Posts with the tag 'nuclear weapons'
Pajamas Media has the story:
[Editor’s note: Pajamas Media has spoken with “Reza Khalili’s” attorney in Washington, D.C. who confirmed Khalili “had a working relationship with a US intelligence agency.” We have also seen a copy of the June 5, 2008 email sent by the agency’s “Manuscript Review” department authorizing the publication of this article.
In an interview with Roger L. Simon, “Khalili” further amplifies his accusation of Iranian involvement in Lockerbie and addresses the controversial question of whether the Shiite mullahs would form alliances with Sunnis. A transcript of the interview is here. More interviews with “Khalili” in disguised video form will be coming in the future from PJM. ]
The men who ordered the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the bombings of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are pursuing the nuclear program in Iran and with one goal in mind: to obtain The Bomb.
And they want to destroy you.
After the Iranian Revolution, I was an officer in the Revolutionary Guards. I was also a spy working for the CIA, code name Wally. My position in the Guards gave me access to the Khomeini regime’s deep secrets and a firsthand look at the unfolding horror: torture, rapes, executions, assassinations, suicide bombers, training of terrorists, and the transfer of arms and explosives to other countries to support terrorist attacks. I risked my life and my family’s trying to expose this regime because I believed it should be stopped. Once again I incur such risks to bring awareness that lack of action endangers the world.
In the mid-80s, I reported to the CIA that the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit had information that Saddam Hussein had made a strategic decision to acquire nuclear arms. I heard this from several sources within the Guards and also in a conversation with a member of the intelligence unit, who told me that the Guards were informed through arms dealers in the black market that Saddam was desperately looking for an atomic bomb. It was then that the Guards’ commanders and Iranian leadership decided to go nuclear and actively shop for components in the black market because they made a determination that the Iran-Iraq war could not have been won without a nuclear bomb. Mohsen Rezaei, then-commander of the Revolutionary Guards, requested permission from Ayatollah Khomeini to make Iran a nuclear power. Khomeini agreed…
Do read the whole thing - most of what is discussed is pretty well known to those who have paid attention over the years, at least in the sense that some of the horrible things which have happened (Lockerbie, eg) almost certainly had an Iranian origin. Its good to get some inside confirmation, but more important is the light this sheds on the attitudes of Iran’s leaders - the people Obama wants to talk to without preconditions, that is.
As Winston Churchill once pointed out, “jaw jaw is better than war war” - let us, indeed, talk to the Iranians till the cows come home (or the 12th Imam arrives, which ever is sooner) but let us also have no illusions: we’re dealing with a hodge-podge of human debris which is cowardly, corrupt, cruel and insane, with the added uncertainty of never knowing which element is predominant at any given time. For our advantage, “cowardly” and “corrupt” work best…dealing with greedy chickens is pretty easy, after all. But given that “cruel” and “insane” can pop up at any time we must keep our minds fixed on this one thing: The current Iranian government must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons.
There is no set of circumstances where the world will be safer with nuclear-armed mullahs. There is no set of circumstances where military action to prevent such a thing will be worse than allowing the mullahs to obtain nuclear weapons. It is literally a matter of millions of lives - perhaps tens of millions - being at risk with a nuclear-armed Iran, while the life risk of military action would not run higher than into the tens of thousands, in the worst case scenarios (and, well done, would probably only risk into the low thousands). Do keep in mind that we never, ever have to invade Iran - military action would be naval and aerial, with some special forces work and, perhaps, some temporary landings on the Iranian coast to destroy missile and naval facilities. The bugbear the left throws at us of having to march on Tehran is just bluster designed to scare us off any action at all.
I would have preferred we dealt with Iran back in 2006, or 2007 at the latest - President Bush determined otherwise, and I hope to one day find out whether there was a really good reason for not acting. Be that as it may, its now mid-2008 and the mullahs are tooling along steadily towards a nuclear weapon (and, good people, there is no other possible interpretation on Iran’s nuclear effort - only the willfully blind could consider it as a peaceful use of nuclear energy); the next President will have to deal with this. And in so dealing, the next President - rather quickly in his term, I suspect - will have to decide whether he wants to allow Iran to obtain nukes (and thus place us in a junior-league, but much nastier, Cold War with the prospect of huge casualties if “insane” comes out on top), or if he wants to cut out the cancer by military action with a hope that by the time the mullahs can reconstitute their progam, they will finally have been overthrown by the long suffering - but increasingly restive - Iranian people.
