Posted on 05/12/2005 2:20:35 AM PDT by usa1776
WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry experts.
The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests to determine if its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight.
Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R. Graham, say there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation for the deployment of electromagnetic pulse weapons – even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or years.
Iran will have that capability – at least theoretically – as soon as it has one nuclear bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic ally of Iran, already boasts such capability.
The stunning report was first published over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.
Just last month, Congress heard testimony about the use of such weapons and the threat they pose from rogue regimes.
Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials reminded members of Congress that there is a glut of these missiles on the world market. They are currently being bought and sold for about $100,000 apiece.
"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., in the Washington Post a week ago. "No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters – al-Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels – and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."
The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated and capable of detonation at higher elevations – making them more dangerous.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country – knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
While Iran still insists officially in talks currently underway with the European Union that it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade U.S. military planners and intelligence agencies that Tehran can only be planning such an attack, which depends on the availability of at least one nuclear warhead.
Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian missile developments suggests Iranian scientists will move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear material shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.
Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.
"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."
Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear official said Europe must heed an Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.
The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, came as diplomats from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level meeting in London set for April 29. Enrichment produces fuel for nuclear reactors, which can also be used in the explosive core of nuclear bombs.
"The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian proposal put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment. "If yes, fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot continue," he said.
Some analysts believe Iran is using the negotiations merely to buy time for further development of the nuclear program.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Kyl, held a hearing on the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a nuclear attack on land, is not to kill people, but "to kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to the president during the Reagan administration.
Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think of no other reason for Iran to be experimenting with mid-air detonation of missiles than for the planning of an EMP-style attack.
"EMP offers a bigger bang for the buck," he said. He also suggested such an attack makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy less likely than would the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city.
A 2004 report by the commission found "several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication."
"EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
The major impact of EMP weapons is on electronics, "so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures," explained the report.
"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress.
The commission report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked' – upset, damaged and destroyed – electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe than the direct effects."
The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.
"What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter – they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety," explains the commission report. "Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter."
Graham describes the potential "cascading effect" of an EMP attack. If electrical power is knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial system breaks down, food, water and gasoline become scarce.
As Kyl put it: "Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order."
"American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations," the senator wrote. "When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment."
The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and – compared with the threat – relatively inexpensive.
"But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress, all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl, so far the only elected official blowing the whistle this alarming development.
Kyl concluded in his report: "The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond."
Can you say "pre-emptive strike?" I knew you could.
The Iranians are first to ever hit on the idea of an EMP airburst.
Sure they are.....
This was only posted about a dozen times when the story actually came out two weeks ago.
Respond? Why wait to respond?
I finally read it this time.
We need to do some serious work in this country.
This is one of the reason one of my vehicles (spare) is an old earlies 60's vehicle. It's all mechanical.
Time to crush Iran like a bug.
Even if we accept the worst case scenario, Iran needs to understand that our military will still have plenty of capability to respond. Tehran will cease to exist. Not even Allah will be able to help them.
And every computer chip that not hardened. That includes all chips in cars built after 1980. And all computers - and all chips in airplanes that use computers to navigate.
Airplanes will drop out of the sky in every city and State if a bomb was detonated 125 miles about Nebraska. This is real and it needs to be dealt with. In other words, we need to harden every chip. And do it now. If it's not Iran, it'll be someone someday. This is too easy and too known not to have someone hit us with it.
Our economy will be ruined, our trucks won't run, our "just in time" system will go down, and we'll have massive starvation. Getting them back isn't good enough. We need to prevent this by hardening our computer chips.
How many computer chips are involved to "launch a thermonuclear weapon"? And get permission to do so when all communications are down? And send planes out when their navigation systems are down? We can prevent this. Let's do it. Let's plug the hole.
We will drastically cut our dependence on foreign oil. We won't need any for a long time.
LOL!!
We will drastically cut our dependence on foreign oil. We won't need any for a long time.
