Replies to post #173088 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Stephanie -- down to weeks now, I strongly suspect

as I strongly suspect Obama's message made very clear

for some time now we've seen the look on Obama's face whenever Iran's the topic -- you know, that look

(and to berate the obvious, obvious despite its generally being left unsaid in the reporting -- it ain't the Israelis the Iyablowya and Imadinnerjacket and company need to be immediately concerned about -- if this comes, it's coming from us)


===


U.S. intelligence gains in Iran seen as boost to confidence


Iran’s quest to possess nuclear technology:?Iran said it has made advances in nuclear technology, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel.
View Photo Gallery — http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/irans-quest-to-possess-nuclear-weapons/2011/11/07/gIQAEZaZvM_gallery.html


Increasing tensions between United States and Iran:?
A string of volatile incidents has raised tensions between the two countries.
View Photo Gallery — http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/increasing-tensions-between-united-states-and-iran/2012/01/09/gIQANJgEmP_gallery.html

Iran's nuclear timetable
U.S. officials say Iran's leaders are gathering the materials for a nuclear bomb but have not decided to build one. If they do, they'l have to overcome technical hurdles and risk having their work discovered by outsiders. Here are steps Iran might follow to make its first weapon.

Staff reports; Nuclear Threat Initiative; James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; Institute for Science and International Security.

By Joby Warrick and Greg Miller, Published: April 7, 2012

More than three years ago, the CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran.

The bat-winged aircraft penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home. All the while, analysts at the CIA and other agencies watched carefully for any sign that the craft, dubbed the RQ-170 Sentinel, had been detected by Tehran’s air defenses on its maiden voyage.

“There was never even a ripple,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official involved in the previously undisclosed mission.

CIA stealth drones scoured dozens of sites throughout Iran, making hundreds of passes over suspicious facilities, before a version of the RQ-170 crashed inside Iran’s borders [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-says-it-downed-us-stealth-drone-pentagon-acknowledges-aircraft-downing/2011/12/04/gIQAyxa8TO_story.html ] in December. The surveillance has been part of what current and former U.S. officials describe as an intelligence surge that is aimed at Iran’s nuclear program and that has been gaining momentum since the final years of George W. Bush’s administration.

The effort has included ramped-up eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, formation of an Iran task force among satellite-imagery analysts and an expanded network of spies, current and former U.S. officials said.

At a time of renewed debate over whether stopping Iran might require military strikes, the expanded intelligence collection has reinforced the view within the White House [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/netanyahu-presses-obama-on-iran-nuclear-program-as-talks-reopen/2012/03/06/gIQAPv3SvR_story.html ] that it will have early warning of any move by Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb, officials said.

“There is confidence that we would see activity indicating that a decision had been made,” said a senior U.S. official involved in high-level discussions about Iran policy. “Across the board, our access has been significantly improved.”

The expanded intelligence effort has coincided with a covert campaign by the CIA and other agencies to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and has enabled an escalation in the use of targeted economic sanctions [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-sees-more-pain-for-iran-as-it-clears-way-for-further-sanctions/2012/03/30/gIQAj9yAmS_story.html ] by the United States and its allies to weaken Iran’s resolve.

The Obama administration has cited new intelligence reports in arguing against a preemptive military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israeli officials have pushed for a more aggressive response to Iran’s nuclear activities, arguing that Iran is nearing what some officials have called a “zone of immunity,” in which Iran can quickly complete the final steps toward becoming a nuclear power inside heavily fortified bunkers protected from Israeli airstrikes.

White House officials contend that Iran’s leaders have not decided to build a nuclear weapon, and they say it would take Iran at least a year to do so if it were to launch a crash program now.

“Even in the absolute worst case — six months — there is time for the president to have options,” said the senior U.S. official, one of seven current or former advisers on security policy who agreed to discuss U.S. options on Iran on the condition of anonymity.

