by Erich Follath and Holger Stark Spiegel
3rd part of 3
One of the Greatest Misunderstandings in the History of US Intelligence
US expert David Albright also believes that Fakhrizadeh is a "very dangerous man." Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, is a respected expert who carefully monitors every development in nuclear research. In his Washington office, he tells SPIEGEL: "If Fakhrizadeh manages to complete the warhead, he will also manage to convince the political leadership to build a nuclear weapon. He is the advocate of the bomb in Tehran."
Fakhrizadeh is also the subject of a meeting with US President Bush in the White House Situation Room in 2007. At the briefing, Director of Intelligence Mike McConnell presents the president and his advisors with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a 140-page study by the nation's intelligence agencies. The key sentence reads: "We judge with high confidence that in Fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
Wow.
It is a sentence that gives one pause, and it represents one of the biggest misunderstandings in the history of the US intelligence community. As former CIA Director Robert Gates would later say, he had never seen "an NIE that had such an impact on US diplomacy." The sentence has the effect of defusing the detonator of a ticking time bomb, delegitimizing the hawkish rhetoric of the neo-conservatives. When Bush reads the NIE conclusion, it must be clear to him that Iran cannot follow Iraq, and that an imminent invasion of the Persian Gulf nation is not an option.
Why this abrupt reversal of policy?
Growing Suspicions of a Weapon Program
During one of their operations, two American intelligence agencies, the NSA and the CIA, obtained internal Iranian documents that related to the policy shift ordered by the Iranian government after the Natanz discovery. The documents suggested that there was one thing Tehran wanted above all else: that its clandestine weapons program not be discovered by the international community. The documents include angry complaints by Fakhrizadeh and his fellow scientists, who had lost power, influence and funds in 2003.
Rumors making the rounds in Washington suggest that the CIA, heavily damaged by the Iraq disaster, was trying to prevent another war, but the authors soon offer a different take on their report. Upon closer examination, the NIE conclusion is not as clear-cut as it appears at first glance. For example, it also states: "We also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." And the assessment does not even reflect the uranium enrichment activities in Natanz, which Tehran insists are for civilian use. The key sentence only relates to the invisible, secret military portion.
Iran Has Developed Its Own Chain of Production Facilities
In an irony of world history, the Iranian government almost simultaneously announces that an important milestone has been reached in Natanz: The facility has begun enriching uranium in February 2007. The newly inaugurated US President Barack Obama is soon confronted with another revelation: the plant in Qom.
At an underground site near the holy city, another uranium enrichment facility is being built deep inside a mountain. The site is the most recent secret to be unveiled in an Iranian nuclear program with its fair share of surprises. Meanwhile, the government in Tehran has admitted to the existence of the facility and the IAEA inspectors have already visited the site. The inspections are a reminder of the earlier situation in Natanz, signaling the start of a new round in Iran's game with the international community.
Some 3,000 centrifuges are to be installed in Qom, a number that arouses the experts' suspicions. The plant is too small for the civilian use of uranium enrichment claimed by Iran, but it is large enough for military use. Under normal operating conditions, 3,000 centrifuges would yield enough material to produce one bomb a year. By now, Iran has developed its own chain of production facilities. It has the uranium ore as the raw material, which it produces in the Gachin mine. It has the conversion plant in Isfahan and the enrichment facilities in Natanz and, before long, Qom. What remains is the complicated mode of ignition, the equally complicated integration into the Shahab-3 carrier missile, and the question of whether the plants are operating as planned.
In theory, Iran can produce more than 15 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium a year in Natanz. "That's enough to produce a nuclear bomb in two years," says US expert David Albright. According to the IAEA, the regime already has 2,427 kilograms of low-enriched uranium today. If the 1,950 kilograms that were transferred to the pilot plant were fed into the centrifuges, the Iranians would have 200 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium. The IAEA believes that if the country reaches that point, it will take only a few months before it has enough high-enriched uranium to produce a bomb.
If.
