Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning New Atomic Sites
March 27, By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
WASHINGTON — Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands.
The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment.
In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, “will be built inside mountains,” presumably to protect them from attacks.
“God willing,” Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying, “we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites” in the Iranian new year, which began March 21.
Read the Entire Story in the New York Times:
Israel could use tactical nukes on Iran: thinktank
By Dan Williams
NATO urges missile defense pact, cites Iran threat
A Standard Missile Three (SM-3) is launched from the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) during a joint U.S. Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Navy ballistic missile flight test in the Pacific Ocean, June 22, 2006. Credit: Reuters/U.S. Navy/Handout
(Reuters) – NATO states should agree at a summit this year to make missile defense systems against states including Iran an alliance mission and look at every opportunity to cooperate on this with Russia, the head of NATO says.
In a speech prepared for delivery at a conference in Brussels Saturday, alliance Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said a NATO-wide missile defense system would show collective will to defend against a growing threat.
“We need a decision by NATO’s next summit in November that missile defense for our populations and territories is an alliance mission. And that we will explore every opportunity to cooperate with Russia,” Rasmussen said in an advance text of the speech made available by NATO.
Posted in Foreign Policy, Headlines, Iran, Middle East, Nuclear Proliferation
One Million Voices for Iran