US and Israel fear Iran may be capable of a nuclear test this year

Shahram Amiri's voluntary repatriation to Iran and a second close look at the nuclear data he passed to the CIA are raising grave doubts about its value, debkafile's intelligence sources report. There is mounting suspicion in Washington and Jerusalem that Tehran employed the scientist to strew red herrings in their path, namely, out-of-date material for concealing and misdirecting their attention from the rapid progress taking place secretly in Iran's nuclear program.

A high-ranking intelligence source in Washington remarked Monday, July 19, that he would not be surprised "if we woke up one morning to find the Iranians had conducted an underground nuclear test." This was not to say Iran had a bomb or nuclear warhead ready packed for delivery, he said, "Only that it was a lot closer to this option than the Americans and Israelis had been led to believe."

Therefore, as of now, their forecast of a nuclear test capability has been brought forward to within the five months remaining of 2010.

Our sources report this revised forecast has emerged from US intelligence analysts' examination of two new premises regarding Amirir's input in the years he served as US informant:

1. That he was an Iranian double agent and his apparent defection to the United States just over a year ago was fake, engineered by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

2. That Shahram Amiri, the nuclear scientist, was a made-up identity. After he landed to a heroes' welcome in Tehran last Thursday, July 15, Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi said: "Shahram Amiri is not a nuclear scientist and we reject it." Another Iranian official called him a clever spy who had managed to infiltrate US intelligence and deceive them for years.

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly 453 revealed on July 16, Amiri's work with the CIA did not begin in 2007 but three years earlier in 2004.

http://www.debka.com/article/8918/

A Mossad File