BRUSSELS, Feb 3, (Agencies): US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a “strong likelihood” that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said Thursday in an editorial.
When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Panetta brushed it aside.
“I’m not going to comment on that. David Ignatius can write what he will but with regards with what I think and what I view, I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody else,” he said.
“Israel indicated they’re considering this (a strike), we’ve indicated our concerns,” he added.
The Post columnist said Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June before Iran enters what Israelis described as a ‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb.”
President Barack Obama and Panetta are “said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program and other non-military efforts to stop Iran from crossing the threshold,” he said.
“But the White House hasn’t yet decided precisely how the United States would respond if the Israelis do attack.”
Panetta said Sunday in an interview with CBS that Iran needed “about a year” to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, and one or two more years to “put it on a deliverable vehicle.”
Iran insists its nuclear project is peaceful and has threatened retaliation over the fresh sanctions, including possibly disrupting shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Strikes
Israeli media reported in October last year that the option of pre-emptive air strikes on Iran was opposed by the country’s intelligence services but favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
Israeli television said Mossad chief Tamir Pardo raised the possibility of a unilateral strike on Iran during a visit last week to Washington.
Capping a day of strident warnings by Israeli officials about the dangers posed by Iran, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that the world is increasingly ready to consider a military strike against Iran if economic sanctions don’t halt Tehran’s suspect nuclear program.
Earlier on Thursday, officials gathered at a strategy conference in this posh seaside suburb of Herzliya asserted that Iran has already produced enough enriched uranium to eventually build four rudimentary nuclear bombs and — in what would be an explosive new twist — was even developing missiles capable of reaching the United States.
In perhaps the most startling instance of saber-rattling, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, who heads the strategic affairs ministry and is a former commander of the military, said all of Iran’s nuclear installations are vulnerable to military strikes.
Assessments
Yaalon appeared to contradict assessments of foreign experts and Israeli defense officials that it would be difficult to strike sensitive Iranian nuclear targets hidden dozens of yards below ground.
Much of the attention focused on the heightened sanctions imposed on Iran by Europe and the United States.
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that officials in Israel — all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss Iran — were concerned that the measures, while welcome, were constraining Israel in its ability to act because the world expected the effort to be given a chance.
Barak appeared to confirm this, suggesting that the sanctions needed to be given a chance to work. But he also said there was a growing sense around the world that failure would in effect justify military action.
“There is no argument about the intolerable danger a nuclear Iran (would pose) to the future of the Middle East, the security of Israel and to the economic and security stability of the entire world,” Barak said.
“Today as opposed to in the past, there is a wide global understanding that Iran must be prevented from becoming nuclear and no option should be taken off the table... Today as opposed to in the past, there is wide world understanding that in the event that sanctions won’t reach the intended result of stopping the military nuclear program, there will be need to consider action.”
Israel has been a leading voice in calls to curb Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, and the latest revelations could help generate further international support for moves against the Iranian regime. At the same time, there is growing international concern about a possible Israeli rogue attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
Retaliate
Iran’s supreme leader threatened on Friday to retaliate against the West for sanctions, a day after a US newspaper said defence secretary Leon Panetta believed Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it building a nuclear bomb.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s defiant televised speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution was the first time the top authority has spoken publicly about the impact of the new sanctions, which have strangled the Iranian economy since the start of the year.
The long-simmering confrontation between the West and Iran over its nuclear programme entered a decisive phase last month. Iran began enriching uranium at a deep underground bunker and the United States and Europe imposed new sanctions to prevent Tehran selling oil, putting its economy in a downward spiral.
Iran holds a parliamentary election in a month — its first since a 2009 presidential vote triggered a failed popular uprising — and its tightly-controlled political system will have to cope with the economic hardship caused by sanctions.
“In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats to impose at the right time,” Khamenei told worshippers in his televised speech.
“Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course,” he said.
“Such sanctions will benefit us. They will make us more self-reliant ... We would not achieve military progress if sanctions were not imposed on Iran’s military sector.”
Obama signed new sanctions into law on New Year’s Eve that would block any institution dealing with Iran’s central bank from the US financial system. The European Union announced similar measures last week.
The sanctions, if fully implemented, would make it impossible for countries to buy Iranian oil. To prevent havoc on energy markets, Washington is offering waivers to countries if they cut their trade with Iran gradually.
There are signs that other imports are also being affected, with ships bringing grain sailing away from Iranian ports because they have not received payment for their cargo.
