It happened one night

For seven years the US maintained that Iran was attempting to develop nuclear weapons. However, a new US national intelligence estimate (NIE), released on December 3, 2007, has concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

The assessment that the programme remains frozen represents the consensus view of 16 US intelligence agencies. This finding of the US intelligence community is consistent with that of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The Iranian foreign ministry has welcomed the US report.

The finding, however, challenges the views of President Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney who warned in October this year that if Iran continued on the present course the international community would impose serious strictures.

The French foreign minister talked about the inevitability of war if Iran did not stop its uranium enrichment and efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Security Council, with unanimous support of five permanent members, imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran on the ground that Iran was defying the international community’s demand to halt its uranium enrichment programme.

In 2005, the NIE of US assessed with high confidence that Iran was very keen to develop nuclear weapons. However, there was a caveat that Iran was not unmovable in this respect. The NIE also assessed that Iran was unlikely to reach weapon capability before early or the middle of the next decade.

In 2007, the NIE concludes with high confidence that Iran halted its nuclear programme in the fall of 2003. It says that the programme was not restarted and that Iran would be able to accumulate enough enriched uranium for a possible weapon between 2010-15.

It is possible that there is a gap between the occurrence of an event and information agencies collecting information about it and assessing it. It is obvious that during 2005 intelligence on the Iranian decision to halt its weapon acquisition effort had not reached Washington and that intelligence became available only in the current year. When the report of the director-general of IAEA was considered in the board of governors in September 2005 the agency could not certify that there were no clandestine activities or equipment in Iran. At that stage it was clear that Iranians had not come clear and told IAEA about their transactions with A Q Khan of Pakistan.

Iran decided to halt the weapon acquisition effort in the fall of 2003. On October 4, 2003, US and British intelligence services boarded the ship BBC China and seized centrifuge equipment which was on its way to Libya from Dubai where Khan’s nuclear Walmart was headquartered. The Iranian nuclear weapon effort was based on collaboration with Khan. Iran’s centrifuges — the two models P-1 and P-2 — originated from Khan’s laboratory.

Therefore, one wonders whether the boarding of the ship BBC China, winding up of Khan’s Dubai-based operations and halting of Iran’s weapons effort are related developments.

In February 2004, Khan publicly confessed on Pakistan TV about his proliferation activity. With the capture of the cargo of BBC China, Libya publicly gave up all nuclear ambitions and cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency and MI-6.

All this happened soon after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. This flurry of developments within a short period perhaps goes to explain why Iran halted its nuclear weapons effort in the fall of 2003.

It is obvious that Iranian cooperation with IAEA was less than optimal and continues to be so. The director-general in his statement on the NIE has said that it tallies with IAEA’s consistent statements over the last few years.

Although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons programme or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran. Iranians have clarified many of the issues raised by IAEA since the discovery of the clandestine centrifuge programme and improved their credibility vis-a-vis the IAEA.

Perhaps, if IAEA and US had been allowed direct access to Khan the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme could have been clear at an earlier stage.

However, there is no denying that Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons programme supported by Khan and kept IAEA out of the picture. Therefore, India’s votes in the IAEA in 2005-06 were fully justified.

Fortunately, a realistic intelligence assessment on Iranian nuclear programme has emerged and the kind of motivated misassessment as was seen in the case of Iraqi WMD programme has been averted. Given the kind of political pressure being exerted by the US president, vice-president, the administration and legislative leaders on the Iranian nuclear issue, NIE assessors have displayed enormous courage in coming out with their finding.

The credibility of the US intelligence process has taken a beating in recent times. Their assessments on Iraq’s and Iran’s nuclear programmes were off the mark.

Recent books such as Shopping for Bombs by Gordon Corera and Deception by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have brought to light US’s acceptance of Pakistan’s China-supported nuclear programme.

Can India handle Terrorist attack?

Nothing better and logical should be expected from highly corrupt politicians & political parties, equally corrupt officials and bureaucrats. All is for sale with money and terrorists have plenty of funds to throw to these corrupt people.

A reality Check for IITs -An expert's Views/Still, Miles to go!!!!!!!!!!!

He Bhagwan! When we Indians learn to be modest! I am a post graduate from IIT:Kharagpur; a Masters in Aluminium Technology from Volgograd: Russia and an MBA from Leeds :UK and a very senior PSU working executive for 35 years who has travelled the length and width of the world and have been interacting with Delhi and Mumbai IITs regarding industrial research over last 5 years. How many noble lauriates teach in our IITs or have received guest lectures from them over last deacde? What is the volume strength of the reference library? How confortable and hygenic are the working and living conditions of students and research scholors at our IITs? In PG studies- what is the ratio of students to sq ft area? Do the corridors of Worton have 'paan' stained corridors and dingy teachers' rooms and smelly canteens and dining halls? Yes- the students are 'creame-da-la- creame' and our IITs are great basically for the quality of students it gets- but teachers- infrastructure and reasearch quality would take centuries and not just decades to catch up with an average western universities, what to talk of Worton, Harvard, Princetan, California, Pardue, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester,Leeds, Yorks, Edinburg, Shefield, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Christchurch, Toranto, Waterloo, Amesterdam, geneve, Lion, Paris, Rio etc.etc. etc. (Yes- I have visited most of them! There are three places I always make it a point to visit in every city and country - the fish market, the acheological meuseum and the university campus!). For heavens sake - stop singing in parise of our self proclaimed great institutions. We have a long way to go to catch up with the best! As for salaries- Engineers are needed in Finance depts of banks and financial institutions as project analysts and venture caapital evaluatore. All our Indian banks also recruit Engineers for such job. There is no competition to pure engineering graduates from CAs or MBAs for such jobs. Engineer MBAs with project finance and operations research specialisations and relevant work experience are ver expensive and command 2-3 times the salararies you have quoted. In USA- a simple fresh graduate, from any art, humanities or science backgroung, without any brilliant academic achievementw ould expect a salary of $35 to 60,000 PA when placed in a smaller and a less expensive location. At the high end of placement, say New York, Chicago, California etc, the salary range would be $50,000 to 75,000 for the same job. Atop achiever or a student with graduate degrees or a product from the top 5-10 schools in USA, can expect double of these annual wages. All in all- the wage structure in the west is drived from a complicated formula covering mnay factors. Top Indian brains comming out of IITs are excellent raw material fro retraining for any enterprise anywhere in the world. Thats all and no More!!!!!!!!! I know it since my only son- s super brain - has been out of India with full scholorships since he was 14 yrs old and is currently working in the USA after a triple major graduation with 'Mortor Award"! So this mental block that 'we are the graetest' is doing nothing but only making us Indians vunerable to flattery and international