U.S. Shares Data With China, India to Build Iran Case

Carla Anne Robbins, The Wall Street Journal:

As the U.S. and Europe prepare to face off with Iran at the United Nations, the Bush administration dispatched intelligence experts to China and India last week to brief them on Tehran's alleged efforts to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

The decision to share the highly classified intelligence is a measure of the resistance the U.S. is meeting as it pushes, along with the Europeans, for Iran's nuclear activities to be referred to the U.N. Security Council. READ MORE

Even after Tehran resumed some sensitive nuclear activities last month and ended negotiations with the Europeans, the U.S. and its allies face a challenge persuading China, Russia and other key nations that the situation is grave enough -- or Iran's weapons program advanced enough -- for international reprisals.

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has damaged U.S. credibility, making it even harder to press the case against Iran.

The missile intelligence, which U.S. officials acquired covertly last year, documents Iran's efforts from 2001 to 2003 to adapt its Shahab-3 missile to deliver a "black box" that experts at U.S. nuclear-weapons laboratories believe almost certainly is a nuclear warhead. The data, which include tens of thousands of pages of Farsi-language computer files, diagrams and missile test results, don't include a nuclear-warhead design. But according to several officials who have been briefed on the intelligence, the specifications for size, shape, weight and detonation don't vary and make no sense for conventional weapons.

The U.S. has already shared the intelligence with Britain, which supported the Iraq war, and with France and Germany, which opposed it, as well as top officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Intelligence officials in all three European countries have been impressed with the depth and apparent authenticity of the finding, according to European officials.

The U.S. has also offered to brief Russia on the missile data and may share the findings with other countries in coming days, officials said.

The confrontation with Iran will be a central topic at this week's U.N. summit in New York and at next week's IAEA board meeting in Vienna. Iran's new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to try to deflect Western pressure when he speaks to the U.N. today and later in the week. U.S. and European officials said he might call for wider negotiations -- possibly bringing in China, Russia and India -- after failing to persuade Europe and the U.S. that his country's nuclear program is solely for generating power.

President Bush speaks to the world body today . Officials last night were discussing what, if anything, he would say about Iran at a meeting that is focused on alleviating poverty and U.N. overhauls. Mindful of the ill will created by the Iraq war, the U.S. has left much of the public lobbying until now to the Europeans.

Recognizing the pivotal role China and Russia will play as veto-wielding members of the Security Council, Mr. Bush said he planned to "speak candidly about Iran" in private meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It is very important for the world to understand that Iran with nuclear weapons will be incredibly destabilizing," he said. After Mr. Bush's meeting with the Chinese leader last night, White House Asia expert Michael Green told reporters that Mr. Hu told the President that he would press Iran to live up to its IAEA obligations but didn't commit to supporting a Security Council referral. (See related article on page A8.)

In recent days, Russia and India, among others, have said publicly that they would oppose a Security Council referral.

Iran insists that it has a right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program -- an argument that resonates around the world, especially when backed by Iran's considerable oil wealth. Mr. Bush yesterday acknowledged that right but said constraints need to be imposed to ensure that Iran also doesn't "gain the expertise" to produce nuclear weapons.

U.N. nuclear monitors have repeatedly cited Tehran for concealing and lying about its nuclear efforts. But without solid proof of a weapons program, many members of the IAEA board have resisted a showdown. Some are fearful that a referral could be a first step toward a military confrontation. Other countries have more mercantilist interests, which Iran has deftly played upon. With energy-hungry China and India, in particular, Tehran has emphasized its oil supply; with Moscow its willingness to buy nuclear technology,

In August, Iran restarted its uranium conversion plant, an important first step toward the production of enriched uranium either for nuclear fuel or a nuclear weapon. While the Europeans repeatedly warned Tehran that such a move would provoke a swift referral to the Security Council, neither they nor the Americans have been able to win over a large block of the IAEA's 35-member board, which usually acts on consensus.

U.S. officials said yesterday that it is too early to rate their chances for a referral next week and that much will depend on how conciliatory or confrontational the Iranian leader chooses to be during his meetings in New York.

Some U.S. officials have begun arguing that a simple majority of the board would be enough to go ahead, and that those votes are there. In recent days, the U.S. has come down especially hard on the Indians -- who have status among the nonaligned -- warning that a White House offer to sell it civilian technology could be scuttled if the U.S. Congress believes New Delhi is too supportive of Iran.

But without the support of Beijing and Moscow a referral would likely stall once it got to the U.N.

In a conversation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this week, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei suggested the U.S. and Europe might seek a resolution that gives Iran a few more weeks to suspend uranium conversion and provide more access to agency monitors or face a referral.

Write to Carla Anne Robbins at carla.robbins@wsj.com