A leading agricultural consultancy said on Friday Ukraine had cut its exports of corn to Iran by 40 percent last month because EU sanctions were preventing firms from getting paid.
The sanctions are causing real hardship for Iranians with just four weeks to go before the parliamentary election.
The last time Iranians voted three years ago, a disputed result led to eight months of violent street protests, by far the worst unrest the country has seen since the 1979 revolution that installed rule by Shi’ite clerics.
The authorities put down that revolt with force, but in the past year the “Arab Spring” has shown the vulnerability of governments in the region to public outrage fuelled by anger over economic hardship.
“Prices are going up every day, life is expensive. I buy chicken or meat once per month. I used to buy it twice per week,” said vegetable seller Hasan Sharafi, 43, father of four, in the central city of Isfahan.
“Sometimes I want to kill myself. I feel desperate. I do not earn enough to feed my children.”
Attacks
Iran on Friday rejected allegations by the US director of national intelligence James Clapper that the Islamic republic was more willing now to carry out attacks on American soil.
“Iran categorically denies James Clapper’s unfounded allegations,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.
“Those who are themselves accused of supporting the assassination of Iranian scientists in Tehran cannot allow themselves to make such false and inexact allegations,” he said.
In written remarks on Tuesday to senators, Clapper said an alleged plot last year to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States showed Tehran might be more willing now to carry out attacks on US soil.
“Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against (Saudi Arabia’s) ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime,” he said.
The United States made its allegations early last October and claimed it traced the supposed plot back to the Quds Force, a special operations unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iran has repeatedly denied any involvement in the plot, which have strained its already frayed relations with Saudi Arabia.
A key US Senate panel on Thursday adopted a sweeping package of tough new sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to freeze its controversial nuclear programme amid escalating worries of a military confrontation.
The Senate Banking Committee approved the harsh new measures by voice vote, without dissent, as part of a mounting campaign in the US Congress to tighten the economic screws on defiant Iran.
Tehran denies Western charges that it seeks the ability to build a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic activities are an effort to develop a civilian power-production capability.
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a 32-year-old deputy director of Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant, was murdered on Jan 11 along with his driver/bodyguard when assassins on a motorbike fixed a magnetic bomb to their car.
It was the fifth such incident targeting Iranian scientists in the past two years. Four other scientists — three of them involved in Iran’s nuclear programme — died in the attacks.
Iranian officials say the attacks are a covert campaign by Israel and the United States.
Reluctance
Iran’s apparent reluctance to let UN inspectors visit a military site near Tehran underlines the uphill task they face in convincing the Islamic state to address suspicions it may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Western diplomats say.
They say the UN nuclear watchdog sought access to the Parchin complex during three days of talks in the Iranian capital, so far without any sign that Iran would agree to it.
More talks are scheduled for later this month.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) identified Parchin in a detailed report in November that lent independent weight to Western fears that Iran’s disputed nuclear activities have military links, an allegation Iranian officials reject.
The UN agency has not said whether the issue was among those it raised during the Jan 29-31 discussions in the Iranian capital aimed at shedding light on possible nuclear-linked weapons work, but diplomats accredited to the IAEA said it was.
The senior IAEA team requested “access to Parchin, which Iran did not provide”, one Western diplomat said.
He and others suggested that Iran had sidestepped the question rather than rejected it outright during the meetings with the IAEA delegation headed by the agency’s global inspections chief, Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts.
“They asked to see a particular site and they never got an answer,” another envoy said.
Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi this week described the Tehran talks as “very good”, without giving details.
The IAEA’s report late last year gave a trove of technical information, which the agency assessed as overall credible, pointing to research activities relevant for developing the means and technologies needed to build nuclear weapons.
One key finding was intelligence that Iran had built a large explosives vessel at Parchin southeast of Tehran in which to conduct high-explosives tests, which the UN agency said are “strong indicators of possible weapon development”.
Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and rejects allegations of weapons aims as forged and baseless.
The IAEA said before its Tehran trip late last month that the overall objective was to “resolve all outstanding substantive issues”, referring to its growing concerns of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.
But diplomats said the talks appeared to have made little concrete progress on the issues raised in the IAEA’s report, which said Iran appeared to have worked on nuclear weapon design and secret research to that end may continue.
Tehran’s history of hiding sensitive nuclear activity from the IAEA, continued restrictions on agency access and its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment — which can yield fuel for atom bombs — have drawn four rounds of UN sanctions.
