[Mb-civic] FW: Iran nuclear
villasudjuan
villasudjuan at free.fr
Wed Aug 18 09:13:43 PDT 2004
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From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <monsoon at esedona.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:03:26 -0700
To: <villasudjuan at free.fr>
Subject: Iran nuclear
August 18, 2004
The Christian Science Monitor
Joshua Mitnick
Moments before dispatching Israeli pilots to bomb Iraq's Osirak nuclear
reactor in June, 1981, army Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan is said to have
depicted the importance of the mission in stark terms: "The alternative is
our destruction.''
In ordering the lightning knockout, Israel served notice to its Middle
Eastern foes that the Jewish state would act - even preemptively - to
deprive them of a nuclear option.
Two decades later, the Osirak precedent endures. As the Bush administration
steps up its rhetoric against Iran's nuclear program, the possibility of
Israel following through on veiled threats to hit Iranian sites remains a
wildcard.
But several Israeli experts say that the Osirak experience bears little
relevance in the case of Iran and that the chances of a repeat strike are
very low.
Unlike in the early 1980s when Israel found itself isolated in perceiving a
threat from Iraq's nuclear program, the prospect of US-led multilateral
pressure against Iran casts a unilateral strike in a more-problematic light.
With National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning last week that the
US won't tolerate a nuclear Iran, Israel is much more likely to act in
tandem with its most powerful ally rather than electing to go it alone,
observers say.
"The circumstances are quite different,'' says Ephraim Kam, head of the
Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Ramat
Gan, Israel. "If Israel is going to take any move beyond the diplomatic
move, there should be better understanding in the international arena that
there is no way to stop the Iranians.''
Tehran admits it has sought so-called dual-use nuclear technology in order
to generate electricity, but denies it aims to build nuclear weapons.
Repeat performance?
Even the very ability of Israel's military to repeat the decisive strike
achieved at Osirak appears doubtful. While the Iraqi nuclear effort was
concentrated at the Osirak plant, nuclear experts say the Iranians have
dispersed their program at multiple sites, some of which are hidden
underground.
That makes a repeat performance of the clean and decisive blow against Iraq
almost impossible, analysts say. Not only is it unclear how Israeli forces
would eliminate underground centrifuge installations, but the task of
locating all of Iran's nuclear targets requires a high degree of
intelligence and risk.
"I don't think there's an option for a preemptive act because we're talking
about a different sort of a nuclear program,'' says Shmuel Bar, a fellow at
the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in
Herzliya, Israel. "A hit-and-run preemptive attack can't guarantee much
success.''
Even so, first-strike offensives have been an essential element of Israel's
defensive doctrine for decades - the most famous instance being the Israeli
Air Force's destruction of Egyptian air bases to open the 1967 Arab-Israeli
War. That approach still influences the Israeli defense establishment.
With Israeli intelligence agencies estimating that Iran will acquire nuclear
weaponry by 2007, defense officials on occasion drop hints of a first
strike. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz (who was born in Iran) said in a
December radio interview that Israel would try to minimize civilian
casualties in such an attack.
Last week, Israeli army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon said in an interview
with the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot that Israel "can't rely on others''
in facing the threat from Iran.
Both countries have engaged in a cat-and-mouse game of missile tests in
recent weeks. Iran has said it would strike at Israel with its ballistic
missiles if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities.
"For Israel it's quite clear, that we're not going to wait for a threat to
be realized,'' says Ephraim Inbar, head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies at Tel Aviv University. "For self-defense we have to act in a
preemptive mode.''
Nevertheless, a lone Israeli strike reminiscent of 1981 seems less likely at
a time when US forces are sitting in neighboring Iraq, officials and
analysts say. By acting independently, Israel would be forgoing the
intelligence and manpower of the better-positioned American military.
US complicity?
The Osirak strike generated a chorus of international condemnation that
included US Secretary of State Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick. But beyond a temporary halt in F-16 fighter jet shipments from
the US, there was no lasting fallout.
Unlike 1981, the blame for such an attack today would not be limited to
Israel. The US would be perceived in the Muslim world as being complicit -
probably boosting the motivation of extremists to carry out terrorist
attacks on Western targets.
