According to an Iranian exile who has proven reliable in the past, Iran is on an all-out race to get nuclear weapons as soon as possible: Iran Moves Uranium Enrichment to Secret Plants.

VIENNA (Reuters) - An exile who has previously released key nuclear information about Iran said on Tuesday Iranian leaders decided at a recent meeting to seek an atom bomb “at all costs” and begin enriching uranium at secret plants.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, who disclosed in August 2002 that Iran had a hidden uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water plant at Arak, told Reuters his new information came from the same “well-informed sources inside Iran.”

He was a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran before the United States, which lists it as a terrorist organization, closed the NCRI’s Washington office last year.

He said the Islamic republic’s top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gathered after the father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

“At this recent meeting, they decided to join the nuclear (weapons) club at all costs,” Jafarzadeh said, adding that the leaders decided it was “vital for the survival” of the country.

“They set a timetable to get a bomb by the end of 2005 at the latest,” he said, speaking from Washington.

And remember that cheat-and-retreat cycle I’ve been harping about?

Jafarzadeh said the Iranian leaders also agreed at their secret meeting to adopt a generally “aggressive and confrontational approach” with the IAEA before “muscling their way to the finish line to get the bomb.”