Members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran protest against the Iranian government: An interview With Alireza Jafarzadeh
Fox News, April 11, 2009
Foreign Affairs Analyst and Iran Expert
Transcript
Members of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran protest against the Iranian government
and its nuclear program in Berlin, Germany, in January 2006.
With his latest claim of progress in the advance of its
nuclear program - specifically, that Tehran is now producing
nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale," a claim discounted by
most foreign governments and private-sector analysts -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday once again
sought to up the ante in his country's long-running standoff
with the West. The claim came, moreover, just days after the
release of fifteen British sailors and marines taken captive
at gunpoint by Iranian naval units on the high seas and held
for nearly two weeks.
The news out of Iran thus raises many questions: How
believable is Ahmadinejad's latest claim of nuclear
progress? How deeply involved in the nuclear program are
Iran's armed forces? To what extent have inspectors from the
United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, been barred from relevant
sites? What was the true goal of - and who gave the final
orders for - the operation that seized the British sailors
and marines? How much support does Ahmadinejad enjoy from
Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini? And are
there, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed, new and
interesting lines of communication with elements inside the
Iranian regime that the West should be pursuing?
FOX News State Department Correspondent James Rosen explored
these and other questions with FOX News contributor Alireza
Jafarzadeh, an Iranian dissident and former official with
the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and the author
of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming
Nuclear Crisis." The NCRI has been branded a terrorist group
both by the Iranian regime and the State Department - a rare
instance of agreement between those two entities - because
of its links to a group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization,
that has carried out terrorist attacks inside Iran since the
1960s. However, the NCRI took the lead role in exposing the
broad scope of the Iranian nuclear program, particularly its
uranium enrichment activity at Natanz and the heavy water
production plant at Arak, in the fall of 2002, and has since
then consistently developed and publicized accurate
intelligence about the Iranian regime's work in these murky
areas. Rosen's interview with Jafarzadeh was conducted at
the FOX News bureau in Washington, D.C. on April 9, 2007 and
is reproduced below in its entirety, with only minor edits
for the sake of clarity. FOX News makes no endorsements
about the accuracy of Jafarzadeh's claims herein - only that
his views deserve serious consideration by all those
concerned about Iran and its contentious role on the world
stage.
Interview of Alireza Jafarzadeh by James Rosen
Washington, DC
April 9, 2007
JAMES ROSEN: What is your understanding of what the Iranians
actually announced today? Because I just watched Sean
McCormack's briefing at the State Department, and he was
saying "We're not exactly clear on what they're actually
saying." What is your understanding of what they were
saying?
ALIREZA JAFARZADEH: Well, the announcement that came from
Iran was basically bits and pieces of a larger announcement.
They said in a vague way at the beginning that they have the
ability to enrich uranium [at an] "industrial level,"
whatever that means. Then they announced later that they
have actually installed as many as 3,000 centrifuge machines
in Natanz. And once they were asked whether they have
injected uranium hexafluoride [gas] into the machines, they
basically said "Yes."
That was [Ali] Larijani?
That was Larijani, right....What the Iranian regime
announced today, which was basically installing 3,000
centrifuge machines and making them operational in the large
cascade halls in Natanz basically corroborates with what
I've been hearing from my sources for a long time. My
sources told me last year that Iran has as many as 5,000
centrifuge machines ready to be installed in the large
cascade halls. And what Tehran announced today corroborates
with those sources. We know for a fact that Iran has been
installing those centrifuge machines for months in the large
cascade halls; so it is conceivable that what Iran announced
is correct — that they have installed 3,000 centrifuge
machines and made them operational for what they call
enriching uranium to peaceful levels.
When someone like Larijani says that they have fed the
feedstock into the centrifuges...inserted the gas into the
centrifuges, that doesn't mean necessarily that the cascade
is operational. You can insert the gas and it might work and
it might not work, true?
It is true. It is possible that there are some technical
obstacles that they would still need to overcome. But to the
best of my understanding, the regime has already had the
ability to run cascades of 164 centrifuges on a couple of
cases before, and they don't have a major obstacle that they
really need to overcome. They have all the necessary
ingredients to really put together the centrifuge program.
They have the expertise, they have their experts to do it.
