Western politicians and media scoff at accusations of foreign meddling in Iranian politics. But the Obama administration is openly continuing Bush’s funding for “encouraging democracy” in Iran, programmes announced to encourage regime change. The Bush program “was a horrible idea,” says the biggest US-Iranian lobby group. “It made human rights activists and non-governmental organizations targets.”
from [...]
Don’t Bomb Iran
“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” - US National Intelligence Estimate, Dec 2007
Featured News » Latest news and happenings.
U.S. grants support Iranian dissidents
US defense spending - $534 or $890 billion - up to $3000 per citizen
Obama’s $534 billion budget for the Pentagon is larger than Bush’s, and accounts for over half of everything the President can spend; but it still does not include all military spending. Mother Jones researched the defense spend from other budget lines, which pushes the total to $890 billion, or about $3000 per US citizen.
Iran’s nuclear weapon ‘blueprints’ found by Western intel services
A report to Congress’ Foreign Relations committee says allied intelligence (presumably Israeli) have obtained blueprints for a nuclear warhead from two sources in Iran, which match each other “down to the last millimeter”. If true, this is validation of the claims in the “smoking laptop affair”, but no evidence is presented. The report [...]
Did an Aussie sell nukes to Iran?
In 2001, a now-dead Australian arms dealer allegedly sold nuclear weapons to Iran from ex-Soviet Ukraine, according to an Australian newspaper. It says four 200-kiloton nuclear warheads were stolen by a shadowy group of former Soviet officials, as well as 20 Kh-55 missiles. These are presumably not the 4 nukes that US experts were 98% [...]
US may cut funds for Israel’s anti-missile industry
The US may not fund the next generation of Israel’s Arrow missile defence system. Instead, they may just buy Israel the SM-3 anti-ballistic misssile system which the US army uses. The Pentagon paid Boeing over a billion dollars to develop the Arrow in Israel because the 1973 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty banned such work in [...]
High-enriched uranium traces found in Egypt: IAEA
The U.N. nuclear watchdog is investigating the discovery of traces of highly enriched uranium at a nuclear research site in Egypt, according to a restricted International Atomic Energy Agency report obtained by Reuters, which does not specify whether it is weapons-grade.
full story:
High-enriched uranium traces found in Egypt: IAEA | Reuters.
Nuclear talks get first breakthrough in 10 years
The agenda for the NPT review conference next year has been agreed by a preparatory meeting. This “may seem boring but we haven’t done so for a decade” pointed out the British. The 2005 Review failed to even agree what to talk about, bickering about Israels weapons being excluded and Iran’s supposed intentions.
Reuters story
Nuclear talks [...]
Yankee Bombs Go Home: German Foreign minister
Germany’s US-supplied nuclear weapons should leave Gemany, says foreign minister Steinmeier in a major change of policy promted by Obama-itis. He is the soft-left opposition candidate standing against Angela Merkel for Chancellor - she still thinks American Cold War A-bombs should stay in Germany to secure its influence in NATO, says Der Spiegel. The [...]
Does Obama’s Iran envoy believe it is a “demonic society”?
Does Dennis Ross, pro-Israel lobbyist and US special envoy on Iran, believe Iranian society is demonic? That is what the organisation whose board he recently chaired is briefing the Israeli cabinet, as Robert Dreyfus at The Nation points out.
US labs use British nuclear factory to build new bombs
The US has been using Britain’s atomic weapons factory to carry out research into its own nuclear warhead programme, according to evidence seen by the Guardian. This has been suspected for some years. The US weapons industry has long been prevented by Congress from researching a “replacement warhead”, and the UK denies it has such a programme. But the UK government has recently spent tens of billions mysteriously upgrading Britain’s factory at Aldermaston, and at Christmas secretly sold it’s stake to US companies; thus creating a Guantanamo for nukes, an offshore legal black hole where US companies can design the next generation of weapons without Congressional oversight and without sharing the secrets with foreign companies or parliaments. US weapons labs last week unhappily revealed that Obama may end civilian control of bomb development after decades and move such work to the Pantagon, a move seen to be an attempt to weaken the labs’ influence on policy. Article 1 of the Non-Proliferation treaty prohibits ‘transfer’ of nuclear weapons between countries, but the US and UK have a secret agreement on nuclear technology sharing - including recent warhead re-entry upgrades that gave British bombs the ability to destroy very hard targets in a first strike. Koffi Annan describes such modernisation as a swindle incompatible with the NPT.
