BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 06:37 PM

The North Koreans experienced Western imperialism under the Soviets. I don't imagine they expect it would be any better if Western imperialism came from other sources. Their experience is what informs their attitudes. If someone is suggesting that I am making excuses for the government of North Korea, I think they should go back and read my post again. As I said, I can understand why it might have been easy for the government to brainwash the people of North Korea. I didn't say I think brainwashing is a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,Rapaire
Date: 28 May 09 - 08:51 PM

My point is that the Koreans, North and South, experienced imperialism under the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese. During the Korean War (1950-53) the Chinese and the Russians were the North Koreans best friends, supplying them not only with aircraft (for instance) but also pilots. Russia sent T-34 tanks, MIGs, AK-47s, and PPSh submachine guns (among many other things); China sent troops, many troops.

What the South Koreans have experienced with (not "under" -- the Status of Forces Agreement is quite strict) the US is nothing compared to what went on under the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 09:04 PM

I realize that, but the propaganda they are using now is in reference to Western imperialism. The idea being that the Japanese and Mongols are no longer trying to impose any imperialist agendas in North Korea, but from their perspective, Western governments, the US in particular, are trying to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 May 09 - 10:29 PM

I really don't think that the perspective of the North Korean government (such as is broadcast to the world) is very strongly grounded in reality.

For one thing, they've been saying the same thing since 1953. For another, it was NORTH Korea that invaded the South in 1950 (and an argument can be made that it was this invasion that ultimately made South Korea one of Asia's economic powerhouses), which resulted in UN action (and UN troops besides those of the US are in ROK today). The number of US military has decreased since 1969 from 56,000+ to roughly half that number today, while the ROK military has remained roughly stable (including 3.5 million in their "Homeland Defense Reserves").

I can't see how this is "Western imperialism."

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 10:41 PM

Nevertheless, that is what they have persuaded their people they are standing up against. And their people appear to be buying it, which I guess doesn't surprise me considering their history of experiencing imperialism at the hands of all kinds of people over the centuries. One boogeyman is just as good as another when a boogeyman is needed (as we know quite well from our own history).

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:49 PM

A New Red Line For Iran

By Graham Allison
Monday, June 1, 2009

The Iranian nuclear challenge was transformed on President George W. Bush's watch. Events in Iran have advanced faster than the policy community's thinking about the problem. The brute fact is that Iran has crossed a threshold that is painful to acknowledge but impossible to ignore: It has lost its nuclear virginity.

Over the past eight years, the United States has insisted that Iran would never be allowed to develop the capability to enrich uranium, as that could be used to build a nuclear bomb. Three unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions demanded that Iran "suspend all enrichment-related activities." That was a worthy aim. Technically, mastery of enrichment is the brightest red line short of nuclear weapons. Israelis have called it the "point of no return."

Bush chose the right operational objective when he declared, "We cannot allow the Iranians to have the capacity to enrich." Sadly, the strategy he pursued to prevent Iran from crossing that red line failed. One can debate whether a different strategy would have produced a different outcome. At this point, however, we must recognize the irreversible bottom line: Iran has demonstrably mastered the capability to manufacture and operate centrifuges to enrich uranium. The February report of the International Atomic Energy Agency documents the details: Iran is operating 4,000 centrifuges and has already produced more than a ton of low-enriched uranium -- an amount sufficient, after further enrichment, to make its first nuclear bomb.

The policy consequences of Iran having gotten this far down the road to a nuclear bomb are profound. These new facts require a fundamental reassessment not only of how we engage Iran but also of what we can realistically hope to achieve.

First, the long-held American objective to prevent Iran from acquiring the technical know-how to enrich uranium has been overtaken by events. While it was an appropriate goal at the time, Iran has acquired this capability. Its knowledge of how to enrich uranium cannot be erased. There is no realistic future in which Iran will not be "nuclear enrichment capable," that is, have the know-how to replicate its current enrichment facility at Natanz -- either overtly or covertly.

Second, the predominant focus of U.S. and international policy on Iran's observable nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz is largely misplaced. Preoccupation with the "known" to the neglect of the "known unknown" is common in policymaking. But at this point, it has become a caricature of the story of the drunk looking for his car keys under the lamppost, even though he knows he dropped them a hundred yards away, because that is where the light is. If Iran detonates a nuclear bomb in the next four years, the likelihood that the highly enriched uranium for that bomb will have been produced at Natanz is less than 10 percent. Thus, erasing Natanz today, either by Israel's threatened military attack or through negotiations, addresses the smaller part of the threat.

Further, and third, the source of the highly enriched uranium for Iran's bomb -- if Iran makes and tests a bomb during Obama's first term -- will be a covert enrichment plant that we have not discovered. By definition, we don't know the location or status of secret, undiscovered facilities. But as an American intelligence officer quipped, if Iran's nuclear project manager has put all his eggs in the one basket that is under the spotlight of international inspection, he should be fired.

The bottom line for American policy is that the menu of feasible options has shrunk. Every option available at this point requires living with an Iran that knows how to enrich uranium. Continued denial of this truth is self-delusion.

The central policy question becomes: What combination of arrangements, inside and outside Iran, has the best chance of persuading it to stop short of a nuclear bomb? More important than how many centrifuges Iran continues operating at Natanz is how transparent it will be about all of its nuclear activities, including the manufacture of centrifuges. Maximizing the likelihood that covert enrichment will be discovered is the best way to minimize the likelihood that it will be pursued. The best hope for defining a meaningful red line is to enshrine the Iranian supreme leader's affirmations that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons in a solemn international agreement that commits Russia and China to join the United States in specific, devastating penalties for violation of that pledge.

The Obama administration cannot restore Iran's nuclear innocence. Its challenge is to prevent the birth of the next nuclear-weapons state.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:21 PM

Best way to do that would be for Israel (and India and Pakistan) to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 10:25 PM

So, since you have stated that Iran need not comply with the NPT that it signed, when it feels it needs to take other means to defend itself, I must assume you will allow Israel to do the same, and NOT hold it to any of the limitations of the NPT, either.


Especially since
1. Israel did not sign the NPT, nor get the assistance provided by it.
2. Israel had it's nuclear program prior to the NPT- IF it were to sign, it would have to be at the same level as the US, France, China, etc, NOT as a non-nuclear state such as Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:42 AM

Please show me where I have said that Iran need not comply with the NPT.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:20 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090602/ts_nm/us_korea_north_75

SEOUL (Reuters) � North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has signaled the anointment of his youngest son as heir to the ruling family dynasty as the two Koreas bolstered their militaries along a disputed sea border on Tuesday.

North Korea has turned increasing belligerent since its internationally condemned nuclear test last week, actions analysts believe Kim Jong-il is using to give him greater leverage over power elites at home to nominate his own successor.

It has raised alarm in the region over how far iron ruler Kim, 67 and thought to have suffered a stroke last year, may be prepared to take his latest military grandstanding.

North Korea has asked the country's main bodies and its overseas missions to pledge loyalty to Kim's youngest son Kim Jong-un, various South Korean media outlets quoted informed sources as saying.

"I was notified by the South Korean government of such moves and the loyalty pledges," Park Jie-won, a member of the opposition Democratic Party, said in a statement.

He declined to name his source but the South's Yonhap news agency said Park was among a group of lawmakers briefed on Monday night by the country's spy agency about the succession plans.

Kim Jong-un, born either in 1983 or early 1984, was educated in Switzerland and intelligence sources have said he appears to be the most capable of Kim's three known sons.

Even by North Korea's opaque standards, very little is known about the son, whose youth is a potential problem in a society that adheres closely to the importance of seniority.

"There is a significant link between North Korea's recent military provocations and succession issues," said Lee Dong-bok, an expert on the North's negotiating tactics.

STOCKPILED AMMUNITION

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo quoted a military source as saying the North had stepped up its military training, stockpiled ammunition and imposed a no-sail order off its west coast waters to prepare for a possible fight with the South.

In Seoul, the navy said it was deploying a guided-missile naval vessel to the same area in the Yellow Sea, close to the disputed border that has seen two deadly clashes between the rival states in the past 10 years.

The navy rarely announces such moves and it underscores the hardline being taken toward its communist neighbor by conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak who earlier in the day won support at a meeting he hosted of southeast Asian leaders who jointly condemned last weeks' nuclear test.

Many analysts say the North may opt for a skirmish on the sea border as the next step as it ratchets up tension but few believe it would dare put its million-strong but poorly equipped army into direct battle with the U.S.-backed South Korean military.

GUARDED SECRETS

The succession has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the highly secretive North.

The South's Yonhap news agency quoted an informed source as saying the request for an oath of loyalty by North Korean officials to the youngest son came shortly after the nuclear test on May 25, which was hailed by the North's propaganda as a crowning achievement in Kim Jong-il's "military first" rule.

Kim Jong-il, dubbed the "Dear Leader" by his state's propaganda apparatus, was groomed for decades to take over from his father and state founder "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung. The third generation of Kims is unknown to most North Koreans.

But the South Korean daily Dong-a Ilbo reported that a song had been written for the third son, calling him "The Young Leader," another sign of his rise.

In April, Kim Jong-il put to rest any doubt about whom he sees as his second in command when he elevated his brother-in-law Jang Song-taek to a powerful military post, analysts said.

Analysts said they see the energetic and urbane Jang, 63, as the real power broker after Kim who will groom the successor. Jang, who once fell out of Kim's favor, has in recent year's been Kim's right hand man, they said.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:01 PM

Carolc,
Perhaps I misunderstood. I recall that you had stated the UN was wrong to demand that Iran comply with the terms of the NPT, since they were only building a peaceful nuclear program in self-defense against Israel. Did that not imply they need not comply if they did not feel like it?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:42 PM

Please show me where I said that.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 03:36 AM

I'm posting this in two parts, because it's really important.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html

Iran wages lonely war on terror
By M K Bhadrakumar

The timing of the attack on the Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan in the Sistan-Balochistan province bordering Pakistan was by no means casual. Zahedan is a Sunni city. And Shi'ites were mourning the anniversary of Hazrat Zahra, granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad. Over 25 worshippers were killed in last Thursday's attack on the Shi'ite mosque, and 125 injured.

