 One of these was Ali Reza Asgari, a former deputy defense minister and Revolutionary Guards general who vanished in Turkey in 2007, and may have defected to the US according to "subsequent press reports".According to "The Sunday Telegraph", both Asgari and Amiri were part of a CIA defection program against Iran called "the Brain Drain", which began in 2005.On 30 March 2010, ABC News reported that Amiri was initially approached via an intermediary, agreeing to defect in a "long-planned CIA operation" and was then living in the United States.