Obama to end civilian control of nuclear weapons labs?
Los Alamos Online News reports that Obama is considering giving the Pentagon control of the US weapons factories, ending over 50 years of civilian control at the Department of Energy. A Democrat move to do this failed in 2000 but as a compromise the semi-autonomous NNSA within the DOE was set up - it has not been a great sucess. Los Alamos is not happy, although the Pentagon chief must be keen - he wants to build a new generation of weapons or test old ones.
Gaza offensive a “preintroduction” to Iran challenge - Israeli Ambassador
Israel’s ambassador to Australia, speaking off the record to a friendly audience, said “the country’s recent military offensives were a preintroduction to the challenge Israel expects from a nuclear-equipped Iran within a year” says a journalist who was accidentally present. He expects Iran to have enough enriched uranium to reach the “point of no return” by April next year, but later denied Israel is planning an attack.
Israel broke international law in Syrian attack: El Baradei
The Israeli attack on Syria in September 2007 broke international law says the chief of the UN’s nuclear agency, in an interview with Newsweek. He complained that instead of giving the IAEA evidence of an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor, Israel “violated the rules of international law on the use of unilateral force”, adding that the IAEA still does not have evidence of a Syrian reactor at the bombed site. Reports have surfaced that the US helped Israel with the attack
Bush offers Emirates nuclear power by 2017 - they say it’s a possible route to the bomb
In the last days, Bush signed a deal with friendly Gulf state the UAE to “acquire nuclear technology if Iran pushes ahead”, possibly giving the Emirates a nuclear power programme by 2017. The Emirates minister made clear this was an arms race, and announced that importing nuclear technology for electricity does potentially give the UAE a chance to seek nuclear weapons. He added “If Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is going to collapse and Iran gets a bomb, then it will open the door for an arms race in the region,” forgetting to mention that the Bush administration policy was to make the NPT collapse. Congress has 90 days to reverse this offer says the AP story below
IAEA snow banner - “Yes we can”
A giant “YES, WE CAN!” was carved in the snow outside the IAEA building on Tuesday. Norbert Aschenbrenner came into work early for the job, and was probably not the only IAEA employee who expects more respect from the new White House than the trashing it got from the last one. Picture and AP story [...]
Each US family spends about $800 on nukes each year
The US spends much more on its nuclear bombs than it does on foreign aid and diplomacy combined, says a Carnegie report. $52 billion a year is apparently a conservative estimate, so each American spends about $200 on weapons of mass destruction annually. And remember, the Pentagon wants to throw away all their old ones and build a new fleet.
White House again says it rejected Israeli attack on Iran
The White House says it has rejected support for an Israeli air attack on Iran, according to a major article in the Bush-friendly NY Times. A few weeks ago, the same White House said it rejected an attack on Gaza in Time magazine, but Bush has now stunned allies in the UN Security Council (and even Condi Rice) with his strong support for the Gaza attack.
So you have to ask: is this all simply White House lies, and the Bush-friendly media is just trying to distance an enthusiastic White House from an imminent Iran attack?
Britain sells its nuclear weapons factory to US in secret
Britain no longer has any stake in the production of its nuclear warheads after the Government secretly sold off its shares in the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston reports The Independent. US companies Lockheed Martin and Jacobs engineering will now build UK bombs on contract. Many speculate that US companies are designing new nuclear warhead there, which Congress will not allow them to do in the USA, and which would be illegal under Article 1 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Hidden travels of the atomic bomb
The atomic bomb was only developed once, and then its secrets were stolen, shared or sold by the eight other nuclear powers - no state has ever developed its own bomb. So says a new book by two Los Alamos and Livermore heavyweights who say that China hosted a Pakistan bomb test 1990 (under Benazir Bhutto), gave France access to their test site, and gave a way a simple bomb design. They also confirm that Israel and South Africa cooperated on a neutron weapon test in 1979, as well as exchanging tritium for uranium. The authors argue that bombs are so hard to make that proliferation is not inevitable, contrary to the argument used by many anti-disarmament ‘experts’.
