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Weekly Commentary
Tehran’s
Double-talk on WMD and Human Rights
Over the weekend, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, in opening
remarks at the international "ethics for co-existence"
conference in Tehran, said opposition to WMD is necessary for
the sake of "morality and ethics, to protect life and human
rights, and for the sake of respecting life for all humanity
everywhere."
The mullahs’ president, cut from the same cloth as the other
turbaned demagogues of Iran’s ruling regime, shamelessly uttered
about ethics, human rights, respect for life and humanity all in
one breath.
As the lame-duck Khatami was reciting his usual double-talk
about weapons of mass destruction, new revelations last week
shed more light on his regime’s campaign of hide-and-cheat to
advance the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program.
The Boston Globe wrote that that the clerical regime “has just
completed a secret underground facility to enrich uranium using
laser technology, and began a second, secret construction
project at the same site earlier this month.”
According to the Globe, Alireza Jafarzadeh, former Washington
spokesman of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, now the
head of the Strategic Policy Consulting firm in Washington,
said, “The underground nuclear facility at the Parchin military
complex, about 20 miles southeast of Tehran, was built recently
under the supervision of the chief engineer of Iran's aerospace
agency.”
Also last week, Mohammad Saeidi, vice president of the Atomic
Energy Organization of Iran, insisted that Tehran will pursue a
full-scale nuclear program, from mining uranium, to enriching it
and also building a heavy-water reactor which can produce
plutonium, Agence France Presse reported from Paris.
Khatami’s expedient comments on the development of weapons of
mass destruction are as hollow as his crocodile tears for human
rights and sanctity of life. He needs to be reminded of his
regime’s horrific human rights violations including systematic
execution of juveniles and continued public hanging and stoning
of women. Let’s not forget that the mullahs’ regime has also
been appropriately called the most active state sponsor of
terrorism since mid 1980’s.
Last month, the State Department issued a damning report on
Iran's human rights violations in 2004. It said, "The right of
citizens to change their government was restricted
significantly. Continuing serious abuses included: summary
executions; disappearances; torture and other degrading
treatment, reportedly including severe punishments such as
amputations and flogging; poor prison conditions; arbitrary
arrest and detention; lack of habeas corpus or access to
counsel; and prolonged and incommunicado detention. Citizens
often did not receive due process or fair trials. The Government
infringed on citizens' privacy rights and restricted freedom of
speech, press, assembly, association, and religion".
On Iran's systematic use of torture, the report said, "Some
prison facilities, including Tehran's Evin prison, were
notorious for the cruel and prolonged acts of torture inflicted
upon political opponents of the Government” such as “prolonged
solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, beatings, long
confinement in contorted positions,,,, and severe and repeated
beatings with cables or other instruments…"
The so-called life-friendly regime in Tehran has not just been
busy working to deprive Iranians from life and human rights. The
mullahs have been also relentlessly at work to rub Iraqis the
chance of living under a secular and democratic government.
According to a commentary in the New York Times Magazine last
Sunday, “Estimated at many hundreds of millions of dollars per
year, Iranian aid [to Iraq] has a low overhead and is buying
Tehran influence in Shiite communities. Intelligence sources
report that Iran's secret service and Revolutionary Guards have
heavily infiltrated Iraq, with perhaps as many as 5,000
personnel... Iran operates on its own agenda in Iraq. Iran's
goal is to have a government in Baghdad under strong Iranian
influence.”
Iran is also quietly building a significant stockpile of
thousands of high-tech small arms and other military equipment
-- from armor-piercing snipers' rifles to night-vision goggles
-- through legal weapons deals and a U.N. anti-drug program.
Associate Press reported that this buying spree was raising
fears the arms could end up with militants in Iraq.
The theocracy in Iran is a clear and immediate danger to
Iranians, to Iraqis, and to the rest of the world. It is
hell-bent on possessing nuclear weapons and other weapons of
mass destruction, as well as exporting its brand of Islamic
fundamentalism and terrorism.
