Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. (Agencies)

Israel intelligence managed to recruit an Iranian official close to the recently assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and recorded the nuclear scientist speaking about his efforts to produce “five warheads” on behalf of the Islamic Republic, according to a Friday report in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

This top-secret recording was played in 2008 by former prime minister Ehud Olmert for then-president George W. Bush during a visit by Bush to Israel and was a key element in convincing the Americans to step up efforts to combat Iran’s nuclear program, the report said.

The report quoted several unnamed Israeli and Middle Eastern intelligence officials, along with recollections from former prime minister Ehud Barak, who was then serving as Olmert’s defense minister.

It said Olmert was so concerned about safeguarding the source of the recording that he refused to play it while anyone else was in the room, including Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomes US President George W. Bush to Israel, at Ben Gurion International Airport on May 14, 2008. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Fakhrizadeh, the scientist said by Israel and the US to head Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, was killed in a military-style ambush last Friday on the outskirts of Tehran. The attack reportedly saw a truck bomb explode and gunmen open fire on Fakhrizadeh.

Iran has accused Israel of carrying out the November 27 hit and threatened revenge. Israel, which has been linked to a succession of killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, has not publicly commented on the allegations that it was responsible. It has warned its citizens traveling abroad that they may be targets of Iranian terror attacks in the wake of the killing.

This photo released by the semi-official Fars News Agency shows the scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in Absard, a small city just east of the capital, Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. (Fars News Agency via AP)

According to the Yedioth report, written by the newspaper’s well-connected investigative reporter Ronen Bergman, Israel had been compiling a dossier on Fakhrizadeh for nearly three decades, long discounting the scientist’s claims that he had nothing to do with any weapons program.

For Israel, the recordings were the final proof that Iran’s nuclear program was not peaceful, as Tehran repeatedly claimed.

Olmert was methodical in the way he revealed the material to Bush, the report said.

The US president had come to Israel in May 2008 as the country marked the 60th anniversary of its founding.

Olmert hosted a dinner at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem and just before dessert, Olmert, Bush, Hadley, and Barak, who was defense minister at the time, headed to a side-room. It was there that Barak asked Bush if the US could supply Israel with a series of weapons it did not have in its arsenal, according to the report. Yedioth said these were believed to be vertical take-off and landing aircraft, along with bunker-busting bombs.

Former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush Stephen Hadley at the Saban Forum on December 5, 2015 (YouTube screengrab)

Hadley in the previous weeks had been briefing Bush about Israeli desires to carry out a strike against Iran’s nuclear program and Bush immediately understood what Barak wanted the weapons for.

According to Barak, Bush responded to the request by pointing at the defense minister and saying, “This guy frightens me.”

Bush then got to the point. “I want you to know the official position of the United States government. The US strongly opposes Israel taking action against the Iranian nuclear program,” Barak recalled the president replying.

“And in order not to be vague, I will tell you that the United States does not intend to act either as long as I serve as president,” Bush added, according to Barak.

Seemingly expecting the negative response from Bush, Olmert decided he’d make use of the recording the next day when he was meeting the president and Hadley at his office.

US President George W. Bush visits the historical Masada site together with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, May 15, 2008. (Ariel Jerozolimski/Flash90)

According to the report, Olmert asked the national security adviser to leave the room. Hadley insisted on staying, arguing that protocol required him to be present when matters of national security were being discussed.

But Olmert was adamant and Bush assured Hadley it was okay for him to be left alone with the prime minister, the report said.

“I’m going to play you something, but I ask that you not talk about it with anyone, not even with the director of the CIA,” the report quoted Olmert as telling Bush from within the closed-door meeting. Bush reportedly agreed to the request.

Olmert pulled out a recording device, hit play and a man could be heard speaking in Persian.

“The man speaking here is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh,” Olmert reportedly explained. “Fakhrizadeh is the head of the “AMAD” program, Iran’s secret military nuclear project. The one it denies exists at all,” Olmert told Bush according to the report.

