CIA plan pursues Iranian defections

WASHINGTON – The CIA launched a secret program in 2005 designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons program by persuading key officials to defect, an effort that has prompted a “handful” of significant departures, current and former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation say.

The previously undisclosed program, which CIA officials dubbed “the Brain Drain,” is part of a major intelligence push against Iran ordered by the White House two years ago.

Intelligence gathered as part of that push provided much of the basis for a U.S. report released last week that concluded the Islamic regime had halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003. Officials declined to say how much of that intelligence could be attributed to the CIA program aimed at recruiting defectors.

Although the CIA effort on defections has been aimed in part at gaining information about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, its goal has been to undermine Iran’s emerging atomic energy capabilities by plucking key scientists, military officers and other personnel from its nuclear roster.

Encouraging scientists and military officers to defect has been a hallmark of CIA efforts against an array of targets, ranging from the Soviet Union to Iraq. But officials said those programs did not generally seek to degrade the target country’s capabilities, suggesting that U.S. officials believe that Iran’s nuclear know-how is still thin enough that it can be depleted.

In the two years since it was launched, the program has led to carefully orchestrated extractions of a small group of Iranian officials who operated in the mid- to upper tiers of the Islamic regime’s nuclear programs.

None of those who defected was considered essential to the nuclear program, nor were they in position to provide comprehensive descriptions of Iran’s efforts.

“Did they have replacements for these people? Any country would have,” the former official involved in the operation said. “But we did slow the program.”

The CIA effort on defectors reflects the urgency with which the U.S. government has sought to slow down Iran’s nuclear advances, as well as the importance U.S. officials attach to finding human sources who can help fill in intelligence gaps left by high-tech means of collection such as satellites and electronic eavesdropping equipment. It was described by officials on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the effort.