aimed at ending a stalemate between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear programmes.

“The Russian embassy in Tehran gave to the Iranian side an official note saying that the previous Russian proposal of the creation ... of a joint Russian-Iranian company to enrich uranium remains in force,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The proposal is Russia’s input in looking for a mutually acceptable decision to settle the problem of the Iranian nuclear pogramme via political and diplomatic methods,” it said on its website www.mid.ru.

Britain, Germany and France last Wednesday reopened talks with Iran in Vienna and said the dialogue would resume on January 18.

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Israel's War Deadline

Iran in the Crosshairs

By JAMES PETRAS

Never has an imminent war been so loudly and publicly advertised as Israel's forthcoming military attack against Iran. When the Israeli Military Chief of Staff, Daniel Halutz, was asked how far Israel was ready to go to stop Iran's nuclear energy program, he said "Two thousand kilometers" * the distance of an air assault.

More specifically Israeli military sources reveal that Israel's current and probably next Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Israel's armed forces to prepare for air strikes on uranium enrichment sites in Iran According to the London Times the order to prepare for attack went through the Israeli defense ministry to the Chief of Staff. During the first week in December, "sources inside the special forces command confirmed that 'G' readiness * the highest state * for an operation was announced" (Times, December 11, 2005).

On December 9, Israeli Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz, affirmed that in view of Teheran's nuclear plans, Tel Aviv should "not count on diplomatic negotiations but prepare other solutions". In early December, Ahron Zoevi Farkash, the Israeli military intelligence chief told the Israeli parliament (Knesset) that "if by the end of March, the international community is unable to refer the Iranian issue to the United Nations Security Council, then we can say that the international effort has run its course".

In other words, if international diplomatic negotiations fail to comply with Israel's timetable, Israel will unilaterally, militarily attack Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party and candidate for Prime Minister, stated that if Sharon did not act against Iran, "then when I form the new Israeli government (after the March 2006 elections) we'll do what we did in the past against Saddam's reactor." In June 1981 Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

Even the pro-Labor newspaper, Haaretz, while disagreeing with the time and place of Netanyahu's pronouncements, agreed with its substance. Haaretz criticized "(those who) publicly recommend an Israeli military option" because it "presents Israel as pushing (via powerful pro-Israel organizations in the US) the United States into a major war." However, Haaretz adds "Israel must go about making its preparations quietly and securely * not at election rallies." (Haaretz, December 6, 2005). Haaretz's position, like that of the Labor Party, is that Israel not advocate war against Iran before multi-lateral negotiations are over and the International Atomic Energy Agency makes a decision.

Israeli public opinion apparently does not share the political elite's plans for a military strike against Iran's nuclear program. A survey in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, reported by Reuters (December 16, 2005) shows that 58 per cent of the Israelis polled believed the dispute over Iran's nuclear program should be handled diplomatically while only 36 per cent said its reactors should be destroyed in a military strike.

All top Israeli officials have pronounced the end of March, 2006, as the deadline for launching a military assault on Iran. The thinking behind this date is to heighten the pressure on the US to force the sanctions issue in the Security Council. The tactic is to blackmail Washington with the "war or else" threat, into pressuring Europe (namely Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia) into approving sanctions. Israel knows that its acts of war will endanger thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, and it knows that Washington (and Europe) cannot afford a third war at this time.

The end of March date also coincides with the IAEA report to the UN on Iran's nuclear energy program. Israeli policymakers believe that their threats may influence the report, or at least force the kind of ambiguities, which can be exploited by its overseas supporters to promote Security Council sanctions or justify Israeli military action.

A March date also focusses the political activities of the pro-Israel organizations in the United States. The major pro-Israel lobbies have lined up a majority in the US Congress and Senate to push for the UN Security Council to implement economic sanctions against Iran or, failing that, endorse Israeli "defensive" action.

On the side of the Israeli war policy are practically all the major and most influential Jewish organizations, the pro-Israeli lobbies, their political action committees, a sector of the White House, a majority of subsidized Congressional representatives and state, local and party leaders. On the other side are sectors of the Pentagon, State Department, a minority of Congressional members, a majority of public opinion, a minority of American Jews and the majority of active and retired military commanders who have served or are serving in Iraq.

Most discussion in the US on Israel's war agenda has been dominated by the pro-Israeli organizations that transmit the Israeli state positions. The Jewish weekly newspaper, Forward, has reported a number of Israeli attacks on the Bush Administration for not acting more aggressively on behalf of Israel's policy. According to the Forward, "Jerusalem is increasingly concerned that the Bush Administration is not doing enough to block Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons" (December 9, 2005).

Further stark differences occurred during the semi-annual strategic dialog between Israeli and US security officials, in which the Israelis opposed a US push for regime change in Syria, fearing a possible, more radical Islamic regime. Israeli officials also criticized the US for forcing Israel to agree to open the Rafah border crossing and upsetting their stranglehold on the economy in Gaza.

Predictably the biggest Jewish organization in the US, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations immediately echoed the Israeli state line. Malcolm Hoenlan, President of the Conference, lambasted Washington for a "failure of leadership on Iran" and "contracting the issue to Europe" (Forward, December 9, 2005). He went on to attack the Bush Administration for not following Israel's demands by delaying referral of Iran to the UN Security Council for sanction. Hoenlan then turned on French, German and British negotiators accusing them of "appeasement and weakness", and of not having a "game plan for decisive action" * presumably for not following Israel's 'sanction or bomb them' game plan.

The role of AIPAC, the Conference and other pro-Israeli organizations as transmission belts for Israel's war plans was evident in their November 28, 2005 condemnation of the Bush Administration agreement to give Russia a chance to negotiate a plan under which Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium for non-military purposes under international supervision. AIPAC's rejection of negotiations and demands for an immediate confrontation were based on the specious argument that it would "facilitate Iran's quest for nuclear weapons" * an argument which flies in the face of all known intelligence data (including Israel's) which says Iran is at least 3 to 10 years away from even approaching nuclear weaponry.

AIPAC's unconditional and uncritical transmission of Israeli demands and criticism is usually clothed in the rhetoric of US interests or security in order to manipulate US policy. AIPAC chastised the Bush regime for endangering US security. By relying on negotiations, AIPAC accused the Bush Administration of "giving Iran yet another chance to manipulate (sic) the international community" and "pose a severe danger to the United States" (Forward, Dec. 9, 2005).

Leading US spokesmen for Israel opposed President Bush's instruction to his Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khaklilzad, to open a dialog with Iran's Ambassador to Iraq. In addition, Israel's official "restrained" reaction to Russia's sale to Teheran of more than a billion dollars worth of defensive anti-aircraft missiles, which might protect Iran from an Israeli air strike, was predictably echoed by the major Jewish organizations in the US.

Pushing the US into a confrontation with Iran, via economic sanctions and military attack has been a top priority for Israel and its supporters in the US for more than a decade (Jewish Times/ Jewish Telegraph Agency, Dec. 6, 2005). In line with its policy of forcing a US confrontation with Iran, AIPAC, the Israeli PACs (political action committees) and the Conference of Presidents have successfully lined up a majority of Congress people to challenge what they describe as the "appeasement" of Iran.

Representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), who has the dubious distinction of being a collaborator with Cuban exile terrorist groups and unconditional backer of Israel's war policy, is chairwoman of the US House of Representative Middle East subcommittee. From that platform she has denounced "European appeasement and arming the terrorist regime in Teheran". She boasted that her Iran sanctions bill has the support of 75 per cent of the members of Congress and that she is lining up additional so-sponsors.

Despite pro-Israeli attacks on US policy for its 'weakness' on Iran, Washington has moved as aggressively as circumstances permit. Facing European opposition to an immediate confrontation (as AIPAC and Israeli politicians demand) Washington supports European negotiations but imposes extremely limiting conditions, namely a rejection of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes.

The European "compromise" of forcing Iran to turn over the enrichment process to a foreign country (Russia), is not only a violation of its sovereignty, but is a policy that no other country using nuclear energy practices. Given this transparently unacceptable "mandate", it is clear that Washington's 'support for negotiations' is a device to provoke an Iranian rejection, and a means of securing Europe's support for a Security Council referral for international sanctions.

Despite the near unanimous support and widespread influence of the major Jewish organizations, 20 per cent of American Jews do not support Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. Even more significantly, 61 per cent of Jews almost never talk about Israel or defend Israel in conversation with non-Jews (Jerusalem Post, Dec 1, 2005). Only 29 per cent of Jews are active promoters of Israel. The Israel First crowd represents less than a third of the Jewish community. In fact, there is more opposition to Israel among Jews than there is in the US Congress. Having said that, however, most Jewish critics of Israel are not influential in the big Jewish organizations and the Israel lobby, excluded from the mass media and mostly intimidated from speaking out, especially on Israel's war preparations against Iran.


The Myth of the Iranian Nuclear Threat

The Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Daniel Halutz, has categorically denied that Iran represents an immediate nuclear threat to Israel, let along the United States. According to Haaretz (12/14/05), Halutz stated that it would take Iran time to be able to produce a nuclear bomb * which he estimated might happen between 2008 and 2015.

Israel's Labor Party officials do not believe that Iran represents an immediate nuclear threat and that the Sharon government and the Likud war propaganda is an electoral ploy. According to Haaretz, "Labor Party officialsaccused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and other defense officials of using the Iran issue in their election campaigns in an effort to divert public debate from social issues".

In a message directed at the Israeli Right but equally applicable to AIPAC and the Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations in the US, Labor member of the Knesset, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer rejected electoral warmongering: "I hope the upcoming elections won't motivate the prime minister and defense minister to stray from government policy and place Israel on the frontlines of confrontation with Iran. The nuclear issue is an international issue and there is no reason for Israel to play a major role in it" (Haaretz, December 14, 2005).

Israeli intelligence has determined that Iran has neither the enriched uranium nor the capability to produce an atomic weapon now or in the immediate future, in contrast to the hysterical claims publicized by the US pro-Israel lobbies. Mohammed El Baradei, head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has inspected Iran for several years, has pointed out that the IAEA has found no proof that Iran is trying to construct nuclear weapons. He criticized Israeli and US war plans indirectly by warning that a "military solution would be completely un-productive".

More recently, Iran, in a clear move to clarify the issue of the future use of enriched uranium, "opened the door for US help in building a nuclear power plant". Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, stated "America can take part in the international bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality" (USA Today, Dec. 11, 2005).

Iran also plans to build several other nuclear power plants with foreign help. This Iranian call for foreign assistance is hardly the strategy of a country trying to conduct a covert atomic bomb program, especially one directed at involving one of its principal accusers.

The Iranians are at an elementary stage in the processing of uranium, not even reaching the point of uranium enrichment, which in turn will take still a number of years, and overcoming many complex technical problems before it can build a bomb. There is no factual basis for arguing that Iran represents a nuclear threat to Israel or to the US forces in the Middle East.

Scores of countries with nuclear reactors by necessity use enriched uranium. The Iranian decision to advance to processing enriched uranium is its sovereign right as it is for all countries, which possess nuclear reactors in Europe, Asia and North America. Israel and AIPAC's resort to the vague formulation of Iran's potential nuclear capacity is so open-ended that it could apply to scores of countries with a minimum scientific infrastructure.

The European Quartet has raised a bogus issue by evading the issue of whether or not Iran has atomic weapons or is manufacturing them and focused on attacking Iran's capacity to produce nuclear energy * namely the production of enriched uranium. The Quartet has conflated enriched uranium with a nuclear threat and nuclear potential with the danger of an imminent nuclear attack on Western countries, troops and Israel. The Europeans, especially Great Britain, have two options in mind: To impose an Iranian acceptance of limits on its sovereignty, more specifically on its energy policy; or to force Iran to reject the arbitrary addendum to the Non-Proliferation Agreement and then to propagandize the rejection as an indication of Iran's evil intention to create atomic bombs and target pro-Western countries.

The Western media would echo the US and European governments position that Iran was responsible for the breakdown of negotiations. The Europeans would then convince their public that since "reason" failed, the only recourse it to follow the US to take the issue to the Security Council and approve international sanctions against Iran.

The US then would attempt to pressure Russia and China to vote in favor of sanctions or to abstain. There is reason to doubt that either or both countries would agree, given the importance of the multi-billion dollar oil, arms, nuclear and trade deals between Iran and these two countries. Having tried and failed in the Security Council, the US and Israel would, on the scenario of the War Party, move toward a military attack. An air attack on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities would entail the bombing of heavily populated as well as remote regions leading to large-scale loss of life.

The principal result will be a huge escalation of war throughout the Middle East. Iran, a country of 70 million, with several times the military forces that Iraq possessed and with highly motivated and committed military and paramilitary forces could be expected to cross into Iraq. Iraqi Shiites sympathetic to or allied with Iran would most likely break their ties with Washington and go into combat. US military bases, troops and clients would be under fierce attack. US military casualties would multiply. All troop withdrawal plans would be disrupted. The 'Iraqization' strategy would disintegrate.

Most likely new terrorist incidents would occur in Western Europe, North America, and Australia and against US multinationals

Sanctions on Iran would not work, because oil is a scarce and essential commodity. China, India and other fast-growing Asian countries would balk at a boycott. Turkey and other Muslim countries would not cooperate. The sanction policy would be destined to failure; its only result to raise the price of oil even higher.

Here in the United States there are few if any influential organized lobbies challenging the pro-war Israel lobby either from the perspective of working for coexistence in the Middle East or even in defending US national interests when they diverge from Israel. Although numerous former diplomats, generals, intelligence officials, Reformed Jews, retired National Security advisers and State Department professionals have publicly denounced the Iran war agenda and even criticized the Israel First lobbies, their newspaper ads and media interviews have not been backed by any national political organization that can compete for influence in the White House and Congress.

As we draw closer to a major confrontation with Iran and Israeli officials set short-term deadlines for igniting a Middle East conflagration, it seems that we are doomed to learn from future catastrophic losses that Americans must organize to defeat political lobbies based on overseas allegiances.