The prime minister then revealed that Israeli intelligence services had managed to recruit an Iranian agent close to Fakhrizadeh who had been feeding Jerusalem information on the nuclear scientist for years.

Military personnel stand near the flag-draped coffin of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear scientist who was killed on Friday, during a funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran, November 30, 2020. (Iranian Defense Ministry via AP)

Olmert provided Bush with an English-language transcript of what Fakhrizadeh had said in Persian.

According to the report, Fakhrizadeh could be heard giving details about the development of Iranian nuclear weapons. However, the Yedioth report only quotes selected phrases, without the word nuclear. The scientist complains that the government is not providing him with sufficient funds to carry out his work. On the one hand, Fakhrizadeh says, in an apparent reference to his superiors, “they want five warheads,” but on the other, “they aren’t letting me work.”

Fakhrizadeh then goes on to criticize colleagues in the defense ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the report.

Bush read the recording’s translation and reacted with silence. Yedioth claimed the recording served as a “smoking atomic gun” for Olmert.

The premier recognized that Bush would not sell Israel the weapons it was looking for, so he made a new request: full intelligence cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue.

When Bush agreed, Olmert decided to up the ante and proposed that the two carry out joint operations against Iran’s nuclear project, Yedioth said.

This photo released by the semi-official Fars News Agency shows the scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in Absard, a small city just east of the capital, Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. (Fars News Agency via AP)

The president agreed to this as well, the report said.

Senior officials in Olmert’s office at the time told Yedioth the recording served as a “defining moment” in the two countries’ joint effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

One apparent instance of such cooperation was the Stuxnet computer virus, which was uncovered in 2010 and was widely reported to have been developed together by US and Israeli intelligence. Stuxnet penetrated Iran’s rogue nuclear program, taking control and sabotaging parts of its enrichment processes by speeding up its centrifuges. Up to 1,000 centrifuges out of 5,000 were eventually damaged by the virus, according to reports, setting back the nuclear program.

Yedioth speculated that the Stuxnet plan, called Operation Olympic Games, was born as a result of Olmert’s revelation of the Fakhrizadeh recording to Bush.

However, other reports have said that Bush gave the go-ahead for the operation as early as 2006.

The recording was just one part of the trove of evidence that Israel has gathered on Fakhrizadeh and Iran’s nuclear program over the years, Yedioth noted.

In 2018, the Mossad spirited a huge trove of documentation out of a warehouse in Tehran, detailing Iran’s rogue nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands in front of a picture of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who he named as the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, April 30, 2018 (YouTube screenshot)

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed in April 2018 that Israel had attained the archive, which he said proved that Iran had lied about not seeking a nuclear weapons arsenal, he specified that Fakhrizadeh oversaw the program and said: “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh.”

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-tape-of-slain-iran-nuke-chief-talking-about-building-five-warheads/

The post ‘Israel has tape of slain Iran nuke chief talking about building five warheads’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

An Iranian flag flutters at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, November 2019.Credit: ATTA KENARE / AFP

Understanding the series of explosions and fires that have rocked Iran over the past week, particularly the explosion at the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, requires us to travel back in time 18 years.

In August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella group of exiles and opponents of the Islamic regime, revealed that Iran was building an underground uranium enrichment facility near Natanz. At the same time, it was revealed that the government had set up a workshop in one of Tehran’s industrial zones that was masquerading as an electronic watch factory run by the Kalaye Electric Company, but was actually constructing centrifuges.

Unlike Israel, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and as a member state is obligated to report to the International Atomic Energy Agency on any facility, equipment or nuclear material on its territory, even if it is for peaceful means. The Iranians’ usual practice has been to deny the existence of banned facilities, only admitting to their existence when forced to. And even when acknowledging them, the Islamic republic made every effort to buy time, until finally being forced to let international nuclear inspectors into the Tehran workshop, the Natanz facility and other sites linked to its nuclear program.

