Iran urged to assess damage from computer worm

NTI: Global Security Newswire,

A top Iranian nuclear official today called on his country to examine assertions that the Stuxnet computer worm has infiltrated critical systems at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant and could wreak havoc should the facility enter operation, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 4).

Russia's ambassador to NATO last week warned of Stuxnet's potential to trigger a disaster at the Bushehr site, but he indicated that development was no longer possible (see GSN, Jan. 27). This week, a news report quoted a non-U.S. intelligence document's warning that the worm could still produce a crisis when the facility begins to work at full capacity (see GSN, Feb. 1).

"Many of these discussions raised in the media and world public opinion about the Stuxnet virus are an effort to create concern among the Iranian people and people of the region and delay the work of the nuclear power plant," acting Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Mohammad Ahmadian told the Iranian Students News Agency.

"Therefore it is necessary that experts in the field investigate to see how much truth there is in these discussions," he said.

Some observers have attributed the malware's development to Israel and the United States, which both suspect Iran's nuclear work is geared toward weapons development. Tehran, which has maintained its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful, confirmed that Stuxnet had infected laptops of Bushehr plant personnel while denying the worm affected operations at the Russian-built facility.

"If supposedly an incident with a damaging effect on (Bushehr) happens, it would have more impact on Russians than Iranians as it will harm their reputation as an actor who claims to be willing to participate in building other nuclear power plants in different countries," the Iranian official said.

"There is no significant delay ... in the startup of the Bushehr plant."

Iran and Russia appeared to be giving the matter "enough attention" to preclude a calamity, but electronic assaults on nuclear sites still pose a threat, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday (Ramin Mostafavi, Reuters I, Feb. 4).

A high-level Israel official, though, yesterday touted computer-based strikes as a means of averting direct military confrontations between countries.

"War is ugly, awfully ugly," Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said. "In modern times, because war is all the time on television ... people see this and can't take it. There are limits. There is a price you pay," Meridor said.

"Because it is difficult, one looks for other ways. One of those other ways is the intelligence community of all the world trying to do things that don't look that ugly, don't kill people," he said.

"And all the world that is not on the screen, the cyber world ... becomes more important in the conflict between nations. It is a new battleground, if you like, not with guns but with something else," Meridor said.

The official did not directly address the Stuxnet worm's infiltration of Iranian nuclear facilities, but his comments reflected Israeli concerns about the potential consequences of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to Reuters.

Neither Israel nor the United States has ruled out a military option in dealing with Iran's atomic work, but economic penalties could still prove successful in swaying Tehran's nuclear policy, Meridor said.

"Iran will have to rethink their policy ... if they understand the Americans are saying to them simply, 'You will not get them (nuclear weapons),'" he said (Dan Williams, Reuters II, Feb. 3).

Russia, though, reaffirmed its opposition to further financial pressure on Iran, Interfax reported yesterday.

"We can see that the potential of sanctions is practically exhausted. New sanctions will imply the desire of the international community to suppress the Iranian economy, and that will lead to a humanitarian crisis in the country," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "We cannot allow that to happen."

Economic penalties are unavoidable in certain situations, Lavrov said. "That was the case of the latest resolution the United Nations Security Council passed in July 2010" -- the fourth sanctions resolution approved by the 15-state panel.

"Sanctions had to be applied because the appeals for resuming negotiations between Iran and the [P-5+1] group (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) brought no results," he said. "Iran was bluntly ignoring the international appeals aimed at closer cooperation between Iran and the IAEA for the sake of resolving existent problems and assuring the world of the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program."

"The fact we supported that resolution does not mean that we will support further sanctions," Lavrov said (Interfax, Feb. 3).

India in May 2008 also expressed opposition to pressuring Tehran by economic means, though it backed Washington's stance against a nuclear-armed Iran, the Press Trust of India yesterday quoted a U.S. diplomatic cable as saying (Lalit Jha, Press Trust of India/Economic Times, Feb. 3).

Meanwhile, an Iranian military official on Wednesday said his country was prepared to retaliate against any attack, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran's armed forces, in particular the ground forces, are fully prepared and should a threat emerge, these forces will defend Iran's sovereignty powerfully … and will cripple the enemy," Iranian Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan said.