They have the equipment. They have all the resources that's
needed for that. So whether it's true or not today, it will
definitely be true in weeks from now. So we need to be
really concerned about what it means, you know — Iran
running 3,000 centrifuge machines with the ability to enrich
uranium. It would really put the regime one significant step
closer to building the bomb. Because once Iran has the
ability to enrich the uranium to what they call a peaceful
level, they're only a screwdriver's turn away from enriching
it further for the bomb.
You mentioned that your sources tell you — have been telling
you for some time — that they [the Iranians] have 5,000
centrifuges set up. This regime doesn't seem shy about
making the grandest claims for itself; so if they have 5,000
centrifuges up and running, why wouldn't they say 5,000? Why
would they scale it back and just say, "We have 3,000"?
Well, my sources were telling me they have 5,000 centrifuge
machines ready to be installed. Now how many of them have
been installed, it's yet to be determined. The regime claims
today that they have installed 3,000. They haven't said that
they don't have more than 3,000; in fact, Iran has said that
they're planning to install as many as 60,000 centrifuge
machines in the two large cascade halls in Natanz, which are
actually underground facilities. Iran has the ability to
build its own centrifuges. They are building most of the
parts in Isfahan and in Tehran, and they import the engines
from abroad.
Alireza, one of the questions that always comes up when the
subject of you comes up is: We all know that the United
States suffers from a deficit of reliable intelligence
coming out of Iran, in terms of what they call "human
intelligence," "signals intelligence." I suppose we do
better on signals intelligence because we have the
satellites and we have the National Security Agency , we
have that kind of technology. So the question that arises
about you, and the claims that you make, your organization
[the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which
Jafarzadeh formerly served as media relations director and
chief liaison for Capitol Hill] — even though we know that
you have been correct in the past — is: If the resources of
the United States government are not sufficient to enable us
to really put people on the ground in Iran, or to get the
kind of intelligence we need from the ground in Iran, how is
it that a group that is much less well-funded than the
United States of America, your group, can develop
intelligence about these matters and succeed in extracting
it from the country? How is it that a group that has not got
the funding available to it that the United States of
America has available to it can succeed where the United
States has failed in this regard? That's — do you understand
the question I'm asking you?
Absolutely. The reason that the main Iranian opposition,
known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has
been able to come up with much more valid and accurate
intelligence about the nuclear weapons program of Iran than
all the other intelligence agencies around the world is that
they are present in Iran. They have an extensive network
inside Iran, within the Iranian regime, that has direct
access to information not only on the nuclear weapons
program of Iran, but on a lot of other activities of the
Iranian regime in terms of terrorism, what the regime is
doing in Iraq, and in terms of its missile program. So it's
that kind of an extensive, widespread presence in Iran that
there is no other replacement for it. No signal
intelligence, no equipment, no satellite imagery can replace
an extensive Iranian opposition network inside Iran, within
the regime, that can provide information to the whole world
about the program, about the intentions, about what's going
on in those buildings, what are their plans, and what goes
on in the minds of the Iranian ayatollahs, what their bigger
ambition is, in terms of trying to get these bombs.
But to provide that information requires a means to provide
it, whether it's e-mail, telephone. There aren't that many
ways to get this information from those buildings to
Washington, DC. and presumably the United States — and
presumably it involves electronics. And so how is it that
you're able to manage that, and the United States, with its
extraordinary signals apparatus, doesn't get it first, even
before you get it? Or as you're getting it?
Well, that's the $64,000 question that the Iranian regime
has [been] trying to — I think more important than the
intelligence agencies is the Iranian regime itself is trying
to find out, you know, where the leaks are and how this
valuable, most crucial intelligence is consistently being
exposed by the main Iranian opposition, the National Council
of Resistance of Iran, over the years. And Tehran has not
succeeded in cutting the flow of intelligence outside of the
regime.
Has a single person that your organization has relied upon
been exposed and punished by the regime? Once? Has there
been a single case of it?
There has [sic] been a number of occasions that Tehran has
announced that they have actually arrested, identified and
arrested, the sources that led to intelligence regarding
Natanz, Arak, a number of other nuclear sites. But that
turned out to be not true. And in fact further information
was revealed right after Tehran's "successful" announcement
that they have arrested the sources of intelligence. So
clearly the Iranian opposition network in Iran as of now has
remained intact and has been extremely effective in exposing
a whole host of rogue behavior of the Iranian regime, both
in terms of the nuclear program and also what Iran is doing
in Iraq.
