Yeah, how did iran learn that the US had been monitoring the weapons grade enrichment plant at Qom? Do they have spies in the CIA?
The central question becomes: How did our intelligence become known to the Iranians?
Apparently Obama never intended to make the discovery of Qom public. It was only after he learned that Iran had delivered a letter to the IAEA, finally acknowledging the site after learing that America had been monitoring it, that he went public.
But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was furiously preparing for a major public intelligence disclosure that it had not planned to make: that the U.S. had known for years about a previously undisclosed clandestine nuclear enrichment facility Iran has been building since 2005 in a mountain near Qom.
Interviews with administration and international officials, diplomats, non-proliferation and Iran experts suggest the administration had no plans to announce its suspicions before beginning international talks with Iran next week. But its hand was forced after learning some time during the week of a letter Iran had sent the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna acknowledging construction of a previously undisclosed facility.
http://www.politico.com/...
According to the White House:
We learned earlier this week that Iran has sent the IAEA a letter indicating that it is constructing an enrichment facility but providing no detailed information that would enable the IAEA to monitor the site," that White House-provided guidance said.
Why would the White House have preferred not to publicly disclose its Qom evidence, seemingly something of a smoking gun for the case that Iran hasn’t been transparent about even its current nuclear activities? Why was it only prompted to make the announcement after it learned of Iran’s letter to the IAEA?
"Because the Iranians are trying to get in front and create an argument that they didn't do anything wrong," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s George Perkovich told POLITICO. "So to try to block that, Obama had to get [it] out. We would have been better off not announcing and keeping it as leverage and a way to see if the Iranians kept their word in a future deal."
http://www.politico.com/...
I'm not really sure how keeping Qom private would have upped leverage against the Iranians. They prolly would have struck the same kind of IAEA inspection deal they've got now - that is allowing inspectors in three weeks hence, thus giving Iran time to clean it out, mask it's true purposes or wtf.
btw - El baradei just asked the Iranians to accept the additional protocol so that the IAEA could inspect any site they wish. There are at least a dozen sites in Iran suspected of carrying out nuclear weapons activities.
sure right. never gonna happen. Pure theater.
And why did El Baradei give Iran so much time till the inspections? it's almost like a wink and a nod to them that says, "Don't worry, we're looking out for you?" How much goddamn money has iran paid El Baradei all these years?! What a feckless bureaucrat.
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So Obama, apparently, was going to disclose that the US knew about Qom to the Iranians directly.
Obama directed intelligence officials to compile what they knew about the facility into a detailed briefing. "He had in mind the possibility that we would be talking to the Iranians," a senior official said, "and it was important that the talks be real. In the context of negotiations, we would present it to them directly. If there were no negotiations . . . it would have further cemented" an international consensus to take stronger action against Iran.
Officials said they also thought that years of harsh rhetoric and charges against Iran by the Bush administration had lacked specificity and engendered doubts, particularly among allies in Europe. "We wanted to be in a position where we got it right," an official said.
In early September, Iran suddenly announced its acceptance of the offer to negotiate, and the Oct. 1 meeting was set. Around the same time, U.S. officials learned that Iran was aware that its security had been breached. That knowledge, U.S. officials said, led directly to Iran's Monday letter to the IAEA, accompanied by an Iranian assertion that it was complying with IAEA rules requiring notification six months before the plant becomes operational.
The administration received word of the letter on Tuesday in New York, along with the IAEA's assurance that Iran's notification had been due years earlier, before construction started.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
So the point I'm making is that Obama had no plans to go public about the Qom plant. But somehow the Iranians got wind that the Americans had been monitoring it.
The question that needs to be asked is, "Has the CIA has been infiltrated by Iran?" How else did they find out that Qom was being monitored? And once they found out, they wanted to get out in front of the story and spew their usual bullshit that the plant didn't violate IAEA protocol and international law.
Iranian spies in the CIA. Quite likely.
moon