IRGC: Chief proliferators of weapons of mass destruction
Fox News, November 14, 2007
Alireza Jafarzadeh
On October 25, 2007, the
United States designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corp (IRGC), nine of its affiliate organizations, as well as
its top commanders, as proliferators of weapons of mass
destruction under the Executive Order 13382. One of the
units of the IRGC, known as the Qods Force, was also
designated under the Executive Order 13224, as a terrorist
organization. The question is — what do we know about IRGC's
nuclear weapons involvement and how do we know it?
According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), which was first to uncover more than two decades of
clandestine nuclear weapons program in August 2002, the IRGC
involvement with the bomb goes back two decades.
In 1983, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, Tehran started
a strategic nuclear research and development program for
military purposes under the IRGC's control; a special
research and development unit was formed at the IRGC, and a
number of the experts of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
were hired to initiate the secret nuclear project.
By 1987, the IRGC had set up research and development
centers at various universities throughout Iran, including
at Tehran and Shiraz Universities as well as Sharif
University of Technology. In 1987, the IRGC hired 14 Sharif
graduates.
The same year, the then IRGC's Supreme Commander, Mohsen
Rezaii, was allotted a budget of $800 million for nuclear
research.
In 1987, the notorious Pakistani nuclear scientist and the
father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb AQ Khan, in his secret
trip to Iran, met with senior commanders of the IRGC,
including Brig. Gen. Mohammad Eslami to assist Tehran in the
development of its nuclear weapons program.
A unit at Tehran's northern Niavaran neighborhood operated
clandestinely and had already developed active relations
with Russia and Pakistan.
Between 1987 and 1992, the IRGC had already engaged in
experiments on implosion. In 1992, Tehran's then-president,
Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, developed a three-step plan in
order to overcome a major obstacle Tehran had faced; foreign
technology and expertise.
Rafsanjani called for expanding the resources beyond
Pakistan and urged the officials to get the required
technology and expertise, even through smuggling. He also
embarked on sending Iranian experts to Europe to infiltrate
and steal European technology and finally to hiring experts
or purchasing enriched uranium from the former Soviet
republics.
In 1993, the Defense Ministry, already dominated by the
IRGC, expanded its operations in Tehran's ambitious nuclear
weapons program. Several universities were formed with the
objective of focusing on the nuclear weapons program,
including Imam Hussein and Malek Ashtar universities in
Tehran and Isfahan respectively.
By 2003, the IRGC had up to 400 nuclear experts and
scientists who were primarily transferred from the Atomic
Energy Organization of Iran to the Defense Ministry.
IRGC Brig. Gen. Ali Hosseini-Tash has been overseeing the
nuclear weapons program of Iran. He was until 2005, the
deputy Defense Minister and is now a member of the Supreme
National Security Council.
One of the nuclear sites run by the IRGC was in
Lavisan-Shian area in Tehran. The site was exposed in 2003
by the NCRI, but before the IAEA was allowed to visit this
site in June 2004, the buildings were completely razed, top
soil was removed and trees were cut off.
Center for Readiness and New Advanced Defensive Technology
in Lavisan-2 was exposed by the NCRI in 2004. This nuclear
site, located at a military complex, replaced the
Lavisan-Shian site. One of the most senior nuclear experts
of the IRGC, named Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was in charge of
operations there.
In 2004, the NCRI, once again revealed that Parchin military
complex near Tehran, run by the Defense Ministry. A section
of the site is used for laser enrichment under the
supervision of an IRGC expert Mahammad Amin Bassam.
The Malek Ashtar University was established in 1986 for
nuclear research and development in the city of Isfahan in
central Iran. It later set up branches in Karaj and Tehran
and is engaged in nuclear and missile research.
Similarly, the Imam Hussein University is one of the most
important universities run by the IRGC. At this university,
now one of the most advanced nuclear R&D centers of Iran,
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and Fereydoon Abbassi, both IRGC
officers, have used the services of other universities to
advance the IRGC nuclear weapons program.
Since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in summer 2005,
Iran has stepped up taking the program underground. In March
2005, the NCRI revealed an underground facility in Parchin
military complex. It later exposed a series of tunnels used
for WMD in Tehran and other places.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiators under Ahmadinejad have all
been IRGC commanders. Former negotiator Ali Larijani was
replaced by Saeed Jalili. Ali Hosseini-Tash was another IRGC
commander involved in the nuclear program, who now sits on
the powerful Supreme National Security Council. Brig. Gen.
Ahmad Vahidi, a former commander in the notorious Qods
(Jerusalem) Force and one of five Iranian officials
implicated by the Interpol in November in the bombing of the
Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentia, is now
the deputy Defense Minister and in charge of the nuclear
weapons program.
Many members of Congress believe that the designation of the
IRGC as proliferators was long overdue and needs to be
followed by the next move, namely the removal of the main
Iranian opposition, the NCRI and the MEK from the State
Department's list of terrorist organizations.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of
"The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming
Nuclear Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
Prior to becoming a contributor for FOX, and until August
2003, Jafarzadeh acted for a dozen years as the chief
congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S.
representative office of Iran's parliament in exile, the
National Council of Resistance of Iran.