Since then, IAEA inspectors have paid visits to the facilities at varying intervals.

According to foreign reports, Israeli intelligence – the Mossad and the Israeli army’s Unit 8200, with the help of other espionage agencies – exposed the illegal activity at Natanz and “laundered” the information via Iranian opposition groups. It later became clear to the CIA and Britain’s MI6, from information supplied by the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi, that Iranian nuclear scientists had built centrifuges to enrich uranium based on knowledge and technology secretly acquired from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb.

The discovery of the Natanz facility was a wake-up call for intelligence communities in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere, indicating Iran’s determination to pursue its nuclear program through every possible channel – uranium enrichment, laser enrichment, and plutonium production. According to foreign reports, against this backdrop, operational-intelligence cooperation grew between Israel and the United States during President George W. Bush’s time in office.

Among other efforts, they would carry out various programs to step up intelligence gathering (via agents, wiretapping and computer hacking), and through increased infiltration of Iran’s procurement networks around the world – in an effort to have the Iranians provided with faulty information and technology – to sabotaging equipment on its way to Iran and damaging the nuclear facilities themselves.

• The Explosion at Natanz Is a Direct Hit on Iran’s Nuclear Program
• For Now, Iran Faces Bigger Threats Than Mysterious Explosions at Nuclear Sites
• Fire at Iranian Nuclear Facility Could Slow Down Centrifuge Development, Official Says

Journalist James Risen wrote about one of these programs in his 2006 book “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.” According to the book, the Mossad and the CIA plotted to sabotage the electric grid near Iran’s nuclear sites through the use of electromagnetic pulses. Experts working for the CIA went to a testing site in Nevada to try out their technology on a model they had set up there. The book stated that the Mossad volunteered to smuggle the necessary equipment into Iran via agents in the country.

A view of a damaged building after a fire broke out at Iran’s Natanz Nuclear Facility, in Isfahan, Iran, July 2, 2020.Credit: /AP

But when it tested out the technology and assessed its viability, the CIA decided to scrap the program on the grounds that it was not feasible and was too dangerous. Carrying out the plan would have required smuggling trucks into Iran and loading them with heavy equipment. Subsequently, according to reports, Mossad directors (Meir Dagan and Tamir Pardo), Israeli army intelligence chiefs (Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, Amos Yadlin, and Aviv Kochavi), along with commanders of Unit 8200, got together with the Americans and other espionage agencies to find other creative ways to damage, disrupt and delay Iran’s plans.

It was clear to those involved in the work that it was necessary to assemble a wide-ranging set of tools that would make systematic, coordinated, international operations possible and force Iran to suspend its nuclear program at the very least. No one ever imagined that Iran would give up its plans for the nuclear option, if not the construction of an actual atomic bomb.

According to foreign reports, this toolbox included inserting a computer virus into electricity boxes manufactured by the German company Siemens, which were connected to the computers running the Natanz centrifuges. The virus was dubbed Stuxnet and the joint operation by the Mossad, the CIA, Unit 8200, and its U.S. counterpart at the National Security Agency, was called Operation Olympic Games (as revealed in the United States in 2011).

More advanced centrifuges

In 2009, it was discovered that the Iranians had built another uranium enrichment site at Fordo, near the city of Qom, which was built even deeper in the ground than the Natanz facility and would be difficult to destroy. (The Israel Air Force does not have bunker-busting bombs as the United States does).

It also turned out that Iranian experts had managed to develop centrifuges that were more advanced than those acquired from Pakistan. The Iranian ones were capable of enriching larger quantities of uranium in less time.

As the other operations were proceeding, nuclear scientists who were part of Iran’s nuclear “weaponization” team, responsible for the most critical stage of nuclear weapons production, began to disappear one after another. The U.S. secretary of state at the time, Hillary Clinton, declared that her country was not involved in the deaths or assassinations. From her statement and prior precedents and analyses, the international media attributed the assassinations to the Mossad.