Iran: Discovery of a Sassanid City in Dasht e Moghan

Tehran, 22 December 2005 (CHN) -- The recent archeological excavations in the historical site of Oltan Qalasi, resulted in the discovery of a big city which dates back to the Sassanid era. The wall and one of the gates of Qalasi Citadel were discovered during the excavations, while prior to this archeologists were expecting to find a city fortress on the plain.

There is a historical fortress in the Oltan Qalasi historical site, located in the southern shore of Aras river which contains of some valuable architectural evidence such as a tower and earthen shell keeps. The fortress was completely unearthed during two seasons of excavations.

"The new archaeological studies indicate that Oltan Qalasi should have been a very big city at the end of the Sassanid era and the beginning of Islamic period. This big city consists of two parts: citadel and rabaz or residential area. The citadel is a 400 x 800 meter rectangle. Archaeologists believe that it must have been the Sassanid Orsan city," said Karim Alizadeh, head of excavation team of Oltan Qalasi.

A trench with a variable width up to 10 meters was found surrounding the citadel. All of these characteristics prove the existence of a big city on the plain, which, including its surroundings, is estimated to have covered a 70 hectare area.

"The aerial and satellite photographs indicate that the city is much bigger than previously thought. Its scatterdness is a proof to this claim as well. The satellite photographs show that the citadel was situated in the center of the city and two irrigation channels were connected to the citadel from two sides," added Alizadeh.

Based on archaeological studies conducted in the site, the city was constructed according to the models of Iranian city planning before and during the Islamic period. During the ancient times, citadel was always considered as the residential place of the governing body of the city and rabaz was the residential area of the ordinary people. Prior to this, the archaeologists believed that they will face a city fortress which is consisted of a citadel with a trench around it.

"Historical and geographical studies indicate the existence of another city in Dasht e Moghan (Moghan Plain). According to the studies, the characteristics are similar to those of Orsan city belonging to the Sassanid era. However, we can not say for sure that it is the same city. Based on the historical evidence, Orsan city was located 12 kilometers south of Arash River, while the excavations have been carried out very close to the Aras River," explained Alizadeh.

It is likely that Aras River originally had a 12 kilometer distance from this city and the basin of this river has changed in the past 2000 years.

"More studies are needed to find out where the basin of Aras River was at the end of Sassanid era. Then we can determine the history of the city for sure," explains Alizadeh.

Archaeological excavations led to the discovery of one of citadel's gates with 4 meters in width. The gate was restored and reconstructed later, especially during the Islamic era. No Islamic architectural remains have been found in the area so far. However, the discovered relics, most of which are clays, and Islamic coins found during the previous excavations indicate that the city should have been active during the Islamic period.

Oltan Qalasi historical city dates back to the Sassanid era. It is situated in a big village, 15 kilometer from the southeast of Parsabad and in Dasht e Moghan area. Oltan Citadel is located at a distance of 500 meters from the village and very close to the Aras River.


1000-kilo vegetarian pizza served in Tehran

Tehran, Dec 24, IRNA-A number of well-known Iranian chefs and cooks pose for photo after preparing a 1,000-kilo vegetable pizza at the Niavaran Cultural Complex in northern Tehran, on December 23, 2005.

The giant pizza was distributed among 3,000 residents of the Iranian capital aiming at promoting vegetable eating among the public.

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C.I.A. Chief Warns Allies to Prepare for U.S. Bombing of Iran and Syria

ADE - Kurt Nimmo - During a recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey. Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria.

Goss Tells Turks to Prepare for Iran Attack

You’d think the fact Porter Goss, head broom sweeper at the CIA, recently told the Turkish government the United States plans to attack Iran and Syria would be headline splashing news in the New York Times and the Washington Post. But although the news was carried in the Turkish press, it elicited hardly a murmur here in America, with the exception of United Press International and Reuters.

As for the latter, only Goss’ meeting with Turkish officials on the “separatist terrorist organization” known as the Kurdistan Workers Party was mentioned and nothing about the impending attack, while the UPI mentioned it in the fourth paragraph, stating: “Goss said that Iran sees Turkey as an enemy and will ‘export its regime,’ warning Ankara to be ready for a possible U.S. aerial operation against Iran and Syria.”

PHX News was more specific and noted the lack of attention the story: “In an overlooked story, the Turkish press reported last week that CIA Director Porter Goss went to Ankara recently and informed the Turkish government that Iran already has nuclear weapons and they should be ready for ‘a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria.’”

During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey. Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria. Goss, who came to Ankara just after FBI Director Robert Mueller’s visit, brought up Iran’s alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons. It was said that Goss first told Ankara that Iran has nuclear weapons and this situation was creating a huge threat for both Turkey and other states in the region. Diplomatic sources say that Washington wants Turkey to coordinate with its Iran policies. The second dossier is about Iran’s stance on terrorism. The CIA argued that Iran was supporting terrorism, the PKK and al-Qaeda.

In short, Goss and Mueller were sent by the neocons to shop around an “air operation against Iran and Syria” in Turkey in exchange for a hardline against the Kurds and using the unestablished “fact” the Iranians have nukes and the desire to use them as enticement.

As I have written here for months, the neocons are determined to attack Iran and Syria, if only with airstrikes. Of course, if this is accomplished it will stir up even more chaos and strife, precisely what the neocons want, regardless of all the nonsense Bush mumbles about democracy and Iraqi elections. As we should know if we pay attention, the Bushcons are playing by the Zionist script in an effort to balkanize the Muslim Middle East by way of mass murder and sectarian violence.
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Ejei rejects German weekly claim

Ahvaz, Dec 25 - Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei in response to German weekly " Der Spiegel" claim concerning the possibility of US attack to Iran said, "the US statesmen are more clever to have the intention of attacking Iran, because they know that such an act would have a very expensive cost for them".

Responding to a reporter's question in Ahvaz on Saturday evening, concerning the possibility of the US attack on Iran in 2006, Ejei said, " this is only press reports."


Iran rejects Russian proposal

TEHRAN: Iran yesterday rejected an offer from Russia for the Islamic republic to conduct uranium enrichment activities on its soil, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.

"We have still not received the concrete offer, but it is clear that we will accept positively the propositions and the plans that recognise the right of the Islamic republic to carry out enrichment on its own soil," he said.

Russia on Saturday had said its proposal to create "on Russian soil a joint Russo-Iranian undertaking to enrich uranium still stands", despite earlier indications from Tehran that it was not interested.

The Russian embassy in Tehran put the suggestion to the Iranian government on Saturday, the Russian foreign ministry said.

"This proposal represents Russia's contribution to the search for a solution acceptable to all in the context of settling the situation ... by political and diplomatic methods," it said in a statement.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story...&IssueID=28281

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IRAN: PAKISTAN RESUMES ORANGE EXPORTS TO IRAN

(InfoProd)According to Tehran Times, Pakistan has formally resumed kino (orange) export to Iran after over 26 years. A chartered vessel, carrying 50 containers with 1,000 tons of cargo booked by three exporters, left Karachi Port for Bandar Bushehr seaport. The export was resumed following the signing of a protocol between Pakistan and Iran few months back. The daily pointed out that Pakistan used to be major exporter of kino to Iran over two decades ago. This development could be seen in the context of Pakistan-Iran pledge to increase bilateral trade to U.S. one billion dollars. Presently, the trade volume is over $700 million.


