Secretary of State John F. Kerry exchanged pleasantries with Iran, wishing "health and prosperity" even though it was revealed at virtually the same time that the rogue Islamic regime has a secret plant where scientists are working on nuclear weapons that could be aimed at the U.S.
The United States, Kerry said in a statement issued this week, is "strongly committed to resolving" differences with Iran.
"Despite the difficult history of the last decades between the United States and Iran, there is an opportunity to work diplomatically to reduce tensions and address the mistrust between our two countries, to the mutual benefit of both of our people," Kerry said in a statement reported by the Washington Times.
The statement was released Wednesday, the same day WND reported Iranian scientists are working on nuclear warheads at an underground site previously unknown to the West.
The source is a high-ranking intelligence officer of the Islamic regime, according to the report by Reza Kahlili, an Iranian insider turned CIA spy who has written "A Time to Betray."
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Kerry's comments, on the occasion of the Iranian-Persian new year, were a continuation of a traditional statement to the Iranian people.
"Many Americans will join you in celebrating" this year, it said. "I'm proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family, and grateful for how they have enriched my life."
He only alluded to the tensions that have built over Iran's apparent efforts to build a nuclear bomb.
"We sincerely hope Iran's leaders choose to fulfill their obligations to not only the international community but also to their people so that Iran can begin to take its proper place in the community of nations, and the Iranian people can have access to the same opportunities and freedoms enjoyed by others around the world," he said.
"As President Obama has said, we are strongly committed to resolving the differences between Iran and the United States, and continuing to work toward a new day in our relationship."
According to Kahlili's source, that new day for Iran will include nuclear weapons.
His source, who has been assigned to the Ministry of Defense, not only revealed the existence of the weapons plant but provided details.
The site of about 100 square miles has two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.
The source said Gen. Ahmad Vahid Dastjerdi, who works in the supreme leader's office to protect the regime's information and counterintelligence, manages the site. His deputy, Hojatolislam Ramezani, was appointed to the protection of intelligence at the Defense Ministry after several leaks about the country's nuclear operations.
It is built about 375 feet under the mountain and accessible by two large entrances reinforced with concrete, has 12 emergency exit tunnels and spreads around the mountain.
According to the WND report, the Iranian source said the site has a capacity of 8,000 centrifuges and currently has three operational chambers with 19 cascades of 170 to 174 centrifuges enriching uranium. As of three months ago, the source said, there were 76 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium stock at the site and 48 kilograms of over 40 percent enriched uranium.
Though the regime has long succeeded in enriching uranium to 20 percent, which is 80 percent of the way to weapons grade, enriching to over 20 percent would be a clear sign of an intention of building a nuclear bomb.
The most significant information provided by the source is that the regime has succeeded in not only enriching to weapons grade but has converted the highly enriched uranium into metal.
Moreover, the source said, successfully making a neutron reflector indicates the final stages for a nuclear weapons design that would be a two-stage, more sophisticated and much more powerful nuclear bomb.
Regime scientists are also working on a plutonium bomb as a second path to becoming nuclear-armed, the source said, and they have at this site 24 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient for several atomic bombs.
The scientists are at the last stage of putting together a bomb warhead, he said, and the scientists in their design for a plutonium bomb are using polonium and beryllium, which would serve as the trigger for the bomb.
The regime is building its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles there using compressed composite carbon material, which originated at an American company, he said. The company manufactures advanced composite materials and structural parts. Iran purchased the carbon material through an intermediary in Turkey, the source said. The material makes it possible to have a longer missile range with larger warheads.
Overhead images clearly show this site has over 380 missile depots and launching pads, facilities that can house large ballistic missiles, most likely Shahab 3 and possibly North Korean Taepodong II (ICBMs). The source added that this missile site is the center of the regime's defensive and offensive strategies and supports other missile sites: the Imam Ali near the city of Khoram Abad in the Lorestan province and the one in Tabriz in the province of East Azarbaijan – to be used in any attack on Israeli and U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
Experts said the evidence was cause for alarm.
Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, an expert on nuclear strategy and weapons who served on several strategic congressional commissions and in the CIA, reviewed the imagery and human intelligence (HUMINT) and called for a congressional hearing.
"The newly discovered underground complex looks like the kind of enormous complexes built by the USSR during the Cold War and by Russia today," Pry said. "Heavily hardened and fortified and supplied with huge amounts of electric power, by what appear to be 765-kilovolt electric power lines, the imagery suggests a top-priority military site. Nuclear-weapons programs consume vast amounts of electricity."
Fritz Ermarth, who served in the CIA and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, reviewed the imagery.
"There is much work to be done by imagery analysts on the photos Reza (Kahlili) has produced," he said. "For example, is spoil from the tunneling visible? Does it tell us how extensive the tunneling is? But taken as a package, this imagery strongly suggests that Iran is working on what we used to call an 'objective force.' That is the objective of a deployed force of nuclear weapons on mobile missiles, normally based in deep underground sites for survivability against even nuclear attack, capable of rapid deployment. … They do suggest that Iran is working the problem of becoming a nuclear weapons power in a serious way, not just playing around for a few nukes on the shelf."
Ambassador Henry Cooper, the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative and chief negotiator on nuclear and space treaties with the Soviet Union, said Iran's "apparent interest and investments in underground systems are clearly coupled with its programs to develop and potentially employ weapons of mass destruction in the face of armaments that may be deployed against them, whether by Israel ('the little Satan') or the United States ('the Great Satan')."
"Most notable is the fact that Iran has already demonstrated its ability to launch satellites into low earth orbit," Cooper said. "When they also gain confidence in their nuclear weapons, they can then use those launchers to place nuclear weapons in earth orbit and detonate them over wherever they wish, creating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could level its strategic playing field with all of Western civilization. This is perhaps their ultimate asymmetric weapon. Far-fetched? I wouldn't bet (against) it."