|
The Iran Nuclear Trigger Forgeries
GARETH PORTER
Counterpunch
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
New revelations about two documents leaked to
The Times of London to show that Iran is working on a "nuclear
trigger" mechanism have further undermined the credibility
of the document the newspaper had presented as evidence of a
continuing Iranian nuclear weapons program.
A columnist for the Times has acknowledged that the two-page
Persian language document published by The Times last month
was not a photocopy of the original document but an expurgated
and retyped version of the original.
A translation of a second Persian language document also published
by The Times, moreover, contradicts the claim by The Times that
it shows the "nuclear trigger" document was written
within an organization run by an Iranian military scientist.
Former Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi
has said U.S. intelligence judges the "nuclear trigger"
document to be a forgery, as IPS reported last week. The IPS
story also pointed out that the document lacked both security
markings and identification of either the issuing organization
or the recipient.
The new revelations point to additional reasons why intelligence
analysts would have been suspicious of the "nuclear trigger"
document.
On Dec. 14, The Times published what it explicitly represented
as a photocopy of a complete Persian language document showing
Iranian plans for testing a neutron initiator, a triggering
device for a nuclear weapon, along with an English language
translation.
But in response to a reader who noted the absence of crucial
information from the document, including security markings,
Oliver Kamm, an online columnist for The Times, admitted Jan.
3 that the Persian language document published by The Times
was "a retyped version of the relevant parts of that original
document".
Kamm wrote that the original document had "contained a
lot of classified information" and was not published "because
of the danger that it would alert Iranian authorities to the
source of the leak".
In offering the explanation of the intelligence agency that
leaked the document to The Times, Kamm was also damaging the
credibility of the document. A document that had been both edited
and retyped could obviously have been doctored by adding material
on a neutron initiator.
The reason for such editing could not have been to excise "classified
information", because, if the document were genuine, the
Iranian government would already have the information.
Furthermore there would have been ways of avoiding disclosure
of the source of the leak that would not have required the release
of an expurgated version of the document. The number of the
copy of the document could have been blacked out, for example.
The Times claimed in a separate story that the "nuclear
trigger" document was written within the military technology
development organization run by Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
A second document, also published in Persian language by The
Times, shows Fakhrizadeh's signature under the title, "Chief,
Department of Development and Deployment of Advanced Technology",
and includes a list of 12 "recipients" within that
organisation, and is dated the Persian equivalent of Dec. 29,
2005 on the Western calendar, according to an English translation
obtained by IPS.
The Times reporter, Catherine Philp, wrote that the neutron
initiator document "was drawn up within the Centre for
Preparedness at the Institute of Applied Physics", which
she identifies as "one of the organization's 12 departments".
But the reference to a "Centre for Preparedness at the
Institute of Applied Physics" is an obvious misreading
of a chart given to The Times by the intelligence agency but
not published by The Times.
The chart, which can be found on the website of the Institute
for Science and International Security, shows what are clearly
two separate organizations relating to neutronics - a "Center
for Preparedness" and an "Institute of Applied Physics"
– under what the intelligence agency translated as the
"Field for Expansion of Advance Technologies' Deployment".
But George Maschke, a Persian language expert and former U.S.
military intelligence officer, provided IPS with a translation
of the list of the 12 recipients on the cover page document
showing that it includes a "Centre for Preparedness and
New Defense Technology" but not an "Institute of Applied
Physics".
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports have referred
to the Institute of Applied Physics as a stand-alone institution
rather than part of Fakhrizadeh's organization.
The English translation of the document shows that none of
the other five Centers and groups on the list of recipients
is a plausible candidate to run a neutron-related experimentation
program, either.
They include the chiefs of the Centre for Explosives and Impact
Technology, the Centre for Manufacturing and Industrial Research,
the Chemical and Metallurgical Groups of the Centre for Advanced
Materials Research and Technology, and the Centre for New Aerospace
Research and Design.
Contrary to The Times story, moreover, the other five recipients
on the list of 12 are not heads of "departments" but
deputies to the director for various cross-cutting themes: finance
and budget, plans and programs, science, administration and
human resources and audits and legal affairs.
The absence of any organization with an obvious expertise in
atomic energy indicates Fakhrizadeh's Department of Development
and Deployment of Advanced Technology is not the locus of a
clandestine nuclear weapons program.
The nuclear weapons programs of Israel, India and Pakistan
prior to testing of an atomic bomb were all located within their
respective atomic energy commissions. That organizational pattern
reflects the fact that scientific expertise in nuclear physics
and the different stages through which uranium must pass before
being converted into a weapon is located overwhelmingly in the
national atomic commissions.
The Times story claimed a consensus among "Western intelligence
agencies" that Fakhrizadeh's "Advanced Technology
Development and Deployment Department" has inherited the
same components as were present in the "Physics Research
Centre" of the 1990s. It also asserts that the same components
were present in the alleged nuclear weapons research program
that the mysterious cache of intelligence documents now called
the "alleged studies" documents portrayed as being
under Fakhrizadeh's control.
Those claims were taken from the chart given to The Times by
the unidentified intelligence agency.
But the idea that Fakhrizadeh has been in charge of a covert
nuclear weapons project can be traced directly to the fact that
he helped procure or sought to procure dual-use items when he
was head of the Physics Resource Center in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. The items included vacuum equipment, magnets, a
balancing machine, and a mass spectrometer, all of which might
be used either in a nuclear programme or for non-nuclear and
non-military purposes.
The IAEA suggested in reports beginning in 2004 that Fakhrizadeh's
interest in these dual-use items indicated a possible role in
Iran's nuclear program.
That same year someone concocted a collection of documents
– later dubbed "the alleged studies" documents
- showing a purported Iranian nuclear weapons project, based
on the premise that Fakhrizadeh was its chief.
Iran insisted, however, that Fakhrizadeh had procured the technologies
in question for non-military uses by various components of the
Imam Hussein University, where he was a lecturer.
And after reviewing documentation submitted by Iran and verifying
some of its assertions by inspection on the spot, the IAEA concluded
in its Feb. 22, 2008 report that Iran's explanation for Fakhrizadeh's
role in obtaining the items had been truthful after all.
But instead of questioning the authenticity of the "alleged
studies" documents, IAEA Deputy Director for Safeguards
Olli Heinonen highlighted Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's alleged
nuclear weapons work in a briefing for member states just three
days after the publication of that correction.
"When the people find they can vote themselves
money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Fall Of The Republic - Buy
the DVD here
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