The improved intelligence also strengthens the administration’s bargaining position ahead of nuclear talks with Iran, tentatively scheduled for Friday. The United States and five other countries — Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — are expected to press Iran to accept curbs on its nuclear program that would make it far more difficult for the country to build a nuclear weapon. A key demand, Western diplomats say, is for Iran to halt production at its uranium enrichment plant at Qom, which was built in mountain tunnels beyond the reach of all but the most advanced bombs and missiles. In return for such a concession, Iran could be allowed to keep some semblance of a commercial nuclear power program under heavy international oversight, diplomats say. It is unclear, however, whether Iran would agree to restrictions on its program. In recent days, Iran has refused even to commit to a venue for the talks.

The CIA declined to comment on the nature of its operations against Iran. Officials familiar with the operations, however, acknowledged that there had been some setbacks and conceded that aspects of Iran’s nuclear decision-making remain opaque, including the calculations made by the Islamic republic’s senior political and clerical leadership.

Iranian officials insist publicly that the program is for peaceful energy production. But experts skeptical of that explanation warn that Iran may become more adept at hiding parts of its nuclear program, particularly if it succeeds in building more powerful centrifuges that can enrich uranium in smaller, dispersed facilities.

“They have been taken off-guard in the past, and now they do their best to conceal,” said Olli Heinonen [ http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/2107/olli_heinonen.html ], who formerly directed nuclear inspections inside Iran for the International Atomic Energy Agency. While Western spy agencies have been successful of late, he said, “they are shooting at a moving target.”

The still-fresh sting of Iraq

There is also the chastening experience of Iraq. A decade ago, analysts at the CIA and other agencies were confident that Iraq had stockpiles of banned weapons, including the components of a nuclear weapons program. A costly U.S. invasion and futile search for those stockpiles proved them wrong.

The sting of that intelligence failure was still fresh when U.S. spy agencies came under pressure to ramp up collection efforts against Iran. By 2006, U.S. intelligence officials and top Bush advisers had become alarmed by deep gaps in U.S. knowledge of Iran’s nuclear efforts and ambitions.

Michael V. Hayden, then the new CIA director, recalled a White House briefing in which Bush became visibly agitated.

At the time, Iran was rapidly expanding its stockpile of enriched uranium at its main Natanz facility while working on what was then a secret site at Qom. American officials feared that Iran might surprise the world with a nuclear weapons test that would leave U.S. leaders with two highly unpalatable options: Attack Iran or accept the emergence of a new nuclear power in the Middle East.

At one point, Bush turned to Hayden and said, “I don’t want any U.S. president to be faced with only two choices when it comes to Iran,” according to Hayden. Efforts to reach Bush for comment were not successful.

The meeting became the impetus for overhauling the CIA’s approach to a country considered one of its hardest targets. The agency’s Iran experts and operatives were moved from its Near East Division to a group focused exclusively on Iran, much as the CIA had formed its Counterterrorism Center 20 years earlier.

“We put the best people on the job and put the most talented people in charge,” Hayden said. “Then we said, ‘Tell us what you need to get the job done.’ ”

Known internally as “Persia House,” the Iran Operations Division was set up in the agency’s Old Headquarters Building. Over time, it swelled from several dozen analysts and officers to several hundred. The division is now headed by a veteran case officer who previously served as CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan.

“It got a robust budget,” said a former senior CIA official who worked in the Near East Division at the time. The Iran division’s emphasis was “getting people overseas in front of people they needed to be in front of — there are a lot of places to meet Iranians outside Iran.”

The division began assembling an informant network that stretched from the Middle East to South America, where Iran’s security services have a long-standing presence. The CIA also exploited the massive U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq to mount espionage operations against the country sandwiched between those war zones.

Limited damage

One of those operations was exposed last year, when an RQ-170, flown from an airstrip in Afghanistan, crashed inside Iran. Officials in Tehran have triumphantly claimed credit for bringing the stealth drone down and have released pictures showing the drone apparently patched up after the crash. U.S. officials say a technical failure caused the crash.

The former intelligence official familiar with the beginnings of the stealth drone missions said that there had been pointed debate before deploying the first aircraft over whether it should be equipped with a so-called self-destruction package, which could blow an RQ-170 to bits if it flew off course.