"Certainly it would be seen as a continuation of what the Americans did in
Iraq,'' says Bruce Maddy Weizman, a fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle
East and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. "Israel and US are widely
perceived to be acting in concert.''
For their part, Israeli officials argue that Iran's ambition is to use
nuclear prominence to threaten Saudi Arabia, Europe, and US influence in the
Gulf.
That position makes it harder to justify another Osirak, because such an
action would contradict Israeli claims that Iran's nuclear program is a
global threat rather than a regional one.
"We don't want to create the impression that it's on our shoulders,'' says
Israeli legislator Yuval Steinmetz, chair of the parliament's foreign
affairs and defense committee. "This time it's not up to Israel to save the
world.''
Iran will Destroy Israel's Reactor if it Attacks Iran's
August 18, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
AP
TEHRAN -- Accompanied by a warning that its missiles have the range, Iran on
Tuesday said it would destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor if the Jewish
state were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
"If Israel fires a missile into the Bushehr nuclear power plant, it has to
say goodbye forever to its Dimona nuclear facility, where it produces and
stockpiles nuclear weapons," the deputy chief of the elite Revolutionary
Guards, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, said in a statement.
Bushehr, a coastal town on the Persian Gulf, is the site of Iran's first
nuclear reactor. Built with Russian assistance, it's due to come online in
2005.
Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for generating electricity. But
Israel and the United States strongly suspect Iran is secretly building
nuclear weapons.
Israel has not threatened to attack the Bushehr reactor, but it has said it
will not allow Iran to build a nuclear bomb. In 1981 Israeli fighters
destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction outside Baghdad because it
feared Iraq would acquire a nuclear weapon.
Israel has never confirmed nor denied having nuclear weapons, but it is
widely believed to be a nuclear power. Its reactor at Dimona in the Negev
Desert is said to be the source of plutonium for its alleged nuclear
warheads.
Zolqadr did not say how Iran would attack Dimona, but the head of the
Revolutionary Guards' political bureau, Yadollah Javani, said Iran would use
its Shahab-3 missile.
"All the territory under the control of the Zionist regime, including its
nuclear facilities, are within the range of Iran's advanced missiles,"
Javani said in a separate statement.
Iran announced last week it had successfully test-fired a new version of the
Shahab-3, which has a range of about 810 miles. Israel is about 600 miles
west of Iran.
U.S. officials say the missile, whose name means shooting star in Farsi, is
based on the North Korean "No Dong" rocket. Iran says Shahab-3 is entirely
Iranian-made.
With help from the U.S., Israel has developed the Arrow anti-ballistic
missile system. It is said to be capable of intercepting and destroying
missiles at high altitudes.
State Dept. Presses Case Against Iran
August 17, 2004
The Associated Press
Barry Schweid
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will keep using diplomacy to try to
end Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, but there is no sign yet that Iran -
or North Korea - has decided to follow Libya's lead and abandon its
dangerous goal, a senior Bush administration official said Tuesday.
"The path we are pursuing is the path of diplomacy," Undersecretary of State
John Bolton said. He said the administration is working with European and
other nations to seek a peaceful end to more than 18 years of a large-scale
nuclear program by the Tehran government that poses a "grave threat" in the
Middle East and beyond.
The diplomatic drive is focused on the United Nations, where the Security
Council has the power to impose economic and other sanctions on Iran, he
said.. "Never has the Security Council been so feared," Bolton said.
And by trying to rally other nations to call for Council sanctions, the
administration is contradicting accusations of it having a go-it-alone
foreign policy, Bolton said in apparent reference to attacks by Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry and other critics of the administration's
overseas actions, especially the war against Iraq.
Bolton cited more than a half-dozen activities by Iran that he said could
not be explained except as being part of a program to develop nuclear
weapons. This included uranium enrichment and plutonium programs.
Iran has never explained itself to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy
Agency and to European intermediaries, offering instead lies and
deceptions,. Bolton said. "There isn't a thread of credibility," he said.
"If we permit Iran's deception to go on much longer it will be far too
late," he said at a conference sponsored by the Hudson Institute, a private
research group, and New Republic Magazine.
"This regime has to be isolated for its bad behavior," Bolton said.
Neither Iran nor North Korea, cited by President Bush along with Iraq as
part of an "axis of evil," has made a strategic decision to give up nuclear
weapons, he said.
