Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
JERUSALEM (April 9) - Iran received several nuclear warheads from a
former Soviet republic in the early 1990s and
Russian experts maintained
them, according to Iranian government documents
relayed to Israel and
obtained by The Jerusalem Post.
The documents, deemed authentic by US congressional
experts and still
being studied in Israel, contain correspondence
between Iranian
government officials and leaders of the
Revolutionary Guards that discusses
Iran's successful efforts to obtain nuclear warheads
from former Soviet
republics.
"At this point, we can't say for certain whether
these are genuine," a senior
Israeli source said. "But they look awfully real."
A US government consultant said he is certain of the
authenticity of the
documents. "They are real and we have had them for
years," he said.
The documents appear to bolster reports from 1992
that Iran received
enriched uranium and up to four nuclear warheads
from Kazakhstan, with
help from the Russian underworld.
A detailed account of the Iranian effort, released
on January 20, 1992, by
the US Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional
Warfare of the
House Republican Research Committee, asserted that
by the end of 1991
there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already
had all [or virtually all]
of the components required for two to three
operational nuclear weapons
[aerial bombs and SSM warheads] made with parts
purchased in the
ex-Soviet Moslem republics."
"I didn't give these reports credibility at the
time," said Shai Feldman,
director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies. "It
seemed like the kind of information that the Iranian
opposition put out.
There were specific queries made and everybody said
there was no
evidence of a warhead transfer."
But congressional sources and Israeli officials said
Congress has been
alarmed by the continuing reports of Russian aid to
Iran's nuclear and
nonconventional program. The sources said that they
are drafting legislation
to stop the effort.
In one Iranian document obtained by the Post, dated
December 26, 1991,
the deputy head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
tells Atomic Energy
Agency head Rezi Amrullahi that "two war materiel of
nuclear nature" had
arrived from Russia and were being held by the
guards.
At the bottom of the document is a handwritten
rebuke from a senior
Iranian intelligence officer asking both officials
not to write and send such
documents to avoid leaks.
In another document, dated January 2, 1992, a senior
Iranian
Revolutionary Guards official quotes an engineer
identified as Turkan as
saying that the nuclear warheads are being stored in
the Lavizan military
camp in the Teheran area. The engineer says that the
warheads contain
flaws in the safety mechanism and he is waiting for
Russian experts to
arrive and repair them.
An April 3, 1992, document discusses the production
of a solid fuel missile
prototype, called Zalzal 300, completed in Lavizan
which was soon to be
ready for launch. US congressional experts said the
Zalzal is a modification
of the Chinese M-11 missile.
The US government consultant said the Iranian
government
correspondence relayed to Israel is only a small
portion of the hundreds of
documents about the Iranian effort to obtain nuclear
materials, including
four nuclear warheads for the North Korean-developed
No-Dong missile.
The documents were obtained as US envoy Robert
Gallucci held talks
here with government and intelligence agency leaders
on Russian aid to
Iran's ballistic missile program.
"The government acts on priorities and at the top is
the Iranian missile
program," an Israeli official said.
Israeli officials said that both Jerusalem and
Washington agree on the
amount of progress achieved by Iran in developing a
missile with a range of
1,300 kilometers, which is able to reach Israel. The
disagreement is about
whether Russia supports the technology transfer to
Iran and whether
Moscow is capable of stopping the flow.
Israeli sources are said to have been impressed with
Gallucci, who
replaced Frank Wisner as US President Bill Clinton's
envoy to Moscow
on the Iranian missile issue. A senior official said
Gallucci's appointment
reflects the Clinton administration's intention to
intensify a campaign to stop
the Russian aid to Iran's missile program.
This Israeli assessment, disputed in defense
circles, has led to a decision by
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to shelve efforts
to lobby Congress to
pass sanctions against Russia, the official said. He
said Israel's friends in
Congress have asked Netanyahu's government for
advice and were told
that Jerusalem was giving the White House more time
to achieve results.
"So, Congress wants to go forward and not us," the
official said.
"Certainly, we aren't pushing Congress. It doesn't
mean that we won't do
so in the future."
--
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1. Don't tell people everything you know.
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