(Daily Beast) Reza Aslan - The defection of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri is part of a covert program put in place by the CIA in 2005 codenamed "Brain Drain." Two years ago, a former defense minister named Ali-Reza Asgari, who was also a general in the Revolutionary Guards, vanished while on a trip to Turkey. The program is just one aspect of a much larger U.S. and Israeli intelligence operation to sabotage Iran's nuclear program by, for example, using front companies to sell Iran faulty components for its centrifuges, or making subtle changes to technical documents that essentially render them useless. In 2006, 50 centrifuges were destroyed in Iran's Natanz plant when what appeared to be faulty power supplies purchased on the nuclear black market exploded. The sabotage program has created such high levels of paranoia within the Iranian regime that they now question every nuclear purchase and blame every setback on foreign interference, convinced that their components and their technology have been tampered with. As one intelligence official noted, that in itself is worth the clandestine efforts.
2010-04-02 08:23:03Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive