Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 11.13.2005:

Stolen Laptop reveals Iran's Nuclear Aims

Willian Broad and David Sanger, The New York Times:

In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency ... and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer [with] more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting.

... the intelligence has sold well among countries like Britain, France and Germany, which reviewed the documents as long as a year ago, it has been a tougher sell with countries outside the inner circle.

The computer contained studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead, said European and American officials who had examined the material, including a telltale sphere of detonators to trigger an atomic explosion. The documents specified a blast roughly 2,000 feet above a target - considered a prime altitude for a nuclear detonation. ...

... nuclear analysts at the international atomic agency studied the laptop documents and found them to be credible evidence of Iranian strides, European diplomats said. A dozen officials and nuclear weapons experts in Europe and the United States with detailed knowledge of the intelligence said in interviews that they believed it reflected a concerted effort to develop a warhead. "They've worked problems that you don't do unless you're very serious," said a European arms official. "This stuff is deadly serious." READ MORE

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Adnkronos International reported on the latest purges in the Iranian government. Ahmadinejad is now replacing regional governors with prison directors, with some asking if he is intent on turning Iran into a mega prison. He is also replacing bankers with IRGC commanders.
• Iran Focus added that capital flight in Iran over the past fortnight reached its highest recorded level since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
• Radio Free Europe reported that Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov met today with Iranian nuclear officials to discuss Russia's role in helping Tehran develop nuclear-power plants.
• BBC News reported that Senior Russian envoy Igor Ivanov arrived in Iran with a proposal aimed at resolving the international dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.
• Telegraph reported that Iran has insisted upon its right to enrich its own uranium, rejecting a Russian proposal that the sensitive atomic fuel work be carried out abroad.
• MosNews reported that Russians are divided in their opinions on the nature of relations between Russia and Iran. Thirty-one per cent of those polled believe Iran to be friendly towards Russia, 25 per cent — unfriendly, while 43 per cent were undecided.
• The Telegraph UK published a first person account of the recent hostage taking of two British citizens and an Australian.
• Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard reported that the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran may unintentionally have helped undermine clerical rule in the country.
• And finally, The White House released a transcript of President Bush's speech Friday, at the Tobyhanna Army Depot where he discussed the war on terror, with references to Syria and Iran.