Its desperate PR attempts to divert attention from its nuclear
weapons program by holding conferences under hollow titles such
as "ethics for co-existence" may charm its proponents in the EU
capitals. But PR-savvy clerics are unlikely to influence the
debate in Washington today about the roadmap that would be
consistent with what millions in Iran are seeking: the ruling
unseating of the clerical regime by the Iranian people and the
democratic opposition. (USADI)
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Associated Press
March 25,
2005
Iran Stockpiling High-Tech
Small Arms
VIENNA, Austria -- Iran is quietly building a stockpile of
thousands of high-tech small arms and other military equipment
-- from armor-piercing snipers' rifles to night-vision goggles
-- through legal weapons deals and a U.N. anti-drug program,
according to an internal U.N. document, arms dealers and Western
diplomats.
The buying spree is raising Bush administration fears the arms
could end up with militants in Iraq. Tehran also is seeking
approval for a U.N.-funded satellite network that Iran says it
needs to fight drug smugglers, stoking U.S. worries it could be
used to spy on Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan -- or any U.S.
reconnaissance in Iran itself…
Iran says it needs the satellite network, high-tech small arms
bought on the European arms market and night-vision goggles,
body armor and advanced communications gear through the U.N
program to fight drug smugglers pouring in from neighboring
Afghanistan.
But such high-resolution satellite imagery could reveal what
U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan are doing on the
ground -- or that they could show the Iranians what the United
States is seeing as it spies from outer space for evidence of
illicit Iranian nuclear activity.
And with Iran suspected of backing insurgents in Iraq,
Washington fears some of the equipment bought in Europe or
delivered as part of the U.N.-backed anti-drug fight could be
used against U.S. troops there, say Western diplomats here who
are familiar with U.S. concerns.
Austrian officials with access to counterintelligence
information told AP that Iranian diplomats in European capitals
routinely focus on securing arms deals. Like the Western
diplomats, the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because
of the sensitivity of the case.
Just four months ago, U.S. and Austrian authorities arrested two
Iranians in Vienna on charges of trying to illegally export
thousands of sophisticated American night-vision systems for
Tehran's military -- a powerful force in the region.
In a more recent -- and legal -- deal, Iran last month took
delivery of hundreds of high-powered armor-piercing snipers'
rifles with scopes from an Austrian firm, as part of a
consignment for 2,000 of the weapons. Confirming the sale,
Wolfgang Fuerlinger, head of Steyr Mannlicher GmbH, told AP that
U.S. Embassy officials had expressed concerns the arms could
make their way to Iraq for use against American troops.
A draft proposal obtained by AP, to create a regional satellite
network that would survey Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq is on hold,
with Iran shifting it to the U.N. office on drugs and crime
after opposition stalled it in the U.N. office on space affairs,
also based in Vienna.
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Agence France Presse
March 27, 2005
Egyptian jailed for
35 years for spying for Iran
CAIRO - An Egyptian was jailed for 35 years by an emergency
tribunal Sunday for spying for Iran and plotting to assassinate
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a sentence that cannot be
appealed.
The court also sentenced former Iranian diplomat Mohammed Reza
Doust to 25 years' imprisonment in absentia for being Egyptian
Mahmud Aid Dabbus's handler.
Dabbus was sentenced to 25 years for "having plotted to
assassinate the president of the republic and for spying and
obtaining payments from a foreign country," said presiding judge
Adel Adbel Salam.
He was sentenced to an additional "10 years for (sharing)
intelligence with a foreign country with the aim of
destabilizing in Egypt," said the judge.
The Egyptian was accused of giving Iran details about oil
installations at the Saudi port of Yanbu, where six Westerners
were killed in a shooting rampage in May that was blamed on
Islamist militants.
Dabbus had worked at Yanbu, according to the prosecution, and
was paid 150,000 dollars for his Saudi and Egyptian information
and given an extra 10,000 dollars for the Yanbu details.
The former Iranian diplomat was sentenced for "taking part in a
terrorist bid and an attempt to destabilize the Egyptian
regime."
Doust worked at the Iranian interests section in Cairo but had
been transferred before Dabbus was arrested at his home on the
Suez canal in November.
"Dabbus sacrificed his country's interests for a fistful of
dollars, allied himself with Satan and submitted himself to
him," said Adbel Salam.
The trial has soured a slow detente between Tehran and Cairo,
which broke off diplomatic relations following Iran's Islamic
revolution of 1979.
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