According to foreign reports, these operations were a mix of Mossad, Iranian agents, and others assigned to the task. It was clear that the assassinated scientists would be replaced by others, but the targeted killings also had a psychological aspect – consisting of a threat that it was hoped would dissuade Iranian scientists working at universities from joining the secret military project.

This July 3, 2020, satellite image from Planet Labs Inc. shows a damaged building after a fire and explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site.Credit: /AP

In addition to the killings and sabotage, the United States and other Western powers (and later, following a UN Security Council resolution, Russia and China) increased diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran. Here, too, the Mossad played an important role, being involved in gathering information that would be the basis for targeting Iranian companies and the financial sectors upon which sanctions could be imposed.

Iran’s economy was hit hard and in 2013 the Iranians agreed to enter negotiations, which in July 2015 produced the international nuclear agreement with the six major powers, which was signed in Vienna (the JCPOA).

Most senior Israeli defense and intelligence officials expressed the view that, despite its shortcomings, the deal was the least bad of all available options. But Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu thought otherwise and began to do all he could to scuttle the agreement. Threats made by Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak, backed by visible air force exercises, created the impression that a military strike was imminent and unavoidable. It was one of the most successful deception operations in history.

Netanyahu also appeared before members of Congress in March 2015 to speak out against the agreement, a deal then-President Barack Obama supported. It’s possible that without Netanyahu’s involvement, a better agreement could have been achieved.

Main task

In 2016, Yossi Cohen was appointed as director of the Mossad. As he has told associates, his main task was to obtain information proving that Iran was violating the nuclear deal. One of his major accomplishments was the break-in at Iran’s nuclear archive in January 2018 and the theft of its contents, which were brought back to Israel. (On Sunday, Netanyahu extended Cohen’s term as director by another six months, until June 2021.) But even this impressive intelligence coup didn’t yield diplomatic results. The world seemingly wasn’t impressed by the findings and stuck to its position that the nuclear agreement should be respected.

On the other hand, President Donald Trump, with backing and persuasion from Netanyahu, announced in 2018 that the United States would be unilaterally withdrawing from the agreement. Following that, Iran began violating the deal – including, most significantly, with its renewed efforts to develop advanced centrifuges.

This is the backdrop for recent events in Iran: four explosions and fires, which occurred at an X-ray lab in Tehran; a missile base at Parchin (where the weaponization program was based); a power plant in Ahvaz, an area that is home to Iran’s Arab minority; and the enrichment plant at Natanz.

Speaking Sunday, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi reiterated Israel’s traditional responses on the subject. Ashkenazi said Israel would not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons, while Gantz explained that not every unusual “event” is linked to Israel. The defense minister noted that Iran has had a history of major accidents due to faulty maintenance and outdated equipment, as a result of the sanctions against the country.

Gantz and Ashkenazi both know what the late head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, used to frequently say: that Iran is a mosaic of ethnic groups (including Arabs, Kurds, Baluchis, and Azeris) who are not pleased with the regime and have formed underground groups. According to foreign reports, some of these groups are gaining assistance from the CIA and the Mossad.

It’s possible that a combination of the comments by the two Israeli ministers along with Dagan’s view might provide an explanation as to what is currently happening in Iran. Israel is doing absolutely everything it can to prevent Iran from moving ahead with its nuclear program, while Iran is prone to accidents and is exposed to terrorist attacks.

Whether or not Israel is responsible for these events, the fact the Iranians are accusing Israel only enhances the prestige of Israeli intelligence, while simultaneously damaging Iran’s own morale and its self-image. The major question is, if Iran retaliates, whom would it retaliate against, and how? A cyberattack on Israeli installations, as occurred earlier this year, is just one option.

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-iran-s-centrifuges-are-in-the-crosshairs-again-1.8974472

The post Analysis: Iran’s Centrifuges Are in the Crosshairs Again first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.