Israel Matzav

Asghari spilling Iranian nuclear secrets to CIA

YNet is reporting this morning that - as first reported in March - missing Iranian intelligence officer Ali Resa Asghari has defected to the United States with his family and has provided valuable information to the CIA about Iran's nuclear program.

Asgari, who according to reports is being held in a top-secret military installation, has been able to shed a new light on much of the Iranian regime's most inner workings, especially regarding the Iranian nuclear development project.

Up until now, Iran – according to known intelligence – has been building two nuclear plants, in Arak and Bushehr, and has been using centrifuges to enrich uranium.

Iran, Asgari told his interrogator's is working in another, stealth path, toward achieving its nuclear goal.

This third method involves attempts to enrich uranium by using laser beams along with certain chemicals designed to enhance the process. These trials are held in a special weapons facility in Natanz.

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Iran, said Asgari, is making special efforts to hide this path from the West, keeping it as a fallback in case international sanctions or a military strike should shut down or destroy the existing plants.

This new information has those who know its details in full worried.

The fact the Iranians are trying to find new ways to enrich uranium is not new onto [should be unto. CiJ] itself, but the progress made, at least according to the information given by Asgari, is much greater than was suspected.

"You have to applaud the Iranian intelligence for being [able. CiJ] to keep this a secret for so many years," said a US source.

Western intelligence agencies are now busy analyzing the information Asgari provided them with, and estimating just how long is it before Iran has a nuclear bomb.

This, said the US source, is one of the reasons why the information given by Asgari, implementing [should be implicating. CiJ] Iran in various global terror activities, has remained under wraps.

Iran, added the source, had caught on to Asgari's defection, and had taken preventive actions to protect its intelligence assets, in anticipation of the information he may reveal.

Unfortunately, Asghari has not been very helpful in solving the mystery of what happened to IAF navigator Ron Arad.

Asghari obviously has information that could be helpful to both the US and Israel. The question is how they will use it. I don't expect a strike at Iran's nuclear plants before the summer 0f 2008 unless there is pretty concrete evidence that will be too late.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:27 PM