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The Origins of Iran's Nuclear Plants

Chris | 01.02.2007 16:57 | Analysis | Terror War | Sheffield

Although it now seems that the preferred argument to justify expanding the US-UK imperial slaughter in the Middle East to Iran is the alledged support for insurgents in Iraq, this wasn't the case until recently — the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme was the justification, and the nuclear plants the planned targets.

Using the Shah to Promote Nuclear Plants in the 1970's
Using the Shah to Promote Nuclear Plants in the 1970's


But what is the origin of the Iranian nuclear industry? Consider the above advert from the 1970's featuring the Shah of Iran, which was paid for by a group of nuclear industry contractors.

And consider this extract from an article in the Washington Post:

Lacking direct evidence, Bush administration officials argue that Iran's nuclear program must be a cover for bomb-making. Vice President Cheney recently said, "They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy."

Yet Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and outgoing Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held key national security posts when the Ford administration made the opposite argument 30 years ago.

...

After balking initially, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete "nuclear fuel cycle" -- reactors powered by and regenerating fissile materials on a self-sustaining basis.

That is precisely the ability the current administration is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring today.

...

The Ford administration -- in which Cheney succeeded Rumsfeld as chief of staff and Wolfowitz was responsible for nonproliferation issues at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency -- continued intense efforts to supply Iran with U.S. nuclear technology until President Jimmy Carter succeeded Ford in 1977.

That history is absent from major Bush administration speeches, public statements and news conferences on Iran.

In an opinion piece on Iran in The Post on March 9, Kissinger wrote that "for a major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources." White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited the article during a news briefing, saying that it reflected the administration's current thinking on Iran.

In 1975, as secretary of state, Kissinger signed and circulated National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled "U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation," which laid out the administration's negotiating strategy for the sale of nuclear energy equipment projected to bring U.S. corporations more than $6 billion in revenue. At the time, Iran was pumping as much as 6 million barrels of oil a day, compared with an average of about 4 million barrels daily today.

...

Documents show that U.S. companies, led by Westinghouse, stood to gain $6.4 billion from the sale of six to eight nuclear reactors and parts. Iran was also willing to pay an additional $1 billion for a 20 percent stake in a private uranium enrichment facility in the United States that would supply much of the uranium to fuel the reactors.

Naas said Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld all were in positions to play significant roles in Iran policy then, "but in those days, you have to view Kissinger as the main figure." Requests for comment from the offices of Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld went unanswered.

"It is absolutely incredible that the very same players who made those statements then are making completely the opposite ones now," said Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Do they remember that they said this? Because the Iranians sure remember that they said it," said Cirincione, who just returned from a nuclear conference in Tehran -- a rare trip for U.S. citizens now.

And remember what was said last March by the UN's nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei:

"There is no military solution to this situation. It's inconceivable. The only durable solution is a negotiated solution. I work on facts. We fortunately were proven right in Iraq. We were the only ones that said at the time that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons and I hope this time people will listen to us..."

War, as ever, need the support of the people and this generally involves, at best, governments telling lots of lies; at worst, carrying out attacks and blaming them on the other side. Thanks to the internet, people can more easily discover the truth about government lies by spending some time and doing some research, but is enough of this happening over the looming war with Iran and are people going to get out on the streets to stop it in time? I hope so but I fear the worst.

See also General Strike against Iran being Nuked - can anything less prevent it?

Chris

Comments

Hide the following 11 comments

Nice one Chris

01.02.2007 17:10

Finding that advert.Let Don Rumpy know Iran may want to go green so no to oil.Simple enough.

Digger


nucear power

01.02.2007 21:03

First of all, I don't really go with you in the point, that the internet helps discovering the truth, I would rather say, that it's really effective in covering the truth, because every idiote can put up some kind of conspiracy theory.
But the main point is, that it would be the worst thing ever to allow regime of islamofascists (whose target it is to destroy Israel), to have just the means necessary to built an atomic bomb. So comming from this point of view I think it is nesessary to prevent Iran from becoming involved into this technology by all means.

truthseeker


Awesome Graphic

01.02.2007 23:41

"Truthseeker", when you use that ridiculous rhetoric and disseminate LIES, you only show yourself to be the Plant everyone knows you to be.

