Biden wrong on Iran’s Nuclear Program

Ex-CIA Agent, Ex-Iran Intel officer and Think Tank Dispute Biden on Iran’s nuclear program.

ICONOCLAST

Tens of millions of viewers of the debate between Vice President Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan were misled about the seriousness of Iran’s nuclear threat.  A threat that has been amply verified by IAEA reports, ISIS analyses, and Israeli PM Netanyahu’s graphic illustration used to indicate what red lines of Iran’s nuclear enrichment meant.  Two reliable sources, Reza Kahlili ex-CIA agent, author of  A Time to Betray, and Hamidreza Zakeri,  Iran Intelligence Officer defector and star witness in the Iran and 9/11 Havlish legal case have produced irrefutable evidence from sources inside Iran about its current nuclear weapons timetable.

An editorial in the Weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, “Biden’s Intelligence” cited the Veep’s misrepresentations:

On Iran, Mr. Biden broke new ground, though most of the media missed it. To a question about the Administration’s willingness to stop the Tehran regime from going nuclear, he said what matters isn’t Iran’s ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade. It’s whether it can build and deliver a bomb.

“They are a good way away,” he said. “When my friend [Paul Ryan] talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20% up. Then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point.”

“Let’s all calm down a little bit here,” Mr. Biden said a few minutes later.

In other words, Iran may have made progress toward enriching enough uranium to sufficient strength to build a bomb in the past four years, but that’s immaterial. Based on the Vice President’s intelligence, Iran isn’t close to building a nuclear warhead, developing the trigger mechanism, missiles and all the other things needed to deploy a weapon. So don’t worry.

Hmmm. For a decade, the U.S. and Europe have focused on coaxing and coercing the Iranians to stop enrichment above all else. That’s because this is the hardest thing about building a bomb. Iran has in any case worked to develop missiles and triggers with help from Pakistanis, Russians, North Koreans and others. In a clearer moment this summer, Mitt Romney said he would insist that Iran not enrich any uranium, even ostensibly for peaceful purposes. He failed to repeat this demand in his foreign-policy speech this week.

Biden and Ryan dive into foreign policy, debate on what steps each platform will take with Iran in terms of military action.

To hear Mr. Biden tell it, the Obama Administration now has a new red line on Iran. The mullahs can enrich as much uranium as they wish as long as they “don’t have something to put it in.” This isn’t the red line Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu had in mind during his recent speech before the United Nations. Nor are Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others looking for proof of an Iranian ICBM before they decide to go nuclear themselves. Iran becomes a regional nuclear power when it demonstrates its ability to get the bomb at almost a moment’s notice, which is when it has developed enough fuel for it.

Reza Kahili-see our NER interview- had written an earlier criticism of Biden’s Iran connections arguments in a March 2010 article, “Will the Real Joe Biden Stand up?”  Kahlili noted Biden’s coziness with Tehran’s mullahs:

Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday (March 9th) the United States is concerned that Iran is becoming more of a military dictatorship and insisted that Tehran will not be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon. Indeed a strong statement.

Is this the same Joe Biden who in 2002, despite protests from expatriate Iranians in America, held a fundraiser in the California home of a member of AIC (American-Iranian Council), during which the senator delivered a sweeping condemnation of President Bush’s “Axis of Evil.”?

Since its inception in 1997, the AIC has vigorously lobbied American politicians to soften U.S. position towards the radical rulers of Iran and claims that getting Madeline Albright to express regret for mistaken U.S. policies toward Iran as one of its greatest achievements, along with organizing an event in New York in 2007 for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Having Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appear at this event was seen by the mullahs as a major accomplishment. The fundraiser brought in $30,000 for Biden’s reelection to the Senate that year. The AIC members and other board members of the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN, www.iman.org) said Biden’s office contacted them to inquire if they would hold a private fundraiser for the senator, who was up for reelection that year, after meeting with them at a pro-Tehran event in New York the previous December. That event was also sponsored by the American-Iranian Council.

[. . .]

In 2007, then Senator Biden refused to name the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, a terrorist organization. Biden voted “Nay” to Senate Amendment 3017 (S. Amdt. 3017) – a piece of legislation amending S. Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 – “to express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran.”

