INTERNAL SECURITY
Iran in Gulf of Mexico
Engineering company has $90 million pipe-laying contract
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 09.03.2006 11:09
The stories about U.S. national security get stranger and stranger. Last year, G2B reported that Iran was testing mid-air missile detonations U.S. scientific experts believed could be with only one objective in mind – deploying nuclear electro-magnetic pulse weaponry.
The U.S. Congress commissioned a high-level study of the threat posed by EMP weaponry to the country and found that it is one of a very few risks with absolutely catastrophic consequences for the nation. G2B also reported how some intelligence analysts do not believe EMP weaponry has any use to Iran with regard to potential regional enemies.
Because of the widespread effects of EMP, for instance, it would devastate not only Israel but its neighbors as well. That raises the question: Who is the likely target of an Iranian EMP weapon – a nuclear missile exploded at high altitude above ground?
Once again, the panel of experts selected by the U.S, Congress, men of science and technological accomplishment, had no doubt – the USA. While an EMP attack could prove devastating to the U.S., a technologically advanced society dependent on its electrical grid and computers, such a use could have an added benefit for the attacker – plausible deniability.
It is possible to launch a missile over the U.S. from offshore, detonate it over the country, with the source of the launch a mystery. This would make response to such a nuclear attack more difficult. With all this in mind comes the stunning revelation that an Iranian engineering company is actually being permitted to work in a major pipe-laying project in the Gulf of Mexico – about 120 miles from New Orleans.
This is a story more potentially explosive than the Dubai Ports World contract. The Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company has reportedly begin a $90 million dollar project laying pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico. The company says it will be laying 36-inch pipes 60-70 meters under water.
Ultimately, the project is worth some $400 million to the Iranian company. But it gets worse. While the public company is not owned by the Islamic republic, last fall, Tehran began pressuring the engineering firm and threatening it with investigations and prosecutions for alleged financial corruption.
Now use your imagination. The Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company gets a contract for a major pipe-laying project in the Gulf of Mexico, within easy striking distance of the U.S., and then the government of Iran begins exerting pressure on the company. Is it far-fetched to assume that such pressure could eventually be translated into political leverage?
How might that leverage be used?
