www.debka.com/

Four Months' Grace before Iran Takes up Its Nuclear Military Option

DEBKAfile's Exclusive Report

December 3, 2005, 11:02 PM (GMT+02:00)


Iran's hard-line Guardian Council, the real power in the land,
Saturday, Dec. 3, ratified a parliamentary decision to block UN
inspections should the Islamic republic's nuclear activities be
referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions. In August, uranium
conversion was resumed in the face of international disapproval.

Iran's radical leaders, supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his
senior nuclear adviser Hashemi Rafsanjani, were therefore not dismayed
by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's declaration Thursday, Dec.
1, that Israel would not be able to accept a nuclear-armed Iran. He was
addressing the annual newspaper editors' lunch in Tel Aviv as the
prime minister of the day.

The statement made a ringing slogan for Sharon's new Kadima party's
campaign for the March 2006 general election. Otherwise it was
meaningless.

A more serious statement came from AMAN commander Brig. Aharon Zeevi
Wednesday Nov. 30 in his briefing to the Knesset foreign affairs and
security committee. He warned that if international pressure on Iran
fails to bring forth results by March 2006, the world powers might as
well give up, because by then it will be too late: Iran will have
attained the capability to manufacture a nuclear bomb. The general was
saying in so many words that, according to his information, Iran is no
more than four months away from a nuclear weapons option.

Some of the editors present at the lunch interpreted Sharon's words
as meaning he was planning a "Begin-style coup" - an assault on
Iran's nuclear installations ahead of Israel's March 28 general
election, like the late Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin's order
to the Israeli air force to demolish Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor
shortly before the June 1981 vote. But it is worth recalling that
Begin, unlike Sharon, was prepared to stand up to Washington when
Israel's security was in question, whereas the incumbent's rhetoric
sounds combative but usually conceals a more accommodating posture.

(Over the Rafah crossing from Sinai to Gaza, for instance, he last
month followed the script handed him by US secretary Condoleezza Rice.
The result: Israeli forfeited security control over the crossing and
terrorists and weapons have been streaming through unchecked ever
since.)

Sharon neglected to inform the editors of the contents of an Iranian
laptop which the CIA got hold of recently and handed to Dr. Mohammed
ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency -
IAEA. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources reveal that the data on
Iran's nuclear industry found in the computer included a set of
instructions in Chinese on how to build miniature nuclear warheads that
can be fitted onto surface missiles.

Furthermore, while Iran's Shehab-3 ballistic missile is widely
treated as its worst threat, not enough attention is focused on the new
ground-to-ground Ghadar on which Iran is about to begin production. Its
range is estimated at 2,500-3,000 km compared with the Shehab-3's
1,800km, which is why the Israeli prime minister remarked that Iran was
not only threatening Israel.

The Arrow anti-missile system Israeli developed with US assistance was
successfully tested against a mock Shehab-3 Friday, Dec. 1. But
DEBKAfile's military experts say it is not up to tackling the Ghadar.
According to American intelligence experts, the Chinese miniature
missile technology may well be tailored to this new missile.

This Iranian short cut to a nuclear warhead was probably what Gen.
Zeevi had in mind when he said Iran was only four months away from its
goal.

More disquieting information was brought to Washington in recent days
by a member of the Iranian opposition group, Mujaheddin Khalq, whose
information on Iran's nuclear progress obtained by clandestine means
has consistently checked out since its reporting began in August 2003.

Last week, Alireza Jafarzadeh, a member, disclosed that Tehran had
buried its most sensitive nuclear installations in deep subterranean
tunnels fortified against aerial or missile attack. They were now dug
deep in an area called Khak-e-Fefid (The White Earth), south of the
expressway heading north from Tehran to the Alborz mountains near
Damavand.

When Sharon said Israel is not in the lead of the campaign against
Iran's nuclear armament, he omitted to explain that Israel is not
able on its own to destroy the deep bunkers which have been sunk at
dozens of sites across Iran. Its air force may be able to direct a hit
to the heart of Iran's nuclear program but cannot destroy the entire
industry.

In any case, diplomacy remains to the fore for handling the Iranian
nuclear crisis.

On Dec. 1, the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, offered to
launch high-level talks with Tehran on the situation in Iraq. It was
his second offer after Iran refused his first. This was taken as an
American feeler to find out if a direct US-Iranian channel might be
opened - and not necessarily on Iraq alone.

With so much tentative diplomacy swirling around Iran's nuclear
plans, none is actually connecting to the destination which counts, the
ayatollahs' regime in Tehran. Their nuclear plans therefore continue
apace and unchecked.

