In an Article in Middle East Times published in London on Dec. 4, the Middle East strategic specialist Mrs. Clare Lopez pointed to the role of Iranian resistance and wrote:
“Beginning with the August 2002 announcement by the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), that Iran had concealed a clandestine nuclear weapons program for the preceding 14 years, through satellite confirmation that, indeed, the conversion plant at Isfahan, enrichment facilities at Natanz, plutonium processing center at Arak, and a host of other sites actually did exist, the world saw with its own eyes what Tehran’s clerical regime never meant it to see.”
In other part of the article Mrs. Lopez wrote: “In just one example of this program that is now not supposed to exist, after the NCRI revealed the existence of the Lavizan laser enrichment site near Tehran in 2004 (a full year after the NIE now says Iran’s nuclear weapons program supposedly ended), the regime razed the site to the ground, removed the topsoil, and even yanked out every single tree in the vicinity in order to conceal any lingering traces of radioactivity. All equipment from that site was moved to a new site at Lavizan II, where the laser enrichment activity resumed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2004 discovery of polonium inside Iran also would seem strong evidence that Iran was involved well past 2003 in the production of trigger systems for nuclear warheads. Corroboration of the IAEA’s findings came from the NCRI, which detailed an ongoing program of polonium and beryllium acquisition by Iran. There are simply no other credible uses for these rare and expensive isotopes than warhead triggers.”