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Turkey Denies Cooperation with US Against Iran

Cihan News Agency 26/12/2005 07:15

Turkey has ruled out any cooperation with the United State against Iran.


Turkey Denies Cooperation with US Against Iran

Cihan News Agency 26/12/2005 07:15

Turkey has ruled out any cooperation with the United State against Iran.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Saturday dismissed the reports that the US had offered the PKK terror organization in return for Iran.

German news agency (DPP) had claimed on Friday that CIA director Peter Goss requested support from Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to Ankara last week for an aerial attack to Iran's nuclear plants.

Gul said that the top level visits from the US to Turkey were not related to third countries including Iran and Syria.

"Those claims are pure imagination," Foreign Minister Gul told the reporters on Saturday in the city of Bursa.

The DPP had claimed in the news that Goss, in return for Turkey's support, promised that Turkey could hold raids against PKK camps in Iran, by letting Ankara know that the US offensive to begin in a few hours on the same day.

Turkey has long strategic relations with USA; however, the relations between Turkey and neighboring Iran have also improved in remarkable ways in recent years following reciprocal trust boosting steps.

http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=15523

Half of Rhum gas field in UK belongs to Iran


Archived Picture - Iran and the United Kingdom have already started a joint venture project in the largest offshore gas field of Rhum in the North Sea for production and export of gas, deputy minister of Oil in International Affairs Seyyed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian said.

LONDON, December 25 (IranMania) - Iran and the United Kingdom have already started a joint venture project in the largest offshore gas field of Rhum in the North Sea for production and export of gas, deputy minister of Oil in International Affairs Seyyed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian said.

According to MNA, the NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) holds 50% of the share in this 350 mlnpounds venture and it is expected that by drilling two new wells the production to increase by 170 mlncubic ft. from the current 130.

Moreover, the methods used in this project by the assistance of Iranian experts are of considerable technical complexities due to high pressure and temperature of the field.

Rhum Gas Field, discovered in 1977, is 109 meters deep below the sea and is located 240 miles offshore from northeast of Aberdeen.


http://story.irishsun.com/p.x/ct/9/i...65b944045da4a/


Ahmadinejad invited to Tajikistan

Tehran, Dec 25 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan should further strengthen their cultural bonds given that Farsi is the common language spoken in the three states.

The transportation networks among the three Persian-speaking countries would strengthen their cultural bounds and bring about economic growth, he noted in meeting with President of Tajikistan's Assembly of Representatives Saidullo Khairullayev.

The Tajik official, heading a parliamentary delegation, arrived in Tehran on Saturday on a six-day visit. Ahmadinejad added that the presidents of Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan are to hold a joint meeting in a near future aimed at preparing the ground for cultural development of the three countries.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes any plan that can expedite development of cultural, economic, political and sport relations among the three countries."

He expressed hope that all the potentials will be utilized to draw up a long-term cooperation plan.

Khairullayev for his part hailed the personality of Iran's president and termed him as a great politician in the world of Islam.

He conveyed the greeting of the Tajik president to his Iranian counterpart, stressing that the government and nation of Tajikistan would not forget the assistance Iran has rendered to them in recent years.

He invited President Ahmadinejad to pay an official visit to Tajikistan. He attached importance to cultural and political ties between Iran and Tajikistan and termed the construction of Anzab Tunnel as well as Sang Toudeh power plant as good examples of extensive cooperation between the two states.

President Ahmadinejad held a meeting with Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September. The two presidents also held another meeting on the sidelines of the OIC heads of state summit held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia early December.

http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=204277&n=34

UNCTAD on ship building in Iran

Tehran, Dec 25 - The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that Iran had recieved 27 ship-building orders by the end of October 2005, thus putting the Islamic republic on top of Middle East ship building list.

The United Arab Emirates and Egypt with 10 and 8 orders ranked second and third in the Middle East.

The UNCTAD announced that South Korea, Japan and China are among the biggest countries in ship-building industry in the world.

http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=204262&n=32

Stand up to Iran

By Abraham Foxman

The widely publicized and condemned remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel and the Holocaust reflect the range of anti-Jewish thinking in the post-Holocaust era.

It has often been said that after 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, it was not respectable to be openly anti-Semitic. Often hatred of Jews manifested itself in hatred of the State of Israel, not merely legitimate critiques of Israeli policy, but denial of Israel's right to exist and seeing the Jewish state as the source of all evil in the Middle East, if not the world. In recent years, however, in some circles there has been more of a willingness to express hatred of the Jews directly, without the mark of anti-Zionism.

The statements by Ahmadinejad in recent weeks reflect the evolution of several of these approaches. Take his words on the Holocaust and its relationship to the State of Israel. They contain within them the mode of anti-Israeli thinking that has existed in the Arab and Islamic world for decades. In their struggle against Israel's very existence, Arabs and Muslims for a long time acknowledged that the Holocaust happened and was a terrible event, but, they asked, why should we Middle Easterners pay the price for what the Europeans did to the Jews? In other words, they saw Israel's existence as an illegitimate imposition on the Arab Middle East by Europeans who felt guilty over the annihilation of the Jews. Of course, this reasoning ignores the fact that the Jewish claim to Israel rests on thousands of years of connection to the land and to the concept of return and not on the Holocaust. Still, this anti-Israel speech did not deny the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad's comments that the Europeans ought to set territory in Europe as a homeland for the Jews follows that long-standing approach.

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At the same time, he brings into play the more recent view of the Holocaust that has grown in Arab and Muslim circles. According to this view, the Holocaust never really happened; it is a myth perpetrated by the Jews in order to gain sympathy and support for a Jewish state. Here Ahmadinejad makes a mockery of the idea that it is only Israel, not Jews, that is the problem. After all, denial of the Holocaust has at its core two anti-Semitic elements. By denying the greatest tragedy of the Jewish people, it demonstrates profound hatred of the Jews even during their most difficult moments. And, it suggests the old and potent anti-Semitic concept - that Jews control the international media and sources of power - for how could this myth of the Holocaust be seen as fact by everyone around the world if not for the notion that Jews manipulate and control sources of communication throughout the world?

The fact that Ahmadinejad's two basic points - that Israel should be wiped out and the Europeans should give territory to the Jews on the one hand, and that the Holocaust never happened on the other hand - are contradictory does not bother him at all. For after all, if the Holocaust never happened, then why should the Europeans owe the Jews anything?

Of course, when dealing with hatred of this kind, looking for logic and consistency is a waste of time. What is apparent and critical is the willingness to elide the line between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions. This trend in parts of the Arab world has been visible for a number of years, where the conflict has devolved from a political-national one to an anti-Semitic one. Ehud Ya'ari, the Israeli commentator, has pointed out that too often the problem is now seen not as Israel being the source of all problems, but Jews and Judaism itself. Both are insidious approaches, but the latter is particularly so. It has one virtue: illuminating the fact that to a large degree the claim of being anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic has little weight.