The United States and the European Union seized on the IAEA report to ratchet up sanctions aimed at Iran’s lifeblood oil exports.
Panel
A key US Senate panel adopted a sweeping package of tough new sanctions Thursday aimed at forcing Iran to freeze its suspect nuclear program amid escalating worries of a military confrontation.
The Senate Banking Committee approved the harsh new measures by voice vote, without dissent, as part of a mounting campaign in the US Congress to tighten the economic screws on the defiant Islamic republic.
The legislation targets Iran’s national oil and tanker firms, its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and would for the first time widen sanctions on Iran’s energy sector to any joint venture anywhere in the world where Iran’s government is a substantial partner or investor.
“We are giving Iran’s leaders a clear choice,” said Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, the committee’s chairman, who co-authored the core of the legislation with the panel’s top Republican, Richard Shelby.
“Iran can end its suppression of its own people, come clean on its nuclear program, suspend enrichment, and stop supporting terrorist activities around the globe. Or it can continue to face sustained, intensifying multilateral economic and diplomatic pressure deepening its international isolation,” Johnson said.
Shelby said he is “hopeful that the full Senate will consider and pass it soon.”
The White House, which says President Barack Obama’s diplomacy has framed the most punishing range of sanctions ever faced by Iran, did not give an immediate reaction to the bill.
“We’re reviewing the legislation and will make our views known at an appropriate time,” a White House official said.
“We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to identify ways to increase pressure on the Iranian regime.”
The legislation does not specify the names of companies that would be affected — and leaves it to the executive branch to make that determination in many cases.
But some activist groups, like United Against A Nuclear Iran (UNANI) have urged pressure on a wide range of firms, from Germany’s Siemens engineering giant to France’s Renault, to stop doing business in Iran.
The bill calls for a US travel ban and freezing of US assets aimed at individuals and firms that provide Tehran with technology — everything from rubber bullets to surveillance equipment — used to repress dissent.
It also would tighten sanctions aimed at the IRGC, including bans on travel to the United States, a freezing of US assets, and targeting “anyone who materially assists” the IRGC with other punitive measures.
Satellite
Iran successfully launched a new small satellite into orbit early Friday, state media reported, the latest in the country’s ambitious space program that has raised concerns because if its possible military applications.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called in to the launch site, saying he was “hopeful this act will send a signal of more friendship among all human beings,” the state IRNA news agency reported.
IRNA said the home-made satellite, Navid, or Gospel, was designed to collect data on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters.
It said the satellite weighs about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and would orbit the earth at an altitude of up to 234 miles (375 kilometers), circling the planet 15 times a day. It’s of a type known as miniaturized or microsatellites, which are cheaper to produce and allow for less costly launch vehicles.
Navid, produced at an Iranian engineering university, is the third small satellite that Iran launched over the past years and is expected to remain in orbit for about two months. The two earlier satellites — Omid, launched in 2009, and Rasad, sent into orbit in June 2011 — lasted three weeks and 82 days, respectively. IRNA said Navid has advanced control technology, a higher resolution camera and photocells to generate power.
The satellite was sent into orbit by a missile launch-vehicle dubbed Safir, or Ambassador in Farsi, which IRNA described as having 20 percent more launch power, compared to earlier versions of satellite carrier missiles.
An Iranian website, Irannuc.ir, claimed Safir was a ballistic missile that can be converted into an intercontinental missile. State TV showed footage of the launch, with a rocket sent off and turning into a light point in the darkness of the skies.
Iran’s decade-old space program has raised alarms in the West, because the same technology that allows missiles to launch satellites can be used to fire warheads.
Israel, the US and others charge that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting its nuclear enrichment program is geared only for peaceful purposes, such as energy production.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and the country’s minister of science and technology, Kamran Daneshjoo, were present at the launch, IRNA said. There was no independent confirmation or details about where the launch took place.
Iran has made a series of claims in recent years about advances in its space program, which have not been verified by others. In 2010, Tehran announced it had successfully launched a rocket carrying a mouse, turtle and worms into space.
Also, Iran has set a goal of putting a man in orbit within 10 years, despite the expense and technological challenges involved.
The authorities are intent on showcasing the nation’s technological successes as signs Iran can advance despite the West’s sanctions over its controversial nuclear program. Iran is also pressing ahead with its military missile program, frequently testing missiles capable of reaching Israel, US bases in the Gulf and parts of southeast Europe.