One Israel official following the Iranian issue closely said that time is running short, and that the diplomatic efforts to get Iran to stop its nuclear program were lagging behind Iranian technological advancements.

Israel, according to the official, would like to see the President of the Security Council, which this month is US Ambassador John Bolton, issue a presidential statement calling on the Iranians to suspend its enrichment-related activity, including research and development, and roll back its nuclear program.

The official said that Israel was worried that nothing had changed on the ground since the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the UN Security Council earlier this month. A Presidential statement, he said, could be the first step toward taking some concrete action against the Iranians.

As things stand now, however, the Presidential statement itself is unlikely to be made until after yet another IAEA meeting on March 6, which is due to issue a report on Iran.

Both Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council who have veto power there, have pushed for the issue to be delayed until March, apparently in the hope that the Iranians would accept the Russian compromise to enrich the uranium in Russia - something that looks increasingly unlikely following Iran's decision Monday not to hold talks with Russia at this time.

While Israel has indicated it could live with the enrichment process taking place in Russia, as long as there are firm safeguards that would keep the Iranians from using either the fuel or the know-how for military purposes, the official said that there were some questions about what Russia meant when it said that there should be no uranium enrichment in Iran. While Israel and the US believe that this also means that there should be no research and development inside Iran, the Russian position on this matter is less clear.

The official said, however, that what is clear is that when the issue is raised by the Security Council, Moscow will not stand in the way of sanctions - even with the current cloud hanging over Israeli-Russian relations as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to Hamas to come to Moscow. The official said that China was also unlikely to veto sanctions in the Security Council.

Western diplomatic officials have said that if sanctions are agreed upon, there was a "rich menu" to choose from.

The menu can be divided into three stages.

The first stage, comprised of the least severe sanctions, includes the following:
# Stopping IAEA technical assistance to Iran, which amounts to a few million dollars a year
# Preventing Iranian scientists from participating in IAEA conferences
# Preventing Iranian students from studying abroad any subject that could be related to Weapons of Mass Destruction development or dual-use technology that could be used for these purposes.

Level two of the sanctions menu includes:
# Denying visas to Iranian scientists and the heads of the regime
# Lowering the level of western diplomatic presence in Iran
# Decreasing the number of Iranians allowed to serve at its embassies abroad

And the final level would involve economic sanctions, and could include the following:
# Lowering Iran's credit rating
# Placing an embargo on refined oil products entering Iran (Iran imports 40 % of its refined oil needs).

Western officials said that at the present time there is no international consensus for economic steps. "The task for the countries taking the lead on this issue," one official said, "is to reach agreement about the need to place the economic measures in the tool box."

He said the "corrupt leadership" combined with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli outbursts should raise alarm bells all over the world, including the Arab world and the Gulf region.

"There should be more voices in the region saying this leadership is dangerous for the future of the world," said Gore, who was
President George W. Bush's rival in the 2000 presidential election.

Gore's comments come after Bush said in his State of the Union address on January 31 that the Iranian people were being "held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people."

Bush's Republican administration is a leading proponent of allegations that Iran, contrary to its assertions about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme, intends to develop nuclear weapons.

The
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted on February 3 to report its concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.

The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack.

Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran was last weekend reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment - producing material that could arm nuclear devices.

The White House says that it wants a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated".

Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.

By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic.

In Teheran yesterday, crowds celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He was defiant over possible economic sanctions.

Tacticians at central command and strategic command, who report to Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, have been identifying targets and the weapons needed to hit them.

The Oxford report says that Britain could be drawn into the conflict if the Prime Minister allowed American B2 bombers, which can carry 40,000lb of precision bombs, to use bases at Fairford, Glos, and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

Precision bombing could put Iran's weapons programme back five to 10 years but within a month the situation would become "an extremely dangerous conflict", says Prof Paul Rogers, the report's author.

The attack would result in "a protracted military confrontation" involving Israel, Lebanon and some Gulf states.

More than 100 American bombers, many based on carriers in the Gulf, would take part in a huge simultaneous surprise air attack on 20 key nuclear and military facilities, the report says.

If the targets included the nuclear reactor at Bushehr, which will become fully fuelled this year, a radioactive cloud could spread over the Gulf. Iran's small navy, which includes three submarines, would have to be attacked to negate threats to vital shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz.

But Iran could still retaliate with suicide speedboats, possibly leading to crippling rises in the price of oil.

Prof Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University, says that American military action would also have a unifying effect on the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and exacerbate anti-American hostility in the Islamic world.

The report says that a ground offensive in Iran would not be feasible, as it would require at least 100,000 troops - and American forces are already over-stretched with 130,000 soldiers in Iraq and 18,000 in Afghanistan.

Iran would probably withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and speed up its secret nuclear weapons programme.