Israeli options for Iran attack without US support
The IDF is drawing up options to attack Iranian nuclear facilities by itself, reports the Jerusalem Post, after recent stories that the White House will not support such a strike. Most experts suggest a lone attack would be difficult without US permission to fly over Iraq on a long range-bombing run, but few mention that Israel has other options: huge unmanned high-altitude aircraft, submarines with conventional and nuclear cruise missiles, a reported deal to use Geogian airbases , a possible ICBM capability, and overflying Turkey as it did with its strike on Syria last year.
Olmert: no US pressure against Iran attack
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday Israel was free to take any action it deemed necessary against Iran’s nuclear program, saying there were no U.S. restraints, contradicting a Time magazine story the previous day. “I can’t recall that anyone in the (U.S.) administration… advised me or any of my official representatives not to take [...]
US pressures Olmert against Iran, Gaza attacks - Time
U.S. officials have asked Israel to refrain from launching any major military action in the region while Bush is president, Israeli sources told TIME magazine. The next day, Prime Minister Olmert said the US has never pressed Israel not to attack Iran.
TIME Monday, Nov. 24, 2008
US Puts Pressure on Israel to Refrain from Attacks
By Tim [...]
Surge in Pentagon share of humanitarian aid budget
The US uses aid to promote non-humanitarian goals, making it only the 15th most effective aid donor, and 13th most generous of top 23 donors, says a new report from DARA, one of the few organisations that monitors aid-money efficiency. Over the last decade, the Pentagon’s share of US development aid has risen from 3.5% to 18%. Washington Post story below highlights Afghan PRTs, which a major aid agency says decreases its security as locals “call into question our impartiality” when NATO military vehicles and soldiers distribute aid. Colin Powell infamously decribed aid NGO’s as “force multipliers” - see MSF’s rejection here
Main evidence against Iran may be forged - IAEA questions ’smoking laptop
A ’stolen laptop’ that contains the primary ‘evidence’ that Iran is building a bomb may be a forgery, new evidence reveals. As with Iraq, the IAEA has investigated and dismissed almost all allegations that Iran has a weapons programme. Remaining questions are mostly to do with documents on the ’stolen laptop’ that the US says it found somewhere and gave to the IAEA, insisting that Iran should not be allowed to see the documents. Iran has long said the laptop documents are forgeries, although better forgeries than the crude ‘evidence’ the US produced to ‘prove’ that Saddam bought uranium from Niger. With no guarantee the laptop is authentic, the IAEA has been in two minds, but now evidence is emerging that the laptop is a fake.
Women or machines may be solution to ‘manning bulge’ problems on Trident submarines
Spending years underwater waiting to blow up a few hundred thousand people is not a very fun job, so it is hard find crew for nuclear missile submarines. The British Navy always has trouble getting men for this job (which of course is Necessary to Keep Us Free), but it will need even more crew [...]
US forces in Iran, but only for surveillance, not attacks
US forces have used a classified 2004 Rumsfeld authorisation for about a dozen secret attacks on Syria, Pakistan “and other countries” which are not at war with the United States for at least two years, reports the NY Times. Before this report, it was thought US troops first opened fire in Pakistan and Syria a few weeks ago. Officials say Iran has not been attacked under this Al Qaeda order, but “suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives”. I wonder if they were in uniform.
Mid-east pipelines
From “Meeting the Challenge - US policy toward Iranian nuclear development” a blueprint for attacking Iran from the Bipartisan Policy Center. For some reason it does not show the Mosul-Haifa pipeline from northern Iraq to Israel, disused since 1948 and site of the first fighting of the 2003 Iraq invasion, when Australian special forces landed [...]