=============================================================

www.debka.com/

Four Months' Grace before Iran Takes up Its Nuclear Military Option

DEBKAfile's Exclusive Report

December 3, 2005, 11:02 PM (GMT+02:00)


Iran's hard-line Guardian Council, the real power in the land,
Saturday, Dec. 3, ratified a parliamentary decision to block UN
inspections should the Islamic republic's nuclear activities be
referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions. In August, uranium
conversion was resumed in the face of international disapproval.

Iran's radical leaders, supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his
senior nuclear adviser Hashemi Rafsanjani, were therefore not dismayed
by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's declaration Thursday, Dec.
1, that Israel would not be able to accept a nuclear-armed Iran. He was
addressing the annual newspaper editors' lunch in Tel Aviv as the
prime minister of the day.

The statement made a ringing slogan for Sharon's new Kadima party's
campaign for the March 2006 general election. Otherwise it was
meaningless.

A more serious statement came from AMAN commander Brig. Aharon Zeevi
Wednesday Nov. 30 in his briefing to the Knesset foreign affairs and
security committee. He warned that if international pressure on Iran
fails to bring forth results by March 2006, the world powers might as
well give up, because by then it will be too late: Iran will have
attained the capability to manufacture a nuclear bomb. The general was
saying in so many words that, according to his information, Iran is no
more than four months away from a nuclear weapons option.

Some of the editors present at the lunch interpreted Sharon's words
as meaning he was planning a "Begin-style coup" - an assault on
Iran's nuclear installations ahead of Israel's March 28 general
election, like the late Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin's order
to the Israeli air force to demolish Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor
shortly before the June 1981 vote. But it is worth recalling that
Begin, unlike Sharon, was prepared to stand up to Washington when
Israel's security was in question, whereas the incumbent's rhetoric
sounds combative but usually conceals a more accommodating posture.

(Over the Rafah crossing from Sinai to Gaza, for instance, he last
month followed the script handed him by US secretary Condoleezza Rice.
The result: Israeli forfeited security control over the crossing and
terrorists and weapons have been streaming through unchecked ever
since.)

Sharon neglected to inform the editors of the contents of an Iranian
laptop which the CIA got hold of recently and handed to Dr. Mohammed
ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency -
IAEA. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources reveal that the data on
Iran's nuclear industry found in the computer included a set of
instructions in Chinese on how to build miniature nuclear warheads that
can be fitted onto surface missiles.

Furthermore, while Iran's Shehab-3 ballistic missile is widely
treated as its worst threat, not enough attention is focused on the new
ground-to-ground Ghadar on which Iran is about to begin production. Its
range is estimated at 2,500-3,000 km compared with the Shehab-3's
1,800km, which is why the Israeli prime minister remarked that Iran was
not only threatening Israel.

The Arrow anti-missile system Israeli developed with US assistance was
successfully tested against a mock Shehab-3 Friday, Dec. 1. But
DEBKAfile's military experts say it is not up to tackling the Ghadar.
According to American intelligence experts, the Chinese miniature
missile technology may well be tailored to this new missile.

This Iranian short cut to a nuclear warhead was probably what Gen.
Zeevi had in mind when he said Iran was only four months away from its
goal.

More disquieting information was brought to Washington in recent days
by a member of the Iranian opposition group, Mujaheddin Khalq, whose
information on Iran's nuclear progress obtained by clandestine means
has consistently checked out since its reporting began in August 2003.

Last week, Alireza Jafarzadeh, a member, disclosed that Tehran had
buried its most sensitive nuclear installations in deep subterranean
tunnels fortified against aerial or missile attack. They were now dug
deep in an area called Khak-e-Fefid (The White Earth), south of the
expressway heading north from Tehran to the Alborz mountains near
Damavand.

When Sharon said Israel is not in the lead of the campaign against
Iran's nuclear armament, he omitted to explain that Israel is not
able on its own to destroy the deep bunkers which have been sunk at
dozens of sites across Iran. Its air force may be able to direct a hit
to the heart of Iran's nuclear program but cannot destroy the entire
industry.

In any case, diplomacy remains to the fore for handling the Iranian
nuclear crisis.

On Dec. 1, the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, offered to
launch high-level talks with Tehran on the situation in Iraq. It was
his second offer after Iran refused his first. This was taken as an
American feeler to find out if a direct US-Iranian channel might be
opened - and not necessarily on Iraq alone.

With so much tentative diplomacy swirling around Iran's nuclear
plans, none is actually connecting to the destination which counts, the
ayatollahs' regime in Tehran. Their nuclear plans therefore continue
apace and unchecked.

=============================================================