Security & Strategic Review - March 2006

VENEZUELA-US | Revival of 'nuclear threat'. The connection made between Venezuela and Iran by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US intelligence director John Negroponte in mid February [SSR-05-02] has prompted a revival of reports about secret deals or even actual shipments of Venezuelan uranium to Iran. On 8 March the Venezuelan newspaper El Nuevo Paí­s said that Israeli intelligence had pinpointed the areas of 'maximum extraction of uranium' for Iran close to the border with Brazil. This appears to have been drawn from an internet report which indeed cited Mossad, together with the intelligence services of Germany, France, the US, Britain and Jordan, as confirming the location of Venezuela's main uranium deposits, as well as the area of 'maximum extraction', complete with latitude and longitude.On 13 March the story was picked up by the Washington Times, which added speculative commentary by former Venezuelan military officers now opposed to Chávez . This newspaper, though, quoted a State Department source as saying, 'We are aware of reports of possible Iranian exploitation of Venezuelan uranium, but we see no commercial uranium activities in Venezuela.' The Venezuelan government has dismissed these reports as fabrications, much as it did when similar ones surfaced in July last year. At that time it was claimed that the CIA had uncovered signs of exploitation of uranium deposits in the Guayana Massif - the same ones now again 'located' - and that this would provide the casus belli for a military intervention in Venezuela (reputedly codenamed Operation Yellowcake) on the grounds that the country was in breach of the Latin American ban on nuclear weapons. One of the most active disseminators of these reports at the time was Rafael Poleo, then editor of El Nuevo Paí­s.

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