[Independent.co.uk] Iranian Scientist: CIA Offered Me $50million to Lie About Nuclear Secrets

[stickyshooZ]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-scientist-cia-offered-me-50m-to-lie-about-nuclear-secrets-2027718.html

An Iranian scientist who says he was abducted and taken to the United States by the CIA returned to Tehran yesterday to a hero's welcome and claimed that he had been pressured into lying about his country's nuclear programme.

Shahram Amiri said that he was on the hajj pilgrimage when he was seized at gunpoint in the city of Medina, drugged and taken to the US, where he says Israel was involved in his interrogation. In the US, officials were reported to have admitted that Mr Amiri was paid more than $5m (£3.2m) by the CIA for information about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The US claims to have received useful information from him in return for the money, but is clearly embarrassed by his very public return to Iran. The offer of a large bribe is reportedly part of a special US programme to get Iranian nuclear scientists to defect.

Flashing a victory sign, Mr Amiri returned to Tehran International Airport

to be greeted by senior officials and by his tearful wife and seven-year-old son, whom he had not seen since he disappeared in Saudi Arabia during a visit 14 months ago. Iran said it was demanding information about what had happened to him.

The US says that he entered the US of his own free will and had relocated to Tucson, Arizona. The US is claiming that Mr Amiri, who had worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, re-defected because pressure was placed on his family back in Iran, something he denied yesterday. Officials suggested that Iran had used his family to get him to leave the US.

"Americans wanted me to say that I defected to America of my own will, to use me for revealing some false information about Iran's nuclear work," Mr Amiri said at Tehran airport.

"I was under intensive psychological pressure by [the] CIA... the main aim of this abduction was to stage a new political and psychological game against Iran."

Iran and the US have been engaged in a semi-covert war involving defections, seizures and kidnappings in recent years, of which the case of Mr Amiri is only the latest example.

It reached its peak in Iraq in 2007 when the US abducted Iranian consular officials from the northern city of Arbil and Iran seized a British navy patrol boat in the Gulf. Last year, Iran seized three Americans hiking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, claiming they had strayed over the Iranian border, while other accounts said they had been forced into Iran at gunpoint.

Mr Amiri had appeared in three contradictory videos; in the first he claimed to have been kidnapped and tortured and in the second, he said he had come to the US to write his PhD.

In a third video he denounces the second one. On Monday he arrived unannounced at the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked for an air ticket to return to Iran.

At his press conference at Tehran airport, Mr Amiri stressed that he had acted under compulsion. "Israeli agents were present at some of my interrogation sessions and I was threatened to be handed over to Israel if I refused to cooperate with Americans," he said. "I have some documents proving that I've not been free in the United States and have always been under the control of armed agents of US intelligence services."

He says he was offered $50m to stay in the US. Mr Amiri denied that he had ever had any information about the Iranian nuclear programme. "I am an ordinary researcher... I have never made nuclear-related researches. I'm not involved in any confidential jobs. I had no classified information."

Mr Amiri had worked at Iran's Malek Ashtar University, an institution closely connected to the country's elite Revolutionary Guards.

US officials said that Mr Amiri may not be able to access his $5m, because of sanctions on Iran. The Washington Post said yesterday that the Iranian scientist had been working with the CIA for a year and officials were "stunned" by his request to go home this week. The officials added that he had provided useful information, though not directly on whether Iran was trying to make a nuclear device.

Bush and Blaire wanted to try the same thing with Iraq...paying people to defect and then have them claim they saw Saddam's WMDs. There are some inconsistencies here, as the article mentions, but that's no real surprise.

[ACW]

This whole story keeps getting weirder.

[twa]

I blame Obama

[mardi gras skin]

Mr Amiri had appeared in three contradictory videos; in the first he claimed to have been kidnapped and tortured and in the second, he said he had come to the US to write his PhD. In a third video he denounces the second one.

[visionary]

Bush and Blaire wanted to try the same thing with Iraq...paying people to defect and then have them claim they saw Saddam's WMDs. There are some inconsistencies here, as the article mentions, but that's no real surprise.

Wait...you don't actually believe this story, do you?

:pfft:

[Unforgiven]

If you look at the facts and believe this man to be a truthful and reliable source of information, then I have some wonderful property I would like to sell you at an amazing discount.

Seriously, no one in their right mind would believe this nut. I'm not naive and believe America is always right and the government would never lie to the people, but this guy can't be taken seriously simply based on the facts.

[stickyshooZ]

If you look at the facts and believe this man to be a truthful and reliable source of information, then I have some wonderful property I would like to sell you at an amazing discount.

Seriously, no one in their right mind would believe this nut. I'm not naive and believe America is always right and the government would never lie to the people, but this guy can't be taken seriously simply based on the facts.

I don't know if he himself is reliable (it's just his word against theirs), but I don't doubt for one second that the govt. would do it.

[Thiebear]

item #7:

NOBODY gives up 50million to go back to Iran.

[Larry]

Just out of curiosity, which part of this guy's claim does everybody say is impossible to believe?

Somebody want to try to argue that our government never kidnaps people? Never uses harsh interrogation techniques or drugs? Never pressures people to say certain things?

Personally, if I were betting, I'd say that the most likely story is that the guy defected, the Iranians threatened his family, and the guy reneged.

(Although I'll admit that my scenario has a hole in it. I have trouble believing that anybody would trust the Iranian government enough to believe that he could defect to the US for a year, then return to Iran, pitch this story to the media, and that the Iranians won't torture him and his family to death, six months from now, as a lesson to others.)

