Source: Le Figaro, February 22, 2008
Translation by www.ncr-iran.org
Night falls on Tehran. At the end of a day of inspection in the winter 2004-2005, the Belgian Chris Charlier, an inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sitting comfortably in a coach at the grand hotel described his encounter with the Iranian authorities.
A year earlier, his team of inspectors with the IAEA was "vehemently demanding" that they would be allowed to visit the site at Lavizan-Shiyan, a research center located in the inner suburbs southeast of the Iranian capital.
Source: Le Figaro, February 22, 2008
Translation by www.ncr-iran.org
Night falls on Tehran. At the end of a day of inspection in the winter 2004-2005, the Belgian Chris Charlier, an inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sitting comfortably in a coach at the grand hotel described his encounter with the Iranian authorities.
A year earlier, his team of inspectors with the IAEA was "vehemently demanding" that they would be allowed to visit the site at Lavizan-Shiyan, a research center located in the inner suburbs southeast of the Iranian capital.
The site remained closed for two months. When the green light was given, Charlier’s men had the surprise of their lives, "All the buildings had been leveled and the top soil was replaced [up to 4 meter deep]." But the United Nations’ inspectors were insisting on their investigation. The soil samples from the freshly turned over land revealed traces of highly enriched uranium up to more than 20 percent. For the IAEA, it was a proof of proliferation activities, although “sophisticated centrifuges” were not found.
Until 2006, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed having such centrifuges, Tehran consistently denied their existence.
The misadventure of Lavizan-Shiyan is not a unique case. In the spring of 2004, the Charlier’s men also were interested in inspecting a warehouse belonging to Kala Electric, a company located in the suburbs of Tehran. They were beating the pavement for months opposite this old watch company. When the doors of the warehouse eventually opened again, they were shocked. "Everything had been redone," says Chris Charlier. It even smelled fresh paint. Obviously they had something to hide."
Parallel Program
The analyses performed by the IAEA in its secure labs partially revealed the secrets of Lavizan and Kala: traces of highly enriched uranium to 36 and 54 percent, when a 5 percent enrichment is enough to supply a civilian reactor fuel.
Since these discoveries, as time went on, the IAEA has issued a number of reports, each bringing its share of intriguing new discoveries and frustrations, always in the absence of irrefutable proof of a military nuclear program.
And yet, over the years, according to one senior western representative stationed in Tehran, all the experts and diplomats close to the investigation "firmly believed" that Iran wants nuclear weapons, and has worked in that direction.
In the complex Iranian structure, the famous site of Lavizan was the Physics Research Centre (PHRC). But the PHRC is a sub-division of the Ministry of Defense, not a part of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), as it was originally believed to be.
How the Iranian military could well hide their own authority over the nuclear program?
It is possible that the appearance of IAEA inspectors in the landscape, in 2003, for a period of time has disrupted the activities of a parallel nuclear program.
That would have allowed the IAEA to put its hands accidentally on plans relating to the existence of a mysterious "Green Salt Project," led by the PHRC, and the different experiments that had begun to produce a nuclear weapon, from fuel production to its trigger mechanism, from the design of semi-spheres of uranium metal covering the warhead itself.
Was this the secret of Kala and Lavizan? Their content was wiped out of the eyes of IAEA inspectors and has disappeared from radar screens. Their destination remains unknown to this day.
Photo:
Top: Satellite image of Iranian regime’s nuclear site named Lavizan Shiyan taken on 11 August 2003.
Bottom: Satellite image of Iranian regime’s nuclear site named Lavizan Shiyan taken on 22 March 2004.
In May 2003, The National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI) based on the information provided by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), exposed the Lavizan Shiyan site.
The images show that the site’s buildings were razed, its features obliterated and its ground cleared. Iranian regime had taken dramatic steps to make it difficult to discover what was happening there. But traces of highly enriched uranium to were found by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) through the analyses performed on the soil samples taken in June 2004. For a civilian nuclear reactor fuel uranium with 5 percent enrichment is enough.