Iranian nuclear weapon plans go back to 2002, secret documents reveal

These documents, if true, undermine the basis of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran deal, signed in 2015 by the US, Iran, France, the UK, Germany, China and Russia

By YONAH JEREMY BOB, AARON REICH
A general view of the Bushehr main nuclear reactor, Iran (photo credit: REUTERS/RAHEB HOMAVANDI)
A general view of the Bushehr main nuclear reactor, Iran
(photo credit: REUTERS/RAHEB HOMAVANDI)
A secret Iranian document revealed in a Daily Mail report bolsters the argument that Iran intended to develop nuclear warheads.
The document, which was one of a massive treasure trove taken by a Mossad raid on Tehran in January 2018, outlines the proposals of several scientists for a nuclear warhead, which were approved by the Iranian regime’s top nuclear official, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Until the Mossad obtained the documents, there were EU countries and other nations that believed, or gave lip service, to Iran’s claims that its nuclear program was peaceful and not military.
The document and blueprints will be the focus of a new report by the Friends of Israel Initiative (FOII), an NGO of several foreign policy experts and former presidents and prime ministers, currently chaired by former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
According to the report, Israeli officials briefed and provided FOII with the document in order to prove the military ambitions of Iran’s nuclear studies, despite official regime statements to the contrary.
“Iran intended to become a fully operational nuclear state,” the report states, according to the Daily Mail.
Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented highlights in April 2018 from the appropriated documents, including proof that Iran had been seeking until 2003 to develop five nuclear bombs, the Islamic Republic’s flimsy peaceful nuclear program had already been exposed.
However, the new document gives new details about exactly how Tehran would go about developing a nuclear warhead to place on a ballistic missile for delivery of a nuclear weapon.
The FOII officials have also argued that the new document undermines the basis of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran deal, signed in 2015 by the US, Iran, France, the UK, Germany, China and Russia.
Until April 2018 when the Mossad documents were revealed, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that it had not seen unequivocal evidence that Iran’s nuclear program was military.
Although the IAEA started to tone down statements validating Iran’s peaceful nuclear past after April 2018, it never formally condemned Tehran for seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
While the IAEA is currently in a conflict with Iran about nuclear materials which the Mossad revealed were located at Turquzabad in the summer of 2018, the inspection agency has merely said that the Islamic Republic has failed to explain the issue.
The latest discovery about Iranian nuclear warheads makes the idea of Iran having a peaceful nuclear program until 2003 even more difficult to defend.
The new document is dated November 28, 2002. It details a “senior Iranian official requesting the parameters of a warhead fitted on a missile.”
Scribbled in the top left corner of the document is a note from Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s nuclear science chief. Fekhrizadeh writes, “In the name of God. Right now in a treatment process. Please archive the original script of the document. Fakhrizadeh.”
Until recent weeks, defenders of the 2015 nuclear deal said that none of the documents should undermine the deal as the only relevant question was whether Iran had stopped working on a military nuclear program during negotiations and after the deal.
However, earlier in January, Iran declared itself free from the deal’s nuclear limits.
In response, the EU-3 threatened to snap back UN sanctions against Iran.
China and Russia have stood by Iran, saying the Trump administration is to blame for the current standoff for pulling out of the nuclear deal in May 2018.
The Trump administration and Israel have said that the nuclear deal was flawed as it expired between 2023-2030, allowed Iran to do ballistic missile tests and did not limit Iran’s expansionist intentions in the Middle East.


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