Spies Against Armageddon Read Online Free Page B

have to resign. One such plan was to penetrate his bank account and deposit money there that he would not be able to explain. The psychological warfare department then would spread rumors to journalists that ElBaradei was receiving bribes from Iranian agents. In the end, that did not occur. In fact, his prestige only rose when he and the IAEA together were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
    ElBaradei did become tougher on Iran, just around that time, when solid information provided by Western intelligence agencies left very little to the imagination. Now it was clear that Iran was deceiving inspectors. While enriching more uranium than would be needed to produce medical isotopes or generate electricity—the officially declared purposes—the Iranians were also trying to achieve the final stage of a nuclear program: weaponization. That would mean putting together all the components, including fissile material in precisely sized metal spheres, and detonators with high-speed switches.
    They were also working on complex calculations of how to detonate a nuclear bomb, and what would be the optimum altitude from which to drop it.
    This became clear—to Western officials, undeniably true—when a laptop computer that contained an incriminating, three-minute Persian-language video found its way to the IAEA. The computer had apparently belonged to an Iranian, who had loaded it with mathematical musings, photos of laboratories and workshops, and details of a mock-up of a warhead on a missile. There was one highly memorable feature: Whenever the video was viewed, it played the music from the Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire .
    The Mossad had procured this smoking gun in 2004 and shared it with other Western intelligence agencies, which passed it to the international inspectors. There were some suspicions that the Mossad might have fabricated the Chariots of Fire files, but the CIA considered them genuine.
    Equipped with that and other evidence, Western nations managed to persuade other members of the IAEA to pass a resolution in September 2005 that accused the Iranians of “non-compliance.” The official verdict now was that Iran failed to be transparent and refused to obey calls for a halt in uranium enrichment.
    The agency then moved its confrontation with Iran to a higher level by referring the non-compliance report to the United Nations Security Council in February 2006. Strong reservations were expressed by China, which bought 15 percent of its oil from Iran, and by Russia, which had strong trade relations and was building an electricity-generating nuclear plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr. But, in December 2006, U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iran.
    In the years that followed, more rounds of sanctions were approved. They targeted Iranian military officers, Revolutionary Guard leaders, scientific experts, and corporations associated with the country’s nuclear and missile programs. Their travel was banned and bank accounts outside Iran frozen. The world was forbidden to trade with these individuals and companies.
    Israeli and American intelligence agencies evaluated the restrictions, however, and determined that they were too soft. The assessment was that only stronger, crippling sanctions might have some effect on Iran’s leadership.
    It seemed that the kind of steps required would include a ban on buying Iranian crude oil and its byproducts. China and Russia refused to lend a hand to that effort. Sanctions thus were not hobbling the determination of Iran’s leaders to keep up their nuclear work.
    The Mossad realized that more drastic measures were needed. Dagan’s battle plan called next for sabotage. That took various shapes. As early as 2003, the Mossad and the CIA exchanged ideas for damaging utility services and lines feeding Iran’s nuclear facilities. Plans were drawn up to place bombs along the electricity grid leading to the uranium-enrichment site at Natanz.
    Dagan—keen to tighten intelligence ties