[New York Sun] Eli Lake - Israel and America are intensifying a clandestine war against Iran, claims Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in The Secret War with Iran. He suggests that the West has had some successes in the war to stop the Iranian bomb, reporting, for example, that in January 2007 Iran determined that some of its nuclear suppliers in Europe were fronts for Britain's MI6 intelligence service. Between February 2006 and March 2007, at least three planes "belonging to the Revolutionary Guards crashed in Iran, while carrying personnel connected with the security of the nuclear project." Specialized pipes for centrifuges sold to Iran have been modified, and specialized computers sold to Iran for its nuclear laboratories contained viruses that sabotaged the code. The secret efforts appear not to be limited to modifying equipment: On January 18, 2007, an Iranian expert on electromagnetics who worked in an Isfahan enrichment facility, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, died in his apartment. The author quotes the deputy director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Eli Levite, as saying in a closed forum that operations against Iran "gained time for us" and have "doubtless caused significant delays in the project. The process has led to the revealing of large parts of the program in the areas of sources of supply, of the infrastructure, and of the goals." Bergman reports that Israel first learned of the nuclear facility in Natanz in 1996, six years before the facility was first disclosed to the public. Two Israeli operatives, posing as tourists, arrived at the site and took soil samples, which they brought back to Israel in their shoes and which showed some radiation.
2008-09-15 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive