Former IDF Intelligence Head: NIE Will Enable Iran to Get Nukes

[Jerusalem Post] Iran's covert nuclear weapons program is continuing, and the American intelligence community's misassessment of it has opened the door for Iran to achieve its nuclear ambitions, the former head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, warned on Tuesday at a Hebrew University seminar. Noting that he had headed Military Intelligence at the time of the ostensible Iranian "halt" in 2003, Ze'evi-Farkash said the Iranians, recognizing that the international community had discovered their covert weapons program, set about hiding its traces, but then resumed their activities. For instance, weapons system development at the Lavizan site, identified by Iranian opposition groups, was halted and moved elsewhere, and all traces of activity were removed. He noted that the Iranian Shihab-3 missile, with a range of 1,500 km and a 700-kg warhead, was already operational. "We saw [such] missiles, in Iranian maneuvers, pointed at Tel Aviv and at Riyadh," he said. Ze'evi-Farkash cited longer-range missiles in development, gradually bringing Europe into range and even, by 2010, the east coast of the U.S.


2007-12-19 01:00:00

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