Austrian intelligence service report draws international attention over Iran nuke claims

ON MAY 26, THE Austrian domestic intelligence service, Direktion Staatsschutz und Nachrichtendienst (DSN) in Vienna officially presented its annual report: the Verfassungschutzbericht (VSB) [Constitution Protection Report].  The document can be downloaded [PDF] via the official homepage of the DSN.

First published in 1997 by the predecessor of the DSN and then titled Staatsschutzbericht [State Protection Report], these reports offer rare official insights into the work of Austria’s domestic intelligence service. While their form and scope have varied over the nearly 30 years of the service’s existence, their aim and structure have roughly stayed the same: the VSB informs the public about the duties of the service, and about recent developments in the fields it is tasked with, monitoring and policing, during the calendar year prior to its publication.

Featured chapters nearly always include political extremism, terrorism, espionage, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, protection of critical infrastructure and, since their emergence, sometimes also cyber threats. Often—thought not always—the reports feature anonymized cases from the year before and specialized essays about certain relevant topics. Traditionally the media and public give most attention to those parts of the report that deal with extremism and terrorism of all kinds inside Austria.

VSB 2024 Receives International Attention

This year, however, several paragraphs in the chapter titled “International Illicit Arms Trade and Proliferation” [“Internationaler Illegaler Waffenhandel und Proliferation”] have drawn international attention. The proliferation section—starting on page 154 of the report—deals with a number of states that can be described as partly or fully antagonistic to “the West”. In addition to Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its activities are described in the chapter. Regarding the Shia theocracy and its nuclear program, the report states (translated by the author with assistance by DeepL):

In order to assert and enforce its political claims to regional power, the Islamic Republic of Iran is striving for comprehensive armament. Nuclear weapons are intended to make the regime untouchable and to expand and consolidate its dominance in the Middle East and beyond. The Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons is well advanced. An arsenal of ballistic missiles is ready to carry nuclear warheads over long distances. [Emphasis added]

All efforts to prevent Iran’s armament with sanctions and agreements have so far proved ineffective. On the contrary: the Islamic Republic of Iran is producing weapons and weapons delivery systems on a large scale—and not just for its own use. [p.158]

Iranian intelligence services are entrusted with the development and implementation of circumvention structures for the procurement of armaments, proliferation-relevant technologies, and materials for weapons of mass destruction. They use front companies and networks inside and outside the Islamic Republic of Iran for this purpose. In particular, the [Islamic] Revolutionary Guards Corps’ widely ramified and difficult to oversee company empire serves proliferation purposes. [p.159]

The report clearly describes a program by Iran to develop nuclear weapons as a fact. It does not only suggest that it might be well advanced, but states this as a given. The report furthermore establishes that transport systems to deploy nuclear weapons—once finalized—are in place and could reach long-distance targets.

Fox News Picks Up VSB 2024

The VSB was picked up by the American media giant Fox News. The network reported on it under the title “Explosive new intelligence report reveals Iran’s nuclear weapons program still active” on May 28. The Fox News report begins by pointing out that “[t]he startling intelligence gathering of Austrian officials contradicts the assessment of the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)”. It goes on to note that “[t]he Austrian intelligence findings could be an unwanted wrench in President [Donald] Trump’s negotiation process to resolve the atomic crisis with Iran’s rulers because the data outlined in the report suggests the regime will not abandon its drive to secure a nuclear weapon.”

Fox News quotes David Albright, a physicist and founder/president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC, as saying: “[t]he ODNI report is stuck in the past, a remnant of the fallacious unclassified 2007 NIE [National Intelligence Estimate]. The Austrian report in general is similar to German and British assessments. Both governments, by the way, made clear to [the] US IC [Intelligence Community] in 2007 that they thought the US assessment was wrong that the Iranian nuclear weapons program ended in 2003.”

The Fox News report also states that “[t]he danger of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism [and its illegal atomic weapons program] was cited 99 times in the 211-page report that covers pressing threats to Austria’s democracy.” All in all, Fox News’ reporting paints a picture that the small European state’s intelligence service has information that contradicts the assessment of the much larger American IC and insinuates that the American assessment—and by implication the political approach to dealing with Iran—is wrong. Read more of this post