The only positive note in all of this is the broad condemnation by the international community of the Iranian president's posture. It is a shame that it takes such extremism to wake up the world if indeed it has awakened, but better late than never. Now the test is whether words of condemnation will be translated into actions - sanctions and isolation - against the regime in Tehran.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/662110.html

Ahmadinejad felicitates Pope on Christmas

Tehran, Dec 25, IRNA


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad felicitated Pope Benedict XVI on the birth anniversary of the Great Prophet Jesus Christ who is the messenger of love, friendship, justice and spirituality.

In a message to the leader of the world's Roman Catholics as well as heads of Christian states, he noted that the present world which is filled with violence, discrimination and injustice is in dire need of guidelines of the divine prophets more than any other time in the history.

He said efforts to revive basic spiritual values of life will definitely lead to justice, equality and dignity for all human beings.

The Iranian president further wished that the new Christian year will bring peace and tranquility to the international community on the basis of justice and spirituality.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line...6484102458.htm

Shalom: Diplomatic Efforts Won’t Stop Iranian Nuclear Program
16:26 Dec 25, '05 / 24 Kislev 5766

(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, during Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, discussed concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Shalom stated the European community is continuing diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear enrichment efforts, and said he does not think the efforts will produce the desired results.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=95417


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Speculations over US attack against Iran


Are the USA planing a rocket attack against targets in Iran? In secret discussions Washington was preparing the Allies for appropriate air strikes in 2006, agencies disclosed to day. Especially in the NATO country Turkey, speculations about an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities are taking place.

Istanbul/Berlin - The News exploded like a Bomb in the tranquil prechristmas mood.:Washington was preparing close allies for air strikes against Iran. This was disseminated today by the German Depeschenservice in a text by the former "FAZ" editor - Head and Secret Service Expert Udo Ulfkotte - however substantial doubts on this matter are certainly justified.

As source given by the not undoubted journalist Ulfkotte "Western security circles" without naming specifics. According to his statements, CIA-Chief Porter Goss in the Turkish Capital Ankara asked M.P. Recep Tayyip Erdogan to support the air strikes against Iranian Nuclear and Military Installations especially with uninhibited exchange of secret information. At the present plan the attacks were planned for 2006.

In recent weeks The governments of Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed about the implementations of military plans. The air strikes were described as "possible option" a specific point in time was however, not mentioned.

CIA Chief Gloss was now to have provided the Turkish Security Administration in Ankara with three information packages, one of which supposedly includes that Teheran cooperate with the terror organization Al-Qaida. A further transferred info pertains to the progress of the Iranian nuclear Armament, it was said. According to statements from German security agencies, in Ankara Goss assured the Turkish Government they would be informed a few hours before the possible Air Strike and to give Turkey already the green light for this particular day to attack depots of the separatist PKK on Iranian territory - a curious "Green Light" however, because the PKK does not maintain any military bases, but operates primarily in North Iraq.

The possible critical move in that situation - DDP reports - dependent mainly on the latest antisemitic outbursts of the Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinedschad, whose scathing verbal attacks against Israel, prompted the American governments stronger impression, that Teheran would not yield in the nuclear - disagreement and were stalling for time. The News Agency cited a high ranking German Military official, anonymously: " I would not surprise me, if the Americans in short would not capitalize on the opportunity delivered by Teheran. The Americans would have to Attack Iran, before they have developed nuclear weapons. Afterwards it would be too late.

If US plans for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities exist, or how detailed they are is hard to estimate. Last the American discovery annalist Seymour Hersh, reported about this in January 2005 in the "New Yorker" that secret US Commando Groups were active in marking military targets.

The Bush Government did not deny Hersh's report at that time. They only played it down: The article was full of "false statements" it was said in Washington. That the central issue in the report were false, was not disputed. Bush himself added explicitly, he didn't want to exclude the "War" option.

Air attack after New year?

Is a military action, possibly a war in the region about to happen? In Berlin the subject is moderated down. During the visit of defense minister Franz Josef Jung with Donald Rumsfeld this week in Washington, the possible Air Attack by the US on Iran did not come up as "a subject", a speaker for SPIEGEL ONLINE said.

However, the speculation on US attacks against Iran refers primarily to happenings in Turkey. Last week there was actually a mighty assembly of high ranking Security Personnel from the USA and from NATO in Ankara. Within a couple of days there was first the Chief of the FBI, then the Chief of the CIA and last the Secretary General Scheffer in Turkey. After her visit in Germany Coondoleezza Rize travelled to Turkey, too.

In fact Turkey's newspapers in connection with these visits have speculated too, that an attack on Iran was being prepared. But the assumptions in Turkey were not based on hard facts. Following the meeting of Porter Goss with Tayyip Erdogan the leftist Cumhuriyet headlined: "Now its Iran's turn". Substantiations: None.

The Paper noted, however, that the meeting between the CIA-Chief and Erdogan lasted unusually over an hour, even though Goss met beforehand with the Chief of the Turkish Secret Service. Because of that the Turkish public deducted that it had to be something very important - detailed facts: Wrong conclusion. Just about all media speculates over the possibility that Erdogan and Goss could have discussed a mutual action against the PKK in North Iraq. Possibly that Goss requested in exchange requested Turkish secret service photographs. A possible Air Attack on Iran would certainly not be staged from the Turkish base Incirlik, it is of course plausible that the USA informed Turkey, to test their reaction.

Ankara is skeptical. In the past the government in Ankara was skeptical concerning military actions by the USA to the point of directly opposed. An offensive by US ground troops in Northern Iraq against Saddam's Regime was even prevented by Ankara in 2003 - the lack of this second front was blamed by Donald Rumsfield over and over for military problems in Iraq.

Now the Turkish commander in chief and the probable future chief of staff Yasar Buyukanit both spent two weeks in Washington. Afterwards he commented that the relationship between the Turkish Army and the US Army were again excellent. This is therefore remarkable, because Buyukanit is one of the Hawks in the fight against the PKK and in the past had already considered, to himself march into North Iraq - in case the USA and the North Iraqi Kurds would not prevent the PKK from staging attacks against Turkey.

The Turkish - Iranian relations have been chilled for a long time. Teheran criticizes for years, that Turkey has good relations with Israel and is even cooperating with the Israeli Military. About the anti Israeli transgressions by Ahmadinedschad, Turkey was still not bombarded by the news media as it was the case in Germany - they just shook their head (shrugged their shoulder).

MP Erdogan has, however, just recently called his Israeli college Aril Sharon and congratulated him to his recovery - The long rather withheld contact by Erdogan with Sharon has in recently become much closer. Sharon had recently declared, if in doubt, he would go combat those in-love-with-nuclear Mullahs alone.

In spite of that The Turkish government spoke repeatedly against military action against Iran and Syria. Because at least with respect to the Kurdish question Turkey Syria and Iran are united, that there may not be an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq. An alliance concerning these interests does not seem to exist between Washington and Ankara. However, if the USA plans a missile attack against Iran, Turkey must come aboard - active or passive.