But there are three other reasons why a high-profile, cross-border terrorist attack on Iran from Pakistan took place. One, Iran-Pakistan relations are passing through a period of cordiality and warmth and a cross-border strike was just the right thing to do to


dissipate the newfound bonhomie. Two, US President Barack Obama's much-awaited address to the Muslim world on June 4 raises expectations in the region that a momentous period is at hand in which Iran could be the focal point.

Three, the most crucial presidential election, arguably, in Iran's post-revolution 30-year history will be held on June 12, and marring it will be sweet revenge against the government headed by the "Holocaust-denying", "Israel-hating", "America-bashing" Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

Plot to disrupt Sunni-Shi'ite amity
Tehran would have a watch list of "naughty powers" with stakes in Middle Eastern geopolitics. Yet, as indignation boiled over regarding the Zahedan attack, it took exceptional care while articulating its feelings. We have not heard an explicit word so far about an American or British intelligence hand behind the Zahedan attack.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei referred to "certain expansionist superpowers and their spying organizations" and warned the people against "opponents of the country's independence and progress" and against "certain people trying to harm national unity". Again, in a demarche with the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry vaguely mentioned that "certain people" oppose any expansion of the Iran-Pakistan relationship and "whenever they observe any improvement of ties, they try to tarnish it". It almost appears the Obama-driven detente is gaining traction.

The Iranian leaders underscored that the Zahedan attack was aimed at agitating "Islamic solidarity". Ahmadinejad said: "Sunni and Shi'ite brothers will undoubtedly recognize and neutralize conspiracies through their vigilance." Indeed, the attack took place against the backdrop of a public spat between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the recent period. Tehran has objected to the anti-Shi'ite stances of the Saudi-based Wahhabist clergy.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki revealed that Tehran recently told Riyadh that "Saudi alims [scholars] are not allowed to impose their own beliefs and religious viewpoints over others and that Muslims must be free to act in accordance with the rules of their own Islamic schools of thought, which of course is not equal with the breach of Saudi laws."

Mottaki said Tehran was in possession of evidence pointing at "foreign elements" in Afghanistan supporting the Jundallah. But the reference could as well have been to Wahhabist elements like al-Qaeda, whom Iran in the past blamed for promoting Jundallah. More so, as he also spoke positively in the same media interaction about the prospects of "practical and fruitful talks" between the US and Iran once the Iranian elections of June 12 are over.

The official news agency IRNA even featured amid all this a commentary on Saturday saluting Obama. It quoted an Iranian expert that "the US opposes Israeli adventurism against Iran"; that Israel has become presently the "most serious challenge" to the Obama administration; that "extremist and violent elements" in Israel regarded Obama as a "big challenge to Tel Aviv"; that "Israel preferred US policies to stay unchanged and wanted America, like in the [George W] Bush era, to follow a policy of animosity towards Iran and that is why it is trying to fan the flame of dispute between Iran and the US". The commentary added that "Israel would never be capable of any military action against Iran unless it manages to get the green light for it from Washington ... [and] Israel could not get the green light from the US for adventurism against Iran."

Long-time observers of Iran would rub their eyes in disbelief. Doubly so, as US State Department officials leaked to the American media over the weekend its advisory that Iranian diplomats will be included in the guest lists for the July 4 Independence Day receptions in the American chancelleries worldwide - an extravagant gesture of courtesy by a superpower to a country it doesn't recognize.

Meanwhile, Tehran is probing deeper and deeper into the Zahedan attack. Tehran cannot raise an international scandal when the June 12 election is delicately poised. There is a genuine four-cornered contest, which might push the election to a "run-off" on June 19. An incumbent Iranian president has probably never before faced such a real challenge. Secondly, Tehran is seized of the geopolitical reality that the US-Israeli honeymoon that seemed evergreen may not be so, after all. Tehran knows diplomatic opportunities lie ahead and rhetorical outbursts against Washington will only play into Israeli hands.

Thus, there is growing frustration that Pakistan could do more to curb cross-border terrorism. An Iran-Pakistan counter-terrorism mechanism is in place with regular exchange of intelligence and even coordinated security operations. The chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, claimed on Saturday that Tehran had passed on to Islamabad pin-point information about Jundallah's base camps inside Pakistan.

But it seems Islamabad doesn't follow up. According to Fars news agency, "Tehran has repeatedly warned Islamabad that if it cannot handle the situation at and inside its borders with the Islamic Republic, Iran has the required power and military capabilities to trace and hunt down such terrorist groups inside Pakistan." The Iranian Foreign Ministry maintains that the Zahedan attacks could have been averted if only Islamabad had acted promptly on the intelligence passed on by Tehran about such a Jundallah operation.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 03:37 AM

Grey area in AfPak strategy

Evidently, Jundallah is a thorn in the flesh and Tehran badly needs to get rid of it, but cannot quite have its way. There have been persistent reports that US Special Forces operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan have provided arms and training to Jundallah.

Majlis (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani told agitated Iranian parliamentarians on Sunday that the US had "long had contacts" with Jundallah. "Due to the obstacles they face in the region, Americans seek to find a way forward for attaining their objectives at all costs, but these terrorist acts will eventually cost them dearly," he warned.

The fact remains that although Washington has publicly distanced itself from the Zahedan attack, it still refuses to include Jundallah in its list of terrorist organizations, plainly ignoring Tehran's claims that Jundallah is associated with al-Qaeda. To be sure, there is a grey area in the US's AfPak strategy, which creates misgivings in regional capitals. The Obama administration must come clean if an Afghan settlement is to be durable.

The Russian official state television channel Rossiya recently featured a program on the Pakistani military operations in the Swat region. The commentator pointed out that there are "many contradictions" in the US role in Pakistan. "There are many indications that by pushing Pakistan towards the chaos of civil war, Washington is trying to destabilize the general political situation in the region for its own benefit and to the detriment of is geopolitical rivals," the commentator said.

Rossiya continued:

    For 30 years now, Pakistan has been China's key ally, a sort of buffer for Beijing. Islamabad is the main customer for Chinese weapons. Beijing has been helping with its nuclear program ... Beijing has been allowed to use the port of Gwadar in Balochistan. With this port, China can open a direct energy corridor from Africa and the Middle East.

    Destabilization of Pakistan is a direct challenge to China and China understands this very well ... India, Central Asian states and of course Russia are also watching developments with alarm. As happened many times in history, Washington is creating a problem and then using it to gain new benefits.

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, two former Iran hands in the National Security Council during the George W Bush administration wrote in an article in the New York Times recently about much the same thing - that Obama is yet to dismantle the covert program that Bush installed to destabilize Iran.

Hillary Leverett told the BBC last week that Iran had given substantive cooperation on al-Qaeda, including at one point providing Washington with a list of 220 suspects and their whereabouts. In one instance in December 2002, she says, soon after the US gave Tehran the names of five al-Qaeda suspects it believed were in Iran, Tehran found two and delivered them to the US air base at Bagram in Afghanistan.

The Iranian response to the presence of hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects in the region was such that "the [Iranian] Foreign Ministry took the evidence, passports, vital information - and gave us [Washington] pages and even a chart showing the disposition or what they'd done with each person", broken down by "those who had been turned away at the border, or been detained or deported".

Ironically, all this traffic continued for a while even after Bush labeled Iran as part of an "axis of evil" until the hardliners in Washington cried halt to any cooperation with Tehran. No wonder, Iranian rhetoric often contemplates whether al-Qaeda could be a strange beast with stars and stripes.

The Zahedan attack opens a can of worms. Obama needs to be wary of his own team scuttling Iranian attempts at rapprochement. Equally, US special representative for AfPak Richard Holbrooke, who might seek a "grand bargain" with Tehran at some point, shouldn't be surprised if his interlocutors are fundamentally defensive - like cats on a hot tin roof.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 05:37 PM

UN: New uranium traces found in Syria
         

George Jahn, Associated Press Writer – 20 mins ago

VIENNA – The U.N nuclear agency on Friday reported its second unexplained find of uranium particles at a Syrian nuclear site, in a probe launched by suspicions that a remote desert site hit by Israeli warplanes was a nearly finished plutonium producing reactor.

In a separate report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran continued to expand its uranium enrichment program despite three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to pressure Tehran into freezing such activities.

And it said the growing pace of enrichment is causing it to review its inspection routine so that it can maintain oversight of the process.

Iran and Syria are under IAEA investigation — Tehran, since revelations more than six years ago of undeclared nuclear activities that could be used to make weapons, and Syria after Israel bombed a structure in 2006 said by the U.S. to be a reactor built with North Korean help.

But the agency has made little progress for over a year in both cases, and both of the restricted reports made available to The Associated Press on Friday essentially confirmed the status quo — stonewalling by both countries of the two separate IAEA probes.

Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful; Damascus denies hiding any nuclear program.

"In order for the agency to complete its assessment, Syria needs to be more cooperative and transparent," said the IAEA in a document that detailed repeated attempts by agency inspectors to press for renewed inspections and documents — all turned down by Damascus.

Drawing heavily on language of previous reports, the Iran document said Tehran has not "cooperated with the agency ... which gives rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

The report noted that Tehran continued to rebuff agency efforts to investigate suspicions the Islamic Republic had at least planned to make nuclear weapons.

Without cooperation by the Islamic Republic, the IAEA "will not be in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," the report said.

Syria and Iran are to come under renewed scrutiny when the 35-nation board of the agency meets June 15 to discuss the two reports.

While the Syrian report was prepared only for the board members, the one on Iran also was transmitted Friday to the Security Council, which for more than three years has tried to pressure Tehran to give up enrichment and other activities of concern.

Tehran says it is exercising its right to develop nuclear power in expanding its enrichment program. But the U.S. other great powers and dozens of additional countries fear Iran might at some point shift from producing low enriched uranium needed for nuclear fuel to making highly enriched matter suitable for use in the core of nuclear warheads.

