"Defecting" Iranian scientist may have been double agent

[Demon of Light]

Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who disappeared while in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and reappeared in the US last month where he asked to return to Teheran is now suspected by US intelligence officials of being a double agent, British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph reported Sunday.

Amiri's strange behavior has prompted the suspicions that he may have faked defecting to plant false information among US intelligence about the state of Iran's nuclear program.

The New York Times reported Friday that Amiri was one of the sources who contributed to a controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran had stopped work on its nuclear program.

Source: Jerusalem Post

There is another take on this from Debka:

There is mounting suspicion in Washington and Jerusalem that Tehran employed the scientist to strew red herrings in their path, namely, out-of-date material for concealing and misdirecting their attention from the rapid progress taking place secretly in Iran's nuclear program.

A high-ranking intelligence source in Washington remarked Monday, July 19, that he would not be surprised "if we woke up one morning to find the Iranians had conducted an underground nuclear test." This was not to say Iran had a bomb or nuclear warhead ready packed for delivery, he said, "Only that it was a lot closer to this option than the Americans and Israelis had been led to believe."

That Shahram Amiri, the nuclear scientist, was a made-up identity. After he landed to a heroes' welcome in Tehran last Thursday, July 15, Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi said: "Shahram Amiri is not a nuclear scientist and we reject it." Another Iranian official called him a clever spy who had managed to infiltrate US intelligence and deceive them for years.

It makes one wonder why Iran needed someone to deceive the world about its nuclear program if the nuclear program was peaceful.