[Shadow_Group] Fw: Colin Powell - jumping through the hoops - before making his exit.)

Tue Nov 23 03:56:14 PST 2004

(Colin Powell - jumping through the hoops - before making his exit.)

ABC News

Nov 17, 2004 - By Saul Hudson

MANAUS, Brazil (Reuters) - The United States has seen information
suggesting Iran is working on the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead
on a missile, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday. 

"I have seen some information that would suggest they have been actively
working on delivery systems . you don't have a weapon until you can put
it in something that can deliver a weapon," he told reporters during a
brief stop in Brazil on his way to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
meeting in Chile. 

"I'm talking about what one does with a warhead," Powell said. "We are
talking about information that says they not only have (the) missiles but
information that suggests they are working hard about how to put the two
together."

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The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and
wants the matter to be addressed by the U.N. Security Council, which
could impose sanctions. Tehran says its nuclear program is aimed at
generating electricity. 

U.S. officials have estimated that Iran is three to five years from
developing a nuclear weapons, but some independent experts have said it
could obtain one sooner. 

Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace's Non-Proliferation Project, said arms control experts have long
assumed that to the extent Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons
and missiles it was also pursuing the separate technological challenge of
mating them. 

"Powell seems to be hinting at some new information that he has
indicating that they are pushing to actually make this warhead design
(work) with their existing missiles," Cirincione said. "We have all
assumed that Iran is trying to do this." 

TECHNICAL CHALLENGE 

Cirincione said it took considerable expertise to shrink a nuclear bomb
to fit on a missile with a one-ton (-tonne) payload and to make it sturdy
enough to survive rocket launch and reentry, calling this "a whole
separate technological" challenge. 

Powell's disclosure came as the United States and the U.N. nuclear
watchdog agency - the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency -
jockeyed over Iran's nuclear program. 

On Tuesday, the IAEA, summarizing its two-year probe of Iran's nuclear
activities, said Tehran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear
materials to a weapons program. 

Although the agency did not rule out the possibility that secret atomic
activities existed, the report was a victory for Iran, which has been
fighting off U.S. efforts to refer the issue to the U.N. Security
Council. 

European negotiations this week produced an Iranian promise to halt
uranium enrichment activities from Nov. 22 and a U.S. official
acknowledged this would prevent the IAEA board from sending the matter to
the Security Council at its Nov. 25 meeting. 

Instead, the Bush administration will try to obtain a board promise to
immediately refer Iran to the Security Council at some future point if,
as many U.S. officials expect, Tehran reneges on the deal, this official
said. 

Separately, Powell said he could not corroborate details of a report by
an exiled Iranian opposition group that Iran got weapons-grade uranium
and a nuclear bomb design from Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani scientist
who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad. 

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