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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Judith Apter Klinghoffer

YES, THE CIA WAS WRONG AGAIN. ERGO?/update

Edward Jay Epstein of the International Herald Tribunewrites:

A year has passed since the release of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. In a stunning departure from all the previous estimates dating back to 1997 under Presidents Clinton and Bush, it declared: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
It also judged, with modest confidence, that Iran had not resumed its quest for nuclear weapons. If correct, this new assessment meant that previous ones, such as the 2004 NIE that also judged with "high confidence" that Iran was expanding its nuclear weapons capabilities under the cover of a civilian energy program, were based on flawed intelligence.
But was this astonishing reversal correct?

Of course, it was as it has often been. I, and I was certainly not the only one, have never thought they were right in the first place. The document they produced was a purely political one. New IAEA information exposed their ignorance and folly.

Three pieces of the puzzle uncovered by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency cast a surprising light on how Iran has advanced its capabilities independently of Project 11-1. First, there is the digital blueprint circulated by the network of A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. IAEA investigators decoding and analyzing the massive computer files of this network found that it had clandestinely provided clients with a detailed design of a nuclear warhead of the version used by first China then Pakistan.
Since the IAEA knew that Iran had been dealing with the Khan network since at least 2003, and features of that digital blueprint matched those described in the Project 11-1 documents, it was suspected that Iran acquired the digital blueprint, along with other components, from the Khan network. If so, it shortened the task of Project 1-11.

Then, in late 2007, IAEA investigators uncovered a detailed Iranian narrative, written in Farsi, that described how a Russian scientist helped the Iranians conduct experiments to help Iranian scientists solve a complex design problem: Configuring high-tension electric bridge wire to detonate at different points less than a fraction of a nanosecond apart. In an implosion-type bomb, this is crucial for properly compressing the nuclear core. As Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's chief inspector explained at a closed-door briefing in February 2008, these Russian-led experiments were "not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon."
Finally, there is the Polonium 210 experiments that Iran conducted prior to 2004. Since Polonium 210 is used to initiate the chain reaction in early-generation nuclear bombs (and used in the Pakistan design), IAEA inspectors attempted up until 2008 to get access to the facility, or "box," in which the Polonium 210 was extracted from radioactive Bismuth.

The result?

According to the IAEA, which monitors Natanz, by 2008 Iran had 3,800 centrifuges in operation and is adding another 3,000. It has also upgraded many of the older centrifuges, giving it about quadruple the capacity it had in 2003. To date, it has produced and stockpiled 1,380 pounds of low-enriched uranium, which is enough, if further enriched to weapons grade, to build a nuclear bomb.
The 2007 NIE deftly ducked this escalation with a footnote stating it was excluding from its assessment "Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment," which meant Natanz. However, in light of all the developments in the past year, America's new president will have to confront the reality that Iran now has the capability to change the balance of power in the Gulf, if it so elects to do so, by building a nuclear weapon.

Talk of planned Obama changes in the Agency mean that the new administration will not even repay the CIA for it's long war on the Bush administration by letting the warriors keep their jobs. They should not. These persons proved time and again that they cannot be trusted with the nation's security.

So now everybody is scrambling. Obama may offer Israel a nuclear umbrella, if Iran nukes Israel, The US will nuke Iran. Why am I not reassured? Apparently, neither are the Arabs. Hosni Mubarak warns that "Iran wants to devour the Arab world." At least it is setting up bases around the world.

But the ball is Bush's court and it will stay there for the next month. He has repeatedly vowed to deny Iran nuclear weapons. The question is how good is his words. He knows that once he is gone it will be a victorious Ahmadinejad who will be dictating the terms to Barack Hussein Obama.

Just listen to the Chamberlain sound alikes urging the West to accept the Iranian nuclear program. Putin, for one, is already following in Stalin's footsteps, courting the Muslim world in hope of another Molotov-Ribbentrop deal. It seems he forgot that it led to the lose of 20 million Russian lives.

Update: More bad news: Iran media says three nuke spies arrested

Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | Return

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