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Pakistan and Iran—both controlled by governments that publicly profess opposition to al-Qaeda—are playing a double game that could end in nuclear catastrophe. U.S. intelligence, aided by Canada and Britain, has concluded that the Pakistani intelligence service has been aiding the movement of al-Qaeda and top Taliban officials between Iran and Pakistan. Now, Pakistan's ingenious father of the first Islamic nuclear weapon, Abdul Qadeer Khan, is on loan to Islamic clerics in Iran to fast track Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The Bush administration has been in the possession of satellite and human intelligence and intercepts predating the 9-11 attacks that provide strong evidence Iran has a vastly expanded nuclear program controlled by some of the country's most radical Islamic clerics.

"The National Command Authority received this intelligence in the spring of 2000, and it was updated almost daily," a senior U.S. intelligence official said. "We considered the intelligence we have on Iran far less speculative to the circumstantial case we were able to pull together on nuclear weapons in Iraq," another U.S. official said.

Because Iran's Islamic clergy has long offered a haven for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers, the significance of these same elements in the Iranian power structure controlling nuclear weapons and materials has been a cause of concern for the U.S. and allied intelligence communities.

Through a sharing arrangement that uses a secure intranet, Canada and the United Kingdom are contributing to a massive intelligence collection effort underway since the Clinton administration. Canadian and British agents reported details of the program from Iran that have since been confirmed by business and shipping transactions. The intelligence included highly classified National Security Agency intercepts of financial transactions and money transfers used to purchase equipment for Iran's nuclear weapons program. NSA even managed to obtain hundreds of pages of faxed contracts between Iran and its equipment suppliers.

National Security News Service sources in Iran close to the office of President Mohammad Khatami insist that Khatami has little say or control over the massive weapons program. The Iranian government has long been split between the clergy, which controls Iran's security and infrastructure, and the president's office, which has limited power. Experts with the French government, which has had an ongoing covert relationship with Iran, believe that Iran is on a course to produce a nuclear weapon within three years. A CIA source told NSNS that it might be closer to "five to ten years, but unlike the North Korean program, what Iran has embarked on is a much more ambitious program. We think they are looking at a capability to produce a serious number of weapons."

NSNS sources in Iran say that the Iranian president is in a struggle with the mullahs over how to handle al-Qaeda "guests." Khatami is publicly stating that high-ranking al-Qaeda figures who were given refuge in Iran are, in fact, under arrest and will be tried in Iran. NSNS sources inside Iran confirm that al-Qaeda supporters, including a son of Osama bin Laden, are in safe houses controlled by SAVAMA, the Iranian intelligence service. SAVAMA has close ties to the Pakistani intelligence service. The villas—lavish by even American standards—are in southern Iran and, in the case of several top al-Qaeda officials, within short distance of the Iraqi border. U.S. pressure on both the al-Qaeda issue and the nuclear program has had little effect on the split Iranian leadership. The mullahs have refused to allow Khatami to return bin Laden’s son to Saudi Arabia. Khatami is a political lame duck. His term ends in 18 months, and he is not seeking re-election. U.S. officials are convinced that the next Iranian election will produce a showdown between the younger, more-educated citizens who want an end to a religious state and the rural, older Iranians that support the clergy.

In Vienna, an inspection team member from the International Atomic Energy Agency said the IAEA already "is convinced that Iran has produced a significant amount of HEU [highly enriched uranium]. We believe their program may be on a larger scale than the Israeli Dimona reactor program." Experts on the Israeli program say that Dimona has already produced enough nuclear material for hundreds of weapons.

French intelligence and CIA sources who spoke to NSNS agree on one thing: The Iranian weapons program is now the third program undertaken in the region. After Saudi Arabia financed A.Q. Khan's massive and successful effort to make Pakistan a nuclear power, Khan began to work less publicly with Pakistan's customers and friends. U.S. intelligence believes that Khan and his Pakistani sponsors made his expertise and Pakistani technological help available to programs in Islamic Malaysia and Iran. The CIA says Khan has been seen repeatedly in Tehran over the last two years. NSA intercepts also indicate payments were made to Khan associates from Iran. For the Bush administration, Pakistan's role in making A.Q. Khan and information from his research lab at Kahuta, Pakistan, available to Iran (which is harboring al-Qaeda leadership) raises serious questions about the U.S. alliance with Pakistan.

The bulk of Pakistan's financing for the Khan bomb effort came from Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and 1980s. Because Pakistan was supporting CIA covert operations in Afghanistan, the United States took no action to stop Pakistan's program until it tested a weapon during the Clinton administration. In 1986, the People's Republic of China and Pakistan entered into a series of agreements which aided the Pakistani weapons program.