IAEA: Iran crosses critical line for nuclear-arming missiles
Ahmadinejad Lebanon 
Iranhas crossed the critical nuclear threshold taking it nearer to being able to arm ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, weapons inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week.
When this finding failed to elicit any response from the US or Israel,DEBKAfile’s military sources report, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen hurried over to Washington Sunday, Sept. 12 with a call to action for President Barack Obama: “Based on their (Iranian) public statements we know that Iran already has missiles with a range sufficient to hit targets in Europe, and they don't hide the fact that they want to further develop their capability.”
He came away with a pledge of 200 million euros as American in creating a missile shield for Europe against the Iranian threat.
While even Europe has roused itself to the menace from Iran, the fast encroaching threat to Israel remains unaddressed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak. They appear unmoved even in the face of the coming visit to Lebanon on Oct. 13-14 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is coming specifically to clinch Iran’s grip on Lebanon and its buildup as Iran’s forward front for retaliation should Israel venture to strike its nuclear facilities.
This buildup crossed every possible red line some time ago without an Israeli response. The Iranian president will exploit this vacuum by paying a visit to the South Lebanese-Israeli border village of Edeissa, from which on Aug. 3, Lebanese army snipers soldiers were put up by Hizballah to ambush Israeli troops and shoot dead Col. Dov Harari.
(Israel’s only response was to knock out two Lebanese APCs klling three Lebanese troops, and issuing warnings relayed by US intermediaries that the IDF would meet further incidents by wiping out the entire Lebanese military system in the space of four hours.)
Lebanese President Gen. Michel Suleiman phoned Ahmadinejad Sept. 11 to say that the Lebanese people was “eagerly awaiting” his coming and stress that henceforth the Lebanese national army would fight Israel shoulder to shoulder with its comrades in Hizballah.
Will the Lebanese president accompany Ahmadinejad’s on his symbolic visit to Edeissa? Or Lebanese army chief Gen. Jean Kahwaji? Or will Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah venture to leave his bunker-hideout to honor the guest?
This decision matters greatly. The Israeli government’s silence with regard to the provocative nature of the event matters even more.
Tehranwill be using it to uphold the Lebanese army’s “heroic act” in attacking Israel. It will be welcomed as an honored member of the Iranian-Syrian-Palestinian “resistance front” against Israel alongside Hizballah.
Iranhas thus gained a new strategic acquisition operating at its behest for tying Israel’s hands not only against striking Tehran but defending itself against aggressive acts by its Lebanese neighbor.
Ahmadiinejad is planning to use his visit to celebrate an Iranian-Lebanese defense pact coupled with a large-scale transaction to supply the Lebanese armed forces with the weapons needed to take on the IDF. These deals will kick off the merger and standardization of Lebanese and Hizballah weapons systems.
The next time Lebanese troops attack Israel they are likely to be using Iranian arms.
Nuclear experts watch for Iran’s first N-test after sanctions fail
DEBKAfile Special Report September 10, 2010, 1:11 PM (GMT+02:00)
A number of competent and well-informed sources have reached the same conclusion, namely, that international sanctions have failed to halt Iran’s push for a nuclear weapon and advanced ballistic missiles and that the Islamic Republic is fast approaching a nuclear arms capability.
DEBKAfile, which has raised this possibility for the past year or more that Iran is making huge strides towards a nuclear bomb capacity, reports is joined now by The Washington Post, the Institute for Science and International Security, Jafarzade Alireza of the Iranian opposition People's Mujahedeen, which has for seven years accurately traced Iran’s nuclear development, and unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials.
Not a single expert in the field, whether American, international or Israeli, disagrees with the common finding that the sanctions imposed by the UN, Europe and the US, have not slowed down Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon. No covert agency, moreover, appears ready to state where this program stands today, how far Iran is from the capacity to build a nuclear device or whether it has in fact crossed that threshold.
Under the caption: If Iran makes a final nuclear push, can it be detected? The Washington Post of Sept. 10 quoted the latest IAEA report as showing that there has essentially been no change in Iran's steady accumulation of low-enriched uranium. Since last November, its stockpile has grown from 1,800 kilograms to 2,800 kilograms -- an increase of more than 50 percent. Tehran now has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two nuclear weapons with further enrichment. Already, it has enriched 22 kilograms to the level of 20 percent, which is considerably closer to the 60 percent threshold for weapon.
An analysis of the report by the Institute for Science and International Security concluded that Iran may be seeking "to increase its capability to divert nuclear material in secret and produce weapon-grade uranium in a plant unknown to the inspectors or Western intelligence agencies." If that is the case, economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it.
The WP editorial appeared in the wake of an article by the nuclear expert David Kay captioned: The Bearer of Bad News on Iran. He says: “…the Obama administration needs to begin to seriously contemplate what it will do on the Day After. The Day After what? The Day After Iran announces it has deployed missiles capable of carrying “the world’s most destructive weapons.” The Day After Iran conducts a nuclear weapons test.
Then, Thursday, Sept. 9, Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the Iranian opposition People's Mujahedeen, claimed evidence that Tehran is building a uranium enrichment plant at Abyek 75 miles west of the capital. While a US official said it appears to have no nuclear role, Jafarzadeh told reporters "This is certainly part of their secret nuclear weapons program." He said the site is controlled, run and operated" by Iran's defense ministry, and that Iranian authorities have so far spent 100 million dollars on the site and completed about 85 percent of the construction
He said "people within the Iranian regime" provided details about the site, which he said was begun in 2005 and is now 85 percent complete.
DEBKAfile's file’s sources find three reasons to have sparked this flurry of worrisome findings about Iran’s nuclear activities:
1. To prepare the public for another round, the fifth, of harsh sanctions which Tehran has already warned would be treated as justifying military retaliation in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Tehran, aware of the unforgiving opinion building up in the West, made the gesture Friday, Sept. 10, of inviting reporters to witness the release of Sarah Shourd, one of the three American hikers seized last year in the Iraqi-Iranian border area and charged as spies. (The release was cancelled later that night due to “unresolved legal issues.”)
2. To prepare the climate in the US for a possible Iranian nuclear test within months. Administration officials wrongly estimate that it would still take Iran a year to produce a weapon, a view Israel subscribes to. They also assert that such an attempt would likely be detected by UN inspectors. However, in June, Iran barred access to two experienced inspectors, part of a systematic effort to blind the IAEA to its activities.
3. The Jewish New Year was deemed a good time for the bad news about Iran to emerge because its alarming content for Israel in particular would reach American Jews and Israel more slowly and with reduced impact. The Netanyahu government could then continue to keep the Israeli public deluded about the closeness of the Iranian nuclear threat for a while longer.
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