The US Central Intelligence Agency is running a secret programme aimed at encouraging Iranians involved in the country’s nuclear programme to defect to the West, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website on Sunday.
Citing unnamed current and former “intelligence officials familiar with the operation,” the newspaper said the programme called “The Brain Drain” was ordered by the White House in 2005 in hopes of undermining Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.
The effort achieved only limited success because fewer than six well-placed Iranians have defected, and none has been able to provide good information on Tehran’s nuclear programme, the report said.
The paper did not identify the defectors. But it said there was speculation of CIA involvement in the apparent defection of a former Iranian deputy defence minister, Ali Reza Asgari, who went missing last February during a visit to Turkey.
Potential defectors have not been approached by the CIA directly, The Times pointed out, citing a former US intelligence official. Rather, the spy agency used other contacts it has cultivated inside Iran, the report said.
Intelligence gathered through the programme provided much of the information for last week’s National Intelligence Estimate that argued that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, the paper said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s main reformist party on Monday called for a broad moderate front to contest March legislative elections, warning that the country risks “war and isolation” under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Today, two years after the arrival of the new government the consequences of its foreign policy are being felt,” the Islamic Iran Participation Front said in a statement quoted by the Mehr news agency.
“After two unprecedented UN Security Council resolutions against Iran, unfortunately the preparations for a third resolution have started and the propaganda threats, notably military, of American and European countries have begun.” It is necessary to form “a substantial front of reformers based on the interests and security of the country to avoid war and isolation,” it said.
Moderates loyal to former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami will try to challenge the hardliners close to the president in the parliamentary elections on March 14.
They will be hoping to avoid the divisions that have cost moderates dear in past elections. The political temperature in Iran has heightened considerably in recent weeks, with both sides exchanging unusually explicit verbal blows over the government’s performance on the economy and foreign policy issues.
While there is a general consensus among the political factions on Iran’s right to nuclear energy, moderates have accused Ahmadinejad of provoking the crisis with an overly confrontational stance. The government insists it is merely defending Iran’s natural rights and Ahmadinejad claimed the latest US intelligence report on the Iranian nuclear drive was a “great victory” for the Islamic republic.
The report said that Iran had halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, an assertion some analysts believe has momentarily taken the heat out of the crisis and reduced the probability of US military action against Tehran.
In a related development, US military Chief Admiral Michael Mullen met senior Israeli defence officials on Monday in the first such visit by a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State in a decade.
Mullen met his Israeli counterpart Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi and Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv, the defence ministry said. Iran was on the agenda of their talks, army radio said.
“The meeting touched upon a series of regional security issues,” the defence ministry said in a statement. “Admiral Mullen called Israel a very important ally of the United States during his meeting with General Ashkenazi and promised in particular to work to strengthen the Israeli army,” an Israeli military official told AFP.
Israel and the United States accuse Iran of trying to obtain atomic weapons under cover of its civil nuclear programme, a charge Tehran vehemently denies. The Jewish state has vowed to keep up its campaign for further sanctions to be imposed on Iran despite a US intelligence report last week that said Tehran had frozen its nuclear weapons drive in 2003.
Widely regarded as the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel regards Iran as its main enemy after repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
|