Note from Bob Beauprez: The Telescope feature editorial in the August issue of A Line of Sight, "Iran at our Doorstep," documented increased uranium enrichment and the announced plans for an Iranian missile base being constructed on the extreme northern borders of Venezuela stocked with Russian weapons. A Line of Sight contributing editor, Major General Paul Vallely, an acclaimed national security expert, and his sources at Stand Up America have just released the following analysis that also confirms increased uranium enrichment by Iran. Vallely also states that SUA believes Iran "now possesses low yield nuclear war heads that can be mounted on the Shehab missile and deployed on the oceans in container ships with the Russian provided Club K missile launch systems." Those unfamiliar with the Club K system may watch at a short video here .
In April, 2011 MG Vallely wrote the following about the Russian Club K container system for A Line of Sight:
"Moscow markets cruise missiles launched from a freight container -- Russia's Club-K Freight Container cruise missile. This relatively cheap, extra-smart, easy-to-use Club-K Container Missile System, which Moscow has put on the open market (Iran is the first acquirer), allows cruise missiles or Shehabs to be concealed in freight containers which can then be launched from a sea platform container ship. I have warned of this "spear" threat for over a year now; with no response from the powers-to-be. It is virtually undetectable by radar until activated. No wonder, Iran and Venezuela were keenly interested when the Club-K was put on the market at the Defense Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia for $15 million." Read more here
In the following article, Vallely also refers to a "restricted 9-page report" by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency last week to the Associated Press. The full AP summary of that report can be read here.
By MG Paul E. Vallely US Army (Ret.) and Protected Source
Many countries and agencies are increasingly concerned about the intelligence that Iran continues to work secretly on developing and completing a nuclear payload for a missile (the Shehab system) and other components of a nuclear weapons program. SUA believes strongly that Iran now possesses low yield nuclear war heads that can be mounted on the Shehab missile and deployed on the oceans in container ships with the Russian provided Club K missile launch systems. The primary goal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is to launch EMPs weapons on US Coastal cities and freeze our national grid systems. Iran for the first time has recently deployed ships to the Atlantic Ocean on maneuvers.
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In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said “many member states” are providing evidence for that assessment, describing the information it is receiving as credible, “extensive and comprehensive.” The restricted 9-page report was made available last week to The Associated Press, shortly after being shared internally with the 35 IAEA member nations and the U.N. Security Council. It also said Tehran has fulfilled a pledged made earlier this year and started installing equipment to enrich uranium at a new location — an underground bunker that is better protected from air attack than its present enrichment facilities.
Enrichment can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material, and Tehran — which says it wants only to produce fuel with the technology — is under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment, which it says it needs for fuel only. It also denies secretly experimenting with a nuclear weapons program and has blocked a four-year attempt by the IAEA to follow up on intelligence that it secretly designed blueprints linked to a nuclear payload on a missile, experimented with exploding a nuclear charge, and conducted work on other components of a weapons program.
The phrase “increasingly concerned” has not appeared in previous reports discussing Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons work and reflects the frustration felt by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano over the lack of progress in his investigations. His report said that choice of language is due to the “possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities” linked to weapons work. In particular, said the report, the agency continues to receive new information about “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
Acquired from “many” member states, the information possessed by the IAEA is “extensive and comprehensive … (and) broadly consistent and credible,” said the report.
Other findings prepared for a session of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors starting Sept. 12 included:
— Confirmation of reports by diplomats to the AP that Iran has started setting up uranium enriching centrifuges at Fordow, a fortified facility dug into a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Iran intends to use Fordow to triple its 20-percent enrichment of uranium — a concern because that level is easier to turn into weapons grade uranium quickly than its main stockpile of low enriched uranium at 3.5 percent.
— Further accumulation of both low-enriched and higher enriched or 20 percent uranium. The report said Iran had now accumulated more than four tons of low enriched uranium and over 70 kilograms — more than 150 pounds — of higher enriched material. Those two stockpiles give it enough enriched uranium to make up to six nuclear warheads, should it choose to do so.
It however was generally critical of Iran’s record of secrecy and lack of cooperation, noting that without increased openness on the part of the Islamic Republic the IAEA is unable to “conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
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