July 21, 2005
The Telegraph (UK)

Now America Accuses Iran of Complicity in World Trade Center Attack

by Julian Coman

Iran gave free passage to up to 10 of the September 11 hijackers just months before the 2001 attacks and offered to co-operate with al-Qa'eda against the US, an American report will say this week.

The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission, set up by Congress in 2002, will state that Iran, not Iraq, fostered relations with the al-Qa'eda network in the years leading up to the world's most devastating terrorist attack.

The bipartisan commission has established that between eight and 10 of the September 11 hijackers, who had been based in Afghanistan, travelled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. The terrorists in question are believed to have been the "muscle" - hired to storm the aircraft cockpits and overpower crew and passengers.

Iranian officials were instructed not to harrass al-Qa'eda personnel as they crossed the border and, in some cases, not to stamp their passports.

According to testimony received by the commission - based on information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and about 100 electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency - an alliance of convenience was established between the Shia Muslim Iranian leadership and the Sunni terrorist organisation, well before September 11, 2001.

The report is expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that "there were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq". . . .

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Enver Masud, "U.S. Violating Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," The Wisdom Fund, March 11, 2003

[MARGARET WARNER: Just a sort of common sense question. If, if the Iranians aren't doing this for weapons uses and it's really just to generate electricity, why would they have kept it secret for 18 years?

MOHAMED ELBARADEI: Well, their answer - and again I'm repeating their, their story - that they have been under sanction for 18 years. If they would have declared it to us 18 years ago, they would not have been able to get the equipment they wanted.-- "Newsmaker: ElBaradei," PBS NewsHour, March 18, 2004]

Mark Jensen, "Scott Ritter: U.S. Plans June Attack on Iran, 'Cooked' Iraq Election Results," United for Peace of Pierce County (WA), February 19, 2005

Gordon Prather, "Iran Defends the NPT," Antiwar.com, May 7, 2005

Michael T. Klare, "The Iran War Buildup," The Nation, July 21, 2005

[According to Philip Giraldi, writing in the new issue of the American Conservative, . . . The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.--"What Is the Plan If There's Another 9/11?," justinlogan.com, July 22, 2005]

David Ray Griffin, "9/11 and the Mainstream Press," National Press Club, July 22, 2005

Simon Tisdall, "Tehran accuses US of nuclear double standard," Guardian, July 28, 2005

Dafna Linzer, "Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb," Washington Post, August 2, 2005

[Iran hasn't announced any plans to resume enriching uranium. . . . The Iranians also proposed that there be an unprecedented "continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities." . . . Furthermore the Iranians are right. "The Board of Governors has no factual or legal ground, nor any statutory power, to make or enforce such a demand, or impose ramifications as a consequence of it."--Gordon Prather, "The EU vs. Iran: Who's Right?," Antiwar.com, August 8, 2005]

['Operation Iraqi Freedom' was a war designed to install a pro-U.S. government in Iraq, establish multiple U.S. military bases before the onset of global Peak Oil, and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars while hoping to thwart further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. . . .

Iran is about to commit a far greater "offense" than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro for Iraq's oil exports in the fall of 2000. Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-based international oil-trading mechanism.--William R. Clark, "Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse," Information Clearing House, August 8, 2005]

[Why does Cheney want to sell nuclear reactors to China, but order the U.S. Strategic Command to prepare to nuke Iran's nuclear power capability, a capability that would allow Iran to sell more oil to an energy-starved world?--Paul Craig Roberts, "Nuclear China Good, Nuclear Iran Bad?," Antiwar.com, August 11, 2005]

[Could the proposed Iranian oil bourse (IOB) become the catalyst for a significant blow to the influential position the US dollar enjoys?--Toni Straka, "Killing the dollar in Iran," Asia Times Online, August 26, 2005]

Jim Lobe, "Pentagon Foresees Preemptive Nuclear Strikes," Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005

[Iran (for example) has an inalienable right to buy a turn-key uranium enrichment facility and, if the financial details can be worked out, Russia (for example) "shall" sell it to them.--Gordon Prather, "Neocrazies Foiled," CounterPunch, September 17, 2005]

[. . . the United States built Iran's first nuclear plant at Amirabad, and knew that the Shah began a low-grade weapons research programme in 1967.--Randeep Ramesh, "Nuclear nuances: A blossoming relationship with Iran is rubbing India's friends in Washington the wrong way," Guardian, September 22, 2005]

[The Pentagon document, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," calls for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries in order "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."