"Iran made many mistakes," says Albright. "They installed the centrifuges too quickly, at the cost of the ability to operate them properly." Of the 8,610 centrifuges installed by the end of January, only 3,700 were in operation at that point. The devices are constantly cracking. Albright says the Iranians are going through a "painful learning curve." It is also possible that the Americans have managed, through sabotage, to render some of the centrifuges unusable. There are many indications that the Iranian physicists face problems that could take years to solve. But it is also clear that it will be extremely difficult to put a stop to their efforts.
For anyone who pieces together the entire Persian puzzle, there is no doubt that Iran is playing with the option of getting the bomb, and that it is seeking to acquire know-how and the necessary resources -- for whatever purpose.
Act 5: What the World Should Expect
On the surface, little has changed in the Department of Safeguards at the IAEA in Vienna, which is headed by Olli Heinonen. There has been one change, however, and that is that Japan's Yukiya Amano, 63, has replaced ElBaradei at the top post, and has xtended Heinonen's contract without hesitation.
The office of the IAEA deputy director general on the 10th floor of the Vienna International Center is still meticulously neat. An enormous safe at the back of the room contains his secrets. A Persian rug from Isfahan lies on the floor in front of Heinonen's desk, which, as he points out, he paid for himself. There is also an ugly clock on the wall, "from the Kalaye factory," he says, the front company where the Iranians officially
manufactured commercial chronometers, but which they then converted into a secret nuclear research facility. Does Heinonen believe anything the Iranians say anymore? Isn't it time for him to openly admit that Tehran is trying to build a bomb?
Heinonen says that his job is to ask questions on behalf of the international community, to point out contradictions and to publicize violations of international agreements. He admits that his suspicions have grown over the years. Nevertheless, he says, he still lacks the final, 100-percent piece of evidence of a Tehran nuclear weapons program. He is
also uncertain as to whether Iran will be satisfied with the status of a virtual nuclear power or will in fact flick the switch in the direction of a real bomb.
Sometimes Heinonen thinks about where all of his adversaries are today. The Swiss national Urs Tinner, 44, who was more or less abandoned by the CIA and spent agood four years in Swiss investigative custody, is now a free man.Vyacheslav D., the Russian nanotechnology expert, worked as a professor in Ukraine for a while and now lives in the Moscow area. His days as a scientist, however, seem to be over.
'Iran's Nuclear Capability Will Neutralize Israel's Power'
Khan, who is now 74 and supposedly has cancer, has been saying some astonishing things. Most recently, in the summer of 2009, he said: "Iran was interested in acquiring nuclear technology. Since Iran was an important Muslim country, we wished Iran to acquire this technology. Western countries pressured us unfairly. If Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear technology, we will be a strong bloc in the region to counter international pressure. Iran's nuclear capability will neutralize Israel's power."
The first IAEA report under Amano is couched in far less diplomatic terms than most issued in ElBaradei's day. In its Feb. 18, 2010 report, the agency states that it has "broadly consistent and credible" information about Iranian nuclear weapons. "Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." The IAEA unequivocally calls upon Iran to address outstanding questions.Israel Secretly Prepares for a Military Strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline government is secretly making preparations for a military strike. "It is 1938, and Iran is Germany," Netanyahu said a few years ago, thereby indirectly equating Ahmadinejad with the former German dictator Adolf Hitler -- and offers to negotiate with Tehran with the appeasement of the Nazis.
The Israeli military's fighter jets have attacked proven or presumed enemy nuclear facilities twice in the past. In June 1981, in "Operation Babylon," they bombed the Osirak reactor near Baghdad, and in September 2007, in "Operation Orchard," they destroyed a complex of buildings at al-Kibar on the Euphrates River in Syria.
But experts say that to destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program, or at least dealing it a decisive blow and setting it back by several years, will require a bombing campaign that would last several weeks and involve more than 1,000 air strikes against about a dozen targets. Even this would not be a guarantee that all key facilities had been struck and the nuclear components the Iranians have hidden in tunnels were eliminated.
Nevertheless, Israeli experts claim that a "military solution" is feasible, even without the help of Israel's extremely skeptical big brother, the United States. Several of Israel's Arab neighbors fear the Iranian bomb and the resulting power shift in the Middle East almost as much as they fear Israel. According to intelligence assessments, Saudi Arabia is even willing to provide the Israelis with flyover rights for an attack from the south.