But Erdogan and his military harbor the worst fear for the whole region, in case the USA would actually go against Iran. Western experts, too, consider the success of a military action against nuclear installations in Iran in no way guaranteed. Just the opposite: An attack would probably miss its aim to stop the nuclear program and provide Ahmadinedschad with even more supporters.

uruknet


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The Real Reason for
Nuking Iran


Why a nuclear attack is on the neocon agenda

The strategic decision by the United States to nuke Iran was probably made long ago. Tactics adjust to unpredictable events as they unfold.

There was such an event last week, when Iran's president declared that Israel must be "wiped off" the map. The surprise was not the statement, which was an often-repeated quote by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, directed at a domestic student audience. What was surprising was both the timing (amid discussions about whether Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium) and the relatively low-key U.S. response. Tony Blair expressed "revulsion," Chirac was "profoundly shocked," the European Union in a joint statement "condemned [it] in the strongest terms." Instead, Bush was quiet.

White House Spokesman Scott McClellan commented, "It underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear intentions," and the usually vociferous U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton only said that Ahmadinejad's remarks about Israel were "pernicious and unacceptable." Those are uncharacteristically mild statements for this administration in the face of such a provocative statement by Iran against one of the U.S.' closest allies. Why?

Because Iran's intended underlying message to the U.S., which was ill-timed only in appearance, was: If you nuke us, the world will know that you did it because Iran supports the Palestinian cause.

Instead, it is in the U.S.' interests to de-emphasize any suggestion to that effect, hence its low-key response. Because nuking Iran for threatening Israel will inflame the Arab world and will not be acceptable to our European allies nor even to the American public. There are many other justifications that the Western world and the American public will find more acceptable, and these will be emphasized by the Bush administration at the right moment.

* Iran "is determined to get nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles that it can then use to intimidate not only its own region but possibly to supply to terrorists." (John Bolton, Oct. 15, 2005)
* "We cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of international terrorism, acquire the most destructive weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond." (John Bolton, June 24, 2004)
* "[S]yria and Iran … share the goal of hurting America. … State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists…." (George Bush, Oct. 6, 2005)
* The 9/11 Commission determined that al-Qaeda had long-standing and strong ties to Iran, for example that "senior al-Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives." (By contrast, it found no ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq).
* Iran was responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, where 19 Americans were killed and 372 wounded, according to a June 2001 indictment by the U.S. attorney general. According to the 9/11 Commission, al-Qaeda may also have been involved.
* Hezbollah, a terrorist group tied to Iran, carried out the suicide bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1982. Iran was directly involved, according to a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in May 2003.

The real reason for nuking Iran, however, is none of the above. It was spelled out with surprising candor in the Pentagon draft document "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" [.pdf] as one of several possible reasons geographic combatant commanders may request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons:

"To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD."

Yes, you read it right: The U.S. is prepared to break a 60-year-old taboo on the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries – not because the survival of the country is at stake, not because the lives of many Americans or allies are at stake – just to demonstrate that it can do it.

The U.S. has maintained for some time now that it reserves the right to respond with nuclear weapons to attacks or intended attacks with WMD, and that it intends to use nuclear weapons to destroy underground enemy facilities. It is argued that such statements have deterrent value, and that maintaining ambiguity as to what might trigger a U.S. nuclear attack deters countries from pursuing military initiatives that are contrary to U.S. interests.

Nonsense. Those statements have no deterrent value because no one in his or her right mind would believe that the greatest democracy in the world would do such a thing.

Unless the U.S. demonstrates, by actually doing it once, that it is indeed prepared to do so.

How do you create the conditions to perform such a demonstration and avoid immediate universal condemnation?

* You declare Iran to be the second member of the "axis of evil."
* You start a "global war on terror."
* You invade the first member of the axis (Iraq) and put 150,000 U.S. troops at the doorstep of the second member, in harm's way – not enough troops to invade Iran, nor to prevent an Iranian invasion of Iraq after Iran is attacked.
* You strike Iran's facilities, using conventional and nuclear bombs, to deter Iran from retaliating with missiles with chemical warheads and from invading Iraq, thereby saving the lives of 150,000 American soldiers.
* You argue that Iran's chemical and nuclear facilities had to be destroyed to prevent terrorists using weapons from those facilities to attack the U.S. (Never mind that the nuclear facilities were just nuclear reactors, not nuclear weapons).
* You get Israel to pull the trigger, i.e., bomb some Iranian installations (as it did in Iraq at Osirak) to provoke an Iranian response.

Now enter the world after the U.S. "demo," according to U.S. planners:

* There will be no doubt that U.S. statements on the use of nuclear weapons will have deterrent value.
* The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty will be amended to prohibit uranium-enrichment for all countries that do not do it already; violators will be nuked.
* North Korea will be forced to disarm under the now real and credible threat of massive U.S. nuclear attack.
* Any country suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons or any other military capability that could threaten the U.S. or its allies will be nuked.
* Russia, China, and all other nuclear countries will eventually be forced to disarm under the threat of massive U.S. nuclear attack.

However, the real world does not always follow the script envisioned by U.S. planners, as the Iraq experience illustrates. So here is a more likely "post-demo" scenario:

* Many non-nuclear countries, including those currently friendly to the U.S., will rush to develop a nuclear deterrent, and many will succeed.
* Terrorist groups sympathetic to Iran will do their utmost to retaliate in-kind against the U.S., and eventually will succeed.
* With the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons broken, use of them by other countries will follow in various regional conflicts, and subsequent escalation will lead to global nuclear war.

Bye-bye world, including the United States of America.


US Senate leader calls for action against Iran

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Bill Frist, the leader of the Republican majority in the US Senate, has called for action against Iran before it is too late.

In an article contributed to the Los Angeles Times, the influential senator suggested that although the US should continue IAEA discussions with Iran, it needs to explore “other measures,” in particular, asking allies who trade with Iran to join a sanctions campaign against Tehran. Noting that the US has long maintained sanctions on Iran that prohibit most trade, investment and assistance because Iran is on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, American law requires the President to oppose all multilateral assistance to Iran in international forums and impose sanctions on those who aid its weapons programmes or invest in its energy sector. “Now, we should persuade other countries to follow our lead. Aside from those covering food and medicine, we shouldn’t rule out any type of sanction,” he added.

Frist proposed that a multinational sanctions regime might begin with an embargo on technologies that Iran can use in its nuclear program. If these initial sanctions prove ineffective, the programme might escalate in stages to include a ban on arms sales and penalties for suppliers. Further sanctions could include limits on the export of civilian technologies, such as machine tools, that have military applications, and, eventually, the full spectrum of measures the US has in place to isolate Iran and persuade its rulers to give up their nuclear ambitions. “If we let Tehran develop nuclear weapons covertly while IAEA negotiations slog forward, Iran’s theocrats will have little reason to negotiate with anyone. The US needs to act before a regime that has denied the real Holocaust unleashes another,” he added.

