Wouldn't you if someone was preparing to bomb you?
"Iran nuclear fuel facility is moved; Underground site to expand quantity of production" September 02, 2011|By David E. Sanger, New York Times
WASHINGTON - Iran is moving its most sensitive nuclear-fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it is less vulnerable to attack from the air, and, the Iranians hope, the kind of cyberattack that crippled its nuclear program, according to intelligence officials....
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, noted that Iran has said that international inspectors “will continue to have access to these centrifuges as part of its inspection activities in Iran,’’ which would make it likely that any diversion of the fuel for weapons use could be detected.
Then NO BIG DEAL, huh?
So far, Iran has allowed periodic visits by inspectors but refused to provide information they demanded about the facility or to allow interviews of its personnel. A report updating the agency’s findings in Iran was expected in the next few days.
In interviews, both current and former US government officials provided new details of internal debates in recent years over how to deal with the Iranian nuclear program.
Those discussions weighed the risks of a traditional covert attack on Iran’s facilities versus a cyberattack. They laid the groundwork for what in 2009 and 2010 became the most successful effort thus far to slow Iran’s nuclear ambitions - the computer worm known as Stuxnet....
Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Israeli Virus Infects Iran
Makes you wonder who is really responsible for all the hacking, doesn't it?
The officials involved in the discussions about Iran said that President George W. Bush’s administration asked the Central Intelligence Agency in the summer of 2008 to assess the feasibility of covert action to blow up or disable crucial elements of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
That's terrorism!
But when the agency delivered the plans, they were quickly rejected, the officials said, for fear that any kind of obvious attack on the facilities could touch off another conflict in the Middle East just as a new US president was assuming office.
That's bullshit. Bush signed off on covert actions, and Obama has continued with them.
Then again, what would you expect from the intelligence agency mouthpiece we call a newspaper over here?
The options were developed in part to assess whether a physical attack on the facilities would be significantly more effective than more subtle - and deniable - sabotage of the Iranian facilities, including cyberattacks.
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Related: Iran nuclear power plant begins generation
Oh, we will have to bomb then.
"Man gets death in killing of Iran physicist" August 29, 2011|Associated Press
TEHRAN - A man was sentenced to death yesterday in the killing last year of a Tehran physicist, an assassination that authorities blamed on Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the official IRNA news agency reported.
IRNA quoted Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, the country’s prosecutor general, as saying that Majid Jamali Fashi had been sentenced to death for the crimes of “defiance of God,’’ or using arms against Iran’s Islamic government, and spreading “corruption on the earth,’’ or damaging public security and order....
Fashi, 23, went on trial Tuesday. He was also accused of cooperating with the Mossad, traveling to Israel to attend a Mossad training course, and receiving money from the Israeli intelligence service. He had admitted to the charges in a televised confession and on the day of the trial.
On Tuesday, IRNA said the defendant’s first name was Ali. There is no explanation on the discrepancy.
According to the conservative Tabnak news website, Fashi was a member of the Iranian national team in the sport of pankration, which includes elements of boxing, wrestling, and fighting.
Iran claims that the Mossad is out to roll back scientific progress in Muslim nations.
In January, Iran said it arrested 10 people who it accused of having links to Mossad and who were implicated in the killing of at least two Iranian scientists.
Also see: I Spy Iran
Israel, the United States, and other nations suspect Iran is intent on using its civil nuclear energy program as cover for developing atomic weapons.
So it's okay to have our intelligence agencies or their contract agents kill 'em. Notice not even the mouthpiece media denies the covert operations they help cover up.
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"Iran leader says Arab Spring not West’s" Associated Press / September 1, 2011
TEHRAN - Iran’s top leader warned the Arab world yesterday not to allow Western powers and Israel to “confiscate’’ the region’s proreform uprisings, in comments that appear to reflect the Islamic republic’s unease about their standing in a profoundly altered Middle East.
We have undoubtedly initiated them in Libya and Syria. The rest probably are true revolts as they have overthrown favorable governments and allies or are pressuring them.
Iran has tried to walk two paths since the prodemocracy rebellions began in February - lauding the popular revolts as modern-day heirs to Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution while maintaining relentless pressure on opposition groups at home.
But Iran is at risk of serious political setbacks. Iran’s main Mideast ally, Syria’s Bashar Assad, is under growing international pressure....
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech broadcast on Iran’s state television to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, reflected the added worries that the West and its allies could gain ground in the Arab Spring.
“Muslim nations in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, or other countries need vigilance today,’’ Khamenei said. “They should not allow enemies confiscate the victories they’ve achieved.
“They should not forget that those who have come to the scene in Libya [the United States and NATO] today and consider themselves owners of the uprising are the same people who used to sit and drink with those who once suppressed the Libyan nation.’’
He urged Libyans not to allow the United States and its allies to dominate their country.
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