Iran May Get Uranium From S. Africa Following Cooperation Deal
August 18, 2004
Ha'aretz
Gideon Alon
Iran and South Africa signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday on
bilateral cooperation. The deal paves the way for the two countries to
expand trade ties, and may include South Africa selling uranium to Tehran.
The memorandum was signed by South African Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota
and his Iranian counterpart Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani. This was the first
such visit by a South African defense minister to Tehran since the 1979
Islamic revolution.
At Tuesday's signing ceremony, Shamkhani praised South Africa for its
position on Iran's nuclear weapons program, which Tehran says is for
peaceful purposes. He said that the agreement will lead to the expansion of
bilateral cooperation in all areas
Lekota reportedly said that making peaceful use of nuclear energy is the
legitimate right of the Islamic Republic.
Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, the head of Military Intelligence's
research department, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
on Tuesday that Iran is expected to have full nuclear ability by early 2007.
Kuperwasser also said that Iran will purchase the technology it needs to
enrich uranium by the first half of next year.
Iran said Tuesday it would destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor if the
Jewish state were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. A senior commander
warned that Iranian missiles could reach Dimona.
"If Israel fires a missile into the Bushehr nuclear power plant, it has to
say goodbye forever to its Dimona nuclear facility, where it produces and
stockpiles nuclear weapons," said the deputy chief of the elite
Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, in a statement.
Zolqadr was referring to the site of Iran's first nuclear reactor at
Bushehr, a coastal town on the Gulf. Built with Russian assistance, the
reactor is due to come on stream in 2005.
Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for the generation of electricity.
But Israel and the United States strongly suspect Iran is secretly building
nuclear weapons.
Zolqadr did not say how Iran would attack Dimona, but the head of the
Revolutionary Guards' political bureau, Yadollah Javani, said Iran would use
its Shahab-3 missile.
"All the territory under the control of the Zionist regime, including its
nuclear facilities, are within the range of Iran's advanced missiles,"
Javani said in a separate statement.
Iran announced last week it had successfully test-fired a new version of the
Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,296 kilometers. Israel is about 965
kilometers west of Iran.
Israel has developed with the United States the Arrow anti-ballistic missile
system. It is said to be capable of intercepting and destroying missiles at
high altitudes.
U.S.: Iran Says Can Make Uranium for Nuke in a Year
Tue Aug 17, 6:50 PM ET
By Saul Hudson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A hawkish U.S. official said on Tuesday that Iran has
warned it could make enough bomb-grade material in a year to produce a
nuclear weapon, a threat that may boost a U.S. push to report Tehran to the
United Nations (news
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/news.search.yahoo.com/search
/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22United%20Nations%22&c=&n=20&yn
=c&c=news&cs=nw> - web sites
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/search.yahoo.com/search?fr=w
eb-storylinks&p=United%20Nations> ).
In recent weeks, Iran has intensified its standoff over its nuclear programs
and the United States has said it is increasingly likely the U.N. Security
Council would take up the case against the Islamic republic for possible
sanctions.
U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton said Iran had sought in
negotiations with European powers to pressure them to ease their opposition
to its suspected weapons programs.
"They've told the EU three (Britain, France and Germany) that they could
produce, they could enrich enough uranium for a nuclear weapon within a year
and they could produce nuclear weapons within the range of our own
assessment, which is a way of threatening the Europeans to get them to back
down," the senior official said at a Washington think tank session on Iran.
U.S. officials with access to intelligence estimates say Iran can achieve a
bomb in three to five years and the United States believes that would be a
danger in the Middle East, notably to its close ally Israel.
Oil-rich Iran says its nuclear programs, which the U.N. nuclear watchdog has
been monitoring, are for peaceful energy projects.
Bolton, a hawk in the Bush administration who is skeptical talks with Iran
will be successful, said the Europeans had assured the United States they
would not bow to the pressure.
The European Union (news
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/news.search.yahoo.com/search
/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22European%20Union%22&c=&n=20&yn
=c&c=news&cs=nw> - web sites
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/search.yahoo.com/search?fr=w
eb-storylinks&p=European%20Union> ) three have been negotiating with
Iran and share information with the United States on the talks, although
they have given few details publicly about high-level meetings they held
last month, diplomats said.
The three won a promise from Iran last year to suspend uranium enrichment.
