Revelations Lay Bare the Syrian and Iranian Nuclear Threat

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA Report #: 1,085
April 29, 2011

http://www.jinsa.org/node/2293

Finally. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) formally acknowledged that the target destroyed in the Syrian desert in 2007 was a covertly built nuclear reactor. [see JINSA Reports #765,#766, #767] Director General Yukiya Amano publicly accepted U.S. intelligence information that identified it as a nearly completed nuclear reactor that would have been able to produce plutonium for the fissile cores of nuclear warheads. [This is the same Mr. Amano who expressed "concerns" about what Iran might be hiding from the IAEA - a far cry from Mohamed el Baradai's "see no evil" posture.] No one is publicly thanking Israel - of course, Israel didn't take credit - but for those who believe there is a difference between democratic countries with nuclear capability (Britain, France, India, the United States) and dictators with the same capability (China, North Korea, Iran, Syria), Mr. Amano's announcement was welcome.

Welcome also was a report said to be issued by the "Iranian Passive Defense Organization," chaired by General Jalali of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The report, sent to the West by a dissident Iranian journalism group, says the Stuxnet virus discovered last year in Iran's centrifuge system has so thoroughly infected the operating systems at the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex that work on the plant must be halted indefinitely. "The internal directives programmed into the structure of the virus can actually bring the generators and electrical power grid of the country to a sudden halt, creating a 'heart attack' type of work stoppage," the report says.

Journalist (and JINSA Board of Advisors Member) Ken Timmerman reports in Newsmax the Iranian belief that Stuxnet "has automatic updating capabilities in order to track and pirate information," and that it "can destroy system hardware step-by-step." Iranian computer scientists claimed to have defeated the Stuxnet infiltration. But now, apparently, they admit that not only did they not fix it, but General, Jalali said there is another major attack virus infecting Iranian government files; he called it "Stars."

We call it excellent. Someone out there is doing what counts.

But Timmerman goes on in the story to report that Siemens, the German giant that "sold Iran the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) process controllers used to run the Bushehr power plant, the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, and other industrial facilities in Iran... was blindsided by Stuxnet, and began publishing its own research and tools to remove the worm from infected computers last fall."

Jalali said, "Our executive officials should legally follow up the case of Siemens SCADA software, which prepared the ground for the Stuxnet virus... The Siemens company must be held accountable and explain how and why it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of SCADA software and paved the way for a cyber attack against us."

We agree with Jalali that Siemens must be held accountable, but in our view it should be held accountable for giving Iran whatever means it can to remove the worm from infected computers. Siemens does big business in Iran - still. The Wall Street Journal reports that Siemens has started no new projects in Iran, but continues to service existing contracts, including those for nuclear-related systems. "Otherwise we could be accused of breaching contracts and face compensatory damages," said Siemens CEO Peter Löscher.

Instead they are supporting and aiding in the development of a nuclear-capable Iran and making a mockery of "international sanctions."

It was a pretty good week, not a great one.

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What the IAEA Knew: The U.N. agency charged with stopping nuclear proliferation enabled it.

Anne Bayefsky
Eye On the U.N.
22 February '10

This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in Forbes.com.

The most important thing gleaned from the report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) circulated on Feb. 18, which states that Iran may indeed be bent on developing a nuclear bomb, is not new information about Iran. It is that for years the United Nations apparatus lied about what they knew and actively stood in the way of efforts to prevent the world's most dangerous regime from acquiring the world's most dangerous weapon.

The "confidential" report leaked to every news agency on the planet, is quoted as stating that on the basis of "extensive" and "credible" information the IAEA now has "concerns about the possible existence in Iran of ... current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile," and "concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

While Obama administration officials have attempted to spin the first report of IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who took over last December, as a U.N. achievement, the implications of the evident U.N. deceit cannot be overstated. After all, the organization has a choke hold on global imaginations. In 2005 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IAEA and its then Director General Mohammed ElBaradei "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes." It is now clear that this occurred at the very same time that ElBaradei was engaged in what may well prove to be the most lethal cover-up in human history.

For almost a decade, the IAEA and its director general stalled for time on behalf of Iran, with reports feigning ignorance of Iranian designs while leaving an escape hatch should the IAEA's disguise as a non-proliferation agency be blown. In February 2006 ElBaradei reported: "Although the Agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, the Agency is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran. The process of drawing such a conclusion ... is a time consuming process."

(Read full article)
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