Iranian Resistance revelations: A key factor behind the regime’s nuclear plight

From 1991 onwards, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has blown the whistle on more than 100 secret and undercover nuclear projects of this regime, with the latest being “Project 012” exposed by Mr Mehdi Abrishamchi on Novem

ber 18, 2013.

These revelations have been a serious factor in slowing the mullahs’ progress in obtaining nuclear weapons. Some of these revelations specifically proved the regime’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, or placed a serious speed bump in the path of the regime's quest for nuclear weapons. Mr Rajavi listed a number of these revelations in his December 2006 message:

- First nuclear facilities in Moalem Kalaye (1991)
- Purchasing nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan (1992)
- Continuously revealing the employing of Chinese, Russian and N. Korean experts, and dozens of trips made by the regime’s nuclear teams to these countries in the coming years
- Natanz and Arak as the biggest and most widespread nuclear assets of this regime (August 2002); this derailed all of the regime’s calculations, leading to inspections and confirmations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- Most important front companies involved in producing and importing necessary equipment and material necessary for the nuclear projects (February, August and September 2003), including Kala Electric in Abali registered as a watch manufacturing company, while it was actually a center to montage and test centrifuges. IAEA inspectors later on found uranium in this site.
- Lavizan Shian Center (May 2003); this was a very sensitive nuclear site for the regime, immediately demolished and even its dirt razed.
- Lashkar Abad site and its front company (June 2003 and November 2004); IAEA inspections revealed this was a enrichment center with laser technology.
- IRGC’s special role in the nuclear projects, clearly showing this project's goals and military usages (November 2003) and the transfer of 400 nuclear project experts to military industries (May 2004)
- Secret nuclear center in the Parchin tunnel focused on laser enrichment (April 2004)
- Lavizan II center where many of the regime’s nuclear facilities were transferred to from Lavizan Shiyan (November 2004)
- Hemmat Missile Industries in relation to building nuclear and chemical warheads (December 2004)
- Obtaining plutonium-210 and beryllium to build nuclear bomb fuses (January 2005)
- Top secret report prepared by the mullahs’ Majlis (parliament) showing the Majlis had learned of the Natanz and Arak sites following the Iranian Resistance revelations (April 2005)
- Producing and importing graphite necessary for nuclear weapons (May 2005)
- Importing and producing hard steel, known as marajing, to build the bomb fuselage and use in centrifuge systems (July 2005)
- Manufacturing 4,000 ready-to-use centrifuges (August 2005)
- Plans to smuggle tritium from South Korea to increase power of nuclear explosion (September 2005)
- Tunnel construction in military centers to cover up material and equipment (September 2005)
- Heavy duty press machinery to shape enriched uranium in bombs (February 2006)
- P2 centrifuges manufacturing project (August 2006)
- Re-activating laser enrichment projects (September 2006)

From 2006 to this day numerous other nuclear plans of the mullahs’ regime have been exposed, including:
- Information on 7 nuclear front companies related to the nuclear fuel cycle (February 2007)
- Secret tunnel under construction by the Ministry of Defense south of Natanz (August 2007)
- Site focused on building nuclear warheads in Khojeir and nuclear weapons command center in Mojhdeh (February 2008)
- Beheshti University as the center of nuclear research, linked to the Mojhde nuclear command center (March 2008)
- Center of Explosion and Impact Technology (Motafaz) and changes in the nuclear command center (August 2009)
- Fordo site with details; construction of this site was already exposed back in 2005 (March 2011)
- New Defensive Research Organization (Sepand) as the nuclear bomb command center, led by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (July 2011)
- Names of 60 nuclear engineering experts in various bomb-making fields (January 2013)
- Top secret Ma’dan Shargh nuclear site in Tehran’s Damavand district (July 2013)
- Secret “012” nuclear site in Isfahan’s Mobarake district, linked to Sepand (November 2013)

In 1992, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) learned that the then Minister of Transportation of Kazakhstan had travelled to Iran. On that trip, the mullahs’ regime succeeded in reaching an agreement to buy three nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan for hard cash.