Iran developing a nuclear weapon - Obama’s first press conference
“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening”. So said Barack Obama in his first press conference as Commander-in-Chief-Elect, contradicting what he has been told by US intelligence services who say Iran halted any weapons program in 2003. “Iran’s support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease” Obama added; it is worth noting here that Obama has appointed a Chief of Staff who fought with the Israeli army and whose father was a member of a terrorist organisation, (Irgun, a radical and violent Zionist group which attacked civilians and blew up the St David Hotel in Jerusalem). Rahm Emanuel also reportedly wants to reintroduce the Draft compelling all young men to do 3 months civil defence training.
Pentagon must test nukes again or build new ones, threatens Gates
US defence secretary Gates tells Congress to stop blocking funds for a new generation of nuclear weapons. “To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent.. without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program,”. “In other words,” Wired’s Nathan Hodge remarks, “fund this thing, mothertruckers, or we start testing”.
Russian scientist ‘helped Iran with nuclear weapons programme’
‘A Russian scientist may have helped Iran to design advanced detonators whose only possible use would be in a nuclear weapon, according to United Nations inspectors’. So say the UK Daily Telegraph and NY Times, citing anonymous sources. Iran denies this but apparently cannot be shown the evidence against it, and this story could simply be about the Russian weapons scientist sent to Iran by the CIA with fake bomb blueprints in the 2001 Operation Merlin fiasco.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program expanding rapidly
New imagery shows that Pakistan’s second plutonium reactor is nearing completion, which will greatly expand its bomb-making capacity. Expert David Albright of ISIS reports that construction of its third reactor is also continuing. In a similar report last year he wrote that the increased production could be to make smaller weapons able to be fitted on Pakistan’s cruise missiles or to make thermonuclear weapons as “both India and Pakistan appear on the verge of greatly expanding their production of nuclear weapons”. US modellers in April published findings that an India-Pakistan nuclear war would have devastating effects on the global environment, through massive depletion of the ozone layer.
Sarkozy: Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear weapons capability
“Iran is taking a major risk in continuing the process to obtain a military nuclear capacity,” Sarkozy told a meeting in Damascus with the leaders of Syria, Turkey and Qatar. “One day, whatever the Israeli government, we could find one morning that Israel has struck,” Sarkozy added.
“The question is not whether it would be legitimate, [...]
Secret Israel-Georgia airfield deal for Iran attack: UPI
Georgia has agreed to allow Israel to use two airfields for an attack on Iran, says UPI in an article exploring the significant Israeli military support for Georgia in recent years. Flying from Georgia to Natanz is 500km shorter than from Israel, and avoids flying over Jordan and Baghdad
Blasts from the Past: Western Support for Iran’s Nuclear program
The US, France and Germany all supported Irans nuclear programme in the 1970s, with Henry Kissinger saying that compliance with the NPT would prevent proliferation. Iran Affairs collected the following clippings about early contracts, including for 4 reactors to be built by France and Germany.
Blasts from the Past: Western Support for Iran’s Nuclear program
May 30 [...]
US bases worldwide by Mother Jones
Mother Jones has published impressive research on US bases. The Pentagon’s facilities occupy more of the planet than North Korea, including 761 military sites in 39 countries overseas ( worth $119 billion). See the clever world map here and some more statistics here. The White House spends about as much training foreign forces as it [...]
Dutch intel: US to strike Iran in coming weeks
Dutch intelligence has called off an infiltration and sabotage operation on Iran’s nuclear programme, because a US attack is imminent, claims a rightwing Dutch paper. Original story in De Telegraaf is here
AP wrong: says Iran admitted having nuclear weapons programme in 2002
Iran “admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret atomic weapons program for nearly two decades” Associated Press misinformed the world in a major story titled “Iran ends nuclear cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe”. There was no such admission nor evidence for such a claim. So after complaints AP later refined its secret weapons allegation to one of a secret nuclear program “in violation of its commitments”, which is also wrong, as Iran has been openly building a nuclear programme for years with IAEA and Western help - hardly secret - and it was under no IAEA “commitment” to announce its uranium enrichment plans before starting the program (ref?) . One wonders what else of this story to believe.
US top warrior ignores intel, talking of “this issue of nuclear weapons”.
Chair of US Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullin, told Fox news that more international pressure on Iran was needed, so “we can all deal with this issue of nuclear weapons”. His certainty on weapons is odd because his Defense Intelligence Agency is telling him with high confidence that Iran does not have a [...]