Tags: Iran, nuclear weapons, Terrorism
July 9th, 2008
From McCain AIPAC speech:
The threats to Israel’s security are large and growing, and America’s commitment must grow as well. I strongly support the increase in military aid to Israel, scheduled to begin in October. I am committed to making certain Israel maintains its qualitative military edge. Israel’s enemies are too numerous, its margin of error too small, and our shared interests and values too great for us to follow any other policy.
Foremost in all our minds is the threat posed by the regime in Tehran. The Iranian president has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and suggested that Israel’s Jewish population should return to Europe. He calls Israel a “stinking corpse” that is “on its way to annihilation.” But the Iranian leadership does far more than issue vile insults. It acts in ways directly detrimental to the security of Israel and the United States.
A sponsor of both Hamas and Hezbollah, the leadership of Iran has repeatedly used violence to undermine Israel and the Middle East peace process. It has trained, financed, and equipped extremists in Iraq who have killed American soldiers fighting to bring freedom to that country. It remains the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism and threatens to destabilize the entire Middle East, from Basra to Beirut.
Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons poses an unacceptable risk, a danger we cannot allow. Emboldened by nuclear weapons, Iran would feel free to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy. Its flouting of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would render that agreement obsolete and could induce Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others to join a nuclear arms race. The world would have to live, indefinitely, with the possibility that Tehran might pass nuclear materials or weapons to one of its allied terrorist networks. Armed as well with its ballistic missile arsenal, an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to the people of Israel.
European negotiators have proposed a peaceful endgame for Tehran, should it abandon its nuclear ambitions and comply with UN Security Council resolutions. The plan offers far-reaching economic incentives, external support for a civilian nuclear energy program, and integration into the international community. But Tehran has said no…
…we hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before. Yet it’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another. Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents, as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly acquire the appearance of respectability.
Rather than sitting down unconditionally with the Iranian president or supreme leader in the hope that we can talk sense into them, we must create the real-world pressures that will peacefully but decisively change the path they are on.
It is purblind idiocy, sorry to say, when Obama says he will meet with the Iranian leadership without preconditions. If an enemy of the United States wanted to figure out the best way to strengthen the mullahs, diminish America and set the stage for global catastrophe, he couldn’t script anything better than an American President kowtowing to Iran’s murderous government. McCain, on the other hand, notes that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons - with the implication being that military action will be used if nothing else works - and lays out a program of international diplomacy and economic warfare to bring Iran’s government to heel. Key to this is attacking Iran’s Achilles heel - the fact that Iran imports most of its gasoline; deny Iran this gasoline, and Iran’s economy will grind swiftly to a halt, and if that doesn’t get them to talk, nothing will, ever.
Iran with nuclear weapons is a standing threat to the lives of millions of innocent human beings, including innocent Iranians. Iraq with nuclear weapons is a nation which will feel free to sponsor terrorism all around the globe, safe under a nuclear umbrella from any direct retaliation. Iran with nuclear weapons is something which cannot be allowed to happen - and by electing McCain to carry forward policies designed to force Iran to back down, we’ll have a good shot at preventing a nuclear Iran. By electing Obama we will just ensure that Iran obtains nuclear weapons, and becomes a horrible threat to the entire world.
Tags: Barack Obama, Defeaticrats, Iran, John McCain, nuclear weapons, Terrorism
June 3rd, 2008
With a wave of my magic wand “poof” and you, dear reader, are now President of the United States. Pretty cool, except that I’ve landed you in a situation where two days ago a 1 kiloton nuclear weapon was detonated in Manhattan. About 100,000 Americans are dead, twice that number wounded and the American financial system is in complete meltdown. Incontrovertible evidence is now presented to you showing that the nuclear weapon originated in Iran. What do you do?
