Time to End Iran’s Russian

By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Wall Street Journal,28 April 1998

Last Thursday U.S. envoy Robert Gallucci concluded three days of talks with Russian
officials in
Moscow on the participation of Russian companies and scientists in Iran’s ballistic missile
programs. Russia has consistently denied that it is helping Iran build a missile capable of launching
a nuclear warhead against Israel.

But there is little reason to have confidence in such assurances. The latest case involves a
Russian
shipment of 22 tons of special steel alloys, which U.S. officials believe was to be used in making
fuel tanks for the new Iranian missiles, known as Shahab-3. Although U.S. officials notified the
Russian government that the shipment was about the leave Moscow for Iran, the Russians failed
to stop it. On March 26 customs officers in Azerbaijan finally stopped the truck just before it
crossed the border into Iran. The Russians complained they didn’t have enough information to
stop the shipment themselves.

Troubling Reports

This is part of a pattern. Vice President Al Gore first demanded an explanation of the
troubling
reports of Russian assistance to the Iranian missile program in February 1996. Then-Premier
Viktor Chernomyrdin feigned ignorance and promised answers. After four months of dithering, he
complained that the information Mr. Gore had provided him was too vague.

In the meantime, Russian assistance to the Iranian missile programs accelerated and went
underground, according to Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources I interviewed during a lengthy
investigation for the January issue of Reader’s Digest. “Whenever Gore provides more
information to Chernomyrdin about the missile programs, we see the Russians seeking to identify
the sources of that information and close them off,” Gen. David Ivry, a senior official of the Israeli
Ministry of Defense, told me in Tel Aviv. Companies the Israelis had identified would disappear,
and new, unknown ones take their place–a shell game aimed to disguise Moscow’s cooperation
with Tehran.

Incredibly, some of the same companies that have been helping the Iranians build their new
missiles are also receiving subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. Sens. Trent Lott (R., Miss.) and Joseph
Lieberman (D., Conn.) have introduced legislation to punish foreign companies and governments
transferring missile technology to Iran. The Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act would bar the
guilty parties–companies that help Iran with its missile program and governments that fail to act
against them–from participating in U.S. government-funded programs and from purchasing
sophisticated U.S. technology. “This legislation is necessary because the Clinton-Gore
administration has not done enough to address the threat posed by Iranian missile development,”
Mr. Lott said. The bill has passed the House and has 82 co-sponsors in the Senate. Mr. Lott, the
majority leader, has scheduled a vote on it next month.

The administration’s response to the threat of legislation was to appoint a special envoy to
engage
the Russians in more talks. Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to India, was selected for this task
last July. By the time he left the government last month, the list of Russian entities suspected of
transferring critical missile technologies to Iran had grown from a handful to more than 20. People
who attended classified briefings by Mr. Wisner said that he tried to “paper over” Moscow’s
involvement in the transfers, “flying in the face of hard intelligence” provided by the CIA. Clearly,
the administration goal was simply to prevent the sanctions bill from becoming law.

Since leaving government, Mr. Wisner has taken a top job at the American International
Group,
which last year launched the largest private investment fund in the former Soviet Union. AIG’s
$300 million Millennium Fund was made possible by U.S. government guarantees provided by the
Overseas Private Investment Corp.–funding that would be banned if the Lott-Lieberman
legislation becomes law. Russian officials tell me Mr. Wisner was a favorite in Moscow and had a
reputation for offering incentives to Russia in exchange for promises of better behavior. His last
offer, made shortly before he retired in early March, was to expand Russian participation in joint
space projects, deals that already have cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $400 million and that
would be canceled under the Lott-Lieberman bill.

Russia’s behavior during these lengthy negotiations has been unbecoming of a nation that the
administration likes to call a “partner” in promoting world peace. Instead of cutting off Iranian
access to scientists with special knowledge in ballistic missile design and to research institutes and
manufacturing plants, the Russian government appears simply to have tried to disguise the
contacts better.

Last November, for instance, Moscow announced with great fanfare that it had arrested and
expelled a 32-year-old Iranian, Reza Teymouri, for having attempted to purchase missile plans
from a Russian design bureau. Iranian sources said Mr. Teymouri was a full-time intelligence
agent who was in charge of the Iranian missile procurement effort in Russia, so his expulsion–if
true–was significant. But it remains unclear whether Mr. Teymouri was actually deported to Iran,
as the Russians claim, or was merely admonished to be more discreet. In other cases, Iranians
working on missile plans while enrolled at specialized aerospace institutes in Russia were required
to change to nontechnical fields of study.

At the same time Russia was making these gestures, teams of top Russian scientists continued
visiting Tehran to help the Iranians design and build the Shahab-3 missile, which will have a range
of 800 miles. On March 16 a Moscow newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, revealed that the Russian
Security Service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, was facilitating the travel of Russian
scientists to Iran. This was necessary, the paper said, because under Russian law top scientists
who have access to classified information may not apply for passports to travel abroad. To get
around this restriction, the FSB provided the passports and arranged for two-year contracts for
the scientists to work in Iran. Russian officials have dismissed the paper’s investigation as
“exaggeration.”

One destination of the Russian scientists was a test site in the desert just east of Tehran, run
by
the Shahid Hemat Industrial Group, where they helped the Iranians test a rocket motor that was
based on a Russian design. An Israeli intelligence official told the Knesset last week that Iran has
nearly completed development of the Shahab-3 motor and can be expected to start producing the
missile sometime next year. This would threaten not only Israel but also other U.S. allies,
including Turkey, as well as U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.

Political Sweetener

Russia’s ties to Iran clearly run counter to U.S. national interests. Yet top Clinton
administration
officials–starting with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who was also in Moscow last
week–have repeatedly found excuses for Russia’s misbehavior. Mr. Talbott went to Moscow
with yet another political sweetener–a summit meeting with President Clinton to be held next
month. He should have told the Russians there would be no more meetings until they had cut off
aid to the Iranian missile program–period. The time for offering the Russians incentives is long
over.

Given the administration’s behavior, the Russian government has understandably concluded
that
Washington is not overly concerned by the missile transfers to Iran. Given the threat Iranian
missiles pose to U.S. national security, it is crucial that Congress act to dispel this misperception.

Mr. Timmerman is an investigative reporter for the Reader’s Digest and publisher of a
monthly
newsletter, The Iran Brief.