WASHINGTON — Iran is using its campuses to conduct nuclear weapons research
and development programs.
The Iranian opposition said Teheran has used schools and universities to
conceal the nation's nuclear weapons program. The opposition said schools
have not
been inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Given Teheran's record of lies and deceptions, using academic
institutions to develop a nuclear bomb, makes it even more difficult to stop
Iran's secret development of a nuclear weapon," Alireza Jafarzadeh, a
leading member of the Iranian opposition, told a briefing in Washington on
March 20.
Jafarzadeh, president of the Washington-based Strategic Policy
Consulting, said tests for Iran's nuclear weapons program have taken place
at the Imam Hossein University, Middle East Newsline reported. Located in Teheran, the university has been
operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"The Imam Hossein University has a scientific group and a nuclear
physics department," Jafarzadeh said. "The fact that a nuclear physics unit
exists in a military university related to the IRGC suggests the regime's
goals in procuring a nuclear weapon."
Jafarzadeh said the university has never been targeted for inspection by
the IAEA. He said he received information on Iran's nuclear weapons programs
from sources inside the university.
Imam Hossein was said to instruct IRGC personnel. The corps has been
regarded as the leading military arm and responsible for both Iran's nuclear
weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missile programs.
"The nuclear physics program at Imam Hossein University is as extensive
as Sharif University of Technology, which has the oldest and largest nuclear
physics major in the country," Jafarzadeh said. "Two company commanders of
the nuclear physics program are IRGC commander Seyyed Hassan Hosseini and
IRGC commander, Reza Haj Beiglou."
Iranian leaders have referred to the role of universities in the nuclear
project. In October 2005, then-Iranian Supreme National Security Council
secretary-general Hassan Rowhani said Iran universities have participated in
the
nuclear program.
Jafarzadeh said that Rowhani told the council that the IRGC conducted
several tests in universities in an attempt to conceal nuclear activities
from the IAEA. Rowhani as well as other officials have insisted that the
nuclear program is civilian.