The Iranian Resistance learned of the deal in time, disclosing the purchase of these nuclear warheads by the regime. On 12 October 1992, the Washington Post wrote that an official of Mujahedin-e Khalq, whose reports have proven credible in the past, warned of the Khomeini regime’s nuclear purchases. Through their sources in Tehran, the MEK learned that the regime ruling Iran has signed an agreement with Kazakhstan and had already paid the money for these warheads that were being purchased probably to be installed on Chinese silkworm missiles.

In December 1992, Torkan (at the time Minister of Transportation and currently senior advisor to President Hassan Rouhani), and Reza Amrollahi, (at the time Chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran), went to Kazakhstan to meet with Kazakhstani officials and to push ahead with the contract signed a few months previously with Kazakhstan’s Minister of Transport.

Kazakhstan officials stated that following the disclosure of the deal by the PMOI, they were facing international pressure and that especially due to pressure from Boris Yeltsin (Russian President at the time), they could not go ahead out the agreement.

A few years later, Mr. Bolat Nurgaliyev, former Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to the United States, confirmed the agreement. The Washington Times of November 2, 1996, wrote that Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to United States had confirmed that the Iranian regime had made attempts to purchase nuclear equipment from the main nuclear sites of his country.

He stated that the deal was halted in 1992 and packages were still waiting to be sent. Mr. Nurgaliyev said that as a nascent independent state when Kazakhstan was trying to resolve its problems with its nuclear arsenal, Iran’s representative contacted its nuclear facilities and requested specific items. According to intelligence sources, Iranian regime officials visited the facility and requested highly enriched uranium to be used in their nuclear weapons program.

After the failure to purchase a ready-to-use nuclear bomb from former soviet republics, and the disclosure of the purchase of the bomb from Kazakhstan, the mullahs’ regime began extensive activities to acquire nuclear technology.

The Iranian Resistance places the Mullahs on the the nuclear proliferators list!

Last year, a member of regime’s Exigency Council stated: “Spending billions, Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani placed the PMOI on the terrorist list, but reciprocally, through exposing the Natanz and Arak heavy water sites, the PMOI placed the Islamic Republic on the sanctions’ list. They succeeded in getting off the terrorist list, but the noose of sanctions becomes tighter and tighter around system’s neck with every passing day.”

In August 2002 in Washington, the Iranian Resistance disclosed the regime’s massive enrichment plant at the Natanz Site and its plan to attain plutonium from the Arak heavy-water reactor and the 40 megawatt reactor (IR40), plus the test site for centrifuges in the Kala-electric Company in Tehran.

The revelation came at a time when the U.S. and Britain, as principal parties in the coalition to attack Iraq, were negotiating with Hassan Rouhani as the Secretary of the mullahs’ Supreme Security Council. In exactly that same period of August 2002, IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai wrote on his website as Secretary of the State Exigency Council that in attacking Iraq, the coalition had to bombard the PMOI.

Primarily, the PMOI revelations were not embraced by the West, but the disclosure was so great and accurate that they could not be ignored.

Eight months later, Mr. Albaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the time, visited Natanz in March 2003. The Iranian Resistance had given the exact location of the research centrifuge cascade to the agency. The regime had hidden the location among dozens of similar locations in Natanz. Once Mr. El Baradei entered Natanz, he went directly to the intended location and after a short visit he declared that at present Iran enjoyed uranium enrichment capability.

In May 2003, PMOI exposed regime’s nuclear and biological engineering in Shian-Lavisan. However, despite the light shed on regime’s 20 years of clandestine activities to attain nuclear bomb, appropriate reaction was not shown by the West until after the coalition’s attack on Iraq.

Appeasement of mullahs by the West, especially by U.S. and Britain, was at its peak in 2002 due to the upcoming attack on Iraq. In an atmosphere of conciliation with the regime, they not only closed their eyes on this greatest revelation on regime’s nuclear activities, but collaborated with the mullahs against the PMOI. Jack Straw, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, visited Iran in October 2002, two months after PMOI’s nuclear disclosure.

