Author Archives: kerr

More Mousavian Details

I “just can’t stop…”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1424/more-on-mousavian

A few days ago, the Iranian website Ansar (described as “hardline” by the BBC) provided some details about the supposed charges against Mousavian. No idea if they’re true.

Ansar reported that, according to an “informed source,” Mousavian
“was *spying for a hostile European country.*”

Mousavian is also reportedly charged with “long-time contact with an American diplomat” and “providing security intelligence to Germany.” Dunno if those things have anything to do with the nuclear program.

Interestingly, the issue may go beyond espionage. According to Ansar, Mousavian warned Sirus Naseri (who, if it’s the same person mentioned in “this _ACT_ story,”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_07-08/IAEA_Iran.asp was also an Iranian nuclear negotiator) not to obey a request from Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and judiciary to return to the country “because of something that had come up.”

That “something” was presumably connected to a corruption investigation that apparently implicated Naseri. According to Ansar,

bq. Naseri is accused of paying more than half a million dollars in bribes from his Swiss bank to the senior adviser of the Pars Oil and Gas Company in order to ensure success on oil contracts.

p=. *Ahmadinejad Meeting*

A 3 May report from the Iranian Baztab website may shed some light on the origins of the Mousavian case.

Now, this is one web site reporting on what _another_ website (Edalatkhaneh) said. So this is getting close to “somewhere on the internet” in terms of reliability.

But anyway, Ahmadinejad reportedly said “in a private meeting held some time ago,” that “Iran has gained access to some unbelievable new information on Iran’s nuclear dossier.” Specifically, Tehran had discovered “the betrayal of some nuclear dossier officials and their contact with foreigners.”

Apparently, Iran initially got this information from “a foreign source,” Ahmadinejad said, adding that “after following up the issue, the security and intelligence forces of the country gained access to new clues.”

Back to work, Iran geeks.

More on Mousavian

The Fars News Agency “has more”:http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8602160526 on that situation. [Previous post “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1422/mousavian-arrested ]

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Iran’s MFA spokesperson said that

bq. “…Mousavian is presently interrogated by the intelligence ministry, and his accusations should not be discussed publicly before the case has been fully verified.”

But the rest of the story seems to confirm the espionage charges:

bq. *Mousavian,* a deputy head of the Strategic Research center of Iran’s State Expediency Council which is run under the two-time president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, *has been arrested on charges of spying on Iran’s nuclear activities and transferring Iran’s nuclear information and data to the West.*

A similar FNA story quotes an unnamed source who confirms the nuclear espionage charges, “according to AFP.”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070506/wl_afp/irannuclearpolitics_070506091704;_ylt=AuWMPNvwmE6KU5y1CPlZWiFSw60A

Happy Sunday. Play outside.

Chicago Blogging

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Well, not really. Light blogging likely over the next few days, as I am in Chicago.

I was invited to give a lecture at the U of C. And my friend Chris took me to see the Nuclear Energy Sculpture on campus.

Have a good weekend.

Mousavian Arrested

Not sure what this means, but _AP_ is “reporting”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear_arrest_10;_ylt=AgiWWVMbxAd1OYUUOTaQu29Sw60A that Hossein Mousavian, formerly the head of Iran’s delegation to the IAEA, was arrested.

Iran did not officially release any details about the specific charges against him. But the semiofficial Fars news agency — which is deemed close to the elite Revolutionary Guards — said Mousavian could face espionage charges.

“The probable charge of espionage activities may be raised against him,” the agency quoted an unidentified official as saying. “*Mousavian was arrested because of connections and exchange of information with foreign elements.”*

Incidentally, the Fars News Agency quoted Mousavian “earlier this year”:http://english.farsnews.com/printable.php?nn=8510160452 as warning against overly-belligerent negotiating tactics on the part of Tehran. According to FNA, he said

…both Iran and the 5+1 group should take proper care not to drive the situation too critical as it may result in an uncontrollable condition.

“Dispute, difference of views, debate and compromise are all typical of negotiations, but *both parties should make sure that the situation is still under control and that it is not growing uncontrollable.* This serves to be the Achilles’ heel for both Iran and the 5+1,” he underlined.

Stressing that the issue can be solved through negotiations, he reminded that both the former and the present teams of negotiators from the Islamic Republic pursued an identical goal but through different tactics.*

Maybe this sort of criticism helped to get him in trouble. I have no idea, though.

*Update:*

_AFP_ has “more.”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070502173959.2w8y6yg6.html

I haven’t found either the IRNA or FNA stories being quoted in the wire reports. But according to _AFP_, an “unnamed source” quoted by FNA said that

bq. “Moussavian had probably exchanged information with foreigners over nuclear issues and he could face espionage charges.”