Why not leave IMC, and head over to Freeper-ville or some other place, where spewing your ignorance won't stand out like a sore thumb?

Israel & US Under Fascists Are The Real Threat We Face


that's what indy is about

02.02.2007 14:09

Call it ridiculous if you want, but I see myself as a radical left wing person and therefor Indy just made, to express those views. But yeah, you are write, I don't follow this really low level, which is used on indy, where it's allways on the site of islamists.
Israel was founded as a direct consequence of the holocaust and is 100% necessary in it's existance and so are all there actions of defence, supportet by the USA, may I quote here a real true saying "If The arabic states put down their weapons, their will be peace, If Israel puts down its weapons, there will be no more Israel".
But ok, by comparing Israel and the Us with fascists you show really clear that you are an uneducated antisemitic fool, exchange victim and agressor

truthseeker


assumed idenitities

02.02.2007 17:59

Just thought I'd point out on this thread that this isn't the regular 'truthseeker'.

I can see the advantages in anonymous posting but I also think people who choose to should be allowed to log-in and maintain an identity. That way we seperate the ID thieves and the unstable folk who can't maintain a credible id from the rest of us.

dp


Why so pro-Islamic?

02.02.2007 22:52

On Indymedia there is often a pro-Islamic bias that is perplexing. Since Islam, like Christianity, and other world religions, is built on lies and bigotry, why would left-leaning free-thinkers support it?

Phil Brick


Ahem ...

03.02.2007 01:52

"Call it ridiculous if you want"

Okay, and I did, because it is. And the ONLY people who use it are the hard-right nutters who haunt this site, in order to obstruct the activities of the activists and contributors here.

"I see myself as a radical left wing person"

Funny. Nobody else is so fooled.

"you are write, I don't follow this really low level, which is used on indy, where it's allways on the site of islamists."

I'm not sure I understand what that sentence even means ...

"Israel was founded as a direct consequence of the holocaust"

No, it was Enabled by the Holocaust, during which the Zionists responsible for this Colonial Project collaborated with Hitler, flew their flag within the Reich, and commented that any Jew who would not emmigrate to Palestine "deserved to be on the trains". Israel, itself, was a colonial project created by failed European businessmen and secular Jews, several of whom said it was either Zionism, or convert to Catholicism, in order to get ahead in business.

But it's interesting that you mentioned it at all ... Kinda exposes you again.

But I assume you're talking about the refuted quote, interestingly still perpetuated by the bulk of the tightly-controlled mainstream media, about 'wiping Israel off the map". It simply wasn't true.

Thought you'd especially like this source:

"WIPED OFF THE MAP" - The Rumor of the Century
by Arash Norouzi – January 18, 2007

Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran's President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, "Israel must be wiped off the map". Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made, as the following article will prove.

 http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=5866

He didn't make that statement (meanwhile, Israel is trying to wipe Palestine off the map), and Iran is not producing nuclear weapons, so why does the Extremist Israeli Government and its ally in Bush's PNAC Regime want to attack the country, possibly with nuclear weapons? There is no justification for such a thing. It appears the real threat comes from these Extremists, and no-one else.

"But ok, by comparing Israel and the Us with fascists"

They're not compared tro Fascists. They ARE Fascists, as noted by a great number of Academics, as these Regimes both satisfy the 14 Characteristics of Fascism.

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
 http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

The rest of your response is the usual, stale Libel-as-attack.

"Just thought I'd point out on this thread that this isn't the regular 'truthseeker'."

No, I'd imagined that.

"I can see the advantages in anonymous posting but I also think people who choose to should be allowed to log-in and maintain an identity."

I agree fully, even though I've experienced some site's Plant(s) marauding this information, and logging in as other users anyhow. The good thing about this is they can be positively-ID'ed by a site's adminstrators.

Why so Islamophobic?

"On Indymedia there is often a pro-Islamic bias that is perplexing."