[Larry]

Remembering a Mark Russel song, years ago, when a Soviet named Yerchenko pulled the same thing: He'd supposedly defected to the US, been set up in lavish style, then, a year later, return to the USSR claiming that he'd been kidnapped. The song still sticks in my head:

I was a prisoner of the CIA

(a prisoner with a very large expense account)

"I have been drugged!" he cried. "They tortured me"

"Both night and day."

No way.

Ron said.

Those Good Old Days are dead.

I think Yerchenko's story's rigged.

That he was ours. And then reneged.

The CIA's been Bay of Pigged

Because

Yerchenko went away.

[jpillian]

Somebody want to try to argue that our government never kidnaps people?

I have a hard time believing, in general, stories where a three-letter agency is diabolical enough to kidnap someone, but not diabolical enough to: a) keep him indefinitely, or kill him.

It certainly could happen, but for me -- the story immediately inherits some measure of incredulity.

[jnhay]

I have a hard time believing, in general, stories where a three-letter agency is diabolical enough to kidnap someone, but not diabolical enough to: a) keep him indefinitely, or kill him.

It certainly could happen, but for me -- the story immediately inherits some measure of incredulity.

That's a good point. He was kidnapped, then offered $50 million to stay in the country? If you take someone by force, why would you then offer them money to stay? You just keep them!

[visionary]

This story is nonsense.

And it ought to be obvious.

First of all nothing the guys in charge of Iran say can be trusted.

And if we're supposed to believe they don't have their hands in this, please.

Second of all, why the hell would the US waste so much money in order to get an undesired result?

We don't want to go to war with Iran, and the last thing we would be doing right now is faking evidence that would only worry people more if it were revealed.

What possible reason could they have for doing it?

The administration is better off with everyone forgetting about Iran, since there isn't really anything we can do about them other than sanctions.

And the only point of doing those would be because something actually needed to be done.

And we've already done them...so what exactly would we gain from making up evidence now?

Now if this had been news about us doing this to someone from Iraq before the Iraq war...that I'd believe. (unfortunately)

Oh and the Iranian government thugs and smokescreen artists are obsessed with the CIA.

They always bring them up, lol.

[polywog999]

Sounds like a bunch of crap. No way to verify it. A simple case of a former prisoner bashing "the system." The government would never offer that kind of money. They would just put a gun to your head and say do it, if indeed they really thought it would help.

[Thiebear]

They say 50million

they say trade for another spy?

Rendition!!!! Rendition!!!! where are the prosecutors

[Destino]

There is absolutely no way an average person would be able to figure out what really went down here. Having said that I tend not to believe a person when they claim to turn down 50 million in order to get back to serving the Iran.

[Switchgear]

Wait...you don't actually believe this story, do you?

:pfft:

Well, based on the "Investigate 9/11" sig, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.

[Spartacus87]

I have a hard time believing, in general, stories where a three-letter agency is diabolical enough to kidnap someone, but not diabolical enough to: a) keep him indefinitely, or kill him.

It certainly could happen, but for me -- the story immediately inherits some measure of incredulity.

Yeah, I don't see the sense in paying him that much cash to stick around at that point. It'd be a lot easier just to find a nice little plot of land in government owned property to bury him in.

Well, based on the "Investigate 9/11" sig, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.

That raised my eyebrows as well, but I'm not really familiar with the OP's posting history.

[Prosperity]

I have a hard time believing, in general, stories where a three-letter agency is diabolical enough to kidnap someone, but not diabolical enough to: a) keep him indefinitely, or kill him.

It certainly could happen, but for me -- the story immediately inherits some measure of incredulity.

c) trade him for other hostages

but yeah I doubt it

[GhostofSparta]

Well, based on the "Investigate 9/11" sig, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.

Yeah, I caught that too. I read the article kind of waiting for "Area 51" or "Grassy Knoll" to be brought up in some manner.

[Seabee1973]

the only thing he is doing is saveing his rear if he told the truth he would be killed in IRan

[Ryman of the North]

Just out of curiosity, which part of this guy's claim does everybody say is impossible to believe?

Somebody want to try to argue that our government never kidnaps people? Never uses harsh interrogation techniques or drugs? Never pressures people to say certain things?

Personally, if I were betting, I'd say that the most likely story is that the guy defected, the Iranians threatened his family, and the guy reneged.

(Although I'll admit that my scenario has a hole in it. I have trouble believing that anybody would trust the Iranian government enough to believe that he could defect to the US for a year, then return to Iran, pitch this story to the media, and that the Iranians won't torture him and his family to death, six months from now, as a lesson to others.)

You are probably correct. I doubt the US offered him 50 million.

[Larry]

You are probably correct. I doubt the US offered him 50 million.

You've got me, there. I don't believe $50M, either.

(Although, this is the government we're talking about.)

[Larry]

Thinking about this, for a minute.

I wonder if maybe the Iranians are making a mistake, here. Spreading the word that the US is offering defectors $50M. Do they really want to be spreading this?

[mjah]

Bush and Blaire wanted to try the same thing with Iraq...paying people to defect and then have them claim they saw Saddam's WMDs.

As far as I've ever read, the W administration's unreliable Iraq sources fabricated their stories for free, and in some cases were handled by other countries anyway.

There's a long history (here and elsewhere) of using trumped-up events to justify the occasional minor war, but I've never read a credible account of W and Blair actively seeking well compensated "informant" liars -- particularly since they were churning up adequate quantities of inaccurate fodder without having to open any checkbooks.