*Later Update:*

The “_FT_”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b2992d6e-f8a1-11db-a940-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=fc3334c0-2f7a-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html got a quote from Mohammad Atrianfar, “a prominent journalist close to Mr Mousavian,” who shed a bit more light on the charges against him:

“The unconfirmed charge is financial scandal, but there is strong speculation in political circles that it was somehow related to the nuclear issue,” Mr Atrianfar told the FT.

[snip]

Mr Mousavian has travelled regularly since losing in 2005 his post as chair of the foreign policy committee of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

“The move exerts pressure because [Mr] Mousavian was a link with some lobbies outside Iran,” Mr Atrianfar said. “This is to create a police atmosphere which is worrying.”

Port Rescue: Defense in the Firing Line

That’s the name of a new video game produced by “Iranian programmers,” “according to”:http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=479188 the Mehr News Agency.

You know you want this. According to MNA:

The story takes place in Iran during the World War II.

“Port Rescue” consists of seven stages. First, the user gets familiar with the whole idea of the game, and then enters the marine war in the second stage. Confrontation with the enemy takes place in the third stage, and in the fourth, the captain and the enemy’s commander meet.

At the fifth stage, the captain and his crew attack the enemy at midnight. They later have to kill the enemy forces that are on the verge of attacking the city. In the final stage, the enemy’s airforce is destroyed in order to prevent them entering the port (Anzali Port, in northern Iran).

The faster the user plays the game, the more points he will get. At the end of each stage, a medal of bravery is granted to the person with the highest score, and whoever gains four medals will be the winner.

Order it this weekend.

More on Nuclear Terrorism

A Loyal Reader sent the following comment in response to “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1409/nuclear-terrrorism about nuclear terrorism. I thought it worth highlighting, so here it is in full:

I’d say that if the potential for nuclear terrorism is to be taken seriously, then yes, it mainly adds urgency to a number of things we should already be doing urgently. At least in a rational world — I seem to recall that Rumsfeld and Rice both made very dismissive comments about the need to resource Nunn-Lugar programs early in the administration. Ghastly.

If there is an exception to the “merely adds urgency” rule of thumb, it probably isn’t detection, though. Anyone capable of building a nuclear device, or who knows what they are doing, is going to shield their material and/or device adequately, assuming it needs shielding in the first place to evade detection. Radiation detection could help with RDDs and the radionuclides that go into them, but the only thing that’s really going to help with a nuke is an x-ray, to spot the lead, tungsten, or DU box around the bomb, or perhaps the unshielded HEU. And you can’t have an x-ray machine going in the Holland Tunnel, I don’t think… Plus which, it’s a little late to catch the nuke at that point.

My own preferred candidate for a nuclear-terrorism inspired policy
decision is attribution R&D.

The last two paragraphs are in response to my claim that:

bq. I’ve always thought that, from a policy perspective, the risk of nuclear terrorism does not make much difference – we should do things like fissile material control, threat reduction, and counter-terrorism anyway. The exception may be for things like nuclear detection programs.

Happy effing Monday.

Ahmadinejad on Nukes

I plan to write more about this at some point, but I thought I would point out a statement that Ahmadinejad made about nuclear weapons during a 23 April interview on Spanish TV:

bq. In the political sense, too, those who look at the world logically can understand that the use of nuclear weapons is already a thing of the past. Today, in political relations, *nuclear weapons are not considered to be a privilege for those who have them. If nuclear weapons had any effects, any influence, they could save the Americans in Iraq or could have saved the former Soviet Union from disappearing.*

To be fair, what he had to say about terrorism struck me as pretty disingenuous:

[Correspondent] The last question Mr President. I come from a country wherein an international act of terrorism took place three years ago, under the name of Islam. I would like to know what you think about this kind of terrorism. Can you elaborate on Iran’s pledge to fight this type of international terrorism?

[Ahmadinezhad] Iran is a victim of terrorism. Terrorism has dealt us the heaviest blow. At this same building behind me, terrorists killed the prime minister and the elected president one day. They killed more than 70 officials of our country who were appointed by the people. Hundreds of our people have been killed in bombings in the streets. They set school busses on fire. We are a victim of terrorism.

We strongly reject terrorism from a religious point of view. Anyone who kills people is hated and isolated. Our religion is humane and respects all human beings, regardless of their belief, their nationality and the continent they come from. In our religion, people are respected. We are all obliged to preserve mankind’s dignity and honour. Therefore *we strongly condemn the [terrorist] actions of certain people. Of course you know that there are big powers behind such moves. You must know about the relationship between big powers and terrorist currents. Independent nations are victims of terrorism.*

Safe bet to say that this answer likely includes a different definition of terrorism than Iran’s critics use.

