U.S. AGENCIES SEE NO MOVE TO BUILD BOMB

"Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html

IRAN REFUSES ACCESS TO SUSPECTED MILITARY NUCLEAR TECH SITE

"An IAEA report in November suggested Iran had pursued military nuclear technology... that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin to conduct high-explosives tests [for bomb detonators]... (and) said there were "strong indicators of possible weapon development"... The U.N. nuclear watchdog ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran's suspected secret atomic weapons research failed... the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place... The failure of the IAEA's mission may increase the chances of a strike by Israel on Iran."
http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-nuclear-watchdog-tehran-talks-disappointing-004927206.html

PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN WILL STAND WITH IRAN AGAINST U.S. AND ISRAEL
--Ahmadinejad, Zardari and Karzai at summit meeting of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan


"... the tripartite summit of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan (says) that Pakistan will support Iran in case of any possible aggression against it... The joint declaration says: "Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan will ensure respect of territorial sovereignty of each other and would not allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other".
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/18-0
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/national/18-Feb-2012/pakistan-won-t-help-us-attack-iran-says-zardari

IRAN ABLE TO MAKE FUEL FOR DYING REACTOR

"Iran will present a new advance in its atomic program Wednesday by loading domestically made nuclear fuel into a research reactor in the capital Tehran... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would attend the event at a reactor which is running out of nuclear fuel originally provided by Argentina in the 1990s... laboratory-scale production of a single element for the reactor... Iran said it was forced to take this step to make fuel for the Tehran research reactor after failing to agree terms for a deal to obtain it from the West...."
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-unveil-nuclear-fuel-advance-report-192938473.html

INTEL CHIEF: IRAN HAS NOT DECIDED TO BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS

"... James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, in prepared testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee... reiterated the American intelligence assessment that “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so.” He added, “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/intelligence-chief-sees-al-qaeda-likely-to-continue-fragmenting.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2