U.S. Senate Adopts Harsh New Economic Sanctions on Iran

United U.S. Senate Adopts Tough Iran Sanctions

December 2, 2011

AFP - The US Senate unanimously adopted harsh new economic sanctions on Iran, dismissing US officials' fears they risked fracturing global unity on blocking Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

Lawmakers voted 100-0 to include the measure, which aims to cut off Iran's central bank from the global financial system, in a must-pass annual military spending bill poised for final approval.

Senators rebuffed an 11th-hour campaign from top aides to President Barack Obama who warned the legislation could shatter a growing but fragile global consensus on confronting the defiant Islamic republic over its nuclear drive.

The measure, crafted by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Mark Kirk, calls for freezing the US-based assets of financial institutions that do business with the central bank.

It would apply to non-US central banks that do so for the purpose of buying or selling petroleum -- Iran's chief source of revenues -- or related goods, amid growing fears that time is running short to solve the standoff peacefully.

"This is the right amendment, at the right time, sending the right message in the face of a very irresponsible regime," Kirk said.

"This is the maximum opportunity to have a peaceful diplomacy tool to stop Iran's march to nuclear weapons," said Menendez.

US officials have warned that depriving global markets of Iranian exports could send oil prices sharply higher, handing Tehran a windfall at a time when it has struggled to cope with painful international economic sanctions.

To address that, Kirk and Menendez's measure says the sanctions would only apply if Obama determines that there is sufficient oil from other producers to avoid disrupting global markets, and enables him to delay them if he determines that to be vital to US national security interests.

And Kirk said this week that Saudi Arabia's ambassador had told him of the kingdom's "great willingness" to boost its output to meet any resulting shortfall in supply.

The sanctions would not apply to sales of food, medicine and medical devices.

Earlier, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen warned the plan risked alienating key allies and inadvertently lining Iran's pockets.

"We all agree with the impulse, the sentiment, the objective, which is to really go at the jugular of Iran's economy," Sherman said in a frequently contentious hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"But there is absolutely a risk that, in fact, the price of oil would go up which would mean that Iran would, in fact, have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less," she said.

"Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we act in a way that does not threaten to fracture the international coalition of nations," Cohen said at a hearing just hours before lawmakers were to vote on the plan.

Sherman and Cohen's entreaties ran headlong into sharp criticisms from lawmakers impatient with the pace and scope of pressure on Iran and worried time was running short until the US nemesis joins the club of nuclear nations.

"You haven't shown us the robust effort, when the clock is ticking, to use that which we have given you," Menendez scolded, referring to past sanctions laws.

"We hear the words, we hear the talk, but we've wanted action for some time and it just hasn't happened," said Republican Senator James Risch, who warned of an "urgency gap" between the White House and Congress.

Senator Richard Lugar, the committee's top Republican, scoffed at concerns that the measure could alienate China, saying "they're not taking this very seriously anyway."

And, with the specter of military force as a last option lurking over the debate, Lugar declared "we're going to have to either contend with diplomacy with the Chinese or potential warfare with the Iranians."

Republican Senator Bob Corker asked whether Washington was "making plans with our friends towards military action" and sending "signals to Iran that, if these sanctions do not work, we really are prepared to use that option."

"Iran understands, and they read the newspapers and see what's happening. They understand it is a serious possibility," replied Sherman.

The Senate and House of Representatives were to hold negotiations to blend their rival versions of the underlying bill and send the compromise to Obama to sign into law.

Factbox: Cyber Warfare Expert's Timeline for Iran Attack

December 2, 2011

Reuters - The code inside the cyber weapon to attack Iran's nuclear program traces back to 2006, according to cyber warfare expert John Bumgarner, who has spent more than a year studying samples of the malicious software and analyzing other data related to the unprecedented effort. His claims have not been independently confirmed.

Here are some key milestones he says he has uncovered related to the attack on a heavily secured underground uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.

• May 2006 - Engineers compile code for a component of Stuxnet that will allow them to attack programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, manufactured by Siemens of Germany. Iran's nuclear program uses Siemens PLCs to control the gas centrifuges in its uranium enrichment facilities.

• 2007 - Duqu, a data-stealing piece of malware, is deployed at targeted sites in Iran and some of its allies, including Sudan.

• Late 2007 - Engineers write the code for the "digital bomb" component of Stuxnet, allowing those behind the attack to force the gas centrifuges to rotate at faster-than-normal speeds, which is what damaged the sensitive equipment when the cyber weapon was eventually deployed.

• November 2008 - Conficker appears, starts to spread rapidly.

• December 2008 - Actors behind Stuxnet start running www.mypremierfutbol.com, a website appealing to soccer fans that will eventually be used to cloak traffic traveling between machines infected with Stuxnet and the server controlling them.

• January 2009 - They start running www.todaysfutbol.com, which will be used for the same purpose.

• January 2009 - Spread of Conficker peaks and engineers continue writing code for key components of Stuxnet.

• March 2009 - Conficker Variant C is deployed. This version will be used to deliver Stuxnet to Iran.

• April 1, 2009 - Attackers begin to deploy Stuxnet to Iran on the 30th anniversary of the declaration of an Islamic republic in Iran.

• January 2010 - Operators of Stuxnet accelerate program by adding new malware components that make it spread faster and also make it more dangerous.

• March 2010 - Stuxnet operators add additional components to the malware to make it even more powerful.

• June 2010 - Computer security firm VirusBlokAda identifies Stuxnet as a piece of malware after reviewing a sample that was found in Iran.

• July 2010 - Cyber security blogger Brian Krebs breaks news of Stuxnet on his website.

• November 2010 - Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discloses that a cyber weapon had damaged gas centrifuges at his nation's uranium enrichment facility. "They did a bad thing. Fortunately our experts discovered that," he said.