CIA Chief Has "Personal Belief" Iran Is Pursuing Nuclear Weapons

CIA chief says Iran has nuclear weapons drive

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...1bmGxroaNs6UAA

(Gold9472: I personally believe that Hayden is a chickenhawk trying to sell yet another war for the United States. Also, if this was "court of law stuff", you would be laughed out of court.)

20 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — CIA chief Michael Hayden expressed his personal belief Sunday that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but also stood by the agency's assessment that the program was suspended in 2003.

"Personal belief, yes. It's hard for me to explain. This is not court of law stuff," the Central Intelligence Agency director said on NBC television.

Iran's defiance of UN Security Council sanctions showed the Islamic republic had something to hide with its production of enriched uranium, Hayden said.

The Iranians would not pay that price "if they did not have at a minimum... the desire to keep the option open to develop a nuclear weapon," and to produce "fissile material not under international control," he said.

In December, the CIA and rest of the US intelligence community said that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and that US charges about Tehran's atomic goals had been overblown for at least two years.

The general said: "We stand by the judgment. It's one that unfortunately tends to get oversimplified in public discourse."

"Another part of the report that we emphasize is that (the) program had stopped in 2003. It's very clear they were weaponizing. It remained a program that the Iranians continue to deny ever existed," he said.

"And the other aspect of the Iranian nuclear effort beyond the weaponization, the development of delivery systems, all continue."

The United States and its European allies have led efforts to pressure Iran into freezing its disputed uranium enrichment work, a process that can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the core of an atomic bomb.

Tehran insists its program is peaceful.

US Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday said Iran's uranium enrichment was for military purposes.

"Obviously, they're ... heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels," Cheney said in an interview with ABC television.

Cheney, however, did not mention on what he based his accusation.

And Hayden was reminded that the US government had argued that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, because of his refusal to cooperate with UN inspectors, must be hiding a program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"I understand. But, again, you've asked me for an assessment and I can only work from the facts that I see," the CIA boss said.

China reveals Iran's nuclear secrets to UN

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...2/wiran102.xml

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Last Updated: 1:51am BST 04/04/2008

China has betrayed one its closest allies by providing the United Nations with intelligence on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear technology, diplomats have revealed.

Concern over Tehran's secretive research programme has increased in recent weeks after officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, discovered that Iran had obtained information on how to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons.

Beijing is believed to have decided to assist the inspectors after documents seized from Iranian officials included blueprints for "shaping" uranium metal into warheads, the testing of high explosives used to detonate radioactive material and the procurement of dual-use technology.

Much of the new material was presented to the governors of the Vienna-based IAEA in February. That meeting is said to have triggered China's change of heart.

Diplomats described Beijing's decision to provide material related to Iran to the IAEA as a potentially significant breakthrough.

Chinese designs for centrifuges that refine uranium into a "weaponised" state have been found in Iran but these are thought to have come through a network controlled by the disgraced Pakistani scientist AQ Khan.

John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, said suspicions over the leakage of technology from China to Iran had long centred on uranium enrichment technology and their bilateral ballistic missile trade.

A spokesman for the IAEA said it did not comment on intelligence it received from its members.

Beijing has long-established ties with Iran's clerical regime and has emerged as one of the country's biggest customers for oil and gas.

It has allied itself with Tehran's attempts to prevent the IAEA referring Iran to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions.

China has not used its veto powers to block US and British sponsored sanctions but it has ensured the measures were watered down.

The council has levied three rounds of financial sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force the country to declare all its nuclear activities.

IAEA weapons inspectors report that Iran has not provided full co-operation.

An American intelligence assessment judged it likely that Iran stopped efforts to produce a nuclear weapon in 2003 but there are strong fears it has resumed the work under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, said this week that he believed that Iran is still developing a nuclear bomb.

Meanwhile, Israel has accused Iran of setting up listening stations in Syria to eavesdrop on its military communications network.

China denies giving intelligence on Iran

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_New..._on_iran/3734/

Published: April 4, 2008 at 12:57 AM

BEIJING, April 4 (UPI) -- China has described as fabrication a report it provided intelligence on Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Repeating China's officially stated stand that the Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomatic negotiations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, "The report is made of nothing and has originated from those with ulterior motives."

Britain's Daily Telegraph had reported China decided to help the International Atomic Energy Agency with intelligence on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear technology after seized Iranian documents showed blueprints for turning uranium metal into warheads and the testing of high explosives used to set off radioactive material.

The documents also were said to concern the procurement of dual-use technology.

"China has always advocated a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Jiang as saying.

She said her government believes all parties should exert creativity and show flexibility for a comprehensive and lasting solution to the issue.