>> SYRIANS PULL IT OFF?
Bush rejects Pentagon plan for incursions into Syrian territory
http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/
The White House has rejected a U.S. military proposal for increased freedom of action along the Iraqi-Syrian border to halt the flow of Muslim fighters into Iraq. U.S. officials said the White House rejected a plan suggested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to permit U.S. forces operating along the Iraqi-Syrian border to pursue Al Qaida-aligned fighters into Syria and attack insurgency way stations inside Syrian territory.

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Middle East Report:
Clueless in Baghdad: CIA doing poorly in Iraq
__ Full Text, Subscribers

Focus on Iran's Nuclear Capability:
Secret facilities in Natanz can produce a nuclear warhead in days
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Iranian gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant at Natanz
Zoom for closeups 1 and 2. In closeup 2, the group of five white buildings comprise the pilot plant. The large rectangular construction sites (center) are where underground buildings will house thousands of centrifuges. Satellite photo courtesy of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)

Projection of U.S. Power:
U.S. intelligence calls long-term American presence
critical to ending 'dead-end' Mideast conflict
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Northeast Asia Report
China hits Taiwan plan to buy advanced Patriot anti-missile system from U.S.
__ EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM

Military Technology:
U.S. to conduct balloon surveillance on critical Iraq facilities

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>> OUR FRIENDS THE SAUDIS...
Jews barred, said Saudi Web site

(CNN) --The Saudi government has launched an investigation into why its tourism Web site posted a notice that travel visas to Saudi Arabia would not be issued to people of the Jewish faith, according to the spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington.

Adel Al-Jubeir, the embassy spokesman, said the information was posted by mistake and that tourist visas are not denied to people based on their religion.

But Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., called on President Bush to deny travel visas to Saudis until their policy toward Jewish travelers is clarified.

"The Saudis have a lamentable history with regards to Israel and people of the Jewish faith," Weiner said in a statement. "President Bush should demand a full accounting regarding the Saudis' visa policy towards Jews."

The information posted on the Web site said visas would be denied to "Jewish people." The language was removed Friday morning, after Weiner complained. It now tells visitors to check with Saudi consulates in order to obtain visa information.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, said he was "surprised" Weiner would continue to raise the issue after being informed by the embassy that it was not the policy of the Saudi government to deny tourist visas to Jews.

"At this time, we should be working toward greater understanding and better relations between the United States and the Middle East," Prince Bandar said in a statement. "Rep. Weiner and his actions only serve to spread doubt and mistrust."

Weiner, who is Jewish, is a frequent critic of Saudi Arabia in Congress. He is the House sponsor of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act, which would impose sanctions on the country unless it provides additional cooperation in the war on terrorism.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/02/28/visa.flap/index.html

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Uranium Traveled to Iran Via Russia, Inspectors Find
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Inspectors have found evidence that some of the highly enriched uranium found on nuclear machinery in Iran came from Russia, European diplomats and American experts said Friday. The nuclear fuel appears to have come through the global black market, the experts added, and not with the blessings of Moscow.
With the findings, Russia emerges as a new and unexpected foreign source of supply to Iran's nuclear efforts. Recent revelations had shown that the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had provided Iran with some sophisticated centrifuge technology that could be used to refine weapons-grade uranium through his hidden nuclear trading network, according to international nuclear officials and Dr. Khan's own testimony.
The Bush administration has long accused Iran of harboring a secret bomb project, which Tehran denies, saying its nuclear program is only for peacetime purposes.
In that light, last year's discovery in Iran of highly enriched uranium --a potential bomb fuel -- set off an international crisis about the country's nuclear intentions and raised questions about where it had originated. Iran claimed it was contamination that came in on imported equipment, which Iranian officials said they acquired to concentrate uranium for reactors to generate electricity. The centrifuges spin rapidly to enrich uranium for both nuclear reactors and nuclear arms. High concentrations of uranium's rare 235 isotope can fuel warheads.
In a report on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that its inspections had found that centrifuge equipment made indigenously in Iran -- but not imported gear -- showed many traces of the concentrated fuel, leading experts to doubt the Iranian explanation and suggest that Iran had enriched the uranium itself. Its purity was 36 percent U-235 -- short of the 90 percent needed for most nuclear bomb designs but greater than that needed for most nuclear reactors.
On Friday, however, European diplomats said the agency's laboratory at Seibersdorf, Austria, had discovered a likely match between the atomic signatures of Russian uranium and samples agency inspectors had gathered from Iranian centrifuges.
In its sleuthing, the lab studies such things as a sample's isotopes -- atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. A distinctive mix of such isotopes can amount to a fingerprint that experts check against atomic databanks.
The agency, a diplomat cautioned, was being extremely careful in its interpretation of the Seibersdorf data and other evidence and was still actively looking at alternative explanations.
Michael A. Levi, a science fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied the recent I.A.E.A. report, said yesterday that he had independently deduced that the Iranian uranium originated in Russia. The strong clue, he said, was its 36 percent enrichment, a level that matches a kind of fuel used in certain Russian submarines and research reactors. Globally, he added, he knew of no other nuclear technology that used 36 percent enrichment.
"There's no reason for Iran to enrich to 36 percent," he said. `The only place that does that is Russia."
He added that it was highly unlikely that the Russian government sold Iran the uranium because its scientists could have easily concealed the telltale signature.
Rather, he argued, thieves probably stole the material either from Russia proper or elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and sold it on the black market.
Nations that use Russian reactors fueled with 36 percent enriched uranium, Mr. Levi said, include not only Russia but also the Czech Republic, Germany (in the former East sector), Hungary, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Poland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. None of the similarly enriched Russian submarine fuel is exported through legal channels.
Poor security over such materials has been the rule rather than the exception since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Levi said. For instance, in 1993, two Russian naval servicemen stole nearly four pounds of 36 percent enriched uranium from a naval base at Andreyeva Guba, Russia. They were caught and the material recovered.
Mr. Levi said Iran might have wanted a supply of 36 percent uranium because it could ease the production of bomb-grade uranium, making the process much faster and easier.
He estimated, for instance, that enriching one bomb's worth of material would take one year of running 66 pounds of 36 percent enriched uranium through just 25 centrifuges. A set of such centrifuges, known as a cascade, incrementally concentrates the U-235 isotope.
In contrast, if Iran started with natural, unenriched uranium, Mr. Levi said, the same production run would require 13,200 pounds of raw material running through 750 centrifuges. Such a cascade, he noted, "would be far harder to hide than the 15 centrifuge arrangement."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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