The IAEA's Iran report reflected continued expansion both in the terms of the equipment in use or being set up and the amount of enriched uranium being turned out by those machines — centrifuges that spin uranium gas into enriched material.

Nearly 5,000 centrifuges were processing uranium gas at the Natanz facility as of May 31, said the report, while more than 2,000 others were ready for operation. More than nearly 3,000 pounds — 1,300 kilograms — of low enriched uranium had been produced as of that date, said the more than four-page report.

That compares to just over 2,220 pounds (1,000 kilograms) mentioned in the last IAEA report in February an amount that experts and U.S. officials subsequently said was enough to process into enough weapons grade uranium for a nuclear warhead.

Commenting on the Iran report, the Washington based Institute for Science and International Security said that at the present pace of production of enriched uranium, Tehran could make two nuclear weapons — should it choose to do so — within eight months.

The report said inspectors have told Tehran that "given the increased number of ... (centrifuges) being installed and the increased rate of production ... improvements to the containment and surveillance measures" are needed. A senior U.N official said the IAEA was considering redirecting surveillance equipment and asking Iranian nuclear staff to change their "walking routes" through the underground Natanz facility as part of the changes. He demanded anonymity in exchange for commenting on the confidential report.

Reversing the previous U.S. stance, the Obama administration has said it is ready to talk one-on-one with Iranian officials on the nuclear issue. Obama himself has said Tehran has the right to benefit from nuclear power — as long as all proliferation concerns are put to rest.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said his country will not negotiate on its right to enrichment.

On Syria, the agency said the newest traces of uranium were found after months of analysis in environmental samples taken last year of a small experimental reactor in Damascus.

It already reported a similar finding in February at a separate site — at or near the building bombed by Israel more than two years ago.

As in the case of the earlier find, the uranium particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material," said the report, saying their origin and potential significance still "needs to be understood."

It also said Syria continued to deny cooperation with North Korea in building its nuclear program.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 05:43 PM

Iran in major nuclear expansion, U.N. oversight harder
         

Mark Heinrich – 1 hr 33 mins ago

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has significantly expanded uranium enrichment with almost 5,000 centrifuges now operating and this has made it harder for U.N. inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear activity, an IAEA report said on Friday.

Obtained by Reuters, the restricted International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU), boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months.

Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel is sure to fan Western fears of the Islamic Republic nearing the ability to make atomic bombs, if it chose to do so.

Oil giant Iran says it wants a uranium enrichment industry solely to provide an alternative source of electricity.

But it has stonewalled an IAEA investigation into suspected past research into bomb-making, calling U.S. intelligence about it forged, and continues to limit the scope of IAEA inspections.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank that tracks proliferation issues, said Iran now had accumulated enough LEU to convert into high-enriched uranium (HEU) sufficient for one atom bomb.

This would require reconfiguring Iran's centrifuge network and miniaturizing HEU to fit into a warhead -- technical hurdles that could take 1-2 years or more -- and would not escape the notice of U.N. inspectors unless done at an undeclared location.

There are no indications of any such secret site.

"Still, Iran is ramping up enrichment to reach the point of potential nuclear weapons capability. They haven't made a political decision to do that. But their lack of constraint is disappointing given (U.S. President Barack) Obama's effort to start negotiations," Albright told Reuters from Washington.

JUMP IN CAPACITY

The U.N. nuclear watchdog report said Iran had 4,920 centrifuges, cylinders that spin at supersonic speed, being fed with uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for enrichment nonstop as of May 31, a jump of about 25 percent since February.

Another 2,132 machines were installed and undergoing vacuum tests while a further 169 were being set up -- bringing Iran's total number of deployed centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment hall to 7,231 -- with 55,000 eventually planned.

The IAEA had told Iran that given the burgeoning numbers of centrifuges and increased pace of enrichment, "improvements to the containment and surveillance measures are required in order for the agency to continue to fully meet its safeguards objectives," the report said, referring to basic inspections.

Senior inspectors were discussing solutions with Iran.

"There is now a forest of 7,000 machines, that's quite a lot, it's a very impressive place, and they will be installing more which could mean 9,000 (soon)," said a senior U.N. official who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

"That makes it increasingly difficult to do the surveillance (to ensure no diversions for bombmaking purposes elsewhere). We are reviewing (the angles) of our cameras, walking rules (for workers handling equipment), where things are being kept."

At a separate pilot plant in Natanz, Iran continues to test small numbers of a more sophisticated centrifuge than the 1970s vintage it is now using. These models could refine uranium 2-3 times as fast as the P-1, analysts say.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has urged Iran to engage with the United States, "grasp the hand that Obama is extending to you," and negotiate over its nuclear program to ensure it remains civilian under effective monitoring.

But little progress in coaxing Iran to open up to IAEA investigators and grant more wide-ranging inspections is likely without a major thaw in Tehran's relations with Western powers.

"The Iran file has been on the table for six years. It's high time to sort it out. We hope Iran and international community get to the table and start to come up with solutions so we can do our (non-proliferation) job," said the senior U.N. official.

Obama has set a rough timetable for negotiating results with Iran, saying he wanted serious progress by the end of the year. He has underlined that any U.S. overtures will be accompanied by harsher sanctions if there is no cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 09 - 08:10 AM

A report on Iran's nuclear program issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicizing an incendiary charge that U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.

That false and misleading charge from an intelligence official of a foreign country, who was not identified but was clearly Israeli, reinforces two of Israel's key propaganda themes on Iran - that the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is wrong, and that Tehran is poised to build nuclear weapons as soon as possible.

But it also provides new evidence that Israeli intelligence was the source of the collection of intelligence documents which have been used to accuse Iran of hiding nuclear weapons research.

The Committee report, dated May 4, cited unnamed "foreign analysts" as claiming intelligence that Iran ended its nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because it had mastered the design and tested components of a nuclear weapon and thus didn't need to work on it further until it had produced enough sufficient material.

That conclusion, which implies that Iran has already decided to build nuclear weapons, contradicts both the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, and current intelligence analysis. The NIE concluded that Iran had ended nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because of increased international scrutiny, and that it was "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

The report included what appears to be a spectacular revelation from "a senior allied intelligence official" that a collection of intelligence documents supposedly obtained by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from an Iranian laptop computer includes "blueprints for a nuclear warhead."

It quotes the unnamed official as saying that the blueprints "precisely matched" similar blueprints the official's own agency "had obtained from other sources inside Iran."

No U.S. or IAEA official has ever claimed that the so-called laptop documents included designs for a "nuclear warhead." The detailed list in a May 26, 2008 IAEA report of the contents of what have been called the "alleged studies" - intelligence documents on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons work - made no mention of any such blueprints.

In using the phrase "blueprints for a nuclear warhead," the unnamed official was evidently seeking to conflate blueprints for the reentry vehicle of the Iranian Shehab missile, which were among the alleged Iranian documents, with blueprints for nuclear weapons.

When New York Times reporters William J. Broad and David E. Sanger used the term "nuclear warhead" to refer to a reentry vehicle in a Nov. 13, 2005 story on the intelligence documents on the Iranian nuclear program, it brought sharp criticism from David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

"This distinction is not minor," Albright observed, "and Broad should understand the differences between the two objects, particularly when the information does not contain any words such as nuclear or nuclear warhead."

The Senate report does not identify the country for which the analyst in question works, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff refused to respond to questions about the report from IPS, including the reason why the report concealed the identity of the country for which the unidentified "senior allied intelligence official" works.

Reached later in May, the author of the report, Douglas Frantz, told IPS he is under strict instructions not to speak with the news media.

After a briefing on the report for selected news media immediately after its release, however, the Associated Press reported May 6 that interviews were conducted in Israel. Frantz was apparently forbidden by Israeli officials from revealing their national affiliation as a condition for the interviews.

Frantz, a former journalist for the Los Angeles Times, had extensive contacts with high-ranking Israeli military, intelligence and foreign ministry officials before joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. He and co-author Catherine Collins conducted interviews with those Israeli officials for The Nuclear Jihadist, published in 2007. The interviews were all conducted under rules prohibiting disclosure of their identities, according to the book.

The unnamed Israeli intelligence officer's statement that the "blueprints for a nuclear warhead" - meaning specifications for a missile reentry vehicle - were identical to "designs his agency had obtained from other sources in Iran" suggests that the documents collection which the IAEA has called "alleged studies" actually originated in Israel.

A U.S.-based nuclear weapons analyst who has followed the "alleged studies" intelligence documents closely says he understands that the documents obtained by U.S. intelligence in 2004 were not originally stored on the laptop on which they were located when they were brought in by an unidentified Iranian source, as U.S. officials have claimed to U.S. journalists.

The analyst, who insists on not being identified, says the documents were collected by an intelligence network and then assembled on a single laptop.

The anonymous Israeli intelligence official's claim, cited in the Committee report, that the "blueprints" in the "alleged studies" collection matched documents his agency had gotten from its own source seems to confirm the analyst's finding that Israeli intelligence assembled the documents.

The rest here

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 09 - 07:21 PM

Alaskans concerned about North Korea's missiles

Jun 6, 3:37 PM (ET)

By MARY PEMBERTON

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaskans are concerned over the prospect that North Korea is getting ready to test a long-range missile that could reach strategic targets in their home state.

And they're not buying Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assertion during a visit this past week to one of Alaska's many military installations that the missile is not a threat to the United States.

"I think we would definitely be a target because of the oil and the military," said Dale Walberg, owner of a small greenhouse business in Eagle River. "They are just so secretive. What do we really know?"

There's been no direct threat against Alaska or anywhere else, but the missile North Korea is believed to be assembling for a test may have a range of 4,000 miles, putting Hawaii and much of Alaska within reach.

Alaska's two largest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks, have both Air Force and Army bases. There's also Fort Greely, home of the Missile Defense Complex. The U.S. plans to store 26 ground-based missile interceptors in silos at the base, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks.

Other high-profile potential targets would include Prudhoe Bay, the nation's largest oil field, or Valdez, the terminus of the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline.