The director of national intelligence at the time, Michael McConnell, was among the high-ranking officials who pushed to have the package installed. But the CIA’s engineering team balked, saying it would add too much weight to the delicately balanced frame.

Despite the setback, U.S. officials said that some surveillance flights continue and that the damage to American espionage capacity overall has been limited.

That is partly because the drone flights were only a small part of a broad espionage campaign involving the NSA, which intercepts ­e-mail and electronic communications, as well as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which scours satellite imagery and was the first to spot the uranium enrichment plant at Qom.

The CIA’s expanded efforts continued under director Leon E. Panetta, who built partnerships with allied intelligence services in the region capable of recruiting operatives for missions inside Iran, former intelligence officials said.

The agency has encountered problems. Shahram Amiri [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071501395.html ], an Iranian defector and scientist in the country’s nuclear program, had been given $5 million by the CIA and relocated to Tucson. But in 2010, he abandoned his American life and returned to Tehran — where he had a young son — giving Iranian officials not only a propaganda victory but probably information on what his CIA debriefers were most desperate to learn.

U.S. officials said Amiri had been handled by the CIA’s Counter­proliferation Division after he approached U.S. officials in Vienna and volunteered to spy. That division continues to handle scientists and technical experts connected to Iran’s program, while Persia House focuses on leadership figures and the nation’s sprawling military and security services, including the Republican Guard Corps.

“The real damage was image — we looked like the Keystone Kops,” said a former senior CIA official of Amiri’s return to Iran. “In terms of actual damage — no, we collected all kinds of great stuff.”

The expanded espionage effort has confirmed the consensus view expressed by the U.S. intelligence community in a controversial estimate released publicly in 2007. That estimate concluded that while Iran remains resolutely committed to assembling key building blocks for a nuclear weapons program, particularly enriched uranium, the nation’s leaders have opted for now against taking the crucial final step: designing a nuclear warhead.

“It isn’t the absence of evidence, it’s the evidence of an absence,” said one former intelligence official briefed on the findings. “Certain things are not being done.”

Staff writer Julie Tate contributed to this report.

© 2012 The Washington Post (emphasis added)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-sees-intelligence-surge-as-boost-to-confidence/2012/04/07/gIQAlCha2S_story.html [with comments]


===


Iran can make nuclear weapons - but won't, says top politician


Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right), tours a research reactor centre in Tehran.
Photograph: AP

Statement is first time an Iranian politician has admitted country has capability to produce nuclear arms

Damien Pearse and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 April 2012 12.42 EDT

Iran has the technological capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so, a prominent politician in the Islamic republic has said.

The statement by Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam is the first time an Iranian politician has publicly stated that the country has the knowledge and skills to produce a nuclear weapon.

Moghadam, whose views do not represent the government's policy, said Iran could easily create the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs, but it was not Tehran's policy to go down that route.

Moghadam told the parliament's news website, icana.ir: "Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce [a] nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path."

The US and its allies believe Iran is using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover to develop nuclear weapons; a charge it denies.

Israel said Mghadam's claim supported its view that Iran's nuclear programme had a military dimension. An Israeli official repeated demands that Iran must stop enriching uranium, remove all military-grade enriched material from the country, and dismantle its Fordo nuclear research site.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly insisted that his country is not seeking nuclear weapons, saying that holding such arms is a sin and "useless, harmful and dangerous".

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that if Iran one day decides to build nuclear weapons, it will do so openly and without fear.

Iran says it is enriching uranium to about 3.5% to produce nuclear fuel for its future reactors, and to around 20% to fuel a research reactor that produces medical isotopes to treat cancer. Uranium has to be enriched to more than 90% to be used for a nuclear weapon.

The UN nuclear agency has confirmed that centrifuges at the Fordo site near Iran's holy city of Qom are producing uranium enriched to 20%. It says uranium enriched to that level can more quickly be turned into weapons-grade material.

"There is a possibility for Iran to easily achieve more than 90% enrichment," icana.ir quoted Moghadam as saying.