Senator Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act in 1998, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise

This weekend Kahlili and Zakeri revealed some confirmed intelligence from Iran as to where the Islamic Republic stood in a World Net Daily article, “Watch Iranians, They Believe That War is Near, Expert Says”.   Kahlili had earlier this week revealed a secret Iranian Nuclear Bomb Plant located underneath a medical research facility.

Iranian scientists are nearing completion of a nuclear warhead, having already successfully tested an implosion system and neutron detonator at a secret site while enriching uranium to weapons grade, according to a former Iranian intelligence officer.

The information comes from Hamidreza Zakeri, formerly with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, or MOIS.

Zakeri previously testified at the federal district court in Manhattan in the Havlish v. bin Laden civil lawsuit, where he provided proof that Iran had materially aided and supported al-Qaida before and after 9/11.

Zakeri, who has in the past provided credible information on another site to Western intelligence agencies, said that after the revelation of the existence of the Iranian atomic research facility in Lavizan-Shian, the team of scientists moved to a secret location in 2003.

Kahlili’s sources said the new site is in the province of Isfahan on the outskirts of the small city of Najafabad. The report said to avoid suspicion, the site was built below the medicine factory, “Abu Reyhan.”

The report said the facility beneath the factory has three levels, with two underground entrances away from the facility.

Kahlili reported the revelation of the new nuclear program site on the Wall Street Journal’s  “Daily Wrap” radio program with host Michael Kastner.

This “should be a serious concern,” and international nuclear regulators or others need to watch.

“There are assets in Iran, I’m sure, who could monitor the place. The IAEA could ask for an inspection,” he said.

“Sources have verified fissile material being transferred [there],’ he said. And “Iranian officials are adamant that war is close.”

Kahlili said  the ruling Islamic regime in Iran doesn’t believe the U.S. would attack, because of the actions and statements of Barack Obama, but they remain uncertain about Israel.

“They don’t think Israel will wait that long,” he reported.

Biden’s schedule for Iran achieving a nuclear weapon has been disputed by both IAEA and the Washington, DC –based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Just before the Biden-Ryan debate this week, ISISreleased a report on October 8th that according to an AP report  could have enough fissile material within two to four months to make a nuclear bomb, assuming it completed engineering development of nuclear triggers. This is significantly ahead of even Israeli PM Netanyahu’s prediction of next spring to achieve that capability. The AP report noted the ISIS findings drawn from IAEA inspection reports:

The Institute for Science and International Security did not make a judgment on whether Iran plans to turn its enrichment capabilities toward weapons making. But in its report made available to The Associated Press ahead of publication Monday, it drew a clear distinction between Tehran’s ability to make the fissile core of a warhead by producing 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium from its lower enriched stockpiles and the warhead itself.

“Despite work it may have done in the past,” Iran would need “many additional months to manufacture a nuclear device suitable for underground testing and even longer to make a reliable warhead for a ballistic missile,” the report said.

Beside its payload of weapons grade uranium, a nuclear warhead also needs to have a complicated trigger mechanism that sets off a chain reaction in the weapons grade uranium — the fissile core of such a weapon — resulting in the high-power blast and widespread radiation characteristic of such weapons. While the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran may have worked secretly on testing such a nuclear trigger, Iran vehemently denies any nuclear weapons experiments.

Clare Lopez, Senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy cites IAEA documents, which have been reporting in detail on these developments in periodic assessments from November 2011 through to the most recent report ofAugust 2012.  These IAEA reports are available to one and all, including the Intelligence Community, at its online website.  She commented in an email:

Given the reports out of the IAEA, what is not to understand about “possible military dimensions” or “work on….an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components”?

What is lacking is not only Biden’s intelligence on what’s verifiable about Iran’s intent and clearly accelerating time table for acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons, but also the media’s failure to investigate  involvement of Tehran’s Mullahs in America as a former Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Given these reports from Kahlili, Zakeri, ISIS and the IAEA. Israeli PM Netanyahu clearly has every reason to be concerned about final red lines on his Iranian bomb sketch