Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 3.12.2006:

Tehran's secret underground bunkers.

• The Telegraph reported that Iran's leaders have built a secret underground emergency command centre in Teheran as they prepare for a confrontation with the West.

Iranians claim US wants peace talks. US denies.

• The Times reported that a senior Iranian intelligence official claimed to have a letter in Persian purportedly signed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad, inviting Iranian representatives to Iraq for talks. Khalilzad denied the report.

Iran threatens to use the oil weapon, again.

• Canada.com reported that Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.

Iranian regime nervous over unrest.

• SMCCDI reported that hundreds of Iranians used the occasion offered by a soccer match to protest against the Islamic republic regime.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s State Security Forces have arrested ten people in Tehran for distribution of fireworks days before Iranians celebrate a traditional “fire” festival.
• Rooz Online reported on the gathering of Iranian women on International Women’s Day turned violence when Iran’s prominent poetess, Simin Behbahani who has been losing her eye sight, was beaten up.

Iranian regime sought a ceasefire among its leaders.

• Rooz Online reported on a recent meeting of the leaders of the Iranian regime where they met to try to forge greater unity as international pressure builds on the regime.

Bush warns Iran to leave Iraq alone.

• FOX News reported that President Bush denounced any moves by Iran or Syria to interfere in Iraq's effort to build a democracy.

The Permanent Five meet on Iran, again.

• The Washington Post reported that the United States, backed by France and Britain, pressed Moscow and Beijing at a meeting of the council's five veto-wielding members to support the swift adoption of a Security Council statement.

Russian nuclear deal now impossible.

• MosNews reported that Russia considers a joint uranium enrichment venture with Iran impossible if the Iranian side fails to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands.

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

• Arutz Sheva reported that England's Foreign Minister Jack Straw says that the world should worry about disabling Israel's nuclear capabilities as much as it is concerned with preventing Iran from going nuclear.
• New York Times reported that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
• Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard reported how Bush wants to release the Saddam files but his intelligence chief stalls.
• And finally, Rooz Online reported that the head of Iran’s Islamic Propagation Organization announced that the US had launched its plan for the larger Middle East because of its threat from the re-appearance and return of the 12th Shiite Imam.