BRIEF ON IRAN Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran No. 474 Monday, August 12, 1996 3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 Iran Builds Biological Arsenal, Sunday Times, August 11 Iran has acquired an arsenal of biological weapons for terrorist use and is prepared to use them, according to intelligence sources in America and Israel. Washington's confirmation of the long-feared Iranian development came in a CIA report sent recently to the Senate intelligence committee, which acknowledges for the first time that Iran not only has biological weapons, but also the means to deliver them.... ...Both the CIA and the Israelis believe that military scientists working for the Islamic regime in Tehran have developed a deadly BW aerosol that can be carried by a terrorist. Although they will not be able to put biological weapons on long-range ballistic missiles before the end of the decade, they can deliver them with Scud missiles, according to Israeli sources, and they have a system for dropping them from Soviet- era Sukhoi attack aircraft.... According to one senior Israeli intelligence officer, Tel Aviv has also warned the United States to expect more terrorist attacks before the American presidential election in November.... Britain Seizes Bomb-grade Steel Cargo Bound for Iran, Sunday Telegraph, August 11 British customs officers have dealt a blow to Iran's attempts to build its own nuclear bomb by seizing a shipment of highly specialized steel. The consignment of "marathon steel," which is used primarily for military purposes, was seized at a container depot at the London port of Barking. The steel had been flown in from the United States and was about to be shipped to Iran when customs officers pounced after a protracted undercover operation. They uncovered a 110-pound consignment of the specialized steel, which had been ordered by the Iranian military.... The exceptionally strong steel is used to make conventional weapons and to build centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium as fuel for nuclear bombs.... News Overview Prioritize Our Enemies Los Angeles Times, August 7 [Excerpts from an article by Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Muravchik is author of "The Imperative of American Leadership".] The enactment of new penalties against foreign firms investing in Iran or Libya will heat an already simmering quarrel between America and our closest allies. President Clinton... is likely to slow its implementation just as he suspended similar new measures aimed at Cuba. But that leaves only a short time to avert a rupture over the issue of secondary boycotts against rogue regimes. We should offer the allies this deal: Join us in putting the screws to Iran and we will back off on Cuba and Libya. Morally and logically, we have the better of the arguments in these trade disputes.... We need to convince our allies that Iran's brutal theocracy poses a unique threat to Western security and values, one that cannot be mitigated by appeasement. It will be easier to do if we highlight the distinction between the Iranian and other obnoxious regimes. Four things set the Iranian regime apart. It is the leading source of international terrorism; it is undertaking a broad-based program to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them over long distances; it is the center of an international ideology that challenges the basic precepts that bind the Atlantic alliance and it is the single main agent thwarting the Middle East peace process. In 1992, the European Union adopted a policy of "critical dialogue" with Iran, persuaded that this would prove more effective in altering Iranian behavior than any tighter economic penalties.... After four years, the only return on this policy that European leaders can point to is the suggestion by Tehran that it will not send its own employees to murder writer Salman Rushdie even though it steadfastly refuses to lift either the fatwah inviting all Muslims to carry out this murder or the $2-million reward that has been offered for the deed by a foundation linked to the regime. After four years, even the EU is beginning to recognize the failure of its policy. In a statement adopted last March, it said: "If the critical dialogue is worth continuing, it must show some progress and convergence of views on such fundamental issues as the Middle East peace process and terrorism." Not a scintilla of such progress has appeared. It is time for Washington to deploy its full powers of persuasion to get our allies to recognize that their policy of appeasement has failed. We should put on a full-court effort to win them over to a policy of tight sanctions against Tehran. These sanctions would include refusing new credits and loans and any new investment in Iranian energy resources. Iran's economy is already reeling under years of revolutionary mismanagement. Coordinated sanctions might well help to bring down the mullahs' regime or at least curtail its capacity to finance terror and its ambitious military projects. Achieving a coordinated response to Tehran would be an important step in making the Atlantic alliance effective and coherent in addressing post- Soviet threats.