FEATURE-Sabotage an option against Iran's atomic plans-experts
10 Oct 2004 01:03:21 GMT
 
By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Somewhere between sanctions and air
strikes lurks a third option for those who seek to stop Iran's atomic
programme in its tracks: sabotage.

Politically deniable -- unlike failed diplomacy -- and much subtler than
region-rattling military offensives, covert action of the kind used
elsewhere by Israel and the United States could already be under way
against the Islamic republic, experts say.

"Iran has been trying to go nuclear since the 1970s and has not yet
managed," said Gad Shimron, a veteran of Israel's Mossad spy service who
now writes on defence issues.

"Who's to say there has not been sabotage already, now proving its
worth?"

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper in August quoted Bush administration
officials as saying sabotage tactics were being considered for Tehran.
The Jewish state has said "all options" are kosher for preventing its
arch-foe getting the bomb.

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of concealing a plan to build a
bomb, but Tehran says its nuclear programme is dedicated solely to
meeting electricity demand.

Independent experts question, however, whether any disruption of Iran's
supply lines through sabotage or menacing of its nuclear scientists
would have a lasting effect on a network that has resisted scrutiny from
the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"Historically, sabotage has served to delay programmes but has not been
successful in terminating them," said Gary Samore, a former White House
adviser on non-proliferation now with the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London.

He cited a Norwegian heavy water plant struck by saboteurs between 1942
and 1944 to stop the Nazis getting the bomb -- a quest finally laid to
rest by Germany's defeat in World War Two.

"Delay is good if, in the meantime, something conclusive happens --
either a change of regime or a successful war."

Some Middle East security experts say even delays have key strategic
value in a region notorious for its instability.

COVERT CAMPAIGN PRECEDED OSIRAQ

The precedent usually cited for a military strike on Iranian atomic
sites is Israel's 1981 bombing of the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq. That move
drove Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme underground until it was
uncovered by the IAEA in 1991.

Well before Osiraq, a quieter campaign was in full swing.

Nuclear components destined for Baghdad were blown up in a French port.
An Egyptian nuclear physicist hired by Iraq was killed in his Paris
hotel. Bombs exploded near an Italian firm supplying Saddam Hussein with
laboratories for atomic testing.

Saddam blamed the United States and Israel for the sabotage spree.
Neither country commented, but then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin told an American interviewer he hoped France and Italy had
"learned their lesson" for helping Iraq.

Tehran fears it could be next in line after U.S.-led forces toppled
Saddam last year.

"The Iranians are very clear about what happened to the Iraqi nuclear
programme and would have learned their lessons," said Alex Vatanka, an
analyst with Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments. "In terms of supply
lines and technology, they are extremely unlikely to use limited
sources."

Among Iran's nuclear suppliers have been North Korea, Pakistan and
China, all hard for Western diplomats to monitor.

Under its 1993 Counterproliferation Initiative, Washington claimed the
right to act covertly against illicit weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
programmes. But a later U.S.-led treaty, the Proliferation Security
Initiative, includes Russia, which also openly provides Iran with
nuclear know-how.

A QUESTION OF JURISDICTION

While no one accuses countries friendly to the United States of
knowingly arming Iran, private citizens may not feel such constraint, a
fact that could complicate sabotage attempts.

"The understanding in the intelligence world is that those individuals
who help rogue regimes knowingly put themselves at risk of reprisal,"
said Shimron.

"An agency that wants to operate in a friendly country has to weigh the
possible fallout, but usually there is enough coordination between
governments to ensure that it all goes smoothly as long as no one is
needlessly hurt."

Vatanka said several Iranians who acquired scientific training in the
West had answered a call by Tehran to return and work on their
homeland's atomic programme.

A German man is also under investigation for what national media charged
was an attempt to supply Iran with components for nuclear weapons.

"If the Israelis believe sabotage is the only way of stopping Iran
getting the bomb, I think they will go with it, even if this ends up
harming relations with Europe," Vatanka said. "The Europeans have
invested enormous diplomacy in Iran, but that means little to those
planning Israel's self-defence."

A new report by the Dubai think-tank Gulf Research Centre says Tehran
could retaliate for any sabotage on its atomic plans by ordering proxies
to attack U.S. targets in the Gulf or stepping up support for
Palestinian militants fighting Israel. 

There are also risks if the secrecy around sabotage lapses.

In 1963, Swiss police nabbed an Israeli suspected of threatening the
daughter of a German scientist linked with Egypt's missile programme.
The ensuing trial clouded Israel's relations with West Germany and
Switzerland and prompted the Mossad chief's resignation, although many
historians believe it also served as a venue for publicising Egypt's
military plans.