Bert Cottle, mayor of Valdez, where 16 percent of the nation's domestic oil production is loaded onto tankers for delivery to the West Coast, said he checked with two military leaders in Alaska to get their take on the developing missile situation and was told everything is status quo.

"We will wait for further updates," he said.

In the meantime, the state's political leaders are using the missile situation to send a message to the Obama administration: Maintain a strong military presence in Alaska.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, sent a letter to Gates urging him to reconsider a decision to not complete construction of a second missile defense field at Greely and to place a cap on F-22 fighters at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

"We are sending the wrong message to our enemies by stopping the placement of these interceptors," Young's letter said. "While 30 interceptors may be enough to counter the current threat from North Korea, it is clear that it will not be enough in the future."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090606/D98LCAM81.html

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 11 Jun 09 - 05:19 PM

Sources: Iran denies UN nuke agency camera request
         

George Jahn, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 11, 11:00 am ET

VIENNA – Diplomats say Iran has rebuffed a bid from the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency to beef up its monitoring ability at a key atomic site.

The diplomats say the International Atomic Energy Agency had asked to place one or more additional surveillance cameras at the Natanz enrichment site, but that the request was turned down by the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.

The also say the IAEA is concerned that Iran will use its recent denial of access to Natanz to agency inspectors seeking a surprise visit as a precedent to refuse additional such inspections.

The three diplomats demanded anonymity Thursday because their information was confidential.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 11 Jun 09 - 10:12 PM

AP source: NKorea may be prepping new nuclear test


Jun 11, 8:46 PM (ET)

By PAMELA HESS

WASHINGTON (AP) - North Korea may be preparing for its third nuclear test, a show of defiance as the United Nations considers new sanctions on the dictatorship for conducting an underground nuclear explosion in May, according to a U.S. government official.

North Korea conducted an underground explosion on May 25, its first since a 2006 atomic test. The official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the unreleased information, would not provide details regarding the assessment.

A draft U.N. resolution proposed Wednesday would impose tough sanctions on North Korea's weapons exports and financial dealings and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas. North Korea has threatened to retaliate if new sanctions are adopted.

---

Remember the one-screen limit on non-music copy-pastes, Bruce? Excess verbiage deleted. If you want to read the rest of the article, Google it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 08:06 PM

Don't export nucs, or we'll put it in the papers!






China Warns Against Force in Carrying Out North Korea Sanctions

By Peter S. Green and Bill Varner

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- China warned about the dangers involved in inspecting North Korean cargo under United Nations Security Council sanctions approved yesterday, saying countries intercepting vessels should avoid armed action.

"Under no circumstance should there be the use of force or the threat of use of force" in implementing the sanctions in Resolution 1874, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui said in New York. Inspecting vessels carrying North Korean cargo is "complicated" and "sensitive," he said.

The Security Council voted 15 to O to punish North Korea for its May nuclear-bomb test and missile launches. The resolution authorizes stepped-up inspection of air or sea cargoes suspected of being destined for the development of nuclear arms or ballistic missiles. The measure also calls for new restrictions on loans and money transfers to North Korea.

China's support for the penalties may be significant given its close political and trade ties with the reclusive North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il. The U.S. is especially concerned about preventing North Korea from selling its nuclear technology to other countries.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said at a White House briefing that the sanctions have "teeth that will bite." She pointed out that the resolution doesn't authorize the use of military force.

The U.S. is prepared to "confront" a vessel suspected of carrying an illegal shipment and attempt to board it "consensually," Rice told reporters. If the crew refuses a boarding or to go to a nearby port for an inspection, the U.S. would make clear "whose vessel it is" and the likely cargo, "to shine a spotlight on it, to make it very difficult for that contraband to continue to be carried forward," Rice added.

---

Remember the one-screen limit on non-music copy-pastes, Bruce? Excess verbiage deleted. If you want to read the rest of the article, Google it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 08:12 PM

White House: US may confront ships near NKorea

Jun 12, 2:38 PM (ET)

By CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration said Friday that it is prepared to confront ships believed to be carrying contraband materials to North Korea but will not try to forcibly board them.

White House officials said they expect North Korea will act "irresponsibly" to newly imposed sanctions in response to the rogue nation's recent nuclear tests. The U.N. Security Council on Friday imposed sanctions that included expanding an arms embargo and authorizing ship searches on the high seas.

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said U.S. officials would seek permission to board and inspect ships believed to be carrying contraband to North Korea. Such ships would be directed to a nearby port for inspection if they could not be boarded at sea, she told reporters at the White House.

Rice said the U.S. would not be surprised if North Korea reacted to the sanctions with "further provocation."

"There's reason to believe they may respond in an irresponsible fashion to this," she said. But she said she expects the sanctions to have significant impact on North Korea's financing of its weapons and missile systems.

Rice said the administration was "very pleased" with the sanctions. She called the new resolution, which was supported by China and Russia, an "unprecedented" position by the Security Council.

The United States and many other nations, including China and Russia, have condemned Pyongyang for its underground nuclear test on May 25 and a series of ground-to-air missile test firings.

Rice said that Iran - another nation at deep odds with the United States about a disputed nuclear program - should take a message from how the U.N. responded to North Korea's actions.

"I imagine that they have been following this closely," Rice said of Iran's leaders. She said Iran should see that "the response from the international community has been very clear, very firm and very meaningful."

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 10:31 AM

NKorea says it will 'weaponize' its plutonium
         

Kwang-tae Kim, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 13, 6:46 am ET

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed Saturday to step up its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war if its ships are stopped as part of new U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the nation for its latest nuclear test.

---

Remember the one-screen limit on non-music copy-pastes, Bruce? Excess verbiage deleted. If you want to read the rest of the article, Google it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:40 PM

Talking to Iran will make it "easier to sell" war on Iran, says man responsible for talking to Iran

As Iranians go to the polls to repudiate (it seems) some of the most pernicious aspects of Ahmadinejad's rule, America's Iran point man continues to make Ahmadinejad look like a reasonable peacenik.

The newly released book by Dennis Ross, President Obama's special adviser on Iran, reads like a how-to manual for launching a war on Iran, marketing the war successfully, and making sure the Iranians cop all the blame for it. Ross will have none of Bush's incompetent warmongering on flimsy pretenses of democracy and WMD's; when Ross launches his illegal war on Iran, it will be stage-managed to within an inch of its life.

"Tougher policies – either militarily or meaningful containment – will be easier to sell internationally and domestically if we have diplomatically tried to resolve our differences with Iran in a serious and credible fashion," writes Ross.

Note that there is no way to read this sentence but to see that the goal is to attack Iran. America trying to diplomatically resolve its differences with Iran is not a goal in itself; it is merely a means to more easily sell war and sanctions.

And, then, of course, we get the special Dennis Ross brand of peacemaking-as-warmongering—Ross's signature dish: derailing negotiations while making it appear to be the other party's fault.

"Such an approach may build pressures within Iran not to forgo the opportunity that has been presented, while also ensuring that the onus is put on Iran for creating a crisis and also for making conflict more likely."

The goal, of course, is not just to bring about a military conflict, but also to make sure that it appears that it was the Iranians who brought about this conflict.

This is exactly what Ross did as "mediator" of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, where he used diplomacy to further the aims of Israeli colonialism, as a cover for Israeli colonialism. As Norman Finkelstein shows in his meticulous destruction of Ross' previous book, it was Ross himself who derailed the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Ross simply used his position as "mediator" to push for terms that were even more favorable to Israel than what the Israelis themselves wanted. During the negotiations, he became "furious" at Israelis for considering annexing less land in Palestine, and even said "if [Ehud] Barak offers anything more, I'll be against this agreement." The result was a "generous offer" on which then Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami himself commented: "if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David".

But when the Palestinians rejected this offer, of course, it was a green light for "Israel's Lawyer" to spend the last nine years blaming the Palestinians for rejecting his magnanimous offer. The result is a global green light for the Israeli regime to destroy the Palestinian people and their chances of ever attaining freedom—while placing the blame entirely on the Palestinians.

America can now look forward to seeing this mendacious brand of evil shaping their policy towards Iran over the coming years. Expect to continue to hear Ross talking about the failures of his heroic efforts at diplomacy, and then going on a WINEP-sponsored world tour blaming the Iranians for the conflict he worked so hard to precipitate.

This should leave no doubt that though the Obama Administration is mainly made up of sane humans who do not particularly want to nuke Iran, unreconstructed neocon fanatics like Ross will do all they can to bring about as bad an outcome as possible. Watch this space.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:14 PM

NYT:

"North Korea Vows to Produce Nuclear Weapons

By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: June 13, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea responded Saturday to new United Nations sanctions on Friday by defiantly vowing to press forward with the production of nuclear weapons and take "resolute military actions" against international efforts to isolate it.

In a statement on the North's official Korean Central News Agency, an unidentified spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying that his nation would continue its nuclear program to defend itself against what he called a hostile United States policy. He was quoted as saying that his nation would "weaponize" its existing plutonium stockpiles and begin a program to enrich uranium, which can also be used to make atomic warheads.

The statement, which was light on the vitriol that often colors such missives, was released hours after the United Nations Security Council voted to punish the North for its May 25 nuclear test and its missile tests. The Council tightened sanctions, including an arms embargo and a provision that encourages high-seas searches of North Korean ships.

"We'll take firm military action if the United States and its allies try to isolate us," the spokesman said, according to the KCNA, the news service.

The spokesman said that his nation had "reprocessed more than one-third of our spent nuclear fuel rods."

Since the 1990s, United Nations inspectors have tried to keep track of the spent fuel rods at the Yongbyon nuclear complex; the rods can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium.

American intelligence officials say they believe that North Korea may have one or two nuclear weapons and has produced enough bomb-grade plutonium already for several more.

The United States has also warned in the past that the North may be trying to turn its abundant supplies of natural uranium into material for weapons, but intelligence experts say they believe that such a program is years behind the country's plutonium-based efforts. The North made similar vows about a uranium-based program in April, after a rocket test that started the latest confrontation between North Korea and the West.

