May 23, 2007
U.S. Working To Sabotage Iran Nuke Program
CBS: Iranian Efforts To Enrich Uranium Are Progressing Despite Covert Efforts To Disrupt Program
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Play CBS Video Video Sabotaging Iran's Nukes The U.S. and other allied nations have turned to sabotage to try to hinder Iran's efforts to enrich uranium. But Iran is working to counter the sabotage. Sheila MacVicar reports.
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Video Eye To Eye: Iran's Nuke Power Only On The Web: Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies talks with Sheila MacVicar about Iran's nuclear program and what is being done to stall it.
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Video Tension Between U.S. And Iran Although a Navy task force with 17,000 troops has arrived in the Persian Gulf, Iran probably regards military action against them as remote, due to the war in Iraq. David Martin reports.
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(AP / CBS)
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Timeline Iran Nuclear Chronology Events in development of Iran's nuclear program since it first came to light.
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Fast Facts Iran Learn about the people, economy and history.
CBS News has learned that Iran is continuing to make progress on its expanded efforts to enrich uranium — in spite of covert efforts by U.S. and other allied intelligence agencies to actively sabotage the country's nuclear program.
"Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works," says Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad. Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.
"One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it's a black market … you don't know exactly who you are dealing with," Fitzpatrick says.
Senior government representatives, who spoke to CBS News on condition that neither they nor their country be identified, pointed to the case of the exploding power supplies. Installed at the pilot enrichment facility at Natanz in April 2006 as Iran was first attempting to enrich uranium, the power supplies, used to regulate voltaage current, blew up, destroying 50 centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in January of this year that the equipment had been "manipulated."
There is other evidence, CBS News was told, that some of the technical difficulties Iran is having in consistently running its centrifuges are the results of a concerted effort at industrial sabotage.
Sources familiar with the U.S. effort against Iran tell CBS News that U.S. intelligence agencies have run several programs in recent years, employing different techniques, including modifying components in hard-to-detect ways and making subtle changes to technical documents and drawings, rendering them useless.
"Governments [interested in deterring Iran] are investing a lot of effort to disrupt the Iranian trade, or track their purchases," says David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Iran is vulnerable to industrial sabotage because it is prohibited from buying what it wants on the open market. Instead, analysts say, it has turned to the black market, focusing efforts to clandestinely acquire the technology in Western Europe. Intelligence sources tell CBS News that Iranian agents working from the Islamic Republic's consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, have shipped home banned components using the protection and secrecy of diplomatic bags.
Although export controls are stronger in Europe than in many other countries, the Iranians still need European products because of either their quality or reliability, or because they already have European-manufactured products and are looking for spare parts.
But the procurement network is global, and trans-national, analysts say. In Dubai and other neighboring nations, Iran has established a shifting network of front companies.
"These are clandestine efforts. Iran frequently changes its front companies, frequently changes its financial arrangements, and government intelligence agencies have been looking at this," says Fitzpatrick
Albright says Iran has become even more sophisticated in its illicit procurement efforts than the network established by AQ Khan that obtained components and materiel for Pakistan's bomb program.
"They have moved beyond just front companies and are very hard to detect," he said. "The Iranians are very clever."
Iran is described as "highly suspicious" and "almost paranoid," and is believed to be predisposed to believe that any of its many technical problems may be the result of foreign sabotage.
"It’s impossible to say the extent to which Iran has discovered any industrial espionage," Fitzpatrick says. "Any technical problems that Iran experiences in its program, some of which were the result of its own speed-up effort, Iran may attribute to foreign espionage."
According to diplomats, getting the Iranians to believe that components may have been tampered with can be as effective in delaying the program as the real thing. But the diplomats also warn that with enough money and time, Iran's nuclear ambitions cannot be derailed by sabotage alone.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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The secrets of tennis legend 
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See all 155 CommentsIt is not strange at all that the wolves in sheeps clothing are expanding their killing grounds once again
1. The story was given to CBS by "senior officials" in the administrations of several Western governments.
2. All gave the story under identical conditions of anonymity.
3. "According to diplomats, getting the Iranians to believe that components may have been tampered with can be as effective in delaying the program as the real thing."
CBS isn't divulging sensitive secrets. U.S. and allied governments are planting this story in the media.
Steve of progressiveportal.org/store
it may be that it is imposable to keep from taking sides. seems to me that in that case, the MSM would take the side of the country that protects their right to speak freely. with rights come responsibility. just because you know a thing, does not mean you MUST publish it. especially when it is not in the best interest of your country.
it is discouraging that this story is not surprising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiZrWIVR69s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1sK-2LwMPU
This isen't about nukes or terrorism.
"When you have the Bush administration and the neoconservatives speak about the Middle East, they aren't solely focused on Iraq. They speak of the need to "transform the entire region." This means that regime change is the policy."
- Scott Ritter.
Aint misdirerction wunnerful?
kills you if you don't join it...
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=82201&ln=eng&txt=islam%20law%20kill%20kaafir
kills you if you leave it...
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=696&ln=eng&txt=kaafir%20kill
kills you if you don't do what they tell you to do..
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=6035&ln=eng&txt=kaafir%20kill
kills you if you speak against it%u2026.
http://islamqa.com/index.php?QR=22809&ln=eng
kills anybody that is not a member of it...
http://www.hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/koran5.html
still practices pagan rituals...
http://answering-islam.org/Silas/pagansources.htm
allows the r a p e of babies and animals...
http://www.homa.org/default.asp?TOCID=2083225445
a. satanic cult???
b. islam???
c. all the above???
Our Prophet commanded us to fight the kaafirs when we are able and to attack them in their homelands and to give them three choices before we enter their lands: either they become Muslim and be like us, sharing our rights and duties; or they pay the jizyah (poll tax) and feel themselves subdued; or they fight, in which case their wealth, women, children and homes become permissible as booty for the Muslims.
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=13759&ln=eng&txt=before%20islam%20arabia%20pagan
If they can kill us, we can kill them
Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out 'Martyrdom' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907
if it is ok for fascist nazi islamic muslims to kill all non muslims everywhere.... is it ok for the non muslims to kill all fascist nazi islamic muslims???
Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp
But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.
"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.
Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.
The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
Order the decapitation strike. You will have broad international support, as this time there really is a clear threat of WMDs.
The good people of Iran deserve better than this maniac. Don't wait untill its too late. He will strike Isreal, and worse, the green zone as soon as he is able.
I live in Canada and my brother is in FLA, he served 2 Iraq tours with 101st. All of us Canadians support the proactive pursuit of global stability. (We will send all 50 of our soldiers to help.) Diplomacy is futile with this hothead.
Order the decapitation strike.
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