Iran attack likely in 4-7 months, or we’ll nuke them later says Israeli academic
“Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months” says hawkish Israeli academic Benny Morris in “Using Bombs to Stave Off War”, NYT, hoping the attack will at least delay that country’s nuclear program” otherwise a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike will be necessary. Note that he thus admits Israel has the bomb (normally forbidden talk in Israel), claims every intelligence agency believes Iran has a bomb program (he forgets that all the US ones dont believe this), and talks of destroying not only the supposed Iranian weapons program but its nuclear program (code for the Bushehr power reactor due to power up this year).
Iran has resumed A-bomb project, says Telegraph
More unsubstantiated allegations from the UK Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin, one of the major scaremongers on Iraq’s non-existent WMD programme. As with the Iraq allegations, note that the article implies that the IAEA cannot find the facilities that unnamed Western intelligence sources say they know exist, and implies that the new P2 enrichment technology is by definition for weapons, and cannot be simply for more efficient fuel production.
CIA supressed intel that Iran had no weapons program, says ex-agent
A former CIA agent says CIA officials ignored evidence that Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003. This is now the official intelligence assessment, but he was sacked for saying so: “On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at [...]
Iran says Bushehr nuke power plant to go online in October
The Bushehr nuclear power plant being built in Iran will be start operation in October, a high-ranking Iranian nuclear official said on Sunday, reports Russia’s Novosti agency. The last of 82 tons of low-enriched uranium fuel was delivered to Iran in January.
Congress to demand blockade of Iran - an act of war
Congress will soon vote to “demand” the President organise an international blockade of Iran, following heavy pressure by pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC. Such a blockade - involving “stringent” inspection of all persons, planes and ships entering or leaving Iran, would be an act of war without UN Security Council approval, which will not be given. [...]
Oil is likely cause of confrontation with Iran - Kissinger
In a interview with Australian TV, Henry Kissinger advocates discussions with Iran to avoid a controntation over oil (not nukes). He says “at the end of the day the industrialised world will not permit them to dominate all the energy resources so that they will be drawn into a replica of the Iran-Iraq war of [...]
Democrats dropped Iran war bill in 2006 - Israeli lobby pressure, says Ron Paul
Nancy Pelosi’s first act as House Speaker in 2006 was to “deliberately” remove a portion of a legislative spending bill which said the United States “can’t go to war with Iran without getting approval from Congress”, says Democrat lawman Ron Paul. He and others blame Israeli and AIPAC pressure for the u-turn.
“Generous offer rejected” by Iran, says Bush - but they didn’t.
The EU presented a new set of proposals to Iran, and Bush immediately “accused” Iran of rejecting them them out of hand reports the New York Times. Bush was wrong: “Tehran did not formally reject the offer”, and though the US fully expected the offer to be rejected, Bush [...]
Bush changes wording: “we’ll give diplomacy a chance to work”
From Associated Press report on Bush in Germany June 11 2008:
Within the coded language of the U.S. attitude toward Iran, several small changes in Bush’s rhetoric Wednesday added up to a difference. Three times, he called a diplomatic solution “my first choice,” implying there are others. He said “we’ll give diplomacy a chance to work,” [...]
Israel attack on Iran ‘unavoidable’-Olmert deputy
An attack on Iran looks “unavoidable” , an Israeli deputy prime minister said on June 6. “If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz.� Six months earlier, the Israeli ambassador to Britain said such an attack was “inevitable“.
US helped Pakistan get the bomb - new allegations
New books are suggesting that not only did the US keep silent in the 1980s and 90s as Pakistan built uranium and plutonium bombs, but it actually encouraged Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation and covered up for it. It is even alleged that presidential appointees “tipped off the Pakistani government so as to prevent its [...]
Swiss destroy evidence in nuclear smuggling case against Khan network
Switzerland destroyed nuclear arms plans seized as evidence in a case linking a Swiss family to Libya’s now-abandoned atomic program after pressure from the USA. This probably ends the prosecution of the Tinner family who worked for AQ Khan’s nuclear smuggling ring. It is argued that the evidence needed to be shredded because it contained [...]
