Sunday, July 10, 2016

Iran's Illegal Attempts to Buy Chemical Weapons Technology - Meira Svirsky




by Meira Svirsky

Post-deal, Iran has solicited advanced nuclear, chemical, biological and missile-related technology, from 16 German states.


Since signing the nuclear agreement with the world’s powers, it has been revealed that Iran has tried illegally to obtain nuclear, chemical, biological and missile-related technology to advance all of these programs for the Islamic Republic. 

In an exclusive report based on the examination of intelligence data from 16 German states, the Jerusalem Post details new information on Iran’s wide range of activities to procure these materials.

The Post reveals, in just one example, “The state of Saarland wrote in its 2015 intelligence report released last month that ‘so-called danger states, for example, Iran and North Korea, make efforts to obtain technology for atomic, biological or chemical weapons.’ Iran also seeks ‘missile delivery systems as well as goods and know-how for proliferation.’”

An intelligence report released in June by the Rhineland-Palatinate state shows that “Iran was one of the foreign countries that targeted ‘German companies’ in the state whose equipment could be ‘implemented for atomic, biological and chemical weapons in a war.’”

The North Rhine-Westphalia state’s domestic intelligence report similarly states that Iran made 83 attempts to obtain illicit technology for weapons proliferation in 2014 and 141 attempts in 2015. The report notes that 90% of the attempted acquisitions were for the development of nuclear-weapon devices and missile launchers.

The years in question were the same years that Iran and the world powers were engaged in prolonged negotiations to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its accompanying missile development program. In exchange for the Islamic Republic’s demilitarization, the world agreed to lift financial sanctions that had crippled Iran’s economy. 

Reacting to the news of Iran’s illegal procurement attempts, German Chancellor Angela Merkel   angrily told the German parliament that the development of Iran’s missile program is “in clear contradiction to the relevant provisions of UN Security Council [resolutions].”

The revelations should come as no surprise to those who have monitored Iran’s blatant duplicity before, during and after the negotiations that resulted in the nuclear agreement made last summer. 

While Iran insisted all along that its nuclear program was for “peaceful purposes,” evidence to the contrary was willfully ignored by the world powers as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency.

While negotiations were being carried out, secret military sites housing nuclear enrichment equipment and well as specific scientists were being revealed through satellite images as well as other solid documentation. Previous secret sites had also been revealed, to which Iran had admitted.

Other known sites were exposed where evidence of a nuclear weapons program were erased before IAEA inspectors arrived.

The agreement itself contained two key passages that were (and still are) being kept secret. The two passages have to do with inspections of critical military installations.

The first concerns the inspection of the Parchin, which has been under suspicion for years for conducting research on nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. The second centers on separate negotiations to resolve the issue of possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program.

In addition, in a move that defied even a modicum of any semblance of reality, it was further revealed that as per the above secret passages, the IAEA had agreed to let Iran use its own inspectors to take samples from its sites suspected of military development of nuclear weapons.

One of the conditions of the nuclear agreement was that Iran would refrain from developing its missile program for eight years. Shortly after the agreement was made, which never came to a vote in Congress due to a filibuster by Democrats, Iran tested its first in a series of ballistic missiles (weapons that are used almost exclusively to deliver a nuclear warhead).

In a shocking turn around, the Obama administration told the American public that the missile test did not violate the nuclear deal but was “altogether separate from the nuclear agreement Iran reached with the rest of the world.”

After the test, the most criticism the U.S. could muster was to say that there were “strong indications” that the test violated United Nations Security Council resolution 1929 which forbids Iran from developing and  testing such missiles. 

Not surprisingly, by the end of 2015, the IAEA closed the file on any possible military dimensions of the Iran’s nuclear program, completely letting Iran off the hook.

Subsequent missile testing – including one ballistic missile with the words written in Hebrew “Israel should be wiped out” – have elicited similar flaccid responses.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami, the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards, threatened Israel, saying that Iran has “in Lebanon, over than 100,000 missiles ready to be launched.” He also threatened the rest of the world, saying that Iran has “tens of thousands of other high-precision and long-range missiles” which it will use “to destroy any place that constitutes a threat to our regime without taking anything into consideration.”

The belligerence, non-compliance and blatant provocation by the Islamic Republic of Iran taken in conjunction with their attempts to illicitly procure the most sophisticated chemical, biological and nuclear technology should make the world pause.

Enabling the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in sanctions relief – as well as lucrative business deals -- certainly puts the entire world on a crash course with disaster.


Meira Svirsky

Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/irans-illegal-attempts-buy-chemical-weapons-technology

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