Iran's weaponization program is alive, is active, and has been resumed since 2004
AFP, December 11, 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iran resumed
its nuclear weapons program in 2004, according to a US-based
dissident who said Tuesday that US intelligence had failed
to include his findings in a surprise about-face downgrading
the Iranian threat.
"The weaponization program is alive, is active, and has been
resumed since 2004," Iranian opposition figure Alireza
Jafarzadeh told AFP, contradicting the US National
Intelligence Estimate released a week ago.
"The NIE was only partly right," said Jafarzadeh, formerly
the US spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI) and author of a book released in January called
"The Iran Threat."
"They (Iranians) were forced to pause in 2003 because of the
tremendous pressure they were under," he said. "They
suspended it to consider their next steps, and started again
in 2004."
In August 2002, Jafarzadeh first reported the existence of
secret Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak, prompting
denunciations of Tehran by Washington and hurried
inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Iranian regime maintains the NCRI is a "terrorist" front
run by disaffected exiles. The group is the political wing
of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, which is banned in
the United States and the European Union.
Jafarzadeh was speaking as the United States continued to
press for a third round of UN sanctions against Iran despite
the new intelligence estimate, arguing that diplomatic
pressure caused Tehran to halt its program in 2003.
The NIE was a diplomatic bombshell that contradicted
forceful US assertions that Iran's nuclear program was a
gathering threat that raised the prospect of "World War
III."
While the NIE expressed with "moderate confidence" that Iran
was not now trying to build nuclear weapons, Jafarzadeh said
the program had only been suspended in 2003 to evade IAEA
inspections.
Under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the
top-secret weapons program was in fact moved from one site
at Lavizan-Shian and scattered across various underground
installations in 2004, he said.
Jafarzadeh said he had shared his analysis with contacts in
the US intelligence community before the NIE's publication,
but suggested a "certain agenda" by some in the community
anxious to downplay Iran's threat.
"We've gone back and checked every site that we knew of...
since 2002 to see if any of those activities were halted in
those sites," he told a press conference, presenting slides
purporting to show ongoing nuclear activity.
"With the exception of Lavizan-Shian... no other site was
ever shut down," the Washington-based Jafarzadeh said,
arguing that the US intelligence assessment "needs to be
fixed."
"I don't think the international community, I don't think
the United States government can afford to make such
mistakes and provide the opportunity for the mullahs to get
the bomb before we all know."