The report concludes: "A military response to the current crisis is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further. Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be."

In a similar briefing before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Oxford group predicted that Saddam Hussein's regime could easily be overwhelmed but that the country would become a hotbed of insurgency.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited

US and Israeli officials have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to thwart its nuclear ambitions. Among the options are airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations or covert action to sabotage the Iranian program.

But military and intelligence analysts warn that Iran -- which a recent US intelligence report described as ''more confident and assertive" than it has been since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution -- could unleash reprisals across the region, and perhaps even inside the United States, if the hard-line regime came under attack.

''When the Americans or Israelis are thinking about [military force], I hope they will sit down and think about everything the ayatollahs could do to make our lives miserable and what we will do to discourage them," said John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, referring to Iran's religious leaders.

''There could be a cycle of escalation."

President Bush has said military force should be the last resort in international efforts to deter Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Yet Bush has stated unequivocally that the United States would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear arsenal, which the CIA estimates could be in place in three to 10 years. Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely aimed at producing electricity, not weapons.

Israel, which Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to annihilate, asserts that Tehran is much closer to going nuclear and has been far more direct with its counter-threats.

The Israel Defense Forces, which destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, has said it is perfecting ways to launch a preventative strike against Iranian nuclear sites, including outfitting its Air Force with American-made, bunker-busting munitions.

US intelligence officials have said that Iran, which fought a war with Iraq from 1980-1988 that cost one million lives, still has the most threatening armed forces in the immediate region. Its combined ground forces are estimated at about 800,000 personnel. The CIA has concluded that Iran is steadily enhancing its ability to project its military power, including by threatening international shipping.

But it is Iran's unconventional weapons and tactics -- rather than its conventional military -- that would pose the greatest threat, according to the intelligence officials.

Bush's new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, outlining the conclusions reached by a variety of US spy agencies, warned in his first overall annual threat assessment this month to Congress that Iran is capable of sparking a much wider conflict it comes under threat.

A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

The missiles could also be tipped with chemical warheads and threaten US military bases in the region.

Iran is believed to have at least 20 launchers that are frequently moved around the country to avoid detection.

''Iran has an extensive missile-development program and has received support from entities in Russia, China, and North Korea," the Pentagon report said, estimating their range to be at least 800 miles.

New missile designs under development could travel 400 miles farther, it said, while Iran purchased at least a dozen X-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine in 2001 that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy.

Meanwhile, Iranian agents and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely believed to have a large presence in Iraq, could attempt to foment an uprising by the their fellow Shi'ite majority in Iraq or join insurgents in directly attacking US troops there, Negroponte warned.

He reported that Tehran has ''constrained" itself in Iraq because it is generally satisfied with the political trends in favor of the Shi'ite majority and to avoid giving the United States another excuse to attack Iran. But that could change if Iran were targeted militarily.

A leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has clashed with US troops and rival Shi'ite groups, vowed in a visit to Tehran last month to defend Iran if it were attacked.

The assessment presented by Negroponte said the Iranian regime already provides ''guidance and training" to militant groups in Iraq and ''has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anticoalition attacks by providing Shia militants with the capability to build" improvised explosive devices.

Government and private analysts assert that Iran's intelligence apparatus and Revolutionary Guard Corps could cause serious damage to US efforts to pacify Iraq.

''The Iranian ayatollahs may deploy an 'asymmetric' answer and incite a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq," the respected Russian military publication ''Defense and Security," warned last month, referring to a military strategy that employs such tactics as guerrilla warfare. ''That would be disastrous for the United States."

Iran, believed to be responsible for the bombing of a US Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, also would be expected to enlist its terrorist allies around the world to come to its aid if attacked, US officials and private specialists contend.

''Tehran continues to support a number of terrorist groups, viewing this capability as a critical regime safeguard by deterring US and Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening Israel, and enhancing Iran's regional influence through intimidation," according to Negroponte's assessment to Congress.

Primary among them is Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines when it bombed a Beirut barracks in 1983.

''Lebanese Hezbollah is Iran's main terrorist ally, which . . . has a worldwide support network and is capable of attacks against US interests if it feels its Iranian patron is threatened," according to the report.

''They have all kinds of people that would like to embrace martyrdom," Pike said of Iran, raising the specter that a terrorist group allied with Iran would be capable of launching attacks inside the United States to avenge a strike against Iran.

Intelligence officials also point out that Iran controls a small island at the mouth the Strait of Hormuz and could use missiles and gunboats to temporarily shut off access to the economically vital Persian Gulf, sparking an oil crisis.

''Military attack is not the solution to this problem," Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the leading dissident group, said in a telephone interview from Paris. ''The regime is absolutely focusing on nonconventional responses. Missiles and terrorist operations are the strong points."