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/iran-can-produce-nuclear-weapons-politician


===


Israel official: Iran official's comments prove existence of military nuclear program


Iran's nuclear facility in Bushehr.
Photo by: AP

Iranian lawmaker says Iran has the knowledge and scientific capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so.

By The Associated Press
Published 00:51 08.04.12
Latest update 00:51 08.04.12

An Israeli official says a prominent Iranian lawmaker's claim that Tehran has the capability to produce atomic weapons reinforces Israel's view that Iran's nuclear program has a military dimension.

The Israeli official reiterated on Saturday demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued last month: Iran must stop enriching uranium, remove all military-grade enriched material from the country, and dismantle its Fordo nuclear research site.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Iranian lawmaker Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam said that Iran has the knowledge and scientific capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so.

Moghadam is a parliamentarian, not a government official, and his views do not represent the Iranian government's policy, but his comment on the Iranian parliament's website late Friday was the first time a prominent Iranian politician has publicly stated that Tehran has the technological capability to build a nuclear bomb.

"Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce [a] nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path," the website quoted him as saying. His assertion suggests that Iran is trying to show unity in its political establishment around its often repeated claims that it seeks world-class technological advances including nuclear expertise, but does not want to develop atomic arms as the United States and its allies claim.

The statement comes before planned talks begin this week with the United States and other world powers over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-official-iran-official-s-comments-prove-existence-of-military-nuclear-program-1.423173 [with comments]

[StephanieVanbryce]

Iran shows 'serious engagement' at Istanbul nuclear talks

The international community set a low bar for Iran to cross and so far it appears to have stepped
over it, opening the way to a second round of negotiations


Istanbul. Photograph: Renaud Visage/Getty Images

The Iranian nuclear negotiations in Istanbul have broken for lunch and bilateral meetings are now taking place before a wrap-up session this evening. The news at half-time is generally good. Most importantly, diplomats say that the Iranian delegation have met the standard set for it by the major powers here of showing 'serious engagement'. As things stand, a second round of talks looks likely.

So peace in our time, at least for the next month or so until that next round when both sides will have to get much more specific. Today was about generalities, but those generalities were at least on the right subject, unlike the last Istanbul nuclear talks in January 2011 when Tehran's negotiator, Saeed Jalili, refused to even talk about his country's nuclear programme until all sanctions had been lifted.

Today, according to diplomats at the talks, the session was opened by the EU high representative for foreign policy, Cathy Ashton, who spent 15 minutes recalling the history of the off-on talks between Iran and the international community on the Iranian programme. Then Jalili replied and this is how a diplomat in the room described his speech:

It was no long or bombastic or propagandistic. The tone was calm and constructive. He said he was ready to seriously engage on the Iranian nuclear issue. There was no long prayer to the Mahdi.

Ashton then spoke again, pointing out that there was common ground at the talks represented by Iran's emphatic statements that the country had no interest in developing a nuclear weapon, and that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was the basis for any agreement, guaranteeing Iran's right to peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Then the senior diplomats from the six powers had their say. Russia recalled more of the history of negotiations. The French insisted on the primacy of compliance with UN security council resolutions. The Chinese recalled the old Lao Tzu proverb about a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step, the US said that relations between Washington and Tehran need not be so bad. The Germans made some general points, and the British summed up, saying this was not one of the world's insoluble problems. There was a possible solution.

Jalili disagreed with some of the points made but in the words of a diplomat present, the Iranian phrased the disagreement in non-confrontational terms, not accusing the other six nations of 'oppression' as Jalili did on the last occasion. He said that the Iranian people needed their confidence restored in negotiations, but were willing to talk. He ended with a call to set up a process of structured negotiations.

So no new initiatives have been spelled out, but crucially for the six nations, Jalili talked about the nuclear issue, and did not rule anything out. By that very low standard, the meeting is so far being judged as constructive enough to justify a second round, which may be in Baghdad if Iran sticks to its guns. In that round however, there will have to be something much more concrete on the table to keep this revived political process alive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2012/apr/14/istanbul-iran-nuclear-talks?newsfeed=true