[...] Is it a difficulty for you in trying to sound the
alarms about the Iranian system — although I think the world
is pretty well sufficiently, now, much more so than they
were in 2002, attentive to the threat posed by Iran — but is
it a problem for you and your organization as you go about
your work that the American experience in Iraq, and WMD, and
Ahmed Chalabi, and the rest of it — you know, are you
constantly finding that you are likened to Chalabi? Like,
"Oh, we had expats — expatriates from Iraq who were telling
us all sorts of things about the Iraqi weapons program to
get us to go to war and to topple that regime, and we did so
on their word, and, you know, look what happened: There were
no WMD. Why should we believe an Iranian expatriate group
that, you know" — and I know you've already had some record
of success, at Natanz. But are you finding that that's a
problem for you? That kind of suspicion [after] the Chalabi
experience? Is that something that you hear about a lot?
Well, the Iranian opposition is not comparable to Ahmed
Chalabi and the INC — because Chalabi was being supported,
funded and sponsored by the U.S. government. He wanted to
push for the war against Iraq. Unlike that, [in] the case of
the Iranian opposition, they have not been supported by the
State Department. Not only that, they have been designated
as terrorist[s] by the State Department as a means to make
overtures to the Iranian regime. Their funds were frozen by
the State Department, and they're not calling for war. They
are saying we should stay away from the war and we should
reach out to the Iranian opposition. Let them settle their
course with the Iranian regime, and let them overthrow the
ayatollahs, as the situation inside Iran is very volatile.
There were some 4,800 anti-government demonstrations in the
past Iranian year, from March 2005 to March 2006 — from
March 2006 to March 2007. So that's a very, very serious
situation that needs to be exploited.
Tony Blair said after the sailors were released that some
"new and interesting lines of communication" had opened up
between the British government and elements inside the
regime, and that he thought that they should be pursued. I,
moreover, heard from my own British government sources that
their own estimate of what happened in this whole affair was
that one of the consequences will be that Ahmadinejad's
standing with the Supreme Leader has been damaged by this.
Do you see: a) new and interesting lines of communication
being opened up with elements of the regime and the West?
and b) that Ahmadinejad's standing suffered with the
Ayatollah as a result of this? Where do you see the
relationship between the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad?
Well, the whole hostage-taking of the fifteen British
sailors, if you will, by the Iranian regime was approved by
the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad and carried out by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards and its navy.
How do you know that?
My sources inside Iran are telling me that the whole
operation was pre-planned from weeks in advance. From days
before, top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were
briefed; they went to Tehran and were briefed. The night
before the operation, the command headquarters for the Third
Navy, which is responsible for that part of the Persian
Gulf, was on full alert in Khoram Sha'ar [phonetic] and the
top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were in constant
communication with Tehran to carry out this operation, to
take the Brits as hostage, in order to accomplish what they
wanted to accomplish with the Security Council, at the
United Nations, and with what Iran is doing in Iraq. They
wanted to use this as a means to intimidate Great Britain,
to get even with them, and to make sure that when future
resolutions are introduced at the United Nations Security
Council, they will not be as tough. And then [the] Iranian
regime's agents, who were arrested by Americans in Iraq,
would not be punished, would be released, and future arrests
would not take place. This was the whole purpose behind
this. Therefore, there is no rift, really, between
Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khameini. And I would be
very, very skeptical about any line of communications that
is opened as a result of this hostage-taking, because it
would only be counter-productive. It would only further
encourage Tehran to use terrorism as a tool to pursue its
foreign policy.
You don't think it's possible that once this event was upon
us, there were some elements in the Iranian regime that
differed with this whole thing and wanted to see a swifter
resolution, and might be worth trying to cultivate?
Well, this whole effort, trying to cultivate some "moderate
elements" within the Iranian regime has run its course. We
had Rafsanjani, who was a so-called moderate during the
Iran-Contra affair, and we know what happened: He became
president for eight years. And then Khatami succeeded
Rafsanjani, who was perceived to be even more moderate than
Rafsanjani. Yet the main nuclear sites were built under
Khatami; the missile program was developed significantly
under Khatami; and the terror network of the Iranian regime
got a major boost under the so-called "moderate" Khatami. So
these imaginary moderates that people are trying to reach
out to are actually the terrorists who are sidelined by the
ruling faction, and once they are in power, they would do
the same thing. So the real opening should be with the
Iranian people, the opposition — the sources inside Iran who
want to reject the regime in its entirety. And that's the
majority of the population that has not been explored by the
outside world.
