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Iran warns of preemptive strike to prevent attack on nuclear sites

Wed Aug 18, 4:14 PM ET

DOHA (AFP) - Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.

"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq (news - web sites)," said Shamkhani, speaking in Farsi to the Arabic-language news channel through an interpreter.

"The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.

Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.

"Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two."

A commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the Iranian press earlier Wednesday as saying that Tehran would strike the Israeli reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks the Islamic republic's own burgeoning nuclear facilities.

"If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.

Iran's controversial bid to generate nuclear power at its plant being built at Bushehr is seen by arch-enemies Israel and the United States as a cover for nuclear weapons development.

The latest comments mark an escalation in an exchange of threats between Israel and Iran in recent weeks, leading to speculation that there may be a repeat of Israel's strike against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981.

Iran insists that its nuclear intentions are peaceful, while pointing at its enemy's alleged nuclear arsenal, which Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing.

Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera it was not possible "from a practical standpoint" to destroy Iran's nuclear programs because they are the product of national skills "which cannot be eliminated by military means."

He also warned that Iran would consider itself no longer bound by its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the event of an attack.

"The execution of such threats (to attack Iran's nuclear installations) would mean that our cooperation with the IAEA led to feeding information about our nuclear facilities to the attacking side, which (in turn) means that we would no longer be bound by any of our obligations" to the nuclear watchdog, he said.

Diplomats said in Vienna Tuesday that the IAEA would not say in a report next month whether Iran's nuclear activities are of a military nature, nor will it recommend bringing the case before the UN Security Council.

The IAEA board is due to deliver the report on Iran's nuclear activities during a meeting at the organization's headquarters in Vienna from September 13 after the last of a group of IAEA inspectors returned from Iran last week.

The UN's nuclear agency is conducting a major probe into Iran's bid to generate electricity through nuclear power.

The Islamic republic has agreed to temporarily suspend uranium enrichment pending the completion of the IAEA probe, but is working on other parts of the fuel cycle and has recently resumed making centrifuges used for enrichment.

Who’ll Strike Iran First? United States, Israel Mull Attack on Iranian Nuclear Power Plants

American Free Press

According to one Israeli intelligence officer, there’s a race to see whether the United States or Israel will first bomb Iran’s recently constructed nuclear facilities after reports that enriched uranium was found at one of the sites.

The Pentagon’s forward planners and Israeli intelligence are targeting two Iranian nuclear facilities after reports surfaced that weapons-grade enriched uranium was found in one by UN inspectors. A UN report published this week says the country could acquire a nuclear bomb within two years.

Particles of weapons-grade enriched uranium were discovered at Natanz. Iran claims the particles were from “contaminated components” it bought on the black market in the 1980s when it was trying to set up its “peaceful nuclear program” but could not find a supplier in the West ready to help.

Both the CIA and MI6, who have now each made intelligence gathering on Iran a priority, discount Iran’s claim of how it came to have sufficient enriched uranium to make an effective bomb.

Neo-conservatives around Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have not discounted a pre-emptive strike against the plants at Natanz and Arak. They are sited south of Tehran, in remote areas of central Iran.

Washington is supporting a UN resolution—sponsored by Britain, France and Germany—that Iran must stop its nuclear program by the end of October. Implicit in the resolution is a warning the plants could be hit by missiles fired from U.S. warships in the Gulf.

The plant at Natanz is far bigger than anything Iraq ever had. Natanz is guarded by a heavily patrolled 30-mile deep perimeter within the featureless landscape.

Tehran claims the Natanz plant is only working to develop the country’s peaceful nuclear energy program to bring power, heat and electricity to its hundreds of small towns and villages.

But British and German intelligence agents have pinpointed an underground complex capable of holding 1,000 personnel.

UN inspectors, diverted from searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, have confirmed the existence of the complex.

Buried 30 feet below ground, the structure has eight-foot thick walls to protect two large halls.

In a report last week to the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the inspectors told their closed meeting in Vienna they believe the underground complex is designed to carry out the process of turning enriched uranium into weapons-grade material.

The report states: “there are 1,000 gas centrifuges and components for the manufacture of 50,000 further centrifuges.”

Highly enriched uranium is an essential element in producing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has two plants—one at Arkadan, east of Natanz, the other near the historic town of Isfahan—to convert uranium ore into yellowcake, a processed form of uranium. The yellowcake can be converted into enriched uranium as well as producing hexafluoride gas, essential to drive the centrifuges.

Russian engineers are helping Iran to build a heavy water plant at Arak. Iran again claims the plant will be used only for peaceful purposes.

However, the UN report states: “heavy water can also produce more plutonium than light water reactors, and therefore can produce significant quantities to be used in weapons.”

Kenneth Brill, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna said last week that the evidence against Iran “already justifies an immediate non-compliance verdict.”

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the UN Security Council could introduce crippling sanctions against Iran. That would most certainly place the United States on a collision course with one of the nations President Bush has named as being part of the “axis of evil.”

There is also a clear danger that Israel could act unilaterally and launch its own air strikes against Iran’s nuclear plants. It has done so before—when it destroyed Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear reactor outside Baghdad on June 7, 1981.

“We will not stand by and allow the Iranians to use the same cat-and-mouse games over their nuclear plants that Saddam used over many years,” said a senior Israeli intelligence officer in Tel Aviv. “There is a need to take a touch line now. In two years time, it could be too late.”

The prospect of military action came that much closer after Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most influential clerics and the country’s former president, called on Muslim states last December to use nuclear weapons against Israel.

Mossad analysts told Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, that the appeal was directed not only at Pakistan, the one Muslim nation known to have nuclear weapons, but also to Iran’s partner in the “axis of evil”—North Korea.

That possibility has led to the Pentagon forward planners continuing to prepare their own missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

As the Israeli intelligence officer said: “it could be a race who presses the button first—us or the Americans.”