Maybe they were counting on this guy to come through?

[joeymaclover]

This guy claims the US wanted him to spill the beans on Iran.  He didn't play along and now they have to fake satellite photos, radio traffic, documents all because this guy didn't play along.  Tsk, Tsk!  

Amiri 'rejected bribe offer of USD 50mn'
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:29:49 GMT
Font size : [Increase] [Normal] [Decrease]
Released Iranian scholar Shahram Amiri speaks to reporters at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport upon his arrival on Thursday.
Iranian scholar Shahram Amiri, who was freed 14 months after being kidnapped by US and Saudi agents, says he turned down a 50 million dollar bribe offer by the US for cooperation.

Speaking in a press conference upon his arrival in Tehran on Thursday, Amiri said the US was pursuing a "psychological propaganda" campaign against the Islamic Republic through his abduction.

He went on to explain that US officials were making concerted efforts to bribe him to advance their political agenda against the Iranian government from the very first days of his kidnapping.

"They [US security agents] told me they would give me 50 million dollars and provide me and my family with proper living conditions in a European country if I reversed my decision to return to Iran," Amiri said in the press conference.

He also pointed to a US offer for an interview with CNN and said that, "Since the early days of my abduction, the Americans were willing to pay me 10 million dollars in exchange for my participation in a 10-minute interview with CNN."

The Iranian academic went on to criticize US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for claiming that he had come to the US willingly and was free to leave.

"I am surprised that a top diplomat of a country which is an advocate of human rights made claims about my freedom while I was kidnapped," Amiri said.

Clinton said on Tuesday that Amiri "lived freely" in the US, adding that he was "free to go" back to his home country.

The Iranian academic also dismissed reports that he made his decision to return to Iran after his family came under pressure by the Islamic Republic.

"It is not true at all. After my abduction, Iranian officials supported my family," he explained.

In collaboration with Saudi forces, US security forces kidnapped Amiri while he was on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in June 2009. He was later taken to the United States.

On July 13, the Iranian scientist took refuge in Iran's interest section at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and later on Wednesday left the United States for the Iranian capital, Tehran.  

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13 ... =351020101


     

[ahaze]

The MailOnline has an interesting article on this, and the original posting holds thousand-word-pictures showing Amiri's homecoming, but the text spells out the Zionist string pulling.

Home to a hero's welcome, the Iranian nuclear scientist who claims he was kidnapped by the CIA
*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1294908/Iranian-scientist-Shahram-Amiri-returns-home-kidnapped-CIA.html

* Amiri claims U.S. offered him $50m to lie about Iran's nuclear programme
* Says he was also interrogated by Israeli agents
* Denies his family were harassed by Iranian officials
* CIA claims he was paid $5m for his information

Returning home to a hero's welcome, this is the Iranian scientist who claims he was abducted by the CIA and pressured to lie about Tehran's nuclear programme.

Shahram Amiri had an emotional reunion with his family in Tehran yesterday, his seven-year-old son barely leaving his father's side. Amiri appeared to be wiping away tears in some photographs.

Amiri, 32, claimed he had been offered $50million by the U.S. to remain in America and 'spread lies' about Iran's nuclear work.

He repeated claims he was kidnapped in 2009 when on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and taken to the U.S.

The scientist also said Israeli agents were involved in interrogating him.

Washington has denied kidnapping Shahram Amiri and insisted he had lived freely in the United States.

A U.S. official said, however, that the United States, eager for details of Tehran's nuclear activities, had obtained information from him.

Asked why Amiri was going back, a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Iranian authorities could have put pressure on his family back home.

But Amiri, holding his seven-year-old son, said: 'My family had no problems'.

Officials also told the Washington Post that the CIA had paid Amiri $5million for his information - money that he can no longer access due to financial sanctions on Iran.

'Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran,' a U.S. official said.

'He's gone, but his money's not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him.'

The Post also claimed that officials were 'stunned' at Amiri's request to return home.

Tehran and Washington have traded accusations over the murky saga which has underlined deep mistrust between the two nations.

'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,' Amiri,  told reporters at Tehran's International Imam Khomeini Airport.

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

The United States and its European allies fear Iran is trying to build bombs under cover of a nuclear programme. Iran says it needs the technology to generate power.

The mystery surrounding Amiri fuelled speculation that he may have passed information about Iran's nuclear programme to U.S. intelligence. ABC News reported in March that Amiri had defected and was helping the CIA.

Wearing a beige suit, Amiri made victory signs as he hugged his tearful son and wife, who greeted him with other family members and a senior foreign ministry official, Hassan Qashqavi.

Qashqavi praised Amiri for his 'resistance against (U.S.) pressure during his 14 months of abduction'.

Iran says the CIA kidnapped Amiri, who worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation. He surfaced at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington on Monday.

'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,' said Amiri.

Iran refuses to recognise Israel since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Intelligence about the Iranian nuclear programme is at a premium for the United States, which fears that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its close ally, Israel, as well as oil supplies from the Gulf, and friendly nations in Europe.

Amiri said he had no valuable intelligence about the Iranian nuclear programme. 'I am an ordinary researcher ... I have never made nuclear-related researches,' the scientist said.

A man identifying himself as Amiri has variously said in recent videos that he was kidnapped and tortured; that he was studying in the United States; and that he had fled U.S. agents and wanted human rights groups to help him return to Iran.

Before his disappearance, Amiri worked at Iran's Malek Ashtar University, an institution closely connected to the country's elite Revolutionary Guards. Tehran initially refused to acknowledge Amiri's involvement in Iran's nuclear programme.

Three months after Amiri's disappearance, Iran revealed the existence of its second uranium enrichment site, near the central holy Shi'ite city of Qom, further heightening tension over the Islamic state's atomic activities.