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Executive Summary

An air attack on Iran by Israeli or US forces would be aimed at setting back Iran’s nuclear programme by at least five years. A ground offensive by the United States to terminate the regime is not feasible given other commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and would not be attempted. An air attack would involve the systematic destruction of research, development, support and training centres for nuclear and missile programmes and the killing of as many technically competent people as possible. A US attack, which would be larger than anything Israel could mount, would also involve comprehensive destruction of Iranian air defence capabilities and attacks designed to pre-empt Iranian retaliation. This would require destruction of Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities close to Iraq and of regular or irregular naval forces that could disrupt Gulf oil transit routes.

Although US or Israeli attacks would severely damage Iranian nuclear and missile programmes, Iran would have many methods of responding in the months and years that followed. These would include disruption of Gulf oil production and exports, in spite of US attempts at pre-emption, systematic support for insurgents in Iraq, and encouragement to associates in Southern Lebanon to stage attacks on Israel. There would be considerable national unity in Iran in the face of military action by the United States or Israel, including a revitalised Revolutionary Guard.

One key response from Iran would be a determination to reconstruct a nuclear programme and develop it rapidly into a nuclear weapons capability, with this accompanied by withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would require further attacks. A military operation against Iran would not, therefore, be a short-term matter but would set in motion a complex and long-lasting confrontation. It follows that military action should be firmly ruled out and alternative strategies developed.

download printable version from OxfordResearchGroup

By doing so, Iran raised the stakes in the standoff with the international community over its nuclear activities.

Asked whether Iran would wait for the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting on March 6 to resume industrial-scale enrichment, government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters "No, No."

The IAEA on February 4 voted to report Iran to the Security Council, but left a one-month window for diplomacy, for Iran to return to a full suspension of enrichment-related work and cooperate more with IAEA inspectors.

So far Iran has reacted by doing the opposite, setting the scene for a major showdown.

The government spokesman also announced that talks between Tehran and Moscow aimed at finding a compromise by having Iranian uranium enriched on Russian soil would not go ahead as planned on Thursday.

The two sides had been set to develop Moscow's proposal for uranium enrichment -- which makes reactor fuel but can be extended to make the core of a nuclear weapon -- to be carried out on Russian soil.

"The negotiations have not been cancelled but the date for the talks is another matter," he said.

However, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said Moscow was still expecting an Iranian delegation, adding: "Our offer for the 16th still stands."

The Iranian spokesman had said "new elements" were responsible for the delay, notably the fact that the Iranian government "insists that uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes is carried out inside the country."

Russia's idea is to guarantee Iranian access to nuclear fuel needed to generate electricity but at the same time prevent the country from developing fuel cycle technology by itself and therefore the capacity to make a bomb.

The plan has received conditional and cautious support from western powers.

But Iran, which says it only wants to generate electricity and denies any plans to develop weapons, has been reluctant to give up what it sees as a right to enrich on its soil.

Iran's stance has also hardened after the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors voted on February 4 to report the Iranian case to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

On Saturday, the Islamic republic's outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that Iran could follow the path of North Korea and quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Iran has continued its nuclear drive within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NPT, but if we see that you want to deprive us of our right using these regulations, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard," Ahmadinejad said.

The NPT is the cornerstone of the global battle against the spread of nuclear weapons, prohibiting the development of the bomb and subjecting its signatories to IAEA inspections.

"We insist that we should be able to benefit from civil nuclear technology as recognised by the NPT and the West must acknowledge this absolute right," Elham said on Monday. "If they do that, we will stick to it."

Iran is under intense pressure to agree to a moratorium on nuclear fuel work that can be extended to make weapons, but argues that its nuclear ambitions are therefore entirely legal.

Iran's parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel said on Sunday that an IAEA team had arrived in the country to supervise the resumption of nuclear research which he said would start on Sunday or Monday.

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper in London reported that US military strategists were drawing up plans for an attack as a last resort.

In a front-page dispatch from Washington, it said Central Command and Strategic Command planners were "identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation".

What did the Board decide to do?

Well, you may have heard misleading reports that the Board – unable to satisfy itself that Bush-Cheney allegations that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that IAEA inspectors had been unable to find any trace of, despite almost three years of intrusive inspections were without merit – did "refer" the matter to the Security Council.

The Associated Press even reported – falsely – that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had "ordered" the end of voluntary cooperation with the IAEA "in response to the U.N. agency decision to refer Iran to the Security Council over fears the country is trying to develop a nuclear bomb."

But there was no referral.

Far from turning over the alleged "Iranian nuclear crisis" to the Security Council, the IAEA Board specifically "remains seized with the matter."

The AP did correctly report that "Iran will resume uranium enrichment and will no longer allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities – voluntary measures it had allowed in recent years in a gesture to build trust."