Do you order a nuclear strike on Iran? I believe our least powerful nuclear weapon is 5 kilotons, presumptively able to do much more serious damage to, say, Tehran than a one kiloton device did to Manhattan. Meanwhile, the nuclear weapons aboard our submarine force (and thus likely to be most swiftly available for use) are 475 kilotons. Packs quite a wallop. Lets say, just for argument, that if you use an American nuclear weapons that you will kill at least 250,000 Iranians…and maybe a million or more.
Do you order large scale conventional bombing attacks? Our B-2 bombers can each carry 20 tons of bombs - with 20 in stock, lets say you order ten of them to do a bombing run on Tehran…200 tons of bombs. You can use about 40 of our B-1s, each also carrying about 20 tons…800 more tons of bombs. And then there is the ready standby, the B-52; you get to use 50 of these, carrying 30 tons each…1,500 more tons of bombs. You total out at about 2,500 tons of bombs for your attack on Tehran. How many people would that kill?
Of course, you could eschew all that and just have Congress declare war formally, and then you can spend a year raising the necessary military force for a full scale invasion of Iran - which will likely cost many thousands of US soldiers their lives, but would probably cost hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers their lives, as well as an untold number of Iranian civilians caught in the crossfire.
Or, you can do nothing.
None of these choices is really appealing, is it? Much better if you never have to make such a decision - which, in turn, is why it is vital we curb nuclear proliferation, as John McCain desires:
As President, John McCain Will Establish A Long-Term Commitment To A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons. Like President Reagan, John McCain believes we can see a day when nuclear weapons are banished from the Earth. While a distant and difficult goal, we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern on our security and our allies’ security. The time has come to take further measures to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and the U.S. must be a leader.
John McCain’s Highest Priority Will Be To Reduce The Danger Nuclear Weapons Will Ever Be Used. We must seek to do all we can to ensure that nuclear weapons will never again be used. While working closely with our allies, John McCain will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to engage in a comprehensive review of all aspects of our nuclear strategy and policy.
At The Same Time, The U.S. Must Continue To Deploy A Safe And Reliable Nuclear Deterrent, Robust Missile Defense And Superior Conventional Forces.
John McCain Supports Further Strategic Arms Reductions. John McCain will seek to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to the lowest number possible consistent with our security requirements and global commitments, moving as rapidly as possible to a significantly smaller force.
John McCain Will Work To Strengthen Existing International Treaties And Institutions To Combat Proliferation And Develop New Ones Where Necessary. The U.S. should move quickly to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and improve the ability to interdict the spread of nuclear weapons and material under the Proliferation Security Initiative. John McCain will increase funding for American nonproliferation efforts, including the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs established by the landmark Nunn-Lugar legislation.
To Prevent Countries From Using Civilian Nuclear Programs As A Cover For The Development Of Nuclear Weapons, John McCain Will Limit The Further Spread Of Enrichment And Reprocessing. John McCain supports international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing. He also supports establishing international nuclear enrichment centers and an international repository for spent nuclear fuel.
When you have heard me state over and over again these past few years that Iran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, this is what I’m thinking of - lots of dead Americans making a situation where we make lots more dead Iranians. Massacre, however, is not good policy on either a strategic or moral plane. My whole motivation - and I believe this is shared by President Bush now, and will be shared by a President McCain - has been to reduce the possibility of an attack on the United States even more horrible than that which we endured on September 11th. We can’t do this by diddling with the UN or waiting for our enemies to become reasonable - we have to attack the problem with diplomatic, economic and military means. In the end, if Iran - and other grave threats to world peace - refuse to give up their nuclear ambitions, then we must compell them to do so, even if this requires military action. Any such action will end up being far less costly than any enemy attack on us, and our retaliation against them.
Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons - regardless of cost to ourselves - is not really a debatable position. But Obama’s position on this (unconditional negotiations with Iran followed hard upon a US withdrawal from Iraq) is beneath contempt. Essentially, Obama’s policies would just about ensure that either Obama or his successor will be faced with the scenario I described. A six year old fed on fairy tales can hold such views, but men and women who are serious about the world know better. We must have a President who deals in reality - with the world as it is, not as a liberal hopes it will be. We have enemies. There are evil people in the world. We must prevent the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands. It will be wonderful if we can get all we want by talking, but we must be prepared to do whatever proves necessary. McCain’s plan is hopeful but also realistic, and I pray that we’ll have a chance to really end this long-standing nuclear menace.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, non-proliferation, nuclear weapons
May 29th, 2008
Was the Israeli move the best to make, or should we have sent Obama to talk to the Syrians and North Koreans?
WASHINGTON — A Syrian nuclear reactor built with help from North Korea was weeks away from functioning, a top U.S. official said Thursday after lawmakers were briefed on the site destroyed last year by Israeli jets.
The official, who wanted anonymity, told The Associated Press that the facility was mostly completed but still needed significant testing before it could be declared operational.
Still, Syria’s ambassador to the United Kingdom denied that North Korea’s cooperation with Syria had any nefarious purpose…
…Intelligence officials told several House and Senate committees that the destroyed site was designed to produce a small amount of plutonium, a highly radioactive substance.
Plutonium-producing reactors are of international interest because the material can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs” that disperse radioactive material when they explode, rendering an area potentially unsafe for humans for years.
The reactor was not finished when it was blown up, but U.S. intelligence officials had acquired videotape and other evidence to demonstrate that it resembled the nuclear reactor at Yonbyon, North Korea. No uranium — the fuel for a reactor — was evident on site.
Given Syria’s close links to Iran, we cannot rule out that the Iranians were also involved - it would be rather logical for Iran, under pressure on its own nuke program, to shuttle some of it over to Syria, which wasn’t nearly under the scrutiny that Iran is under. Also, North Korea needs money - of which Syria has none; as we haven’t noted a willingness on the part of North Korea to be charitible, we must presume that North Korea was getting something out of the deal…perhaps some Iranian petrodollars? Certainly, very extensive investigation is needed, and the hope is that our intelligence services are investing a lot into this.
We must ensure that of all the lunatic regimes in the world that North Korea be the last one of them to obtain nuclear weapons - diplomacy and diplomatic pressure, by all means, but when push comes to shove, we must be willing to act decisively to prohibit regimes like Syria’s or Iran’s from becoming nuclear.
Tags: Iran, Israel, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Syria
April 24th, 2008
Interesting report over at NRO’s The Corner:
Eli Lake reports that top spy Michael McConnell has had second thoughts about the National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. If the goal of the NIE was to tie Bush’s hands, it succeeded marvelously. Eli writes:
The director of national intelligence is backing away from his agency’s assessment late last year that Iran had halted its nuclear program, saying he wishes he had written the unclassified version of the document in a different manner. …
The release of the December 2007 estimate at best delayed American diplomatic efforts to pass a third U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning Iran’s uranium enrichment, an activity the mullahs have continued for two years despite warnings from all five permanent members of the security council. The estimate also drew rare rebukes from American allies, including Israel, France, and the United Kingdom who said their intelligence agencies did not concur with the American assessment that Iran had frozen its plan to produce an A-bomb.
I tried to get into the Lake article, but I think half the blogospher hit the link once it showed up on NRO - if correct, this story shows that at least part of the intelligence community was determined to thwart President Bush’s policy towards Iran’s nuclear program. As to why President Bush would along with such subversion - simple, he had to. In a dishonest age, it is difficult at times to immediately combat a clever lie. Had Bush suppressed the report, the fact of its suppression would have been leaked and it would have looked in idiot MSM reporting like President Bush had something to hide - so, Bush was forced to grit his teeth and put lipstick on the pig.
Hopefully, however, the truth will come out, and come out soon - because if this NIE was bogus, then we need to move very, very quickly against Iran.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
February 6th, 2008
Just a quick note about how pretty much everyone in the whole world - other than American lefties - is going “what?” to the NIE claiming that Iran stopped its nuke program in 2003:
British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.