You don't see any evidence that the Supreme Leader has at
all, in recent months, soured on Ahmadinejad, in terms of
some of the editorials we've seen in state-run media and
some other sort of — you don't see any of those tea leaves?
There is, there is — I have not seen any evidence that
suggests that the relationship between Ahmadinejad and the
Supreme Leader has soured. In fact, Ahmadinejad enjoys more
support from the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards
than he ever did. So no one should really count on some kind
of a rift within the regime which you can exploit and see a
change in the behavior of the Iranian regime. We have to
understand that the clock is ticking; time is running out.
The Iranian regime is moving forward very rapidly, trying to
get the nuclear bomb, as rapidly as possible. It's
intervening in Iraq in the most violent way, trying to turn
Iraq into an Islamic republic. We need to see a policy in
Washington than will be significantly different than the
policy pursued for nearly two decades by the United States
regarding Iran. We need to abandon all the bits and pieces
of the policy of appeasement and adopt a very decisive
approach regarding Iran.
What you're saying about, you know, the search for elusive
"imaginary moderates" — does that all go for Larijani as
well, by the way?
Absolutely. Larijani is a former top commander of the
Revolutionary Guards. He was a brigadier general, a top ally
of Ahmadinejad. He's as — almost as radical as Ahmadinejad
is. So —
You know that some people sort of posit Larijani as a kind
of counterweight, a potential counterweight to Ahmadinejad.
That's, that's -
Absolutely there is no foundation to that. Larijani has been
working hand-in-hand with Ahmadinejad. In fact, Ahmadinejad
worked for Larijani for some period of time, and they've
been close allies, working together, and they come from the
same school of thought. They belong to the same faction
within the Iranian regime, and they both want to boost the
status of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [sic], who
are basically dominating the whole regime right now.
Last question: When someone wants to gauge the status of the
American economy, they can look at — we used to look
primarily at unemployment: What's the percentage of
unemployment? Is it five percent? Is it four percent? In
more recent years, people have tended to look at the number
of jobs created in a given month. So there's any number of
indices by which to gauge, say, the economy of a country.
Likewise, there are any number of indices by which to gauge
the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. And one of the
ways, it seems, that everyone's focused on is the number of
centrifuges, the number of centrifuges. I wonder if you
could tell me: Is there another way — are there other ways
to gauge the progress of the Iranian nuclear program that
people aren't paying attention to, but they ought to be?
Absolutely. I think one aspect that we need to carefully
look at is the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in
the whole nuclear weapons program of the Iranian regime.
Anywhere in the world, once you have [the] military involved
in a so-called peaceful nuclear program, that's a red flag
that we are talking about a nuclear weapons program. In the
case of Iran, it's the Revolutionary Guards that is actually
dominating the whole program, especially since Ahmadinejad
took office. A number of major nuclear sites are actually
military sites run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards [sic]
that have been off-limits to the IAEA.
Which are? Which include?
Including the site in Lavizan, including the Imam Hossein
University, which is a military site, but they are doing
extensive research and development at Imam Hossein
University. The site in Parchin -
Is that the Physics Research Center you're talking about, or
is that a different place?
No, that's a different place. That's a university run by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards known as Imam Hossein
University that has [an] extensive research and development
program. Top nuclear scientists of the Iranian regime that
are also supposedly by the Atomic Energy Organization of
Iran are actually working in that military university and
they are in charge of [the] extensive research and
development program there.
You mentioned Lavizan. Did you mean I or II?
Lavizan II. Lavizan I is basically, you know, they wiped it
off —
It was razed.
It was razed. But Lavizan II is a nuclear site. It's a
military site. It has been off-limits to the IAEA. The site
in Parchin: There are a number of various kinds of nuclear
activities in Parchin and it has been inspected only once,
only a very limited part of Parchin, and then the IAEA was
not allowed to that site. So in terms of inspections, a good
number of sites have been off-limits to the IAEA.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, thank you.
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.
