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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| CIA suspects Iranian nuclear defector was a double agent | |
| 2010-07-18 | |
| The CIA is investigating whether Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear scientist who defected to the US but last week flew back to Tehran, was a double agent. The strange case of Shahram Amiri has puzzled US intelligence chiefs who approved a $5 million payment to him for information about Iran's illicit nuclear programme.
But his decision to fly back voluntarily, claiming outlandishly that he was kidnapped by CIA and Saudi agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last June and then tortured in the US, has prompted suspicions that he was a double agent working for Iran all along, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. There are also questions about why the Iranian authorities allowed him to travel alone to Saudi Arabia, despite his sensitive work, and why he left his family behind if he was intending to leave Iran permanently. And his role as one of the sources for the now heavily disputed 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that downplayed Iran's suspected nuclear weapons operations has raised further doubts. The US intelligence community has been working on a new NIE that will give a much more alarming assessment of the Islamic republication's atomic bomb ambitions. The CIA nonetheless believed that Mr Amiri was a genuine defector as he was debriefed in Arizona and revealed information about how the Tehran university where he worked was the covert headquarters for the country's atomic programme. "The CIA would not have been paying $5 million unless they had vetted him carefully and believed he was genuine," said Art Keller, a former agency case officer who worked on Iran's nuclear and missile programmes. "They think he was legitimate. Iranian nuclear physicists do not grow on trees. And to get someone with really good access, sometimes you have to wave a really big potential payday for him." Another former CIA operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Sunday Telegraph that the agency was investigating whether Mr Amiri was a double agent - a possible explanation for his mysterious actions. Even if was not a "double", there are fears that he will reveal key information to his Iranian interrogators about what US officials know about the country's nuclear programme - itself vital intelligence in the game of atomic cat-and-mouse between Tehran and the West. Mr Amiri turned up last week at the Pakistani diplomatic mission in Washington, which handles Tehran's interests as the US and Iran do not have relations, and requested a ticket and money to fly home. He had previously released bizarre and contradictory videos on YouTube suggesting that he was happily studying in America or was being held there against his will. In the wake of his decision to return to Iran, US officials have been unusually open in releasing information about his dealings with the CIA. They disclosed details of the $5 million payment - funds which are now beyond his reach as financial sanctions mean he cannot access the money in the US. And they also said that he had been an informant inside Iran "for several years" before he disappeared on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last June. Standing alone, the revelations would appear to endanger Mr Amiri's wellbeing, especially as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has handed control of the country's nuclear programme to hardliners from the Revolutionary Guards, the praetorian corps charged with defending the 1979 Islamic revolution. But Scott Stewart, vice-president of tactical intelligence for Stratfor, a private intelligence company, said: "Amiri was already in real trouble if was a real defector. But if the CIA suspect that he was a double agent or even a fabricator, it would make sense to mess with the minds of the Iranians by putting this sort of information out there." And a CIA analyst with direct knowledge of the case said that the returned scientist had become the centre of a propaganda war and that the agency was "disinclined" to remain silent while Tehran scored points against Washington. | |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #10 uh sorry Besoeker, you already mentioned it. Usually I read all the comments first. |
| Posted by: Goober Goobelopolous 2010-07-18 17:30 |
| #9 Well at least they didn't get blown up like their superstar chief of station in Afghanistan let happen recently (RIP), with a birthday cake and everything for the guy. Maybe they ought to stop using Survivor reruns for training. |
| Posted by: Goober Goobelopolous 2010-07-18 17:28 |
| #8 The one that is "correct" is the one that gets the funding/resources. Competition and innovation give better results. Seems like a great idea as long as they don't start protecting their analysis and "IP" from the other, so maybe they should get rewarded for good sharing and assists, too. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-07-18 15:38 |
| #7 "Raze it and start over." Agreed. The US should use some concepts from private enterprise. They should have two primary analysis groups. The one that is "correct" is the one that gets the funding/resources. Competition and innovation give better results. When one agency has a monopoly on their product, there is a certain amount of "going through the motions" that happens. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-07-18 14:13 |
| #6 What gorb said. CIA's broken, can't be fixed. Raze it and start over. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-07-18 12:30 |
| #5 Please file next to FOB Chapman under short memories: Mouth of the Potomac by The Washington Bureau December 31, 2009 11:40 AM 1 Comment 7 CIA Officers Killed in Eastern Afghanistan » By James Gordon Meek CIA Director Leon Panetta has confirmed this morning the grim news that seven of his intelligence operatives were killed yesterday by a suicide bomber inside Forward Operating Base Chapman. The camp is located just outside the city of Khowst, about 10 miles from the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan - the epicenter of the border fight with Al Qaeda-supported Pashtun militias. “Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism,” Panetta told agency employees today. Khowst is the hometown of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the legendary mujahedeen commander of the anti-Soviet jihad, who was a CIA ally during that war. Haqqani’s young son, Siraj, became a Pashtun tribal warrior at his father’s knee while the warlord’s network hosted the “Afghan Arabs” including Osama Bin Laden. Now Siraj is the Afghan Taliban’s field commander - though calling a Haqqani “Taliban” is still truthfully only a Western distinction. The bombing - which targeted the CIA base - was undoubtedly a revenge attack in what has become a very personal war. CIA drones have attacked numerous Haqqani family safehouses on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line, particularly near the network’s Miram Shah headquarters, and have killed many close kin of father and son. The irony is that after the 9/11 attacks, the CIA tried to recruit Jalaluddin Haqqani back as an asset, the Daily News confirmed in 2007 - but he refused them and instead has been protected by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. Pakistan’s government sees the Haqqanis as a foil to Indian influence in Afghanistan after U.S. forces begin withdrawing in 2011 under President Obama’s plan - to the chagrin of senior U.S. intelligence officials who opposed announcing that timeline. The Taliban claimed killing 20 CIA officers in an operation “carried out by an Afghan soldier, the hero, Samiullah, when the CIA employees were gathered at the club to collect and coordinate intelligence information about the mujahedeen.” “Yesterday’s tragedy reminds us that the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation,” Panetta said. “Throughout our history, the reality is that those who make a real difference often face real danger.” The CIA also said that, “Due to the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations, neither the names of those killed nor the details of their work are being released at this time.” |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-07-18 06:17 |
| #4 First as tragedy then as farce. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-07-18 06:05 |
| #3 Given what he had here and how he was received in Iran, there is no logical reason for him to return to Iran other than it was all prearranged. I doubt for a minute that Iran could communicate with him after he left there, so it is more likely that he was a plant. Why is the CIA so bent on telling everone who will listen that he cooperated with us? It seems so naiive and desperate. The CIA is toast as is their NIE. They have become a bureaucracy that puts rules before common sense and turf battles and politics before the common good. Agencies like this need to be scattered to the four winds and rebuilt whenever they start playing politics, or at least they need to be stirred up real good. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-07-18 04:17 |
| #2 he was met by his wife and hugged his seven-year-old son. What kind of an idiot defects leaving his family hostage? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-07-18 04:10 |
| #1 well, no $#!t Sherlock. what might have been your first clue? |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2010-07-18 01:21 |