Although the sanctions passed Friday tightened restrictions, the United States had hoped for more stringent penalties and for mandatory ship inspections. The Obama administration pushed for those inspections because of fears that the impoverished North would try to sell its weapons or nuclear material.

North Korea has grown increasingly isolated as it has pressed forward with a nuclear program that many analysts say they now believe is aimed at producing an independent nuclear deterrent rather than being used as a bargaining chip with the West for much needed aid.

The long-range missile test in April was part of what many analysts call an effort to produce a delivery system capable of reaching the United States. There have been signs in recent weeks that the North may be preparing for yet another missile test.

"It has become an absolutely impossible option for the D.P.R.K. to even think about giving up its nuclear weapons," Saturday's statement said, using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 01:13 PM

"But the ultimate aim of Iran, as I understand it, is that they want to be recognized as a major power in the Middle East and they are. "This is to them the road to get that recognition to power and prestige and ... an insurance policy against what they heard in the past about regime change, axis of evil." - Mohamed ElBaradei IAEA.

So Iran wants nuclear weapons as "an insurance policy against what they heard in the past about regime change, axis of evil" does it?

Perhaps ElBaradei can explain why in that case Iran's efforts to acquire such weapons were carried out in secret and initiated long before any ever mentioned "axis of evil" or "regime change".

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 01:31 PM

Israel has been calling for regime change in Iran for decades. I would expect Iran's reason for doing it in secret would be the same as Israel's reason for doing it in secret.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 05:35 PM

U.S. tracking N. Korea ship with possible weapons, official says

Story Highlights
Joint Chiefs of Staff head: United States will not forcibly board ship

Adm. Michael Mullen may ask to search ship or press ports to inspect it

Efforts to stop ships will be considered an act of war, North Korea says

updated 16 minutes agoNext Article in World »


From Barbara Starr, Chris Lawrence and Mike Mount
CNN
   
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military is tracking a North Korean ship believed to be carrying illicit weapons or technology, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

The ship, the Kang Nam, is a North Korean-flagged ship, according to two senior U.S. officials, and is currently in the Pacific.

While the United States does not know what specifically is on the ship, the Kang Nam is a "repeat offender," known for having carried "proliferation materials," one senior defense official said.

Without speaking to any details of the Kang Nam report, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that the United States would not forcibly board a North Korean ship but, in accordance with the recent United Nations resolution, would request permission to search the ship or press any port the ship docks in to inspect it for illegal materials.

Mullen told reporters at a news conference that neither the United States nor any other navy would board a ship without permission.

"The United Nations Security Council resolution does not include an option for opposed-boarding or noncompliant boarding with respect to that," he said. "We expect compliance."

North Korea has warned that any effort to stop one of its ships would be considered an act of war.

"To further isolate itself, to further noncomply with international guidance and regulations in the long run puts them in a more difficult position," Mullen said.

---

So, Bruce, why is it that you continually defy our one-screen limit for non-music copy-pastes? Haven't you ever heard of editing? Do you really think that somebody is going to read all that verbiage? Hey, cut it down to one screen of text, willya?
You'll notice that a number of your posts were deleted today. Enough is enough.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Jun 09 - 01:25 PM

"Israel has been calling for regime change in Iran for decades."

Examples of instances of this??

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jun 09 - 08:28 AM

Al Qaeda says would use Pakistani nuclear weapons

Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:39am IST

DUBAI (Reuters) - If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on Sunday.

Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda's Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands.

"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.

Abu al-Yazid was responding to a question about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so.

"We expect that the Pakistani army would be defeated (in Swat) ... and that would be its end everywhere, God willing."

Asked about the group's plans, the Egyptian militant leader said: "The strategy of the (al Qaeda) organisation in the coming period is the same as in the previous period: to hit the head of the snake, the head of tyranny -- the United States.

"That can be achieved through continued work on the open fronts and also by opening new fronts in a manner that achieves the interests of Islam and Muslims and by increasing military operations that drain the enemy financially."

The militant leader suggested that naming a new leader for the group's unit in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Basir al-Wahayshi, could revive its campaign in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.

"Our goals have been the Americans ... and the oil targets which they are stealing to gain power to strike the mujahideen and Muslims."

"There was a setback in work there for reasons that there is no room to state now, but as of late, efforts have been united and there is unity around a single leader."

Abu al-Yazid, also known as Abu Saeed al-Masri, said al Qaeda will continue "with large scale operations against the enemy" -- by which he meant the United States.

"We have demanded and we demand that all branches of al Qaeda carry out such operations," he said, referring to attacks against U.S.-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The militant leader said al Qaeda would be willing to accept a truce of about 10 years' duration with the United States if Washington agreed to withdraw its troops from Muslim countries and stopped backing Israel and the pro-Western governments of Muslim nations.

Asked about the whereabouts of al Qaeda's top leaders, he said: "Praise God, sheikh Osama (bin Laden) and sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri are safe from the reach of the enemies, but we would not say where they are; moreover, we do not know where they are, but we're in continuous contact with them."

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 25 Jun 09 - 06:38 AM

NKorea warns of 'fire shower of nuclear' attack
         

Jae-soon Chang, Associated Press Writer – 2 mins ago


SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed Thursday to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" in the event of a U.S. attack, as the regime marked the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War.

The anniversary came as the U.S. Navy trailed a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons in violation of a U.N. resolution punishing Pyongyang's May 25 nuclear test, and as anticipation mounted that the North might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days.

President Barack Obama extended U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea for another year Wednesday, saying the North's possession of "weapons-usable fissile material" and its proliferation risk "continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States, according to the White House Web site.

State-run newspapers in Pyongyang ran lengthy editorials accusing the U.S. of invading the country in 1950 and of looking for an opportunity to attack again. The editorials said that justified North Korea's development of atomic bombs to defend itself.

The North "will never give up its nuclear deterrent ... and will further strengthen it" as long as Washington remains hostile, Pyongyang's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

In a separate commentary, the Rodong blasted a recent U.S. pledge to defend South Korea with its nuclear weapons, saying that amounted to "asking for the calamitous situation of having a fire shower of nuclear retaliation all over South Korea."

The Minju Joson, another state-run newspaper, said the U.S. should withdraw its troops from South Korea and drop its "hostile" policy toward the North, saying those were "key to resolving the Korean peninsula issue."

Historical evidence shows it was North Korea that started the Korean War by invading the South, but Pyongyang claims the U.S. was to blame. The totalitarian government apparently hopes to infuse North Koreans with fear of a fresh American attack to better control the hunger-stricken population.

The U.S. fought alongside the South, leading U.N. forces, during the war. The conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula divided and in a state of war. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against hostilities.

The U.S. has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking the North.

The new U.N. resolution seeks to clamp down on North Korea's trading of banned arms and weapons-related material by requiring U.N. member states to request inspections of ships carrying suspected cargo.

North Korea has said it would consider interception of its ships a declaration of war.

The U.S. has been seeking to get key nations to enforce the sanctions aggressively. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the foreign ministers of Russia and China on Wednesday to discuss efforts to enforce the U.N. punishments, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

On Tuesday, Obama called Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and discussed how to ensure the U.N. sanctions are fully implemented, the White House said in a statement Wednesday.

The Kang Nam is the first North Korean ship to be tracked under the resolution. It left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago and is believed bound for Myanmar, South Korean and U.S. officials said.

Myanmar state television on Wednesday evening said another North Korean vessel was expected to pick up a load of rice and that the government had no information about the Kang Nam.

A senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday that the ship had already cleared the Taiwan Strait.

He said he didn't know how much range the Kang Nam has — whether or when it may need to stop at a port to refuel — but that the ship has in the past stopped in Hong Kong.

Another U.S. defense official said he tended to doubt reports that the Kang Nam was carrying nuclear-related equipment, saying the information officials had received seemed to indicate the cargo was conventional munitions.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing intelligence.

The U.S. and its allies have not decided whether to contact and request an inspection of the ship, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday. He said he did not believe a decision would come soon.

Reports about possible missile launches from the North highlighted the tension on the Korean peninsula.

The North has designated a no-sail zone off its east coast from June 25 to July 10 for military drills.

A senior South Korean government official said the ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.

U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

North Korea had warned previously it would fire a long-range missile as a response to U.N. Security Council condemnation of an April rocket launch seen as a cover for its ballistic missile technology.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 25 Jun 09 - 06:44 AM

NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile
         

Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 24, 8:51 am ET

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.

The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.

The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against an outbreak of hostilities.

Tensions have been high since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and then conducted its second underground atomic test on May 25.

Reacting to U.N. condemnation of that test, North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.

North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast starting Thursday through July 10 for military exercises, Japan's Coast Guard said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.

A senior South Korean government official said the no-sail ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

South Korea will expedite the introduction of high-tech unmanned aerial surveillance systems and "bunker-buster" bombs in response to North Korea's provocations, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified ruling party members.

Meanwhile, a flurry of diplomatic efforts were under way to try getting North Korea to return to disarmament talks.

Russia's top nuclear envoy, Alexei Borodavkin, said after meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is open to other formats for discussion since Pyongyang has pulled out of formal six-nation negotiations.

In Beijing, top U.S. and Chinese defense officials also discussed North Korea. U.S. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy was heading next to Tokyo and Seoul for talks.

South Korea has proposed high-level "consultations" to discuss North Korea with the U.S., Russia, China and Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 25 Jun 09 - 12:28 PM

N. Koreans mass at rally in capital to denounce US
         
Jae-soon Chang, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 10 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – Tens of thousands of North Koreans shouted slogans to denounce international sanctions at a rally in central Pyongyang on Thursday, as the communist country vowed to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" in the event of a U.S. attack.

The rally marked the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War, which about 5,000 people — mostly American and South Korean veterans and war widows — also commemorated at a ceremony in Seoul.

The anniversary came a day after President Barack Obama extended U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea, saying its arsenal and the risk of proliferation "continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States, according to the White House Web site.

The U.S. measures are on top of U.N. sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear test in May. The U.N. sanctions bar member states from buying weapons from or selling them to North Korea. They also ban the sale of luxury goods to the isolated country and financial transactions.

