De Welt: Iran Accelerating Nuclear Bomb Efforts

Stop Fundamentalism – Iranian dissidents revealed today that Iran’ theocratic government is mounting efforts to acquire nuclear bomb while talks on this issue between the country and western powers continue, reports German De Welt.

According to this report, Iran is accelerating and expanding activities in Parching, which is a military site, pushing ahead to build a nuclear warhead.   The Iranian regime has setup a comprehensive and sophisticated research structure, under utmost secrecy, in conjunction with a logistics network obtaining the necessary parts and equipment, in order to reach this objective.

Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK, the original group that blew the cap off Iranian secret nuclear program back in 2002, said Iranian army under control of the Revolutionary Guards is overseeing the program.

 “The information gathered is based on sources within the Iranian regime institutions, even from the ranks of the military,” the group says.  MEK has an extensive information network inside Iran and among governmental ranks. 

The International Atomic Energy agency (IAEA) has repeatedly asked the Iranian regime since the beginning of the year to allow its inspectors to enter and inspect the facility but Iranian authorities continue to refuse.

MEK, in its report, provided the names of 60 individuals, directors and exports, involved in the project.  The details are verified, the group says calling on the IAEA to “undertake a through effort to review the program and people involved.”

The report names Mohsen Fakhrisadeh Mahabadi, a member of the Revolutionary Guards, to be directing the research program reporting directly to the deputy Defence Minister Ahmed Wahid Dastscherdi.

The opposition group has revealed the enrichment facilities at Natanz and the heavy water reactor at Arak over the past ten years, repeatedly providing important clues that have later turned out to be correct. 

An IAEA inspector died and another wounded in a car crash near a heavy water plant in Arak yesterday.

De Welt believed the report should give the Obama Administration a headache now as it has been pushing forward to negotiate a solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.  The 5 super powers plus Germany met Iranian nuclear negotiators last month in Istanbul and is planning to continue the talks in Baghdad later this month.

MEK report includes names, institutions and sometimes even phone numbers of scientists involved.  The U.S. has maintained that Iran pulled the plug on its nuclear warhead research back in 2003.  The MEK report presents otherwise.

“Our report shows that there is an ongoing and systematic effort on behalf of Iran to build a bomb, unlike what many Western countries believe,” says group spokesman Gobadi.

De Welt says, according to Emanuele Ottolenghi, a leading European expert on the Iranian nuclear program, the details provided by the group seem credible. “For anyone who is familiar with the long history of Iran’s secrecy and deception, the revelations come as no surprise,” says Ottolenghi to De Welt.  He regarded that the true nature of the Iranian nuclear program is military despite all Iranian claims that there were religious fatwa against it.  “Let’s hope that the P5 plus 1 take notice and resist the temptation to reckless compromises if they meet the Iranian negotiator in two weeks in Baghdad,” he said.