But, the AP didn't tell you that Iran's Parliament had passed a law last year that required – in the event the IAEA Board reported Iran to the Security Council – the cessation of all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA above and beyond that required by Iran's Safeguards Agreement. And, a resumption of all Iranian Safeguarded nuclear programs that had been voluntarily suspended.

Now, certain members of the IAEA Board claim to have been unable to "satisfy" themselves of "the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's program." Hence the Board called on Iran to:

* re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;


* reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water;

* ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol;

* pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol which Iran signed on Dec. 18, 2003; and

* implement transparency measures, as requested by the director general, including in GOV/2005/67, which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual-use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations.

But then the Board went on to:

Request[s] the director general to report to the Security Council of the United Nations that these steps are required of Iran by the Board and to report to the Security Council all IAEA reports and resolutions, as adopted, relating to this issue.

No referral?

Just a "request" that Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei "report" to the Security Council the absolutely outrageous discriminatory demands that his Board of Governors has made of Iran – an IAEA member in undisputed compliance with its Safeguards Agreement and the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?

Well, if the Board is lucky, ElBaradei won't make such a report. And if he does, the Board better hope the Security Council will just ignore it
Because, in anticipation of a such a report, the Iranian delegate made these points in a Note Verbale to the Board Feb. 2, 2006:

* The mere fact that some members of the Board – who have no privilege over the others – pre-impose certain decisions on the Board, goes against the legal stance and authority of the Board.

* Furthermore, these developments have revealed the political pressures over the Board and will jeopardize the credibility of its decisions.

* The resumption of R&D activities after two and a half years of suspension cannot provide the ground for taking harsh decisions by the Board and reporting the issue to the Security Council. Those activities are exclusively peaceful and completely within the IAEA legal framework, and their suspension was decided by Iran, voluntarily and provisionally.

* The Board decision to report the issue to the Security Council has no legal and technical basis.

Iran's right; it's the IAEA Board the Security Council should sanction, not Iran.

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran.

Plame declined to comment through her husband, Joseph Wilson.

Valerie Plame first became a household name when her identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. The column came only a week after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that White House officials twisted pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Her outing was seen as political retaliation for Wilson's criticism of the Administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

Her case has drawn international attention and resulted in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is leading the probe, is still pursuing Deputy Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to President Bush, Karl Rove. His investigation remains open.

The damages

Intelligence sources would not identify the specifics of Plame's work. They did, however, tell RAW STORY that her outing resulted in "severe" damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.

Plame's team, they added, would have come in contact with A.Q. Khan's network in the course of her work on Iran.

While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation, sources say.

Intelligence sources familiar with the damage assessment say that what is called a "counter intelligence assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt.

Former CIA counterintelligence officer Larry Johnson believes that such an assessment would have had to be done for the CIA to have referred the case to the Justice Department.

"An exposure like that required an immediate operational and counter intelligence damage assessment," Johnson said. "That was done. The results were written up but not in a form for submission to anyone outside of CIA."

One former counterintelligence official described the CIA's reasons for not seeking Congressional assistance on the matter as follows: "[The CIA Leadership] made a conscious decision not to do a formal inquiry because they knew it might become public," the source said. "They referred it [to the Justice Department] instead because they believed a criminal investigation was needed."

The source described the findings of the assessment as showing "significant damage to operational equities."

Another counterintelligence official, also wishing to remain anonymous due to the nature of the subject matter, described "operational equities" as including both people and agency operations that involve the "cover mechanism," "front companies," and other CIA officers and assets.

Three intelligence officers confirmed that other CIA non-official cover officers were compromised, but did not indicate the number of people operating under non-official cover that were affected or the way in which these individuals were impaired. None of the sources would say whether there were American or foreign casualties as a result of the leak.

Several intelligence officials described the damage in terms of how long it would take for the agency to recover. According to their own assessment, the CIA would be impaired for up to "ten years" in its capacity to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

A.Q. Khan

While Plame's work did not specifically focus on the A.Q. Khan ring, named after Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the network and its impact on nuclear proliferation and the region should not be minimized, primarily because the Khan network was the major supplier of WMD technology for Iran.

Dr. Khan instituted the proliferation market during the 1980s and supplied many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere with uranium enrichment technology, including Libya, Iran and North Korea. Enriched uranium is used to make weaponized nuclear devices.

The United States forced the Pakistan government to dismiss Khan for his proliferation activities in March of 2001, but he remains largely free and acts as an adviser to the Pakistani government.

According to intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, U.S. officials were not aware of the extent of the proliferation until around the time of Khan's dismissal.

"It slowly dawned on them that the collaboration between Pakistan, North Korea and Iran was an ongoing and serious problem," Pike said. "It was starting to sink in on them that it was one program doing business in three locations and that anything one of these countries had they all had."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan became the United States' chief regional ally in the war on terror.

The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.