In Pyongyang, an estimated 100,000 packed the main square, shouting "Let's smash!" in unison while punching clenched fists in the air, footage from APTN in North Korea showed. A placard showed hands crushing a missile with "U.S." written on it.

The isolated, totalitarian regime often organizes such massive rallies at times of tension with the outside world.

North Korea's "armed forces will deal an annihilating blow that is unpredictable and unavoidable, to any 'sanctions' or provocations by the US," Pak Pyong Jong, first vice chairman of the Pyongyang City People's Committee, told the crowd.

State-run newspapers ran lengthy editorials accusing the U.S. of invading the country in 1950 and of looking for an opportunity to attack again. The editorials said those actions justified North Korea's development of atomic bombs to defend itself.

The North "will never give up its nuclear deterrent ... and will further strengthen it" as long as Washington remains hostile, Pyongyang's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

At the rally in Seoul, Minister of Patriots and Veterans Affairs Kim Yang called for North Korea to "abandon all programs related to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles."

The new U.N. resolution — passed to punish Pyongyang after its May 25 nuclear test — seeks to clamp down on North Korea's trading of banned arms and weapons-related material by requiring U.N. member states to request inspections of ships carrying suspicious cargo.

North Korea has said it would consider any interception of its ships a declaration of war.

The U.S. Navy is currently following a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons in violation of the resolution, but Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that the U.S. and its allies have not decided whether to contact and request an inspection of the ship.

The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago and is believed bound for Myanmar, South Korean and U.S. officials have said. A senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday that the ship had already cleared the Taiwan Strait.

Another U.S. defense official said he tended to doubt reports that the Kang Nam was carrying nuclear-related equipment, saying the information officials had received seemed to indicate the cargo was conventional munitions.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing intelligence.

Adding to the tensions, anticipation is mounting that the North might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days. The North has designated a no-sail zone off its east coast from June 25 to July 10 for military drills.

A senior South Korean government official said the ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

The North has also been holding two U.S. journalists since March. The reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegal border crossing and hostile acts earlier this month.

Ling's husband, Iain Clayton, said Wednesday that his wife called him on Sunday night and she sounded scared. He also said Ling's medical condition has deteriorated and Lee has developed a medical problem. Ling reportedly suffers from an ulcer.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Jun 09 - 02:25 PM

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/asia_pacific/new+footage+of+deadly+afghan+bombing/3228957

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:47 AM

NKorea criticizes US missile defense for Hawaii

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Monday, June 29, 2009 1:00 AM



SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea criticized the U.S. on Monday for positioning missile defense systems around Hawaii, calling the deployment part of a plot to attack the regime and saying it would bolster its nuclear arsenal in retaliation.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he ordered the deployment of a ground-based, mobile missile intercept system and radar system to Hawaii amid concerns the North may fire a long-range missile toward the islands, about 4,500 miles away.

"Through the U.S. forces' clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the U.S. attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.

The paper also accused the U.S. of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove "the U.S. pre-emptive nuclear war" on the North is imminent.

The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defense.

The North routinely accuses the U.S. of plotting to invade the North. But the U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has said it has no such plan.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high since the North defiantly launched a rocket in April and conducted an underground nuclear test last month, prompting U.N. Security Council sanctions.

North Korea responded to the U.N. resolution on the nuclear test with threats of war, and pledged to expand its nuclear bomb-making program.

In what could be the first test of the U.N. sanctions, an American destroyer has been tracking a North Korean ship sailing off China's coast amid suspicions that it is carrying illicit weapons.

The Kang Nam, which left a North Korean port on June 17, is the first vessel monitored under U.N. sanctions that ban the regime from selling arms and weapons-related material. The resolution requires member nations to request permission to inspect the cargo of ships suspected of carrying banned goods.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said on CBS television Sunday that Washington is "following the progress of that ship very closely." Rice would not say whether the U.S. would confront the Kang Nam.

North Korea has said it would consider any interception of its ships a declaration of war.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 06:11 AM

July 2nd, 2009
Yonhap: North Korea test-fires missiles
Posted: 05:35 AM ET

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — North Korea test-fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

"One was fired at 5:20 p.m. and the other at 6 p.m. from Sinsang-ni," near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said, according to Yonhap.

The launch was expected. The North Korean government issued a warning to mariners to avoid an area in the Sea of Japan at certain times between June 24 and July 9 because of a "military firing exercise," according to a U.S. military communication about the warning provided to CNN.

The North issued a similar warning before testing a long-range missile in April, but that warning indicated two potential danger areas more indicative of a long-range missile test.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 10:02 AM

Time for an Israeli Strike?


By John R. Bolton
Thursday, July 2, 2009

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.

He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these concerns that the international community has." This is precisely the view of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reflected in the Group of Eight communique the next day. Sen. John Kerry thinks the recent election unpleasantness in Tehran will delay negotiations for only a few weeks.

Obama administration sources have opined (anonymously) that Iran will be more eager to negotiate than it was before its election in order to find "acceptance" by the "international community." Some leaks indicated that negotiations had to produce results by the U.N. General Assembly's opening in late September, while others projected that they had until the end of 2009 to show progress. These gauzy scenarios assume that the Tehran regime cares about "acceptance" or is somehow embarrassed by eliminating its enemies. Both propositions are dubious.

Obama will nonetheless attempt to jump-start bilateral negotiations with Iran, though time is running out even under the timetables leaked to the media. There are two problems with this approach. First, Tehran isn't going to negotiate in good faith. It hasn't for the past six years with the European Union as our surrogates, and it won't start now. As Clinton said on Tuesday, Iran has "a huge credibility gap" because of its electoral fraud. Second, given Iran's nuclear progress, even if the stronger sanctions Obama has threatened could be agreed upon, they would not prevent Iran from fabricating weapons and delivery systems when it chooses, as it has been striving to do for the past 20 years. Time is too short, and sanctions failed long ago.


Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as "success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now. A "peaceful" uranium enrichment program, "peaceful" reactors such as Bushehr and "peaceful" heavy-water projects like that under construction at Arak leave Iran with an enormous breakout capability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order. And anyone who believes the Revolutionary Guard Corps will abandon its weaponization and ballistic missile programs probably believes that there was no fraud in Iran's June 12 election. See "huge credibility gap," supra.

In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap for Israel.

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:23 PM

U.S. military chief says clock ticking on Iran nuke
Wed Jul 8, 2009 4:37am IST   By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer warned on Tuesday that time is running out for dialogue with Tehran to avoid either a nuclear-armed Iran or a possible military strike against the Islamic Republic.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it is critical for diplomatic efforts to reach a solution before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or faces an Israeli or U.S. strike to turn back its nuclear program.

"That window is a very narrow window," Mullen told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

"There's a great deal that certainly depends on the dialogue and the engagement," he said. "I'm hopeful that that dialogue is productive. I worry about it a great deal if it's not."

Mullen noted that some forecasters believe Iran could be as little as a year away from developing a nuclear bomb, adding: "The clock has continued to tick."

The Obama administration hopes to coax Tehran into negotiating over its nuclear program. Washington and its allies say the program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, but Iran insists it is a civilian electricity program.

Israel has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence and points to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

That has raised concerns that Israel could ultimately carry out a military strike against Iranian nuclear sites.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview the United States had "absolutely not" given Israel a green light to attack Iran over its nuclear program, but he said Washington cannot "dictate to other countries what their security interests are."

"It is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels," Obama told CNN during his trip to Russia.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC's "This Week" program on Sunday that Israel had a sovereign right to act in its best interest in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The comment was seen by some as giving Israel a green light to attack.

Mullen told his audience that Washington must keep all options on the table as it pursues dialogue with Iran, "including certainly military options."

But he said a military strike -- like the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb itself -- would be "very destabilizing" for the Middle East and pose unpredictable consequences for U.S. allies and interests.

"It (a military strike) is a really important place to not go, if we can not go there in any way, shape or form," the admiral said.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 02:30 PM

Germany's BND denies report on Iran bomb timing

Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:39pm GMT

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND denied a report in a magazine on Wednesday that its experts believe Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months.

The report, in German weekly Stern, cited BND experts as saying Iran had mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and had enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium.

It quoted one expert at the agency as saying: "If they wanted to, they could detonate an atomic bomb in half a year's time."

But a BND spokesman said the article did not reflect the view of the agency, which is that Iran would not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years.

"We are talking about several years not several months," the spokesman said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for electricity generation to help it export more of its oil and gas, but Western countries suspect it of trying to make a nuclear bomb.

"(Six months) is absolutely a worst-case analysis," said Mark Fitzpatrick, senior non-proliferation fellow at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He said that while it might be plausible in theory that Iran could further enrich uranium in a large enough quantity for a bomb as well as restarting the weapon design work it halted in 2003, these actions would not go unnoticed.

He said there was also disagreement as to how advanced the weapons design work was.

"If Iran were to go for broke and produce a nuclear weapon in this manner, it would have to expel International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and the world would know," he said.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for defying its demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

Some analysts say Iran may be close to having the required material for producing a bomb, but most say the weaponisation process would then take one to two years due to technical and political hurdles.

Until now there have been no indications of any such covert diversion, a point made by the IAEA's incoming director-general shortly after his election earlier this month.

Current IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said it is his "gut feeling" that Iran is seeking at least the capability to build nuclear weapons, in order to protect itself from perceived regional and U.S. threats.

The Islamic Republic has largely rebuffed efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama for dialogue and has sharpened its rhetoric against the West following its disputed presidential election in June

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 03:31 PM

US investigator exposes Iran's nuclear weapons 'shopping list'

A senior US financial investigator has revealed Iran's detailed 'shopping list' for nuclear and missile parts after uncovering a vast procurement network for materials related to weapons of mass destruction.

By Philip Sherwell in New York
Published: 5:10PM BST 24 May 2009

Robert Morgenthau, the New York district attorney who is heading a long-term investigation into the Islamic regime's complex web of illicit overseas financial operations, told US senators there was little time left to halt Tehran's atomic weapons programme.