Needless to say, Ahmadinejad’s words about nukes might be taken a bit more seriously were it not for all his nonsense about Israel and bullshit about the Holocaust. But I have never understood why “one (ambiguous at best) quote”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1401/rafsanjani-and-nukes from Rafsanjani from 15+ years ago is taken as evidence that Iran is bent on pursuing nuclear weapons when Iranian officials have said numerous times that Tehran rejects nuclear arms.

Just a thought. Go outside and play.

Robot Economist On Prompt Global Strike

The Robot Economist has a great post up about Prompt Global Strike where he discusses, among other things, how convincing Russia and China that the program isn’t aimed at them would be a pretty tough sell:

bq. …it may be impossible to gain international acceptance of the Prompt Global Strike concept. Even if the you could conclusively mitigate the potential for a mistaken nuclear attack, *China and Russia still have cause fear Prompt Global Strike because they couldn’t defend against it.* Does the military [sic] that either nuclear power would accept the idea that the United State could launch any type of strike deep within its territory? *The Bush administration feels so insecure about such a scenario from happening to the United States that it is funding U.S. missile defense programs to the tune of $10 billion annually.*

He also helpfully provides a “link”:http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:IZwraNfornAJ:www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/R.20021002.MTR/R.20021002.MTR.pdf+The+Military-Technical+Revolution:+A+Preliminary+Assessment&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us to a 1992 Office of Net Assessment study which indicates that the Russians/Soviets had been “thinking about the implications of a long-range strategic strike for decades.”

Light weekend reading.

Iraq: Told You So

Jeffrey “pointed out a few days ago”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1467/1300-centrifuges-at-the-fep that we did, with respect to Iran’s centrifuges.

Because my ego needs more boosting, I will take this occasion to point out that, a couple of days before the invasion of Iraq, _Defense News_ published a (widely-read and obviously influential) piece in which I argued that it was not time to attack Iraq.

Specifically, I wrote:

Given the obvious risks and costs of military intervention, *it is worth looking for a way to disarm Iraq without going to war.* Any rush to use military force, especially without U.N. Security Council approval, would undermine one of Bush’s most compelling rationales for using military force against Iraq – preserving U.N. credibility.

[snip]

The problem is that, *despite its claims to the contrary, the Bush administration is not giving the inspection process sufficient opportunity to succeed. The inspectors have only recently begun to receive the helicopters, surveillance equipment and intelligence they need to do their job. The Security Council can certainly provide them with whatever additional resources are necessary.*

We must recall that weapon inspectors during the 1990s found and destroyed the vast majority of Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction in the face of systematic Iraqi obstruction. Additional U.S. intelligence could help inspectors investigate other suspicious sites likely to reveal even more convincing evidence of ongoing activities related to weapons of mass destruction.

I think that people frequently forget the extent to which concerns about the length of time that the United States could keep troops deployed in the region drove the timetable for invasion. At the time, I wrote

bq. the large number of troops deployed to the Arabian Gulf region suggests *short-term military requirements are driving the timetable for action, rather than any threat Iraq poses*. Military experts disagree about how long a large number of troops can be kept in the theater, but it is clear that political and military pressure for action increases with the length of deployment.

Anyway, the rest of the article is at the bottom of the post.

“We were all wrong,” my ass. Let me “reiterate:”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/601/youre-out-of-your-element-tommy

bq. …those who supported the Iraq fiasco really need to STFU, stop lecturing the rest of us about foreign policy, sit in a corner, and think about what they did.

Not that I’m bitter. Happy Friday.

Time To Launch Iraq War Has Not Yet Arrived
Defense News March 17, 2003

By Paul Kerr

A cautionary voice needs to be injected into the chorus calling for war against Iraq. To be sure, the prospect for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis seems remote. The United States has provided compelling evidence Baghdad is not complying with its disarmament obligations under U.N. Resolution 1441, and President George W. Bush’s administration has suggested St. Patrick’ s Day as the deadline for compliance.

Given the obvious risks and costs of military intervention, it is worth looking for a way to disarm Iraq without going to war. Any rush to use military force, especially without U.N. Security Council approval, would undermine one of Bush’s most compelling rationales for using military force against Iraq – preserving U.N. credibility.

A genuine commitment to the U.N. process is required if Bush’s diplomatic efforts are to be seen as anything more than tactical maneuvers to facilitate a preconceived decision to go to war.

Fortunately, recent history suggests that such a commitment can compel Iraq to further comply with inspections if the Security Council applies united, unyielding pressure on Baghdad.

