The Hill News

The CIA is launching a new effort devoted to nuclear and other major weapons threats.

Agency director Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the group would aim to confront "nuclear, chemical and biological" WMDs.  It will be initiated by the National Counterproliferation Center, which operates beneath the head of the intelligence community.

The center comes as Iran prepares to start its new Bushehr new nuclear power plant, which will use nuclear rods provided by Russia. The effort will partner analysts and operators within the CIA on projects to prevent weapons proliferation. 

An outside expert gave an example of such a project to the Associated Press. 

To thwart the progress of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, said Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security, operatives had insert! ed "faulty parts into Iran's nuclear supply chain."

That project "is an example of where you'd need both analysts to tell you what type of parts would Iran need that you could inject, and the operations side to work with trading companies to try to get the parts in there," he said.