Apr 09, 2007 at 12:00 AM
James Rosen: With his
latest claim of progress in the advance of its nuclear program - specifically,
that Tehran is now producing nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale," a claim
discounted by most foreign governments and private-sector analysts - Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday once again sought to up the ante in his
country's long-running standoff with the West. The claim came, moreover, just
days after the release of fifteen British sailors and marines taken captive at
gunpoint by Iranian naval units on the high seas and held for nearly two
weeks.The news out of Iran thus raises many questions: How believable is
Ahmadinejad's latest claim of nuclear progress? How deeply involved in the
nuclear program are Iran's armed forces? To what extent have inspectors from the
United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency,
or IAEA, been barred from relevant sites? What was the true goal of - and who
gave the final orders for - the operation that seized the British sailors and
marines? How much support does Ahmadinejad enjoy from Iran's Supreme Leader, the
Ayatollah Ali Khameini? And are there, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair
claimed, new and interesting lines of communication with elements inside the
Iranian regime that the West should be pursuing? FOX News State Department
Correspondent James Rosen explored these and other questions with FOX News
contributor Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian dissident and former official with
the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and the author of "The Iran Threat:
President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis."
James Rosen: What is your understanding of what the Iranians
actually announced today? Because I just watched Sean McCormack's briefing at
the State Department, and he was saying "We're not exactly clear on what they're
actually saying." What is your understanding of what they were saying?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, the announcement that came from
Iran was basically bits and pieces of a larger announcement. They said in a
vague way at the beginning that they have the ability to enrich uranium [at an]
"industrial level," whatever that means. Then they announced later that they
have actually installed as many as 3,000 centrifuge machines in Natanz. And once
they were asked whether they have injected uranium hexafluoride [gas] into the
machines, they basically said "Yes." James Rosen: That was [Ali] Larijani?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: That was Larijani, right....What the
Iranian regime announced today, which was basically installing 3,000 centrifuge
machines and making them operational in the large cascade halls in Natanz
basically corroborates with what I've been hearing from my sources for a long
time. My sources told me last year that Iran has as many as 5,000 centrifuge
machines ready to be installed in the large cascade halls. And what Tehran
announced today corroborates with those sources. We know for a fact that Iran
has been installing those centrifuge machines for months in the large cascade
halls; so it is conceivable that what Iran announced is correct — that they have
installed 3,000 centrifuge machines and made them operational for what they call
enriching uranium to peaceful levels.
James Rosen: When someone like Larijani says that they have
fed the feedstock into the centrifuges...inserted the gas into the centrifuges,
that doesn't mean necessarily that the cascade is operational. You can insert
the gas and it might work and it might not work, true?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: It is true. It is possible that there
are some technical obstacles that they would still need to overcome. But to the
best of my understanding, the regime has already had the ability to run cascades
of 164 centrifuges on a couple of cases before, and they don't have a major
obstacle that they really need to overcome. They have all the necessary
ingredients to really put together the centrifuge program. They have the
expertise, they have their experts to do it. They have the equipment. They have
all the resources that's needed for that. So whether it's true or not today, it
will definitely be true in weeks from now. So we need to be really concerned
about what it means, you know — Iran running 3,000 centrifuge machines with the
ability to enrich uranium. It would really put the regime one significant step
closer to building the bomb. Because once Iran has the ability to enrich the
uranium to what they call a peaceful level, they're only a screwdriver's turn
away from enriching it further for the bomb.
James Rosen: You mentioned that your sources tell you — have
been telling you for some time — that they [the Iranians] have 5,000 centrifuges
set up. This regime doesn't seem shy about making the grandest claims for
itself; so if they have 5,000 centrifuges up and running, why wouldn't they say
5,000? Why would they scale it back and just say, "We have 3,000"?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, my sources were telling me they
have 5,000 centrifuge machines ready to be installed. Now how many of them have
been installed, it's yet to be determined. The regime claims today that they
have installed 3,000. They haven't said that they don't have more than 3,000; in
fact, Iran has said that they're planning to install as many as 60,000
centrifuge machines in the two large cascade halls in Natanz, which are actually
underground facilities. Iran has the ability to build its own centrifuges. They
are building most of the parts in Isfahan and in Tehran, and they import the
engines from abroad.
