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11/14/2005:

"Iran 'trying for nuclear warhead'"

The New York Times has published allegations that Iran is attempting to build a nuclear warhead. The claims come less than two weeks before a decision by the UN nuclear watchdog on whether to report Tehran to the Security Council over its suspected weapons programme.

An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the report as an attempt to step up pressure on Tehran before the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting on 24 November.

According to The New York Times, senior American intelligence officials had shown the IAEA experts computer simulations contained on what they described as a stolen Iranian laptop. The US officials said the data was the strongest evidence so far that Iran was trying to develop a compact warhead for its Shahab missile, but they would not say where the laptop came from.

Diplomats told AP news agency that they expected Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, to go to Tehran in the next few days to discuss a proposal that calls on Iran to move its uranium enrichment programme to Russia.
independent.co.uk

NY Times: Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims

...The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

The briefing for officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, including its director Mohamed ElBaradei, was a secret part of an American campaign to increase international pressure on Iran. But while the intelligence has sold well among countries like Britain, France and Germany, which reviewed the documents as long as a year ago, it has been a tougher sell with countries outside the inner circle.

Well the Times may have ditched Judy Miller, but here we go again...it's amazing the things you can do with a laptop...