Scooped the Washington Post!

[Chreteau]

Ha! I broke the Iran nuclear story before the Post did.

BREAKING NEWS: Iran Hid Nuclear Site from IAEA
Courtesy of Statecraft Journal

According to a report released yesterday, the Iranian Defense Ministry has operated a secret nuclear site identified as the Modern Defensive Readiness and Technology Center. The report also claims that Iranian officials moved equipment prior to a visit by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency on 28 June 2004.

According to remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell today, the U.S. is taking the report seriously.

"I have seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. You don't have a weapon until you put it in something that can deliver a weapon," Powell told reporters traveling with him to Chile for an Asia-Pacific economic summit. "I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead; I'm talking about what one does with a warhead."

The group responsible for the report identified itself as the National Council for Resistance in Iran. According to Adam Ereli, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, the group is more commonly known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq and has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Ereli also indicated that similar reports had been received in the past, and that those reports have been substantiated by the IAEA.

"It is the responsibility of the IAEA to follow up on reports like this, to determine whether Iran is conducting covert nuclear activity," stated Ereli at today's press briefing. "There have been reports like this in the past, and the IAEA has been able to, because of its activities, to substantiate them. So given, I think, that track record, we think it's important that when information like this does come to light that it be taken seriously and looked into," stated Ereli.

Formed in the 1960s, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein since the late 1980s. The MEK's history is filled with anti-Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the interests of the clerical regime and its replacement with the group's own leadership.

According to DrudgeReport.com, the Washington Post is planning to break the story in Thursday's edition.