James Rosen: Alireza, one of the questions that always comes
up when the subject of you comes up is: We all know that the United States
suffers from a deficit of reliable intelligence coming out of Iran, in terms of
what they call "human intelligence," "signals intelligence." I suppose we do
better on signals intelligence because we have the satellites and we have the
National Security Agency , we have that kind of technology. So the question that
arises about you, and the claims that you make, your organization [the National
Council of Resistance of Iran, which Jafarzadeh formerly served as media
relations director and chief liaison for Capitol Hill] — even though we know
that you have been correct in the past — is: If the resources of the United
States government are not sufficient to enable us to really put people on the
ground in Iran, or to get the kind of intelligence we need from the ground in
Iran, how is it that a group that is much less well-funded than the United
States of America, your group, can develop intelligence about these matters and
succeed in extracting it from the country? How is it that a group that has not
got the funding available to it that the United States of America has available
to it can succeed where the United States has failed in this regard? That's — do
you understand the question I'm asking you?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Absolutely. The reason that the main
Iranian opposition, known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has
been able to come up with much more valid and accurate intelligence about the
nuclear weapons program of Iran than all the other intelligence agencies around
the world is that they are present in Iran. They have an extensive network
inside Iran, within the Iranian regime, that has direct access to information
not only on the nuclear weapons program of Iran, but on a lot of other
activities of the Iranian regime in terms of terrorism, what the regime is doing
in Iraq, and in terms of its missile program. So it's that kind of an extensive,
widespread presence in Iran that there is no other replacement for it. No signal
intelligence, no equipment, no satellite imagery can replace an extensive
Iranian opposition network inside Iran, within the regime, that can provide
information to the whole world about the program, about the intentions, about
what's going on in those buildings, what are their plans, and what goes on in
the minds of the Iranian ayatollahs, what their bigger ambition is, in terms of
trying to get these bombs.
James Rosen: But to provide that information requires a
means to provide it, whether it's e-mail, telephone. There aren't that many ways
to get this information from those buildings to Washington, DC. and presumably
the United States — and presumably it involves electronics. And so how is it
that you're able to manage that, and the United States, with its extraordinary
signals apparatus, doesn't get it first, even before you get it? Or as you're
getting it?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, that's the $64,000 question that
the Iranian regime has [been] trying to — I think more important than the
intelligence agencies is the Iranian regime itself is trying to find out, you
know, where the leaks are and how this valuable, most crucial intelligence is
consistently being exposed by the main Iranian opposition, the National Council
of Resistance of Iran, over the years. And Tehran has not succeeded in cutting
the flow of intelligence outside of the regime.
James Rosen: Has a single person that your organization has
relied upon been exposed and punished by the regime? Once? Has there been a
single case of it?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: There has [sic] been a number of
occasions that Tehran has announced that they have actually arrested, identified
and arrested, the sources that led to intelligence regarding Natanz, Arak, a
number of other nuclear sites. But that turned out to be not true. And in fact
further information was revealed right after Tehran's "successful" announcement
that they have arrested the sources of intelligence. So clearly the Iranian
opposition network in Iran as of now has remained intact and has been extremely
effective in exposing a whole host of rogue behavior of the Iranian regime, both
in terms of the nuclear program and also what Iran is doing in Iraq.
James Rosen: [...] Is it a difficulty for you in trying to
sound the alarms about the Iranian system — although I think the world is pretty
well sufficiently, now, much more so than they were in 2002, attentive to the
threat posed by Iran — but is it a problem for you and your organization as you
go about your work that the American experience in Iraq, and WMD, and Ahmed
Chalabi, and the rest of it — you know, are you constantly finding that you are
likened to Chalabi? Like, "Oh, we had expats — expatriates from Iraq who were
telling us all sorts of things about the Iraqi weapons program to get us to go
to war and to topple that regime, and we did so on their word, and, you know,
look what happened: There were no WMD. Why should we believe an Iranian
expatriate group that, you know" — and I know you've already had some record of
success, at Natanz. But are you finding that that's a problem for you? That kind
of suspicion [after] the Chalabi experience? Is that something that you hear
about a lot?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, the Iranian opposition is not
comparable to Ahmed Chalabi and the INC — because Chalabi was being supported,
funded and sponsored by the U.S. government. He wanted to push for the war
against Iraq. Unlike that, [in] the case of the Iranian opposition, they have
not been supported by the State Department. Not only that, they have been
designated as terrorist[s] by the State Department as a means to make overtures
to the Iranian regime. Their funds were frozen by the State Department, and
they're not calling for war. They are saying we should stay away from the war
and we should reach out to the Iranian opposition. Let them settle their course
with the Iranian regime, and let them overthrow the ayatollahs, as the situation
inside Iran is very volatile. There were some 4,800 anti-government
demonstrations in the past Iranian year, from March 2005 to March 2006 — from
March 2006 to March 2007. So that's a very, very serious situation that needs to
be exploited.
James Rosen: Tony Blair said after the sailors were released
that some "new and interesting lines of communication" had opened up between the
British government and elements inside the regime, and that he thought that they
should be pursued. I, moreover, heard from my own British government sources
that their own estimate of what happened in this whole affair was that one of
the consequences will be that Ahmadinejad's standing with the Supreme Leader has
been damaged by this. Do you see: a) new and interesting lines of communication
being opened up with elements of the regime and the West? and b) that
Ahmadinejad's standing suffered with the Ayatollah as a result of this? Where do
you see the relationship between the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, the whole hostage-taking of the
fifteen British sailors, if you will, by the Iranian regime was approved by the
Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad and carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards and its navy.
James Rosen: How do you know that?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: My sources inside Iran are telling me
that the whole operation was pre-planned from weeks in advance. From days
before, top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were briefed; they went to
Tehran and were briefed. The night before the operation, the command
headquarters for the Third Navy, which is responsible for that part of the
Persian Gulf, was on full alert in Khoram Sha'ar [phonetic] and the top
commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were in constant communication with
Tehran to carry out this operation, to take the Brits as hostage, in order to
accomplish what they wanted to accomplish with the Security Council, at the 
United
Nations, and with what Iran is doing in Iraq. They wanted to use this as a means
to intimidate Great Britain, to get even with them, and to make sure that when
future resolutions are introduced at the United Nations Security Council, they
will not be as tough. And then [the] Iranian regime's agents, who were arrested
by Americans in Iraq, would not be punished, would be released, and future
arrests would not take place. This was the whole purpose behind this. Therefore,
there is no rift, really, between Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khameini. And I
would be very, very skeptical about any line of communications that is opened as
a result of this hostage-taking, because it would only be counter-productive. It
would only further encourage Tehran to use terrorism as a tool to pursue its
foreign policy.
James Rosen: You don't think it's possible that once this
event was upon us, there were some elements in the Iranian regime that differed
with this whole thing and wanted to see a swifter resolution, and might be worth
trying to cultivate?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Well, this whole effort, trying to
cultivate some "moderate elements" within the Iranian regime has run its course.
We had Rafsanjani, who was a so-called moderate during the Iran-Contra affair,
and we know what happened: He became president for eight years. And then Khatami
succeeded Rafsanjani, who was perceived to be even more moderate than
Rafsanjani. Yet the main nuclear sites were built under Khatami; the missile
program was developed significantly under Khatami; and the terror network of the
Iranian regime got a major boost under the so-called "moderate" Khatami. So
these imaginary moderates that people are trying to reach out to are actually
the terrorists who are sidelined by the ruling faction, and once they are in
power, they would do the same thing. So the real opening should be with the
Iranian people, the opposition — the sources inside Iran who want to reject the
regime in its entirety. And that's the majority of the population that has not
been explored by the outside world.
James Rosen: You don't see any evidence that the Supreme
Leader has at all, in recent months, soured on Ahmadinejad, in terms of some of
the editorials we've seen in state-run media and some other sort of — you don't
see any of those tea leaves?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: There is, there is — I have not seen any
evidence that suggests that the relationship between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme
Leader has soured. In fact, Ahmadinejad enjoys more support from the Supreme
Leader and the Revolutionary Guards than he ever did. So no one should really
count on some kind of a rift within the regime which you can exploit and see a
change in the behavior of the Iranian regime. We have to understand that the
clock is ticking; time is running out. The Iranian regime is moving forward very
rapidly, trying to get the nuclear bomb, as rapidly as possible. It's
intervening in Iraq in the most violent way, trying to turn Iraq into an Islamic
republic. We need to see a policy in Washington than will be significantly
different than the policy pursued for nearly two decades by the United States
regarding Iran. We need to abandon all the bits and pieces of the policy of
appeasement and adopt a very decisive approach regarding Iran.