The State Department said the United States did not kidnap Amiri, but it has not addressed whether another country might have abducted him and turned him over.

[ahaze]

TruthOut also has a good analysis highlighting the double-agent (or dupe) counter espionage aspects.

Clues Suggest Amiri Defection Was an Iranian Plant
http://www.truth-out.org/clues-suggest- ... plant61420

Friday 16 July 2010

by: Gareth Porter  |  Inter Press Service | Report

Washington - U.S. officials are explaining Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri's return to Iran as the result of a defector having a change of heart because of his concern about Iranian government threats to his family. Iran and Amiri himself have insisted that it is a simple case of a victim of abduction escaping his captors.

But several features of the story of Amiri's defection suggest that Amiri may have been acting on Iranian government orders to defect temporarily in order to embarrass the U.S. government.

Amiri resurfaced only last month after having disappeared from Saudi Arabia during a pilgrimage in June 2009. He made two seemingly contradictory videos which appeared within hours of one another, the first charging that the United States had kidnapped him and brought him to the U.S. against his will, the second saying he was living in the U.S. freely to continue his education.

That mystery remained unresolved when Amiri turned up at the Pakistani Embassy Monday evening and said he wanted to return to Iran.

One indication that intelligence officials are now considering the real possibility that Amiri's defection was not really genuine is that questions are being raised about how the contact was made with Amiri in the first place.

ABC news had reported Mar. 31 that the CIA had approached Amiri through an intermediary and offered resettlement to the United States. But the Washington Post's David Ignatius, who is extraordinarily well connected with CIA officials, suggested in a column Wednesday that Amiri had contacted the agency first and "may have been a virtual walk-in".

That means Amiri contacted the agency through the Internet – normally a danger signal for a "defector" who is still a government agent.

Ignatius also notes another "mystery" about the Iranian scientist now apparently now being discussed in intelligence circles: "why he decided to defect without his young wife and child, leaving them – and himself – vulnerable to Iranian pressure".

The normal practice would be for the agency to arrange for the entire family of a defector to accompany the asset. But Ignatius notes that Amiri chose to leave the family in Tehran, which should have been another danger sign for the CIA.

Yet another indicator that U.S. intelligence officials suspected that Amiri's defection was a deception is how far they have gone to portray him as a longtime U.S. intelligence agent.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that a U.S. official had claimed Amiri was paid five million dollars for valuable intelligence on Iran's nuclear programme.

A Jun. 28 ABC news story went much further, quoting U.S. intelligence officials as claiming that Amiri had been a spy for the CIA on the Iranian nuclear programme for several years. The sources claimed the CIA had urged him to flee Iran last year "out of fear that his disclosures might expose him to Tehran as a spy".

ABC news repeated that same assertion in its Jul. 13 story on Amiri returning to Iran.

In the arcane world of spying, those claims wouldn't have been leaked to the media unless the CIA believed Amiri was working for the other side, according to a former intelligence official.

"This is the pattern of a double agent," said the former official. "Nothing else makes any sense."

Other information that has now emerged about Amiri suggests that the story that he was a long-term CIA asset was a falsehood aimed at sowing distrust of Amiri in Tehran.

At age 32, Amiri is a very junior scientist who could not have had information about such issues as plans for Qom, even if he were working for the nuclear programme.

The Post story acknowledges that the scientist "is not believed to have had direct access to Iran's most sensitive nuclear sites or leaders involved in decisions on whether to pursue a bomb."

Both the Iranian Foreign Ministry and Amiri's wife have said he was a specialist on radioisotopes for medical purposes, which would mean that he probably had no knowledge of the nuclear programme of any value to U.S. intelligence.

Amiri's behaviour this spring appears to reflect an interest in demonstrating to the world that the U.S. government was intent on disseminating falsehoods about an alleged Iranian push for nuclear weapons.

In early April, Amiri recorded a video in which claimed to have been kidnapped and held against his will, which was sent to Iran for broadcast. A central point of the video, however, was his claim that the real objective of the United States was to get him to say in a televised interview that he was an important figure in the nuclear programme and had brought "very important documents on a laptop with classified information on Iran's military nuclear programme".

When that video was broadcast on Iranian state television Jun. 8, it was followed within hours by the posting of another video of Amiri seeming to deny his previous statements. The second video had obviously been produced by the CIA well in advance.

That sequence of events indicates that Amiri's CIA handlers had learned weeks before that he was already intending to return to Iran, and insisted that he do a video in which he would admit that he was in the United States of his own volition.

Amiri agreed to make such a statement on camera, knowing that the CIA would post it on You Tube if and when a video claiming he was abducted was posted. But he also insisted on including a statement implying that leaks to the press indicating that he had given valuable intelligence to the CIA on Iran's nuclear programme were false.

In the CIA-sponsored video, Amiri says, "I am free here and assure everyone that I am safe." But he also calls for an end to "information that distorts the reality about me," and says, "I am not involved in weapons research and have no experience and knowledge in this field."

He may been referring to a Washington Post report Apr. 25 that he had provided "details about sensitive programs, including a long-hidden enrichment plant near the city of Qom..."and an ABC report Mar. 31 that he had "helped confirm U.S. intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear programme".

Even before Amiri posted yet another video portraying himself as a kidnap victim Jun. 30, U.S. intelligence officials apparently suspected they had been duped by him and retaliated by leaking the story that Amiri had been a long-term CIA intelligence asset in Iran.

The CIA's eagerness to claim an intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear programme appears to have set the agency up for the Amiri defection scheme. They viewed his affiliation with Malek-e-Ashtar Industrial University, which has connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as evidence that he must be linked to the assumed Iranian plans for a "nuclear weapons capability".