U.S. STORY ON IRAN NUKE FACILITY DOESN'T ADD UP

"The story... was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to conceal a "secret" nuclear facility.... (but Iran notified) the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the second enrichment facility in a letter on Sep. 21 A major question surrounding the official story is why the Barack Obama administration had not done anything – and apparently had no plans to do anything - with its intelligence on the Iranian facility at Qom prior to the Iranian letter to the IAEA... there had been no plan for briefing the IAEA or anyone... the senior administration official briefing the press was deliberately portraying the new enrichment facility in more menacing terms than the actual intelligence assessment... The circumstantial evidence suggests that Iran never intended to keep the Qom facility secret from the IAEA but was waiting to make it public at a moment that served its political-diplomatic objectives..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48649

IRAQ STANDS WITH IRAN AGAINST U.S. SANCTIONS

"Iraq's president said new sanctions against Iran won't work and warned Saturday that Iraq will never allow Israel or any other country to use its airspace to carry out an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities... President Jalal Talabani (said) "I think the Iranian leadership explained that the bomb is against Islam because it's killing innocent people," he said. "So they said openly that they are not for having the bomb but only the use of technology."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090926/ap_on_re_us/us_us_iraq_2

SANCTIONS WOULD BE UNFAIR, ENCOURAGE IRAN TO LEAVE NUCLEAR TREATY

"... sanctions against Iran are deeply unfair if Israel, India and Pakistan are held harmless for ignoring the NPT altogether and for developing their bombs. In fact, the way the UNSC is proceeding against Iran is such as to destroy the NPT, because any country in its right mind would prefer to withdraw from it and just do as it pleases, a la Israel, than to submit to it and have that submission be a pretext for sanctions, even where the signatory country had done nothing contrary to the letter of the law..."
http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/qom-enrichment-facility-revealed-moves.html

SECOND SECRET UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR PLANT FOUND, VIOLATES NPT TREATY

"President Obama and leaders of Britain and France accused Iran on Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years... The three men demanded that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran... the new site (is) built inside a mountain near the ancient city of Qum... one of the holiest Shiite cities in the Middle East...

"ISNA, an Iranian news agency, quoted an “informed source” as confirming the existence of the second uranium-enrichment site, describing it as similar to Iran’s known enrichment facility at Natanz... information unearthed by an Iranian dissident group led to the discovery of the underground plant at Natanz in 2002..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html?hp

IRAN LOSES ITS ONLY AWACS PLANE




"... above a big military parade in Tehran... two air force jets collided in mid-air. One was Iran's only airborne warning and control system (AWACS) for coordinating long-distance aerial operations... it collided with one of escorting planes, a US-made F-5E, and both crashed to the ground in flames... (Iran's) first and only AWACS went into service in April 2008. It was a renovated version of the Russian Ilyushin 76, part of Saddam Hussein's air force before it was transferred to Iran in 1991 during the first Gulf War.
Tehran hired Russian technicians to carry out renovations and install up-to-date radar... Air Force commander Brig. Gen. Ahmad Miqani boasted its new radar systems were made in Iran and able to spot any airplane or missile at a distance of 1,000 kilometers from Iran's borders. The loss of this airborne control system has left Iran's air force and air and missile defenses without "electronic eyes" for surveillance of the skies around its borders."
--DEBKAfile, September 23, 2009
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6280

U.S. STILL FINDS NO EVIDENCE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM

"The U.S. intelligence community is reporting to the White House that Iran has not restarted its nuclear-weapons development program... U.S. agencies had previously said that Tehran halted the program in 2003... (and) the status of Iranian work on development and production of a nuclear bomb has not changed since the formal National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's "Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" in November 2007.... (which) had "moderate confidence" that it had not restarted weapons-development efforts..."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215529

ALLEDGED IRANIAN NUCLEAR DOCUMENTS FABRICATED

"... the IAEA has refused to acknowledge publicly significant evidence brought to its attention by Iran that the documents were fabricated.. Iran has submitted serious evidence that the documents are fraudulent. Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh... said he had pointed out to a team of IAEA officials in a meeting on the documents in Tehran in early 2008 that none of the supposedly top-secret military documents had any security markings of any kind, and that purported letters from Defense Ministry officials lacked Iranian government seals..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI16Ak01.html

FRENCH GENERAL SAYS WAR ON IRAN = CATASTROPHE

"The head of the French military... Chief of Staff Jean-Louis Georgelin... has warned that any military attack aimed at halting Iran's nuclear program could cause a "Catastrophe"... because there is no guarantee that 'one shot' would solve the problem.
"If you fail in one shot, it is a catastrophe," Georgelin concluded..."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=105877§ionid=351020104

PUTIN WARNS AGAINST U.S. ATTACKING OR SANCTIONING IRAN

"... the US and Israel have never ruled out the option of air strikes on Iran to stop it acquiring an atomic weapon... (but) Russian PM Vladimir Putin has warned against military action targeting Iran or imposing new sanctions... on Iran's oil sector... to curb its nuclear programme... Putin... said any attack on Iran would be "very dangerous, unacceptable" and would lead to "an explosion of terrorism... "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8251531.stm

IAEA SAYS NO EVIDENCE OF NUKE PROGRAM

"... Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no concrete evidence that Tehran has an ongoing nuclear weapons program... Iran is not going to produce a nuclear weapon any time soon and the threat posed by its atomic program has been exaggerated..."
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5811v1-us-iran-nuclear-elbaradei/