THE ECONOMIST: Inside the spy dossier that led Israel to war

West Australian

6 hours ago

When Israel launched its war on Iran on June 13 it did so on the basis of intelligence that it claimed showed Iran had reached a 'point of no return' in its quest for a nuclear weapon.
That evidence galvanised Israel's own security establishment to support an attack now. It has been shown to America and other Western partners, presumably playing an important role in their ongoing decision-making over whether to support or even join the war.
The Economist has not seen the material directly, but has gained exclusive insights from an authoritative source, giving a view of Israel's dossiers, as shared with its allies, and the claims they make over enriched uranium and the speeding-up of Iran's programme. Some of the details are already known; some are new.
These claims are proving contentious, with the intelligence services of some Western countries cautious about the imminence of the Iranian threat, and signs of divisions within President Donald Trump's administration.
Our report provides context on these disputes.
We understand that the information presented by Israel includes a detailed account of a recent, more urgent, push by Iranian scientists towards 'weaponisation', or the creation of an explosive nuclear device.
The dossier provides two key pieces of reported evidence for this claim. The first is that an Iranian scientific team has squirrelled away a quantity of nuclear material, of unclear enrichment status, that is unknown to the monitors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog (on June 9th the IAEA assessed Iran had official stockpiles of over 400kg of highly enriched uranium).
The second piece of reported evidence is that the scientists have accelerated their work and were about to meet commanders of Iran's missile corps, apparently to prepare for the future 'mating' of a nuclear warhead with a missile.
Much of Iran's previous dabbling with research and activity related to nuclear weapons was in the public domain already. The IAEA has published several reports documenting this, drawn in part from intelligence supplied by Israel and other countries.
In 2018 a team at Harvard University also published their own analysis of Iranian documents purloined by Israel.
Taken together, these sources described a broad and sustained Iranian effort towards making a uranium core for a bomb, the explosives required to implode that core in order to cause a chain reaction and a programme to place a spherical payload onto Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
In a report published on May 31st, the IAEA noted that in 2003 Iran had planned to conduct what the Institute for Science and International Security, a think-tank, calls a 'cold test'—a simulated nuclear weapon which uses natural or depleted uranium rather than weapons-grade uranium.
Israel's intelligence assessments repeat some of this information. They allege that a cohort of Iranian scientists have been working on overt and covert weapons-related research for years. This effort was originally part of Iran's formal nuclear-weapons research programme, known as AMAD, that it shut down in 2003, probably because it feared an American attack.
The scientists' ongoing work is thought to be carried out under Iran's Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research (also known by its Farsi acronym, SPND), under the cover of activity in fields like covid-19 vaccines and laser technology.
One of a small number of non-scientists who were aware of the work was Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, who as chief of staff of Iran's military had oversight of both the regular armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
But the Israeli intelligence dossiers also contain information that, if correct, is genuinely new. They suggest that roughly six years ago the scientists formed a secret 'Special Progress Group', under the auspices of the former AMAD director, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
This group's aim was to prepare the way for a much quicker weaponisation process, if and when a decision was made by Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to rush for a bomb. Mr Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by Israel in November 2020.
On June 13th in the first hours of the war, the Israeli government published slides describing this backstory. But we have been told that it also shared further assessments with allies that suggest the Special Progress Group stepped up its research at the end of last year. Iran had a new incentive to advance to a bomb.
It was reeling from the limited impact of its missile attacks on Israel, and the depletion of its air defences by Israeli strikes in October 2024. And it was facing the collapse of its proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, in Gaza and Lebanon.
Lastly, Israel's intelligence states that a meeting had been scheduled between the scientists and commanders of the IRGC's air force, who are in charge of ballistic missiles.
The information shared by Israel with its allies argues this proposed meeting was a Rubicon, with the missile chiefs being let in on the secret for the first time, suggesting in turn that planning for the 'mating' process of a nuclear device to a missile warhead was about to begin.
Iran had done some of this work in the past—in 2011 the IAEA cited claims that Iran had done computer modelling studies to see how a 'spherical payload', such as a warhead, would stand up to the stresses of being launched on a ballistic missile.
Miniaturising and mating a warhead to a missile are highly complex tasks that could still take Iran a substantial time to master.
Israel's new claims are feeding into an American intelligence community that already has a range of views on the Iranian threat. In March Tulsi Gabbard, America's director of national intelligence—and a longstanding opponent of war with Iran—repeated the view that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon.
In recent days the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and CNN have reported that American intelligence agencies are sceptical of the new Israeli claims.
On June 17th Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the IAEA, said that his agency had not been presented with 'proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon', although a week before the IAEA confirmed that Iran 'did not declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities' at three undeclared locations in Iran.
Mr Trump may nonetheless have been influenced by the Israeli view. On June 17th he declared, 'I don't care what she said,' referring to Ms Gabbard. 'I think they were very close to having one (a bomb).'
David Albright, an American nuclear physicist and weapons expert who is consulted by intelligence agencies, says that most of the claims contained in the recent Israeli dossiers are 'generally accepted among (Western) intelligence communities'.
However he accepts that there are claims that are new to him, over the diversion of nuclear material and the suggestion of an imminent meeting with missile forces.
And he says that American intelligence analysts also agree that Iran has accelerated preparations for weaponisation—in July last year the director of national intelligence omitted the traditional wording that Iran 'isn't currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device' in a report to Congress, according to the
Wall Street Journal
.
Assuming Israel's dossiers are factually accurate, there is still room for what Mr Albright calls the 'the interpretation of the facts'. Even if American analysts accept that Iran has the intent to pursue a bomb and has accelerated its push, they may disagree that it has crossed a threshold or that the threat is truly imminent.
Meanwhile, the Israelis, he says, 'may think it's a bit faster and worry about their own ability to detect and act in time'. Israeli officials used to present their assessments of Iran's nuclear push using timelines measured in months and years.
Since the war began, they have talked of the 'point of no return'—a moment at which Israel would no longer be capable of halting an Iranian dash to a bomb. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, has spent decades warning of the threat from Iran.
That means confirmation bias is a risk. But the stance of Israel's intelligence community is unified and consistent with the government's view.
Perhaps it has been put under political pressure, but it has clashed with Mr Netanyahu and other prime ministers on the nuclear file in the past. Now it backs the war.
Nuclear physics is a science. Intelligence assessment is not, but has enormous real-world consequences. In 2003 America and its allies went to war in Iraq based on faulty assessments of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In the opening strike of the war on June 13th, Israel assassinated key scientists and officials. Nuclear facilities have been bombed. The Israelis claim they have removed the imminent danger of Iran dashing towards weaponisation.
Still, setting Iran's nuclear programme back by years also depends on destroying, or at least inflicting significant damage, on Iran's main underground uranium-enrichment plants in Natanz, and in Fordow, which has not yet been hit.
Mr Trump may decide this is a job for America, whatever his spooks say.