DESPITE IRAN’S progress since 2007 toward producing enriched uranium, the US state department’s intelligence analysts continue to think that Tehran will not be able to produce weapons-grade material before 2013, according to a newly disclosed document.
The updated assessment, by the state department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasises that the analysis is based on Iran’s technical capability and is not a judgment about “when Iran might make any political decision” to produce highly-enriched uranium.
The intelligence community agrees that a political decision has not yet been made. According to the assessment, analysts think such a decision is unlikely to be made “for at least as long as international scrutiny and pressure persist”.
The views on Iran’s nuclear programme were made by the state department’s intelligence arm and are contained among answers in a document supplied by director of national intelligence Dennis Blair to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following a hearing in February.
Among items included in the document is an analysis of Russia’s military status. Mr Blair concluded the Russian military “is a shadow of its Soviet predecessor”. Its conventional forces are “not a direct military threat to central or western Europe”, and its ability to project large forces abroad “is very limited”.
In fact, according to the intelligence analysis, Moscow appears to be emphasising the creation of a “smaller, more professional, mobile, survivable, highly technical military”, one more adapted to deal with countries on its borders, except for China.
As a sign of the limitations, Moscow has “consistently” kept its defence spending to less than 3 per cent of its gross national product in recent years. US defence spending this year is about 4.7 per cent of its GDP.
The collapse of world oil prices, along with the worldwide economic slowdown, has helped curb Russia’s defence spending. The intelligence report says that the country faces its first recession in years and its companies are some $450 billion in debt to western financial institutions.
Closer to home, Mr Blair said the intelligence community continues to look for al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US and that the FBI is particularly interested in people with contacts with “militants in Pakistan’s FATA,” the area near the Afghanistan border. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)
In the 50 days between the presidential election on June 12th and the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president on August 5th, Amnesty International says Iran has executed no less than 115 prisoners, more than two a day.
“Even compared to the appallingly high rate of executions that has been so long a feature of human rights in Iran, this is a significant increase,” said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International.
From the start of 2009 up to June 12th, Amnesty International recorded at least 196 executions, placing Iran second in the world behind China for the number of executions carried out.