Largely ignored in the Iraq debate is that Baghdad significantly changed its position on weapon inspections during the last several months. Starting last spring, Iraq expressed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan a willingness to discuss resuming weapon inspections, but only if the Security Council agreed to first address issues such as removing the no-fly zones and lifting economic sanctions. Annan and the Security Council correctly insisted that Iraq had to admit inspectors prior to any such discussion.

Iraq then surprised skeptics by deciding to admit inspectors in September. The Security Council then adopted a new resolution to compensate for weaknesses in the inspectors’ previous mandate. In November, Iraq again confounded expectations and accepted Resolution 1441, giving inspectors unprecedented access to suspected weapon sites. So far, Iraq has not impeded this access.

The inspectors’ March 7 report indicates this trend has continued. Although more certainly needs to be done, Iraq has increased its cooperation with inspectors in several respects. Baghdad has begun to destroy its prohibited al Samoud 2 missiles and allowed more unfettered interviews with weapon scientists.

These changes did not happen because Iraq is enthusiastic about disarming, but they did happen. If the Security Council insists that Baghdad comply fully with all its obligations under resolution 1441, including a complete accounting for its past chemical and biological weapon production, it may yet do so.

In this regard, Security Council meetings during the past several weeks have been encouraging, with all Permanent Five members emphasizing the importance of Iraqi cooperation with weapon inspections. They should intensify this pressure and make certain Iraq understands that its past strategies of dividing the Security Council will not succeed and inspections will not continue indefinitely without concrete results.

The problem is that, despite its claims to the contrary, the Bush administration is not giving the inspection process sufficient opportunity to succeed. The inspectors have only recently begun to receive the helicopters, surveillance equipment and intelligence they need to do their job. The Security Council can certainly provide them with whatever additional resources are necessary.

We must recall that weapon inspectors during the 1990s found and destroyed the vast majority of Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction in the face of systematic Iraqi obstruction. Additional U.S. intelligence could help inspectors investigate other suspicious sites likely to reveal even more convincing evidence of ongoing activities related to weapons of mass destruction.

Inspectors may not be able to find all of Iraq’s prohibited weapons without its cooperation, but more discoveries can put additional pressure on Saddam to comply with Resolution 1441.

However, the large number of troops deployed to the Arabian Gulf region suggests short-term military requirements are driving the timetable for action, rather than any threat Iraq poses. Military experts disagree about how long a large number of troops can be kept in the theater, but it is clear that political and military pressure for action increases with the length of deployment.

There have long been enough troops in the region to make threats of force credible. Continued war preparations may create a self-fulfilling prophecy and undermine Bush’s claims that war can be avoided.

Make no mistake, Iraq must comply with Resolution 1441 and military force may eventually be required. As the administration itself has argued, arms control agreements are some of our most valuable tools for preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We have an interest in making sure leaders like Saddam Hussein take them seriously.

Fortunately, we can afford to wait at least a few months. Iraq does not present a short-term threat to the United States. The inspectors’ presence can deter weapon production, we control two-thirds of Iraq’s airspace, and Iraq’s military is considerably weaker than in 1991.

The administration says it has not yet decided to use military force and that war is not inevitable. Iraq’s negotiating behavior suggests that a bit of patience on the administration’s part may yield a peaceful solution.

Olmert on Iran

Apologies for the light blogging as of late. Deadlines and all that…

Anyway, this is potentially of interest. Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert offered a relatively low-key assessment of Iran’s nuclear program in a 22 April broadcast on Reshet Bet Radio:

OLMERT: *I recommend in every issue, and in these sensitive issues too, not to conduct a policy on the basis of panic and self-intimidation. There is no need for that.* There is a huge unprecedented effort by the entire international community, in order to succeed in preventing Iran from turning into a nuclear power —

Q: — but in the meantime, the centrifuges are spinning and increasing in numbers.

OLMERT: The fact is that the Security Council has already passed two resolutions unanimously which implement unprecedented sanctions on Iran, and we have the basis to assume that these steps, eventually, will also achieve the results which we did not know if we can expect — in advance. It is a process which will still continue.

*I think that there is a possibility to cause, even without a military operation, that Iran will not be nuclear.* From time to time I hear the declarations of Iran’s leaders and *I’m telling you that Iran is far from crossing the technological threshold.*

Unfortunately, *it is as far as I wished it would be, but it is not as close as it is pretending to be.* And I believe that the continued international efforts which Israel is part of, will eventually achieve the goal, and *there is no need to get caught up in all kinds of apocalyptic prophecies which have no basis in reality.*