WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran's main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported.
Israel's request was for specialized bunker-busting bombs that it wanted for an attack that tentatively involved flying over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country's only known uranium enrichment plant is located, the Times reported Saturday in its online edition.
The White House deflected requests for the bombs and flyover but said it would improve intelligence-sharing with Israel on covert U.S. efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
In related news The Washington Post is reporting
The Iranian businessman was looking for high-quality American electronics, but he had to act stealthily: The special parts he coveted were denied to Iranians, especially those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.
With a few e-mails, the problem was solved. A friendly Malaysian importer would buy the parts from a company in Linden, N.J., and forward them to Iran. All that was left was coming up with a fake name for the invoice. Perhaps a Malaysian engineering school? "Of course, you can use any other company as end-user that you think is better than this," the Iranian businessman, Ahmad Rahzad, wrote in an e-mail dated March 8, 2007.
The ruse succeeded in delivering nine sensors called inclinometers to Iran, the first of several such shipments that year and the latest example of what U.S. officials and weapons experts describe as Iran's skillful flouting of export laws intended to stop lethal technology from reaching the Islamic republic.
Despite multiple attempts by the Bush administration to halt illegal imports -- including sanctions against several Dubai-based Iranian front companies in 2006 -- the technology pipeline to Tehran is flowing at an even faster pace. In some cases, Iran simply opened new front companies and shifted its operations from Dubai to farther east in Asia, the officials said.
Iran in the past two years has acquired numerous banned items --including circuit boards, software and Global Positioning System devices -- that are used to make sophisticated versions of the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that continue to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, according to documents released by the Justice Department and a new study by a Washington research institute. The deadly trade was briefly disrupted after the moves against Dubai companies in 2006, but it quickly resumed with a few changes in shipping routes and company names, the officials said."Without doubt, it is still going on," said one former U.S. intelligence official who investigated Iran's networks.
Obama told ABC's This Week that he still wants to fulfill his campaign promise to meet with Iran and other supporters of terrorism "without precondition."
Last week, we reported the Obama transition team wanted to talk with Hamas.
From UKs Telegraph:
Mr Obama also promised a "new approach" with Iran, which would have "engagement" at its centre, in keeping with a commitment during his campaign to abandon Mr Bush's hostility to Tehran, which the West suspects is building a nuclear weapon.
He said the stance would include "sending a signal that we respect the aspirations of the Iranian people, but that we also have certain expectations in terms of how an international actor behaves".
"We are in preparations for that. We anticipate that we're going to have to move swiftly in that area," he added.
Respect for the Iranian people who like to burn American and Israeli flags.
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