No there isn't. It's just that most of the contributors here can see through the obvious Islamophobia being exuded by the Fascists who are demanding a perpetual war on the Arab World, based solely on their unsupported Conspiracy Theory about 911, which they appear to have carried out themselves.

This isn't about Islam. It's about defending people who are openly under attack, regardless of their race or religion, which is not important.

Regarding Lies


Freedom

03.02.2007 02:04

Seperate the unstable ones from the rest of us???
Ever more often the contributors to Indymedia seem like demented Daily Mail readers.

Is hatred of Israel a prerequisite to being a free thinker? Or are we allowed to think for ourselves?

Anarchist Wizard


...

03.02.2007 19:51

This is a really useful post, thankyou. Funny to see the Nuclear Power Industry endorsing Iran's building of nuclear power plants. Do you think they'd release the same articles now, with Ahmadinejad's smiling face 'Guess who's enriching Uranium now!'.
It goes to show, there is complete hypocrisy on the part of the US with regards to Iran. Also, although Iran sits on large reserves of oil, it actually is dependent on other countries to refine it, and actually imports a lot of oil as well. Iran has every reason, and every right to pursue other means of producing energy. And what with global warming taking center stage as the worlds number 1 problem, even we should be encouraging them to move away from burning fossil fuels!!!

I am also grateful for the article about how Ahmadinejad's quote was misrepresented, although I still think he's pretty nuts, like his holocaust denying conference shows. But he is nuts like, 'important world figures are really space lizards in disguise' nuts, not nuts like, 'Tell me when to press the nuclear button Lord, so we can start the apocalypse'. He is hardly going to nuke Israel, nobody in Iran wants that, the Iranian people just want to live their lives, without threat of being bombed by crazy redneck Texans and fanatical right-wing zionists.

But Zionism basically exists and sustains itself through fear. Fear of the past, and the horrors of the holocaust, and then through sustaining a level of paranoia and fear in the Jews, that Israel is their only salvation, only Israel can save them from all the billions of human beings who basically hate Jews, and would like nothing more than to murder them all.

Jews in Iran, although not sadly not equal to their muslim counterparts, have enjoyed a long history there, and certainly enjoy greater freedom and higher quality of life than the Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Israel is not the great salvation for the Jews. Its policies and actions are serving to increase hatred and suspicion towards the Jews in all parts of the world. It serves to seperate Jews from the rest of humanity behind a wall of steel, and in order to sustain its existence it has to use its militiary force to murder and steal, and maintain an apartheid-style system in the lands that it occupies. It is also completely dependent on US militiary aid, without which it wouldn't be nearly such an attractive place to live. It always has to adopt the most aggressive, bellicose position with those who demand equal rights for the Palestinians, because if it ever granted those rights, well, Israel as a Jewish majority state would no longer exist.

The Jewish people were not alone in being persecuted. The Roma were also killed in huge numbers in the Holocaust. But I don't see a load of people saying that a gypsy homeland is the solution to the terrible persecution they continue to suffer. One of the big problems of the modern world is every people with a distinct culture and language suddenly wanting their own nation state, and the resultant civil wars.

I had a crazy friend once, who was tired of the 'stupid people' of this country, and wanted to go off into some part of the world and make a new country. The idea of Israel is exactly like the idea of my friend. The problem is that you cannot avoid living with the rest of the world. You can't seperate yourself from it. There are too many people, and not enough space. If we don't find a way of living together, we will frankly all die, as climate change and limited water resources force us into conflict with each other. Nationalism, which includes Zionism, is not the answer, but in fact feeds the problem.

Hermes


Excellent post

07.02.2007 21:30


Wow - an incredible post, complete with a great graphic.

One point I'd like to make in response to other commentators is that it is not Iranian nuclear power that troubles the West, just access to fuel cycle technologies.

It's funny to compare US attitudes to the Shah with those to today's regime - both of them set up by the US, one way or another. Just goes to show that interfering in other people's countries really has to stop in this generation. I hope that Iraq will be the last interference. We'll be lucky.

R U D I


Sorry

15.02.2007 23:09

But how can indymedia have a bias when every fool (myself included) is contributing to it. Its a mess for sure, but unbiased it aint.

A Fool