Regard this as a supplement to War Warning, part 4.
[This is a document under construction in at least twenty-five
parts over the next many months. (Caveat: this is not for Queasy
Anonymous.)]
1. Below find the most helpful and signals intelligence meaty
part of the Broad/Sanger version, published NYT Monday 17, of the
status of Iran's nuclear fuel production ability.
2. Significant is that A.Q. Khan is mentioned prominently. Best
signals source points to Khan as the centerpiece of the new
information with regard what Iran has and how soon it can convert
its tech into weapons grade material for a production line of
uranium warheads.
3. Last December, Khan provided a lengthy description of his
work with Iran. Best signals source regards Khan as an honorable
gentleman who gave up his lucrative opportunities to enable the
building of the Arab bomb for clients that included not only
Pakistan but also Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and
the ever ambitious North Korea.
4. The Khan network includes technicians from all these
countires, chiefly Iraq, North Korea, Iran, working together to
produce the production line for uranium based bombs. North Korea
has plutonium bombs. But Iran wants the uranium bombs from a full
production cycle.
5. Best signals source says that Iran likely has one or two or
three hand made nuclear warheads. Handmade. See the Broad/Sanger
mention of a document that "sketches out how to shape uranium into
perfect spheres, the tell-tale shape for a primitive weapon."
6. China is the proliferator in chief. China knows -- the PLA is
the source -- that Iran has the capability of producing uranium
bomb production sooner, not later.
7. Iran works with Chinese bomb designs and with North Korean
techs because it must build a weapon that fits the North Korean
ballistic missile design warhead. The Fajar 3, recently launched in
the wargames, has a North Korean warhead design.
8. Khan has fully cooperated, according to best signals source.
Mushareff knows, Iran knows, North Korea knows, China knows, Russia
knows, that the bomb construction in Iran is a consortium effort.
Khan also knows that there is Saudi money in the pipeline for this
success. (The Saudi princes bow to the Tehran apocalyptic vision.
The Saudi princes pay both sides, pay all sides. The Saudi princes
want to survive the UN-US-IRGC conflict.)
9. The suggestion is that the Natanz/Isfahan/Arak facilities are
ruses. The suggestion is that the major effort is at another
location: joined in by techs from all the above nationalisites and
more (there are bomb-for-hire techs from many nations: South
African source says that the rump of the Afrikaner bomb team may be
in Iran) .
10. The suggestion also is that Iran knows that it needs time to
produce the production line, and that it cannot risk the US
coalition attacking first. Hence the germ of the Iran-will-pre-empt
attack.
11. Note: Khan "sold" the Iranians nothing: he followed orders.
The scale of the intrigue is Ummah wide and at least twenty years
old.
12. Supplement necessarily incomplete. Am checking with best
signals within twenty-four hours. Understand that the Broad/Sanger
version serves as a confirmation that State and the National
Security Apparatus are now working from good scripts. Khan is the
key. Khan confirms Iran has the bomb apparatus and the bomb-makers.
Khan confirms. Khan confirms. The Iran will have a self-produced
nuclear warhead in five to ten year scenario does not appear sound
when submitted to Khan Speaks.
"At the same time, intelligence reports circulating inside the
American government, according to several officials who were
granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information,
have raised questions of whether the Iranian government's decision
to boast about its progress is part of an effort to hide more
significant activity. They suspect that a clandestine program, if
it exists, would concentrate on the P-2 because it can produce
enriched uranium so fast. I.A.E.A. officials say solving the
mystery of the P-2 shipments has become one of the most critical
issues on which they need answers in the next two weeks, before Mr.
ElBaradei issues a report to the United Nations Security Council on
April 28. Other pressing questions include Iran's reluctance to
discuss a document found by inspectors - one that the Iranians were
not willing to let the inspectors take out of the country - that
sketches out how to shape uranium into perfect spheres, the
tell-tale shape for a primitive weapon. Investigators say that
document, too, appears to have come from the Khan network. It is
also unclear whether Dr. Khan sold the Iranians a complete
Chinese-made bomb design similar to the one Libya turned over to
the United States when it gave up its weapons program. Questions
about other copies of the bomb design have been met with silence,
in Iran and in Pakistan. "Frankly, I don't know whether he has
passed these bomb designs to others," Mr. Musharraf said. Even
under a loose form of house arrest for the past two years, he said,
Dr. Khan "sometimes has been hiding the facts."
--Broad/Sanger, NYT, Mon 17 April
topics:
Iraq, Iran, Russia, Pakistan, United Nations, Africa, North Korea