The Costs of a Strike
The consequences of such a campaign could prove to be fatal. Iran's options include more than a conventional retaliatory missile strike. The Iranian leadership would likely organize a terrorist campaign in Iraq, and it would encourage two groups funded by Tehran -- Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- to launch strikes against Israel. This could lead to a potential conflagration in the Middle East, which could spread to the rest of the world, or at least the global economy.
Besides, almost all experts agree that a bombardment by Israeli fighter jets would encourage the Iranian people to close ranks the Tehran leadership, which is currently extremely unpopular, and weaken the "green" opposition movement. Is it possible that the Iranians are in fact provoking such a strike to achieve precisely this outcome? And would this lead to their withdrawing from the IAEA and moving full speed ahead with their bomb
development plans, this time with the full support of the people?
On the quiet, politicians and defense experts have already begun discussing whether and how the world could come to terms with Iran as a nuclear power.
Martin van Creveld, a military historian and Jerusalem professor who is the author of "Living with the Bomb," argues that a nuclear Iran would ultimately not be a greater threat to world peace than a nuclear Israel. But this is a minority opinion in the Jewish state, where opinion polls indicate that more than half of the population supports a preventive strike against Tehran if negotiations remain ineffective.
In Washington, the prospect of a world "After Iran Gets the Bomb" -- the title of a cover story in the influential magazine Foreign Affairs -- is now being discussed relatively openly. Experts propose political "containment" of Iran to limit the potential damage.
One thing is certain: Since US President Obama came into office, the Americans are on board when it comes to possible negotiations with Tehran, and they are no longer delegating everything to the Europeans. New York Times writer David Sanger, cites a US diplomat in his book "The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power," saying: "There are some things in life that don't work when you have other people do them for you. Among them are sex, drinking and negotiating with Iran."
A senior Israeli military official says that he's familiar with the quote, but that he would modify it slightly at the end: "... They include sex, drinking and bombing Iran."
Act 6: What the Persians Really Love -- and Who They Hate Isfahan on the "Day of the Atom." The city is the pride of the nation, the jewel of Persia, Nesfe Jahan, "Half of the World." It is a city with religious tolerance and intercultural tradition. But on this day in April 2009, the city's facades are spoiled by signs like the one displayed on its downtown Imam Square, which reads "Death to the Zionists." Less than a kilometer away, on Palestine Square, of all places, the faithful gather in a synagogue for prayers. There are about 1,200 Jews living in Isfahan, and about 25,000 in all of Iran.
"We would forget all of our reservations about the theocracy and fight the intruders," says an old man with a face ravaged by time, looking as if he had just emerged from the Old Testament. He carefully straightens his skullcap as he walks into the synagogue. He is quick to add, however, that he doesn't want to be misunderstood, and that his words have nothing to do with any affection for that man Ahmadinejad.
Persia is a puzzle hidden inside a puzzle made of question marks.
If the Israeli Air Force or the US Air Force were to bomb Iran, it's a safe bet that the Iranian nuclear facility near Isfahan would be at the top of its list of targets. The complex, less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Isfahan, a city of 1.5 million people, is buried in a dramatic desert landscape. A launching pad for anti-aircraft missiles juts into the sky on one of the hills surrounding the valley. Behind the pad, a series of fences, armed guards and then more barbed wire protect the center of the top-secret facility and its uranium conversion plant, which was dedicated by President Ahmadinejad, an event at which SPIEGEL journalists were, uncharacteristically, permitted to accompany the Iranian leader -- into the inner sanctum of Iran's nuclear program.
Here, too, the contradictions are surprising. It goes without saying that first-rate nuclear physicists work at the Isfahan complex. But immediately prior to the presidential visit, a technician is seen cursing as he searches for a wrench while repairing the roof of the high-tech plant.
The president's visit is a solemn one, as if he were attending a religious ceremony. Afterwards, he returns to the city in his convoy. Curious young people crowd into the square where Ahmadinejad is speaking, and when they get bored, they disappear into the bazaar to shop around for the true objects of their desire: Nikes instead of nukes.
Erich Follath and Holger Stark Spiegel
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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