. . . The Bush administration knows that few Americans have any knowledge of international law and procedures and will simply believe whatever President Bush says. The highly concentrated US media is a proven walkover for the war-mongering Bush administration.--Paul Craig Roberts, "Bush is Cooking Up Two New Wars," CounterPunch, September 13, 2005]

[So Iran is in "compliance" with its (NPT) Safeguards Agreement.

But, in December, 2003, Iran had signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement and had volunteered to cooperate with the IAEA - pending ratification by the Iranian Parliament - as if the Additional Protocol were actually "in force." . . .

ElBaradei reported last week that even after two years of Iranian cooperation that went beyond what was required under their Safeguards Agreement and its un-ratified Additional Protocol, he was still "not yet in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."--Gordon Prather, "US-Israeli Diplomatic Triumph Over Iran," Antiwar.com, October 1, 2005]

[It is the E3 - not the Iranians - who have not only "violated" the Paris Agreement, but the NPT, as well.--Gordon Prather, "Saving Face," Antiwar.com, October 8, 2005]

[The Iranian ambassador in London, Mohammed Hossein Adeli, . . .said it was suspicious that charges of Iranian influence had arisen at this time. "This leads us to at least think . . . this is used to put pressure on Iran over nuclear matters."--Paul Hughes and Saul Hudson, "U.S., Britain, Iran trade charges over attacks," Reuters, October 16, 2005]

Jorge Hirsch, "Israel, Iran, and the US: Nuclear War, Here We Come," Antiwar.com, October 17, 2005

[. . . influenced India to back a recent resolution at the IAEA referring Iran's nuclear activities to the UN Security Council.--"India and US iron out nuke deal," BBC News, October 21, 2005]

[What Britain and other Western countries privately admit, however, is that sooner or later this opaque, bewildering nation will almost certainly have nuclear weapons. It is less likely to make reckless use of them than might be feared, but that is due more to its own internal checks and balances than any outside influence.-- Angus McDowall, Raymond Whitaker, Marie Woolf, "Iran: Rich, armed and angry, how dangerous is it to the world?," Independent, October 30, 2005]

["To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD."--Jorge Hirsch, "The Real Reason for Nuking Iran," Antiwar.com, November 1, 2005

Jorge Hirsch, "A Legal US Nuclear Attack Against Iran: The real reason for the IAEA Iran resolution," Antiwar.com, November 12, 2005

William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, "The Laptop: Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims," New York Times, November 13, 2005

The Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, "An Unnecessary Crisis: Setting the Record Straight about Iran's Nuclear Program," New York Times, November 19, 2005

Jorge Hirsch, "Nuking Iran Without the Dachshund: The meaning of the Philip Giraldi story," Antiwar.com, November 26, 2005

[I had been well briefed on his proposals by Dr Akbar Etemad of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, who had told me that he intended to build a 24 megawatt capacity by 1994, which was bigger than the programme Britain itself had at that time, . . .

Iran developing such a huge nuclear capacity caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help.

There could hardly be a clearer example of double standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear armoury, which is itself a breach of the non-proliferation treaty.--Tony Benn, "Atomic hypocrisy: Neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line on Iran's nuclear programme," Guardian, November 30, 2005]

[In pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its side. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives signatories "the inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear technologies contingent on not making nuclear explosives. Although Iran has been less than forthcoming about many of its nuclear activities, inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have not revealed evidence of a nuclear weapons program.--Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, "Keep your enemy closer: The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is to offer it help," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2005]

David Horowitz, "ElBaradei: No 'smoking gun' in Iran" Jerusalem Post, December 7, 2005

[If the Heritage experts had read that Note Verbale, they would know that Iran had already offered (on March 23, 2005) a package of "objective guarantees" (developed by an international panel of experts) that met most of Heritage's demands.--Gordon Prather, "Those Crazy Mullahs" Antiwar.com, December 17, 2005]