The Senate majority leader accused Iran’s rulers of having waged a 26-year campaign to “suppress dissent, support terror and pursue a nuclear weapons programme.” He said it had become clear in recent weeks that international efforts to stop Iran’s atomic programme had failed to bear fruit. “Unless we act quickly, the United States will have a nuclear crisis on its hands,” he warned. He said there is a contrast between the Iranian “ruling class” and the Iranian people who want to rejoin the global community. “The Iranian people’s desire for freedom, however, hasn’t stopped the nation’s leaders from trying to build a fearsome arsenal,” he added. He charged that Iran already has missiles capable of striking Israel, parts of Europe and American forces in the Middle East. “It also appears that rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has given Tehran’s ruling clerics the blueprints for a nuclear warhead. Veteran Iran-watchers believe that the nation could soon use its supposedly civilian nuclear programme to produce weapons-grade fissile material,” he alleged

According to Frist, the world’s democracies largely agree that a nuclear-armed Iran presents a threat to Middle East stability and world peace. Meetings between the United States and the other 34 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board have produced resolutions but no final agreement to end Tehran’s “illicit nuclear programme.” Several IAEA board members have blocked serious action out of fear that Iran will pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, suspend international energy sales or even lash out militarily, he pointed out. He accused Iran of having violated its international obligations more than a dozen times. He stopped short of recommending that Iran be taken to the Security Council as that could drive away allies whose help would be needed to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

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We do not need permission for N-work: Iran

KABUL: Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear programme with any country, but that does not mean it is asking for permission for access to nuclear technology, Iran’s foreign minister said yesterday. Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology was supported by “many countries of the world”, Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference during a one-day visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul. “We do not accept global nuclear ‘apartheid’ and scientific ‘apartheid’,” Mottaki said.


U.S., UK, and Israeli nuclear first strike on Iran justified

by Bill Levinson

I received an excellent (and frightening) E-mail from Jeffrey Epstein, President, www.americastruthforum.com. It shows Iran's President Ahmadinejad speaking at the "World Without Zionism" conference where he spoke of wiping "Israel off the map." The poster behind him, however, shows that he plans to take out the United States first.

His chief strategic guru Hassan Abbassi explains,

We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization... we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.

At this point, I would almost say that President Bush and our Congress are derelict in their duty if they do not declare war on Iran and at least wreck that country so badly that it will be unable to follow through with this plan.

Noting that Iran also is developing nuclear weapons and plans to hand them over to terrorists, the United States would probably be justified in launching a nuclear first strike on this rogue regime. The same goes for Israel, which this sand Nazi has openly threatened to "wipe off the map." Israel and the United States are not, however, the only nuclear-armed nations with a casus belli against Iran.

Per Abassi,

But it is not only the US that Abbasi wants to take on and humiliate. He has described Britain as "the mother of all evils". In his lecture he claimed that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the Gulf states were all "children of the same mother: the British Empire." As for France and Germany, they are "countries in terminal decline", according to Abbasi.

"Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover," he told his audience.

So the nuclear-armed United Kingdom also is on his target list, and Tony Blair would be 100 percent justified in giving an order to one of his country's missile boats and sending Abassi and Ahmadinejad to tell Allah in person what a great job they have been doing for Him.

Ground troops and a "Vietnam" are not necessary; strategic bombers, possibly using nuclear weapons, can probably smash Iran's infrastructure so badly that the country will not be a threat to anyone. If its seaports, roads, bridges, and airports are destroyed, it will not be able to import nuclear materials or export nukes to terrorists.


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Persian Fire
Israel’s special forces at the “highest stage of readiness”



So now we know: Next time the fire will come in Iran. The blow will be delivered by proxy, but that will not spare the true perpetrator from the firestorm of blowback and unintended consequences that will follow. Even now, the gruesome deaths of many innocent people in many lands are growing in futurity’s womb.

The Rubicon of the new war was crossed on Oct. 27. Oddly enough for this renewal of the ancient enmity between the heirs of Athens and Persia, the decisive event occurred on the edge of the Arctic Circle, at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, where a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit. This launch, scarcely noticed at the time, has accelerated the inevitable strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities: Israel is now readying an attack for no later than the end of March, The Sunday Times reports.

The order, from embattled Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, puts Israel’s special forces at the “highest stage of readiness” for the strike. While Iran’s plan to begin enriching uranium — which will give it the capability of building a nuclear bomb — is the precipitating factor, the budding Iranian space program is a “point of no return” for Sharon, and that is what is driving the actual timing of the strike. The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months.

Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullah’s beard. What’s more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months.

There is of course another “precipitating factor”: the Israeli elections on Mar. 28. Sharon, who has left the Likud Party to form his own cult-of-personality party, faces a fractious electorate, with his former comrades guaranteeing an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites if Sharon is too “weak” to do it before the vote. He may well decide to rally the nation — and stave off this lunge from the right — with a blow against Tehran. Such a move would doubtless be popular at home; everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have the kind of nuclear weapons that Israel itself possesses in such bristling abundance.

The move will be popular in Washington as well. Only a fool would believe that the fools in the Bush Regime have abandoned their bloody-minded ambitions for “full-spectrum dominance” in the Middle East, just because Iraq has turned to goo in their hands. To these schemers, Iraq has always been merely a stepping-stone toward the “far enemy,” Iran. Indeed, they used Saddam himself for years as a useful stick to bash the Iranians, until he stepped out of line with his attack on the Bush family’s longtime business partners, the Kuwaiti royals. Murder, torture and military aggression are always welcome in the service of Washington’s power elites, but defiance is not allowed.

Saddam’s defiance lasted only a few months before he was broken in the first Gulf War, but Iran has thumbed its nose at Washington for 25 years. To the Potomac power-junkies, Iran has never been properly punished for dumping their puppet, the Shah, and seizing the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. (The 600,000 Iranians killed by Saddam’s U.S.-backed armies don’t count in this brutal calculus; the Tehran regime still stands, unrepentant.) Yes, these things matter to those who seek to mask their inadequacies and magnify their importance by identifying their own psyches with some mass, abstract entity — the nation, the volk, the ummah, the tribe, etc. Like Osama, still smarting from the Crusades, the Bushists are equally willing to kill innocent people to assuage the psychic pain of past “humiliations.”

But while this endemic lunacy of our human kind plays its part, the real bottom line for the Bushists is, well, the bottom line. Iran itself is but a stepping-stone to the ultimate goal: putting U.S.-controlled hands on the spigots of Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, thus providing a brake to control the political rise of China and India, and ensuring a “new American century” of unchallenged profit and privilege. For the elite, of course; as always, the suckers back home will get stuck with the bills and the body bags from these geopolitical games.

A nuclear-armed Iran would lie athwart this golden road to glory like a mighty Persian rampart, so the scaffolding must be swept aside soon, before the walls are complete. The Bush regime has already begun a “low-intensity” covert war against Iran, using the Mujahadeen el-Khalq terrorist group to map potential targets and carry out bombings, Common Dreams reports. MEK is a bizarre Iranian militarist cult that once murdered American officials, then allied with Saddam in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Afterwards, they remained in Saddam’s employ, acting as brutal enforcers in his crackdowns on Shiites and Kurds; the cruelty of their tortures was legendary. Yet Bush has eagerly taken these Saddamite terrorists into his service, Newsweek reports.

With hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — yet another made-to-order goon ripe for demonizing — as frontman for an odious regime, Bush and Sharon will have little trouble whipping up war fever for the attack. In the next few months, we’ll see the usual charade of “diplomacy” as military plans are finalized. But the fire is coming; the future is already groaning with death.

Speculations over US attack against Iran

Are the USA planing a rocket attack against targets in Iran? In secret discussions Washington was preparing the Allies for appropriate air strikes in 2006, agencies disclosed to day. Especially in the NATO country Turkey, speculations about an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities are taking place.

Istanbul/Berlin - The News exploded like a Bomb in the tranquil prechristmas mood.:Washington was preparing close allies for air strikes against Iran. This was disseminated today by the German Depeschenservice in a text by the former "FAZ" editor - Head and Secret Service Expert Udo Ulfkotte - however substantial doubts on this matter are certainly justified.

As source given by the not undoubted journalist Ulfkotte "Western security circles" without naming specifics. According to his statements, CIA-Chief Porter Goss in the Turkish Capital Ankara asked M.P. Recep Tayyip Erdogan to support the air strikes against Iranian Nuclear and Military Installations especially with uninhibited exchange of secret information. At the present plan the attacks were planned for 2006.

In recent weeks The governments of Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed about the implementations of military plans. The air strikes were described as "possible option" a specific point in time was however, not mentioned.

CIA Chief Gloss was now to have provided the Turkish Security Administration in Ankara with three information packages, one of which supposedly includes that Teheran cooperate with the terror organization Al-Qaida. A further transferred info pertains to the progress of the Iranian nuclear Armament, it was said. According to statements from German security agencies, in Ankara Goss assured the Turkish Government they would be informed a few hours before the possible Air Strike and to give Turkey already the green light for this particular day to attack depots of the separatist PKK on Iranian territory - a curious "Green Light" however, because the PKK does not maintain any military bases, but operates primarily in North Iraq.

The possible critical move in that situation - DDP reports - dependent mainly on the latest antisemitic outbursts of the Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinedschad, whose scathing verbal attacks against Israel, prompted the American governments stronger impression, that Teheran would not yield in the nuclear - disagreement and were stalling for time. The News Agency cited a high ranking German Military official, anonymously: " I would not surprise me, if the Americans in short would not capitalize on the opportunity delivered by Teheran. The Americans would have to Attack Iran, before they have developed nuclear weapons. Afterwards it would be too late.

If US plans for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities exist, or how detailed they are is hard to estimate. Last the American discovery annalist Seymour Hersh, reported about this in January 2005 in the "New Yorker" that secret US Commando Groups were active in marking military targets.

The Bush Government did not deny Hersh's report at that time. They only played it down: The article was full of "false statements" it was said in Washington. That the central issue in the report were false, was not disputed. Bush himself added explicitly, he didn't want to exclude the "War" option.

Air attack after New year?

Is a military action, possibly a war in the region about to happen? In Berlin the subject is moderated down. During the visit of defense minister Franz Josef Jung with Donald Rumsfeld this week in Washington, the possible Air Attack by the US on Iran did not come up as "a subject", a speaker for SPIEGEL ONLINE said.

However, the speculation on US attacks against Iran refers primarily to happenings in Turkey. Last week there was actually a mighty assembly of high ranking Security Personnel from the USA and from NATO in Ankara. Within a couple of days there was first the Chief of the FBI, then the Chief of the CIA and last the Secretary General Scheffer in Turkey. After her visit in Germany Coondoleezza Rize travelled to Turkey, too.

In fact Turkey's newspapers in connection with these visits have speculated too, that an attack on Iran was being prepared. But the assumptions in Turkey were not based on hard facts. Following the meeting of Porter Goss with Tayyip Erdogan the leftist Cumhuriyet headlined: "Now its Iran's turn". Substantiations: None.

The Paper noted, however, that the meeting between the CIA-Chief and Erdogan lasted unusually over an hour, even though Goss met beforehand with the Chief of the Turkish Secret Service. Because of that the Turkish public deducted that it had to be something very important - detailed facts: Wrong conclusion. Just about all media speculates over the possibility that Erdogan and Goss could have discussed a mutual action against the PKK in North Iraq. Possibly that Goss requested in exchange requested Turkish secret service photographs. A possible Air Attack on Iran would certainly not be staged from the Turkish base Incirlik, it is of course plausible that the USA informed Turkey, to test their reaction.

Ankara is skeptical. In the past the government in Ankara was skeptical concerning military actions by the USA to the point of directly opposed. An offensive by US ground troops in Northern Iraq against Saddam's Regime was even prevented by Ankara in 2003 - the lack of this second front was blamed by Donald Rumsfield over and over for military problems in Iraq.

Now the Turkish commander in chief and the probable future chief of staff Yasar Buyukanit both spent two weeks in Washington. Afterwards he commented that the relationship between the Turkish Army and the US Army were again excellent. This is therefore remarkable, because Buyukanit is one of the Hawks in the fight against the PKK and in the past had already considered, to himself march into North Iraq - in case the USA and the North Iraqi Kurds would not prevent the PKK from staging attacks against Turkey.

The Turkish - Iranian relations have been chilled for a long time. Teheran criticizes for years, that Turkey has good relations with Israel and is even cooperating with the Israeli Military. About the anti Israeli transgressions by Ahmadinedschad, Turkey was still not bombarded by the news media as it was the case in Germany - they just shook their head (shrugged their shoulder).

MP Erdogan has, however, just recently called his Israeli college Aril Sharon and congratulated him to his recovery - The long rather withheld contact by Erdogan with Sharon has in recently become much closer. Sharon had recently declared, if in doubt, he would go combat those in-love-with-nuclear Mullahs alone.

In spite of that The Turkish government spoke repeatedly against military action against Iran and Syria. Because at least with respect to the Kurdish question Turkey Syria and Iran are united, that there may not be an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq. An alliance concerning these interests does not seem to exist between Washington and Ankara. However, if the USA plans a missile attack against Iran, Turkey must come aboard - active or passive.

But Erdogan and his military harbor the worst fear for the whole region, in case the USA would actually go against Iran. Western experts, too, consider the success of a military action against nuclear installations in Iran in no way guaranteed. Just the opposite: An attack would probably miss its aim to stop the nuclear program and provide Ahmadinedschad with even more supporters.


Mossad Chief Warns Against Growing Iranian Threat


(IsraelNN.com) Mossad Intelligence Chief Meir Dagan on Tuesday warned of the growing and immediate threat from Iran as nuclear enrichment efforts continue at a tenacious pace.

Dagan stated that the international community must increase its opposition to ongoing Iranian efforts, stating in a matter of months, it will be too late. He added Tehran is seeking to build a number of nuclear devices, not just one bomb.


Mossad Chief: One bomb won't suffice Iran


Mossad Chief Meir Dagan estimated that Iran could reach technological independence in nuclear terms within a few months.


"The fear is that if they continue and succeed, they will not settle for the quantity enough for one bomb," Dagan said at the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, adding that the issue should be discussed at the U.N. Security Council, which will impose economic sanctions on Iran. (Ilan Marciano)

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