Despite multiple attempts by the Bush administration to halt illegal imports — including sanctions against several Dubai-based Iranian front companies in 2006 — the technology pipeline to Tehran is flowing at an even faster pace. In some cases, Iran simply opened new front companies and shifted its operations from Dubai to farther east in Asia, the officials said.
Iran in the past two years has acquired numerous banned items — including circuit boards, software and Global Positioning System devices — that are used to make sophisticated versions of the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that continue to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, according to documents released by the Justice Department and a new study by a Washington research institute. The deadly trade was briefly disrupted after the moves against Dubai companies in 2006, but it quickly resumed with a few changes in shipping routes and company names, the officials said.
“Without doubt, it is still going on,” said one former U.S. intelligence official who investigated Iran’s networks.
Bomb circuitry is only a small part of the global clandestine trade that continues to flourish, despite U.S. efforts to end it. A federal investigation in New York into whether banks helped customers skirt U.S. rules forbidding business with Iran and other countries turned up evidence of Iranian interests trying to buy tungsten and other materials used in the guidance systems of long-range missiles. As part of the investigation, a British bank agreed to forfeit $350 million.
While illegal trafficking in weapons technology has occurred for decades — most notably in the case of the nuclear smuggling ring operated by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan — the new documents suggest that recent trading is nearly all Internet-based and increasingly sophisticated.
Money knows no boundaries. Fences are for keeping people in.
If a technology is valuable to a country (any country), they will find out who has that tech, and someone will either sell it to them or they will steal or reverse engineer that technology. Welcome to capitalism, not to mention religious fanaticism.
On tungsten: if other supplies were cut off, Iran could get it from light bulb filaments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten
Isn’t it so very interesting how news that seems to include _only_ 2006 and 2007 dates just happens to surface right now? The US media is played like a violin. Wake up, people.
So now you guys want to restrict trade in technology?
Its not like bomb timers are restricted technology, or made of chips and circuits that can’t be found somewhere else.
I think this is just the last gasp of the Bush Regime’s failed war on iraq….its reduced to a North Korean style lame propaganda rush to blame everybody but the USA for the failure that is the iraqi occupation.
We assume iraqis are idiots and have to get their tech from somewhere else. The truth is they’re plenty smart, and have made bombs from household items like washing machine timers, shaped charge bombs from cake pans, and antipersonnel mines from ball bearings embedded in homemade plastic explosives.
The only real idiots are in 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Thankfully there’s only 8 days left.
Meh… Old news. “Asia” is ostensibly China, since China gets US military technology direct from Israel.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL21Ak01.html
Dubai, isn’t that where Halliburton has it’s corporate HQ? Just asking.
Of course, if we remove the Iranian government, we might not have these problems any longer.
These articles just don’t have the same punch without the Bush hatred attached. Weak editors fail in the new political environment.
#6 very true
They are again pumping BS, without offering any evidence. I’m pretty sure you could get all the components you need for an IED easily from east Asia. And why the hell would you need a GPS receiver for an IED anyways?
More looks like someone is trying to divert attention from Gaza, or set the tone for an air strike on Iran….
LAUGH..
AND you think they couldnt do it WITHOUT fancy equipment?
What I FIND entertaining is an EXPLOSION on a freeway, and NO BODY saw the HOLE they DRUG to get it IN/UNDER the road.
If these roads were built 1/2 correctly, the asphalt UNDER the roadway, is at LEAST 6″ THICK and another 1 FOOT of compacted soil/rock..
It would be EASY to hide/camo in a CITY on LOCAL NARROW streets WITH a radio remote.
TRYING to hit 1 military vehicle, on a ROAD full of CARS, IS NOT an easy task..Unless you are the ONLY vehicle ON THAT ROAD.
Let’s not be isolationists.
Trade with Iran is good for everyone. HP is selling lots of printers there, for example.
Why punish US industry just because the Israel Lobby doesn’t want us to do business with Iran. And we would not be in Iraq if it was not for the same lobby.
Their request for a boycott is hurting US interests.
China will just get the business in the end, and we will lose jobs because of it.
It was known by the U.S. what Khan was doing. The Brits, the French, hell even Egypt advised them …listen this fucknut is passing your toys around to hubbums. Supposedly, their rationale was that they were roping in the lot. Clearly, it was a byproduct of the selling out of the intelligence collection for the middle east to the Saudi influenced – Safari Group. Is the current Iranian intelligentsia being prioritized by Israel? I’m not saying this because it’s a sticky conspiracy — it’s just that it appears to be an on going process to completely outsource a region to foreign oversight.
9,
Of course, if we remove the ___________ government, we might not have these problems any longer.
FTFY.
I’m going to have to agree with James (#10) that there is an air of nostalgia for the anti-establishment rants, the childish Photo Shopped pictures of Donald Rumsfeld, and trumped up, sensationalist Guardian stories that used to be the hallmark of dvorak.org/blog’s Iraq coverage. Certainly the lack of Iraq stories must be correlated to the increasing success here (I’d give it an R^2 value of .90).
Like the guy said, “Why don’t they just buy the Russian or Chinese stuff?”
I don’t get it unless our stuff is still better?
Maybe they just get a kick out of using stuff made in America by way of everywhere else to kill Americans?
Damn you Americans really have a thing about Iran. You’ve been fucking with their government since WW2, given Israel the bomb, sided with Saddam in the war, told the world they are a part of an ‘axis of evil’ and god know what else. It’s no wonder they’re not too fond of Uncle Sam. Incidentally, its all great fodder for the religious lunatics that ‘control’ the place to rally the sheeple with anti-American rhetoric.
You’re not gonna stop them McGyvering bombs from what every they can get their hands on, so what the point of all this claptrap? As others have observed, this reeks of the typical propaganda designed to whip up anti-Iranian sentiment.
Cure your oil addiction and leave the middle east. Its the best thing for all concerned.
Come on, GPS and inclinometers can hardly be called weapons technology.
Besides, these are items I can buy et every electronics store? How on earth should anything like this be ‘controlled’.
The article is total BS. Panic mongering. And useless.
s/?/./
Ain’t free market capitalism wonderful?