The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.
The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.
A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.
At bottom, it is absurd to think that Iran has given up its nuclear ambitions - while there might be a delay in this or that aspect of the program, the plain fact of the matter is that once you start on the path to build a nuclear weapon, you’re not going to be easily deflected from your course. With the Iranian leadership getting ever more lunatic in their pronouncements, there’s just no way to reasonably believe that they’ve taken nukes off the table. Only the most rigorous inspection regime could demonstrate one way or the other, and the Iranians won’t allow that.
In my view, American policy-makers should proceed on the assumption that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons - in this very crucial area, it is better to be safe than sorry. We must err on the side of caution.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 11th, 2007
Latest Rasmussen survey shows a bit of good, solid sense among the American people:
Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program. Twenty-one percent (21%) of men believe Iran has stopped the weapons development along with 16% of women.
The 18% we can classify as the real hard core of the kook left, just to keep things clear. I mean, you’ve got to be rather obtuse to really think that Iran has stopped its nuke program - its one thing to be an intel guy saying, “I don’t have proof”, quite another to essentially take the word of the lunatics who run Iran. I feel very confident that the 66% who believe Iran is making nuclear weapons will be confirmed in their belief…I just hope the confirmation doesn’t come in the form of a nuclear test in Iran, or a nuke set off in Tel Aviv.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 7th, 2007
I totally missed this when it first came out, but luckily one of our commenters here posted a link to this story and I’ve decided put up a quick post on it since it clearly hasn’t gotten the attention it should.
According to John Loftus, writing at FrontPage Magazine, we now know what happened to Saddam’s WMD… the answers come from Saddam’s own files.
Based on the evidence, Loftus writes,
Saddam’s nuclear documents compel any reasonable person to the conclusion that, more probably than not, there were in fact nuclear WMD sites, components, and programs hidden inside Iraq at the time the Coalition forces invaded. In view of these newly discovered documents, it can be concluded, more probably than not, that Saddam did have a nuclear weapons program in 2001-2002, and that it is reasonably certain that he would have continued his efforts towards making a nuclear bomb in 2003 had he not been stopped by the Coalition forces.
It’s unfortunately that there are so few (if any) reasonable people in the Democratic Party.
Tags: Iraq, John Loftus, nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein
December 7th, 2007
Norman Podhoretz takes note of some questions about it:
…I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations. As the intelligence community must know, if he were to do so, it would be as a last resort, only after it had become undeniable that neither negotiations nor sanctions could prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and only after being convinced that it was very close to succeeding. How better, then, to stop Bush in his tracks than by telling him and the world that such pressures have already been effective and that keeping them up could well bring about “a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”—especially if the negotiations and sanctions were combined with a goodly dose of appeasement or, in the NIE’s own euphemistic formulation, “with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways.”
Me, too; I haven’t read the actual NIE, but it is reported that while the NIE is highly confident that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Iran continues to enrich a sort of uranium which is really only useful in a nuclear weapons program. In technical terms, to say something like that is known as bullsh**. Its like saying that the illegals have stopped trying to cross the border, but are still digging that tunnel under the fence…
Someone at State and/or CIA is merely trying to undercut the President’s stated policy of not allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Yet another lesson in the absolute necessity of any future GOP Administration to fire each and every person hired or promoted by a previous Democratic Administration. Aside from that, I don’t think this NIE will amount to a hill of beans as far as President Bush is concerned - it won’t be an NIE which decides what to do about Iran, but President Bush after carefully weighing all the available data.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 5th, 2007
And thus closer to armed conflict with the United States:
Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN’s nuclear watchdog reported last night.
The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.
The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran’s enrichment plant at Natanz is a “red line” drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.
It is still a way off, that Iranian nuke, but it is ever more clear that the time for us to strike is now, or very soon. I suspect we will strike - just as soon as we’ve positioned our forces in the area. The success of the surge has not just helped the Iraqis, but also freed up American military assets which can now be directed elsewhere.
Tags: Iran, nuclear weapons
November 16th, 2007