His warning is all the more sobering as Iran last week successfully test-fired a sophisticated medium-range missile that could strike Israel, central Europe and Western forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan with warheads.

"It's late in the game and we don't have a lot of time to stop Iran from developing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons," Mr Morgenthau told a recent Senate hearing. He described Iran's quest as "deadly serious".

His unit's findings also highlight the risks facing President Barack Obama as he hopes to forge improved diplomatic relations with Tehran at the same time as Iran presses ahead with a nuclear programme.

Mr Obama issued a timetable for future talks with Iran for the first time last week, telling the visiting Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he expected to know by the end of the year whether Tehran was making "a good faith effort to resolve differences".

But some senior figures in Israel are now increasingly convinced that the Obama administration believes that a nuclear-armed Iran is inevitable.

Mr Morgenthau's investigation has brought to light a multi-billion-dollar scam under which Iran channelled funds through Western financial institutions to buy banned dual-use materials for its nuclear and missile programmes. Lloyds TSB has already agreed to pay a fine and forfeiture of $350 million (£220 million) for its role in helping to disguise transactions.

The investigation has revealed that the Iranians were negotiating to buy 400 gyrometers, 600 accelerometers and 100 pieces of the metal tantalum - crucial technology for building accurate long-range missiles that could deliver nuclear payloads.

Mr Morgenthau's unit, which has prosecuted several major US white-collar criminal cases, also established that LIMMT, a Chinese company that has long been a major supplier of banned weapons material to Iran, had shipped a long list of weapons-related materials to Iran after skirting international financial sanctions.

The items included 15,000 kgs of specialised aluminium alloy used almost exclusively in long-range missile production; 1,700 kgs of graphite cylinders used for banned electrical discharge machines; more than 30,000 kgs of tungsten-copper plates; 200 tungsten-copper alloy hollow cylinders; 19,000 kgs of tungsten metal powder and 24,500 kgs of maraging steel rods, which are favoured for their superior strength.

"It's the usual list of items that Iran needs for its missile and weapons programmes," said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a private security research group. "Whether it's dual use or not is irrelevant. The Iranians are acquiring a glass half-full. They can use that stuff for what they want when they get it."

Mr Morgenthau's office has issued a 118-count indictment against LIMMT and its owner Li Fang Wei for allegedly misusing New York banks via front companies and supplying illicit missile and nuclear technology to Iran. But there are believed to be other targets of the "broad and ongoing" investigation.

His office consulted weapons experts from the CIA, private institutions and universities about what it had uncovered. They were "shocked by the sophistication of the equipment they're buying", he told a hearing of the Senate foreign relations committee.

Those findings were backed up by a staff report by the same committee.

It concluded that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade material to make a bomb within six months and that the regime was operating a "a broad network of front organisations" to purchase weapons material.

Nicholas Burns, the former top American diplomat on Iran, gave a blunt assessment of Iran's motives at the hearing. "I do see the Iranians as a real threat to our country," he said. "There is no question they are seeking a nuclear weapons capability. No one doubts that. They are the principal funder of most of the Middle East terrorist groups that are shooting at us, shooting at the Israelis and the moderate Palestinians.

"And they are influential in Iraq and Afghanistan and sometimes in ways that are very negative to US interests."

The US, Israel, Britain and other Western European nations believe that Iran is secretly developing atomic weapons but Tehran insists that its nuclear programme is for civilian energy purposes.

The regime has recently been focusing on developing reliable medium and long-range missiles as last week's successful test-fire and the deals uncovered by Mr Morgenthau confirm.

The successful launch of the Sejil-2 rocket, which has an estimated 1,200 mile range and a new navigation system and sophisticated sensors, was further sign of its growing missile capacity, weapons experts said.

Iran is moving away from the liquid-fuelled Shahab-3 obtained from North Korea using Pakistani technology, to solid fuel rockets as they are easier to store, move, hide and assemble - and thus harder for Israel or others to target if they launched air strikes.

Mr Netanyahu reiterated Israel's concerns that Iran would soon cross the "no return" threshold for nuclear weapon know-how in his talks with President Obama in Washington. But there is a growing suspicion in Israel that the White House now believes that a nuclear-armed Tehran is inevitable and is preparing policy for dealing with that reality.

"The Americans are in a state of mind according to which Iran has already gone nuclear," Dr Mordechai Kedar, a 25-year veteran of Israeli military intelligence now based at Bar-Ilan's Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told The Jerusalem Post. "Obama has given up."

Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said: "Even at the official level, [US Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton is on record as saying that the chances of success for negotiations with Iran are very small. If you're going into negotiations which you say ahead of time will likely fail, you're giving the sense that you might not be doing everything possible [to stop the Iranian nuclear programme].

"The US administration is projecting some kind of sense that they're not taking these negotiations seriously enough. If they just go through the motions, but they don't believe talks will succeed, that is worrisome," she said.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 07:28 PM

Diplomats: Iran has means to test bomb in 6 months

Jul 17 05:35 PM US/Eastern
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer Comments (58)      Share on Facebook         


VIENNA (AP) - Iran is blocking U.N. nuclear agency attempts to upgrade monitoring of its atomic program while advancing those activities to the stage that the country would have the means to test a weapon within six months, diplomats told The Associated Press Friday.
The diplomats emphasized that there were no indications of plans for such a nuclear test, saying it was highly unlikely Iran would risk heightened confrontation with the West—and chances of Israeli attack—by embarking on such a course.


But they said that even as Iran expands uranium enrichment, which can create fissile nuclear material, it is resisting International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to increase surveillance of its enrichment site meant to keep pace with the plant's increased size and complexity.

For Iran to amass enough fissile material to conduct an underground test similar to North Korea's 2006 nuclear explosion, it would likely have to kick out monitors of the IAEA—the U.N. nuclear agency—from its one known uranium enrichment site at Natanz. Technicians then could reconfigure the centrifuges now churning out nuclear-fuel grade enriched uranium to highly enriched, weapons-grade material.

Iran is unlikely, however, to want to do that. Such a move would immediately set off international alarm bells and could bridge rifts on how strongly to react—Russia and China, which have resisted Western calls to increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear defiance, would likely endorse more sweeping U.N sanctions and other penalties.

With the U.N. nuclear agency strictly limited in its nuclear monitoring of Iran, the existence of a hidden enrichment site that could supply the weapons-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapons test is also possible.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed Elbaradei has repeatedly warned that his agency cannot guarantee that Iran is not hiding nuclear activities. Iranian nuclear expert David Albright on Friday put the chances that such a secret site exists at "50-50."

more

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 10:49 AM

Clinton: NKorea running out of options on nukes
         
N. Korea says nuclear talks are 'over'


Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer – 1 hr 13 mins ago

PHUKET, Thailand – Faced with a fresh refusal by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday the communist regime has "no friends left" to shield it from punishing U.N. penalties.

"North Korea's continued pursuit of its nuclear ambitions is sure to elevate tensions on the Korean peninsula and could provoke an arms race in the region," Clinton told a news conference after conferring with officials from 26 other countries and organizations. She cited near unanimity on fully enforcing the latest U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its repeated nuclear and missile tests.

Clinton said the U.S. will continue to insist that North Korea return to the bargaining table and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program. At the same time, she held out the prospect of restoring U.S. diplomatic ties to North Korea and other incentives — actions the Obama administration would be willing to consider only if the North Koreans take irreversible steps to denuclearize.

Just before she spoke, a North Korean official declared the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea over. And the North Korean Foreign Ministry ridiculed Clinton, saying in a statement that she has "made a spate of vulgar remarks" that "suggest that she is by no means intelligent."

Before departing for Washington after a weeklong trip to India and Thailand, Clinton offered a somewhat more optimistic message about another trouble spot on the U.S. foreign policy agenda: Myanmar, the military-run southeast Asian nation also known as Burma.

"There is a positive direction that we see with Burma," she said. She praised Myanmar's government for committing to enforce the U.N. sanctions against North Korea, calling it important in light of Myanmar's suspected secret military links to North Korea.

And she suggested Myanmar may have played a role this month in persuading a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weaponry in violation of the sanctions to return home instead of continuing to its destination, which U.S. officials said was probably Myanmar.

Clinton also called on Myanmar to unconditionally release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest.

On North Korea, Clinton stressed a point she has made repeatedly — that a fully nuclear North Korea might compel other countries in Asia to follow suit. She mentioned no names, but Japan and South Korea are thought to be among those that might go nuclear under circumstances in which they felt threatened by the North and less than fully confident of protection under a U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Clinton also said, "I wanted to make very clear that the United States does not seek any kind of offensive action against North Korea." She said a North Korean delegate at Thursday's meeting complained of being subjected to U.S. nuclear threats, but she said this showed a disconnect with reality, given that U.S. nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea nearly 20 years ago.

She said the world — including China, which has been North Korea's most loyal supporter — has made it clear to Pyongyang that it has "no place to go."

"They have no friends left that will protect them from the international community's efforts to move toward denuclearization," she said.

Just moments before she spoke at this southern Thai seaside resort, a spokesman for the North Korean delegation at the Phuket conference said his government will not return to six-party talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, citing the "deep-rooted anti-North Korean policy" of the United States.

"The six-party talks are over," Ri Hung Sik said.

The Phuket forum, known as the Asian Regional Forum and drawing senior officials from 27 nations, is one of the rare instances of U.S. and North Korean diplomats appearing together, although U.S. officials said there was no substantive contact. Clinton told the news conference she was disappointed in what she heard from the North Korean delegate who addressed the conference.

"The question is: Where do we go from here?" she asked.

Her reply, essentially, was that the U.S. and its negotiating partners will not back down from their insistence that North Korea not only resume negotiations but scrap its nuclear program in a verifiable way and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And she said the U.N. sanctions will be applied as strictly and fully as possible.

"The bottom line is this: If North Korea intends to engage in international commerce its vessels must conform to terms" of the U.N. sanctions, "or find no port," she said.

Clinton said the Obama administration would soon send Philip Goldberg, its coordinator for implementing the U.N. sanctions that were approved by the Security Council in June, back to Asia for a new round of consultations on enforcement.

And, in what she called an illustration of U.S. concern about the welfare of North Korea's people, Clinton said the administration intends to appoint a special envoy to focus on North Korean human rights.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry, still smarting from an earlier Clinton comment likening the regime to "small children" demanding attention, released a statement Thursday saying: "We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community. Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

Turning to another major security problem, Clinton held a one-on-one meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and said afterward that the Pakistani military's progress in fighting Taliban insurgents has been "encouraging" but incomplete.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 05:26 PM

Washington Post:

The Tehran File

The IAEA needs to tell the world what it knows about Iran's nuclear program -- and soon.

Monday, August 24, 2009

SEPTEMBER WILL be a crucial month for the Obama administration's efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program. President Obama has said that Iran must respond to his offer of direct talks or risk tougher economic sanctions. Having crushed protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's probably fraudulent reelection, the Tehran regime has allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit a nearly completed heavy water reactor, and has granted greater access to a uranium enrichment site. But these are token gestures, aimed at giving China and Russia reasons to resist possible American and European pressure for sanctions, as well as a sop to the IAEA itself, which has little to show for its indulgent approach to Iran under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

Indeed, Mr. ElBaradei faces his own moment of truth next month. The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will convene in Vienna for four days starting Sept. 7 and again Sept. 22. Mr. ElBaradei will be closely questioned about a document in his possession that, according to recent media accounts, summarizes everything his agency knows about Iran. The picture -- which reportedly includes development of nuclear warheads and missiles to deliver them -- is not benign. Mr. ElBaradei has had this information since September 2008 but has resisted calls by the United States and its allies to circulate the report among the IAEA board.

This is consistent with Mr. ElBaradei's overall performance for the past 12 years, during which he went beyond his technical role to denounce "crazies" in the Bush administration who, he said, were hell-bent on bombing Iran. Meanwhile, Mr. ElBaradei has shown extraordinary patience in the face of Iranian stonewalling. Just two months ago, he conceded that his "gut feeling" is that Iran wants nuclear weapons capability. But, he said, this was the regime's understandable way "to get that recognition to power and prestige and . . . an insurance policy against what they heard in the past about regime change, axis of evil." No "crazies" here!

Of course, the Obama administration has pointedly renounced the Bush administration's approach. So, if a new, more diplomacy-friendly U.S. president wants greater disclosure of the IAEA's Iran dossier, you'd think Mr. ElBaradei, whose term expires Nov. 30, would oblige. Mr. ElBaradei's good faith will be tested one last time at the upcoming IAEA meetings, and if he wants to leave any sort of legacy, he will tell the board -- and the world -- everything his agency knows.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 12:45 AM

Believe it or not Myanmar may be next. They told our diplomat that they really don't want to pursue nuclear weapons now that they have a reactor thanks to N Korea and Iran.

Yes tom Lehre was right. Don;t worry unless ALABAMA gets the BOMB.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:50 PM

UAE reports ship seizure with NKorea arms for Iran
         

John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer – 10 mins ago

UNITED NATIONS – The United Arab Emirates has seized a cargo ship earlier this month bound for Iran with a cache of banned arms from North Korea, the first such seizure since sanctions against North Korea were ramped up, diplomats and officials told The Associated Press Friday.

The seizure was carried out in accordance with tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to derail North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Diplomats identified the vessel as a Bahamas-flagged cargo vessel, the ANL Australia, carrying rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. The diplomats and officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The UAE, a hub for Iranian goods, seized the ship several weeks ago. The ship is registered in the Bahamas, a common country of registry for vessels, but it wasn't immediately clear who owns it nor where the owner is based.

"We can confirm that the UAE detained a North Korean vessel containing illicit cargo," a Western diplomat told the AP.

The Security Council's latest resolution came in the wake of North Korea's second nuclear test in May and firing of six short-range rockets.

The ship's seizure and reported violation of a U.N. arms embargo was reported by the UAE in a confidential letter two weeks ago to the council's sanctions committee for North Korea that is comprised of diplomats from all 15 nations on the Security Council and is headed by Turkey's U.N. ambassador, according to diplomats and officials.

The Financial Times first reported the weapons seizure Friday.

The Security Council imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea on June 12, strengthening an arms embargo and authorizing ship searches on the high seas to try to rein in its nuclear program after Pyongyang's second nuclear test on May 25, violating a council resolution adopted after its first nuclear blast in 2006.

The council also ordered an asset freeze and travel ban on companies and individuals involved in the country's nuclear and weapons programs — and last month it put five North Korean officials, four companies and a state agency on the sanctions list. Three other companies were put on the list after Pyongyang launched a rocket on April 5, a move that many saw as a cover for testing long-range missile technology.

The new sanctions resolution also calls on all nations to prevent financial institutions or individuals from providing financing for any activities related to North Korean programs to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and ballistic missiles.

Three sets of U.N. sanctions apply to Iran, seeking to halt its uranium enrichment. Iran denies accusations by the U.S. and Western allies that its nuclear program is for more than peaceful purposes.

The incident comes at a delicate time, just as the North has been adopting a more conciliatory stance toward South Korea and the U.S., following months of defiant provocations.

Earlier this month, the North freed two American journalists and a South Korean worker after more than four months of detention and pledged to restart some joint projects.

The North also sent a delegation to Seoul to mourn the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:12 PM

UN: Questions about military aspects on Iran nukes
         

William J. Kole, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 28, 3:39 pm ET


VIENNA – Iran is stonewalling the U.N. nuclear watchdog on "possible military dimensions" to its suspect nuclear program, officials said Friday, urging the regime to clarify the mysterious role of a foreign explosives expert and shed light on other issues.

A senior Iranian envoy angrily denounced the assessment as "fabrication," insisting his country has gone out of its way to be transparent and cooperative.

In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it has pressed the Islamic Republic to clarify its uranium enrichment activities and reassure the world that it's not trying to build an atomic weapon.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity. The United States and important allies contend the country is covertly trying to build an atomic weapon.

Before six-power talks on Iran on Sept. 2 — and a key meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board a week after that — the IAEA acknowledged that Iran has been producing nuclear fuel at a slower rate and has allowed U.N. inspectors broader access to its main nuclear complex in the southern city of Natanz and to a reactor in Arak.

But the Vienna-based agency delivered a blunt assessment: "Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities."

"There remain a number of outstanding issues which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," said the text, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

It said the IAEA "does not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues, having focused instead on the style and form ... and providing limited answers and simple denials."

The report contained a reference to a "foreign national with explosives expertise" who apparently assisted the Iranian nuclear program. It did not identify the expert by name or nationality, and officials — pressed by the AP for details — would not elaborate.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 06:26 PM

N. Korea says it has reached the final phase of uranium enrichment

   
SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Friday that it has entered a final phase of uranium enrichment, and is also building more nuclear weapons with spent fuel rods extracted from its only op
erating plutonium-producing reactor.




http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/09/04/0301000000AEN20090904000700315.HTML

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Sep 09 - 12:17 PM

Iran's Non-Response
Can the Obama administration deliver on the tough sanctions it has been promising?

Friday, September 11, 2009

IRAN HAS finally offered its response to an international call for negotiations on its nuclear program, ahead of a late September deadline set by the Obama administration. But the "package of proposals" Tehran delivered to representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany on Wednesday did not even address its continuing uranium enrichment, which is bringing it steadily closer to producing nuclear weapons. That should have been no surprise: On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bluntly reiterated the regime's position that "we will never negotiate" on the issue.

President Obama's offer of direct diplomacy evidently has produced no change in the stance taken by Iran during the George W. Bush administration, when Tehran proposed discussing everything from stability in the Balkans to the development of Latin America with the United States and its allies -- but refused to consider even a temporary shutdown of its centrifuges. Two letters dispatched by the White House to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received no meaningful response. While Mr. Ahmadinejad would be happy to share a stage with Mr. Obama -- he proposed a debate before the world's media during his upcoming visit to the United Nations -- he made clear at his latest news conference that his regime is far more concerned with its continuing power struggle with domestic opponents. "From our point of view, Iran's nuclear issue is over," he said.

The Iranian president is almost certainly not staking out a bargaining position. His stance is consistent with the regime's behavior ever since its then-clandestine nuclear program was discovered in 2002 -- and it has been reinforced by the coup that Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Khamenei, have led this summer against the Islamic republic's more moderate elements. Yet the Obama administration persists; the State Department's spokesman said Thursday that "we will be testing [Iran's] willingness to engage in the next few weeks."

There's no reason to publicly rule out talks. But the administration has said all along that it would seek tough sanctions against Iran unless it responded meaningfully to an offer of dialogue. The time has come for it to show whether it can deliver on that promise. Can Russia, which has been the focus of much diplomatic stroking during the past seven months, be persuaded to support measures such as a ban on arms or gasoline sales to Iran? Will European governments, which remain among Iran's largest trading partners, finally curtail exports and investments? Such sanctions might not work; the best hope for stopping Iran's nuclear program lies in the possibility that domestic upheaval will overturn Mr. Khamenei's regime. But, if the Obama administration cannot bring more pressure to bear, it will vindicate Mr. Ahmadinejad's position, which is that "the Iranian nation will never be harmed under any circumstances" for its defiance of the United Nations.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Sep 09 - 01:10 PM

I haven't read the whole article that I found on this subject, but one thing I noticed from the little I did read is that Iran is offering to negotiate on all of the things the West is saying are the reason it doesn't want Iran to enrich uranium. If so, that would eliminate any need (if there ever really was any) for Iran to stop enriching uranium. And if that's the case, then the reasons the West are giving for not wanting Iran to enrich uranium must only be cover stories for some other, unspoken reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 11 Sep 09 - 01:50 PM

So, the Iranians are liars??

"On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bluntly reiterated the regime's position that "we will never negotiate" on the issue."

Sorry. Iran is acting in a way which may start WW III.

Feel free to justify them, but be willing to accept the 120 to 300 million killed when it happens.