WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | Mossad, CIA held talks on Iran, Petraeus reveals.

Israel’s Mossad chief held a secret meeting with the director of the CIA in Washington over the weekend to discuss a potential military strike against Iran.

The sit-down between Tamir Pardo, head of the Mossad, and CIA director David Petraeus was not announced in Israel, and only became public knowledge in the U.S. on Tuesday, when Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he met with Pardo to discuss the Iranian situation.

The focus of the meeting was reportedly Iran’s “immunity zone” — the amount of time Iran needs to hide its centrifuges in a place that will be impenetrable to Israeli air attack. For Israel, when Iran becomes capable of burying its nuclear arms out of striking reach, a red line will have been crossed.

The Prime Minister’s Office – which is responsible for speaking to the media about the Mossad and its activities – refused to comment on Pardo’s meeting with Petraeus.

According to the Wall Street Journal, committee chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif). – who also mentioned Pardo’s meeting with Petraeus – told the committee, “I think 2012 will be a critical year for convincing or preventing Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.”

Meetings between the U.S. and the Mossad are usually kept secret, but Feinstein’s conversation with the committee was not only public, but televised.

The U.S. is now concerned with more than just Iran’s nuclear ambitions. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Iran is ready to carry out terrorist attacks within the U.S., due to increasing U.S. and European pressure and sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Clapper – who addressed the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside Petraeus – recalled the thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in the U.S.

Clapper reportedly said, “The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against US or allied interests overseas,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Clapper went on to elaborate on the current intelligence assessment concerning Iran, saying, “We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

According to Clapper, Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities. “Iran’s technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so. These advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses.”

Concerning U.S. cooperation with Israel on the Iranian issue, Clapper said “We’re doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, an existential threat.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s state-controlled Fars news agency reported on Tuesday that Iran completed a “constructive round of discussions” with International Atomic Energy Agency officials currently visiting Iran to discuss its nuclear program.

A senior Iranian official told the official news agency IRNA, however, that the IAEA officials did not visit Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This entry was posted on February 1, 2012 at 5:52 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.