James Rosen: What you're saying about, you know, the search
for elusive "imaginary moderates" — does that all go for Larijani as well, by
the way?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: A bsolutely. Larijani
is a former top commander of the Revolutionary Guards. He was a brigadier
general, a top ally of Ahmadinejad. He's as — almost as radical as Ahmadinejad
is. So —
James Rosen: You know that some people sort of posit
Larijani as a kind of counterweight, a potential counterweight to Ahmadinejad.
That's, that's -
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Absolutely there is no foundation to
that. Larijani has been working hand-in-hand with Ahmadinejad. In fact,
Ahmadinejad worked for Larijani for some period of time, and they've been close
allies, working together, and they come from the same school of thought. They
belong to the same faction within the Iranian regime, and they both want to
boost the status of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [sic], who are
basically dominating the whole regime right now.
James Rosen: Last question: When someone wants to gauge the
status of the American economy, they can look at — we used to look primarily at
unemployment: What's the percentage of unemployment? Is it five percent? Is it
four percent? In more recent years, people have tended to look at the number of
jobs created in a given month. So there's any number of indices by which to
gauge, say, the economy of a country. Likewise, there are any number of indices
by which to gauge the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. And one of the
ways, it seems, that everyone's focused on is the number of centrifuges, the
number of centrifuges. I wonder if you could tell me: Is there another way — are
there other ways to gauge the progress of the Iranian nuclear program that
people aren't paying attention to, but they ought to be?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Absolutely. I think one aspect that we
need to carefully look at is the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the
whole nuclear weapons program of the Iranian regime. Anywhere in the world, once
you have [the] military involved in a so-called peaceful nuclear program, that's
a red flag that we are talking about a nuclear weapons program. In the case of
Iran, it's the Revolutionary Guards that is actually dominating the whole
program, especially since Ahmadinejad took office. A number of major nuclear
sites are actually military sites run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards [sic]
that have been off-limits to the IAEA.
James Rosen: Which are? Which include?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Including the site in Lavizan, including
the Imam Hossein University, which is a military site, but they are doing
extensive research and development at Imam Hossein University. The site in
Parchin -
James Rosen: Is that the Physics Research Center you're
talking about, or is that a different place?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: No, that's a different place. That's a
university run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards known as Imam Hossein
University that has [an] extensive research and development program. Top nuclear
scientists of the Iranian regime that are also supposedly by the Atomic Energy
Organization of Iran are actually working in that military university and they
are in charge of [the] extensive research and development program there.
James Rosen: You mentioned Lavizan. Did you mean I or II?
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Lavizan II. Lavizan I is basically, you
know, they wiped it off —
James Rosen: It was razed. Alireza Jafarzadeh: It was razed.
But Lavizan II is a nuclear site. It's a military site. It has been off-limits
to the IAEA. The site in Parchin: There are a number of various kinds of nuclear
activities in Parchin and it has been inspected only once, only a very limited
part of Parchin, and then the IAEA was not allowed to that site. So in terms of
inspections, a good number of sites have been off-limits to the IAEA.
James Rosen: Thank you very much.
Alireza Jafarzadeh: Thank you, thank you.
Alireza
Jafarzadeh: It doesn’t work that way. Because the Ayatollahs have
already determined...
use
first of all there were some four thousand anti-government demonstrations in the
past one year.
Those
are the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an open letter to the
American people. The five page missive is addressed to “noble Americans.”
Ahmadinejad writes that US troops should leave Iraq and he blasts Bush
Administration policies. He claims that “American soldiers often wonder why they
have been sent to Iraq” and calls the war a military misadventure. But not
addressed is Iran’s support of terrorism, nor Iran’s continued defiance of the
United Nations Security Council on Tehran’s’ growing nuclear program. Iranian
leader slams American policy on Israel, calling it “blind and blanket support
for the Zionist regime” and he says that he laments the “pain and misery of the
Palestinian people” whom he calls the rightful owners of the land of Palestine.
He writes “the global position of the United States is in all probability
weakened because the administration has continued to resort to force to conceal
the truth and to mislead the American people about its policy and practices.”
Undoubtedly the American people are not satisfied with this behavior and they
showed their discontent in the recent elections. On Iraq, he says “would it not
be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home, and to spend the
astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of
the American people?” At the UN, US Ambassador John Bolton thinks the letter is
really aimed at swaying American public opinion.
Eric
Shawn: Alireza Jafarzadeh, who authored an upcoming book about Ahmadinejad,
says that the letter is merely hypocritical propaganda.
