Group says Iran resumed nuclear arms program
Iranian opposition group claims that suspension of nuclear program reported in American NIE just a diversionary tactic
Iran did shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but restarted it a year later, dispersing the equipment to thwart international inspectors, an overseas Iranian opposition group told the Wall Street Journal.
The group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), exposed the country's nuclear-fuel program in 2002 and now believes a recent US analysis is giving the wrong impression that Iran's nuclear program is not an urgent threat, the newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert disagreed, saying Israel believes Iran will have the resources to create a nuclear weapon by 2010. But the estimate dampened any enthusiasm among Russia and China for more UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.
The NCRI, listed by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization, has had a mixed record of accuracy with its nuclear claims about Iran, the Journal said.
The NCRI does agree that Iran's Supreme National Security Council decided to shut down its most important nuclear weapons research center in eastern Tehran, called Lavisan-Shian, in August 2003, the Journal said.
But the group, which claims it has sources inside Iran, said the facility was broken into 11 fields of research, including projects to develop a nuclear trigger and shape weapons-grade uranium into a warhead, the paper said.
"They scattered the weaponization program to other locations and restarted in 2004," Mohammad Mohaddessin, the NCRI's foreign affairs chief, told the Journal.
"Their strategy was that if the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) found any one piece of this research program, it would be possible to justify it as civilian. But so long as it was all together, they wouldn't be able to."
Torn down and bulldozed
By the time international inspectors were allowed to visit the Lavisan site, the buildings Iran claimed were devoted to nuclear research had been torn down and the ground bulldozed, the paper said.
The NCRI said the equipment was moved to another military compound known as the Center for Readiness and Advanced Technology, to Malek-Ashtar University Isfahan and to a defense ministry hospital in Tehran.
The NCRI says it was added to the EU terrorist list under pressure from Tehran at a time when Western countries were trying to improve relations with Iran.
Officials from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China will hold talks on Tuesday on finalizing the text of a third UN sanctions resolution against Iran, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday.
"Most states have found that we have the right strategy and the key is still to get Iran to stop its enrichment and reprocessing so that we can begin negotiations to meet the legitimate need for civilian nuclear power," Rice said.