Meanwhile, during this period, information provided by PMOI had been confirmed by U.S. in its investigation of the matter and aerial photographs of Natanz. However, instead of discussing the nuclear issue, Mr. Straw informed the mullahs that the coalition will attack Iraq. He then presented coalition’s requests from the regime. A report by the Iranian regime officials describes Jack Straws requests as follows:

Iran not hamper the attack on Iraq and refrain from fomenting problems during the attack;
Iran to close its borders with Iraq during the attack;
Iran to provide an aerial corridor to the coalition forces or close its eyes on Western fighters that enter Iranian air space during the attack;
Iran not to portray an atmosphere that would lead Saddam to think Iran is backing him.

The report says that mullahs accepted all coalition’s requests, except for the aerial corridor, on two conditions:

1. The coalition would bombard PMOI bases in Iraq and not allow PMOI to remain in Iraq;

2. Coalition would accept that Shiites (elements affiliated with the clerical regime, al-Dawa Party, Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, and 9 Badr) replace Saddam.
Jack Straw responded positively to both requests.

The coalition kept its promise to the mullahs. All PMOI bases were targeted by bombings with Ashraf alone hit 120 times by aerial attacks in just one night.
Hassan Rouhani, the Secretary of regime’s Supreme National Security Council writes in the book of National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, p. 131, “April and May 2003, the nuclear issue wasn’t much of any topic in the international propaganda and even international politics as everyone was busy with Iraq. Iran’s nuclear issue had gone to the sidelines. With occupation of Iraq and Baghdad’s fall, ElBaradei’s first report was published for the Board of Governor’s session.” Given the atmosphere of appeasement, especially in 2002 and first half of 2003, mullahs’ regime did not expect such a report and even after the report, it believed things can be resolved.

Despite the fact that Western governments constantly stated that they would not accept a nuclear Iran, but the process of 10 years of the mullahs with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Western government, gives away cover ups and contradictory and unreal reports given by the regime and their acceptance by Western institutions and the IAEA, in particular during Mr. ElBaradei’s era in the IAEA. In these 10 years, not one substantiated fact of mullahs’ regime claim to peaceful nuclear program was found; to the contrary, regime’s falsifications and deceptions were proven innumerable times.

Hundreds of facts and reports have even been accumulated in Hassan Rouhani’s book of “National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy” where regime has presented false reports to IAEA and ElBaradei, but all of them have been covered up. Proponents of appeasement know beyond a shred of doubt that mullahs’ peaceful nuclear program is but a myth.

At its best, ten years of negotiations with the mullahs and sanctions by the IAEA and Western countries have only hampered regime’s attempt to attain nuclear weapons. As an example, when in May 2003, PMOI disclosed regime’s nuclear and biological engineering site in Shian-Lavisan, due to IAEA’s insistence to visit the site, mullahs razed the whole complex and even removed several meters deep of its soil and then set up a new center for the commanding center of nuclear weapons called Mojdeh which in its own turn was also exposed by PMOI. This relocation interrupted activities of this center for one year.

In these 10 years, the Iranian Resistance has disclosed centers and sites that are directly involved in the nuclear weapons activities and are mostly under the command of SPND (New Defense Researches Organization) affiliated with the Ministry of Defense. The regime, however, has not allowed IAEA inspections under the pretext that they are military centers and the atomic agency and western countries have given in to the mullahs. Hence, the process to develop the nuclear bomb has continued.

Had the appeasers showed some resolve against the regime in January 2010 when the UNSCR 1737 was adopted, regime’s move to the atom bomb would have been stopped six years ago. In the words of Gholamreza Aghazadeh, former Chief of regime’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran: in that case, the West did not need to sit down and negotiate in the minute 90 (on the verge of attaining the nuclear bomb).

By NCRI