But Iran was angered when the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency issued
a tough rebuke over cooperation with its inspectors in June. And last month,
it said it would resume the manufacture, assembly and testing of enrichment
centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for weapons.
Despite reluctance among the 35-nation IAEA to ratchet up the diplomatic
pressure on Iran by referring it to the Security Council, Bolton said that
move was "long overdue" and the watchdog had an opportunity to do so at a
meeting next month.
"The odds of referring the issue to the Security Council whether in
September or at some point in the near future are rising rapidly," he said.
Iran's economic reform plans blocked by hardliners
Tue Aug 17,12:00 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Plans to reform Iran's largely state-run economy have
suffered a major setback after the conservative-dominated parliament blocked
reforms aimed at opening up the economy to much-needed foreign investment.
The parliament, or Majlis, on Sunday voted down plans put forward by its
reformist-controlled predecessor allowing the privatization of Iranian banks
and the presence of foreign banks in the Islamic republic.
To "prevent foreign dominance of Iran's economy", MPs also voted against a
proposal that would have allowed oil prospectors to exploit their own finds.
Instead, successful prospectors must bid against competitors in a state-run
tender.
The conservative-run Majlis took office in May after the Guardians' Council,
a hardline unelected political watchdog, barred most reformists from
contesting elections last February.
MPs Sunday endorsed the rejection by the Council, which also vets
legislation, of the last parliament's moves to stimulate the lumbering state
economy through a combination of foreign investment and privatization as
part of the 2005-10 five-year plan.
According to Hamid Reza Hajibabaie, a conservative MP, the development plan
"was not based on social justice but on excessive capitalism and
privatization".
Several foreign banks had reportedly expressed interest in setting up
branches in Iran.
Britain's Standard Chartered bank planned to open a branch in one of the
country's free trade zones in October -- the first such venture since the
Islamic revolution 25 years ago.
Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, spokesman for the government of pro-reform President
Mohammad Khatami (news
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/news.search.yahoo.com/search
/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Mohammad%20Khatami%22&c=&n=20&
yn=c&c=news&cs=nw> - web sites
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/search.yahoo.com/search?fr=w
eb-storylinks&p=Mohammad%20Khatami> ) said that the aim of the rejected
plan had been to achieve eight percent growth and decrease the gap in
per-capita earnings with other developing countries.
And he added that with the changes "the government will not accept any
responsibility for any future shortcomings in peoples' livelihood."
Deputy oil minister Mahmoud Astaneh added that MPs had also effectively cut
state revenues by more than 80 billion dollars (65 billion euros), thus
making it impossible to develop Iran's oil and gas sectors.
Iran wants to double its oil production to eight million barrels a day
within the next 15 years, and the move will "undoubtedly create enormous
problems in future", he said.
Financial analyst Saeed Leylaz told AFP that "the Majlis's move is more
political than economic, and goes against all three previous development
plans (1990-2005), which advocated economic liberalisation... basically it
is a strategic retreat."
"This move is also in line with anti-detente policies currently being
followed" by the conservative camp, he said, adding, "the conservatives are
not looking for economic transparency, so a state-run economy is in their
favour."
The Iranian economy is around 85 percent state-run and its infrastructure
has suffered greatly because of the eight-year Iran-Iraq (news
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/news.search.yahoo.com/search
/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Iraq%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=new
s&cs=nw> - web sites
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http:/search.yahoo.com/search?fr=w
eb-storylinks&p=Iraq> ) war as well as US-imposed economic sanctions.
The Majlis' decision virtually puts paid to Khatami's efforts to revive the
economy through legislation, which he had seen regularly blocked by the
Guardians Council, and leaves him a lame duck president until elections next
year.
The Majlis has also decided that the state will retain 51 percent of the
ailing national airline, Iran Air, in order to "prevent the private sector
from taking over the majority", press reports said Tuesday.
The remaining 49 percent will be sold off, while parliament approved the
flotation in its entirety of Iran Air Tours, an Iran Air subsidiary that
handles around 30 percent of domestic flights.
Shares in Iran Air will not be easy to sell, as the company is thought to
have suffered losses of some 122 million dollars (100 million euros) from
2002 to 2003 and private investors would be reluctant to invest in a company
while the government retains majority control.
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