CIA: Iranian Scientist Was Informant

Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared last year and resurfaced at the Pakistani embassy, was a CIA informant, The Washington Post reports. The CIA scooped him out of Iran last year after the agency suspected Tehran was onto the scientist—or, as the Telegraph reports, he could have been a double-agent for Iran as well. Another informant was scooped up, too, and brought to the U.S. Amiri was among half a dozen people working in Iran’s nuclear program who were tipping off the CIA. They were all given money—$5 million for Amiri alone. Amiri was reunited with his family in Iran this week, saying he was drugged and kidnapped by the CIA, shipped to the U.S. and suffered coercive interrogations, claims American officials deny. The newspaper’s sources say one of the informants got “sloppy” in his communications with the CIA, but stayed for a long time in Iran despite the risk. Now the CIA must reevaluate the information provided by Amiri, delaying again a much-anticipated assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.