What hysterical nonsense! This is Y2K hysteria squared and cubed. I think someone is looking for a way to justify an attack on Iran. It is reminiscent of the German maneuvering to justify the Blitzkrieg on Poland.
Practical question: if a vehicle is parked and engine off, will EMP fry the chips? I suspect not. What percent of vehicles are parked and off at any given time?
Similar question for computers, communication equipment, etc. etc.
'75 Ramcharger. No computer. I think it will still work after an EMP bomb. Where I'd get gas, is another issue.
For those who are concerned about their vulnerability to EMP damage, and are reluctant to participate in mass murder to calm their anxieties, check out this slightly less bloodthirsty alternative:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp/toc.htm
Publication Number: EP 1110-3-2
Title: Engineering and Design - Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and Tempest Protection for Facilities Proponent: CEMP-ET
Publication Date: 31 December 1990
Distribution Restriction Statement: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
The US built a system to be able to survive a first strike from the USSR and respond. I don't think one Iranian (or other) nuke is going to destroy it.
The EMP problem has been understood for decades. The entire command and control infrastructure from the president down to the silos or submarines is fully hardened. An EMP attack on the US is suicide.
Some interesting testimony from late 1999 at the link below. I wonder whether Rome-on-the-Potomac, under GOP direction since the 2000 election, has done anything substantive about this little vulnerability? Other than talk about it (if that). How about corporate America, which spent tens of billions responding to the Y2K threat? Any action?
If the "mad mullahs of Iran" could read up on this (as they apparently have), and prepare to act on their knowledge, what does it say about the cluelessness and profound stupidity of our own "ruling elite" if it turns out that they have NOT acted on this readily available knowledge?
http://www.house.gov/hasc/testimony/106thcongress/99-10-07wood.htm
CONCLUSIONS. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a ''weapon of mass hardware destruction'', even one instance of which could cripple much of the U.S. military machine and which also can lay waste to modern American civilization – without directly harming a single American. Technical means of defense against EMP exist which are of unquestioned technical feasibility and military effectiveness. Whether EMP defenses are financially and programmatically feasible to produce and deploy is for the Congress to determine – for corporate DoD seems to have elected to mostly turn its face from this esoteric but possibly historic issue.
The roads might not be very navigable, though, as they might be littered with those 'gas stations'.
Yes.
EMP fries circuits regardless of whether or not they are under power at the time. EMP works just like putting something metal in the microwave oven - the general atmosphere becomes so full of electrical energy, that circuits begin to arc to each other. It effects ALL circuits that are not hardened in a Farraday cage - even old fashioned pre-IC circuits.
BTW: A 1975 Ramcharger had electronic ignition. Unless you put points in it - but you still would lose the electronics in it where the wires pass through the firewall due to cross arcing. Your dashboard is also a printed circuit that would fry. Without the dashoard printed circuit, the truck doesn't run. If you doubt me, pull the circular wiring plug from the back of your dash panel and then try to start your truck.
All US military circuits are hardened against EMP - especially those in critical aircraft and missile systems. That is how we could assure the USSR that an EMP was not going to get them anything but a full scale response. Iran evidently needs that reminder, and possibly a "warning shot" as well via a conventionally armed MIRV taking out their nuclear power station.
As for stopping Iran or any other nation from launching an EMP burst, do a check into what the REAL reason is for the existence of HAARP - it is a missile defense system capable of raising the ionosphere anywhere above the planet as needed. It can also create atmospheric lenses to mitigate (or amplify) electromagnetic propagation as necessary. There's a lot more to that system than the "black helicopter" nuts would like us to know. Much of it good, some of it beyond their worst nightmares.
A nice introduction to the subject of personal EMP hardening projects, for those who do not want to download the many MB of the technical article noted previously:
http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/empprotection.htm
Protecting Yourself from EMP by Duncan Long
EMP. The letters spell burnt out computers and other electrical systems and perhaps even a return to the dark ages if it were to mark the beginning of a nuclear war. But it doesn't need to be that way. Once you understand EMP, you can take a few simple precautions to protect yourself and equipment from it. In fact, you can enjoy much of the "high tech" life style you've come accustomed to even after the use of a nuclear device has been used by terrorists--or there is an all-out WWIII.
EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse), also sometimes known as "NEMP" (Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse), was kept secret from the public for a long time and was first discovered more or less by accident when US Military tests of nuclear weapons started knocking out phone banks and other equipment miles from ground zero.
EMP is no longer "top secret" but information about it is still a little sketchy and hard to come by. Adding to the problems is the fact that its effects are hard to predict; even electronics designers have to test their equipment in powerful EMP simulators before they can be sure it is really capable of with standing the effect.
EMP occurs with all nuclear explosions. With smaller explosions the effects are less pronounced. Nuclear bursts close to the ground are dampened by the earth so that EMP effects are more or less confined to the region of the blast and heat wave. But EMP becomes more pronounced and wide spread as the size and altitude of a nuclear blast is increased since the ground; of these two, altitude is the quickest way to produce greater EMP effects. As a nuclear device is exploded higher up, the earth soaks up fewer of the free electrons produced before they can travel some distance.
The most "enhanced" EMP effects would occur if a nuclear weapon were exploded in space, outside the Earth's atmosphere. In such a case, the gamma radiation released during the flash cycle of the weapon would react with the upper layer of the earth's atmosphere and strip electrons free from the air molecules, producing electromagnetic radiation similar to broad-band radio waves (10 kHz-100 MHz) in the process. These electrons would follow the earth's magnetic field and quickly circle toward the ground where they would be finally dampened. (To add to the confusion, we now have two more EMP terms:
"Surface EMP" or "SEMP" which refers to ground bursts with limited-range effects and "High-altitude EMP" or "HEMP" which is the term used for a nuclear detonation creating large amounts of EMP.)
Tactically, a space-based nuclear attack has a lot going for it; the magnetic field of the earth tends to spread out EMP so much that just one 20-MT bomb exploded at an altitude of 200 miles could--in theory--blanket the continental US with the effects of EMP. It's believed that the electrical surge of the EMP from such an explosion would be strong enough to knock out much of the civilian electrical equipment over the whole country. Certainly this is a lot of "bang for the buck" and it would be foolish to think that a nuclear attack would be launched without taking advantage of the confusion a high-altitude explosion could create. Ditto with its use by terrorists should the technology to get such payloads into space become readily available to smaller countries and groups.
But there's no need for you to go back to the stone age if a nuclear war occurs. It is possible to avoid much of the EMP damage that could be done to electrical equipment--including the computer that brought this article to you--with just a few simple precautions.
First of all, it's necessary to get rid of a few erroneous facts, however.
[Go to link for further details]
Fair enoough.
We plan to knock them out with 1,437 nuclear bombs.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations sanctions against Iran.
Once again, our State Department has demonstrated that it is more interested in "making nice" with the international community than in protecting American interests.
I think the time has come to send a very clear, decisive, and unambiguous message to the rogue states of the world (including our use of the nuclear option) that we will no longer tolerate this behavior, that our enemies must cease and desist immediately, or suffer any and all consequences of their reckless and antisocial behavior.
Right---such an attack might play havoc with civilian infrastructure, but I'm sure that our nuclear retaliatory infrastructure is hardened against any such possibility, and I imagine that nuclear missile subs are inherently immune. So after any such attack, Iran would cease to exist. It's called "deterrence".
The question is not relevant. The U.S. nuclear forces were built to operate during an atomic exchange with the USSR, and are not at all vulnerable.
This whole idea of an EMP attack is over-hyped. Computer ystems are not as vulnerable as this sort of story leads one to beleive.
A great deal of hysteria from WND, IMHO.
There is a threat – but not much of one. Most of our vital computers are shielded. Even those of the palm pilot variety are coated with metallic based paint – which will add a fair amount of shielding. Their dream is only about two decades behind reality.
An attack like that would result in Tehran and other iranain cities becoming glass bowls. The US military is hardened against EMP strikes.
Also, nuke subs and aircraft carriers can move in and supply power to coastal cities. One EMP bomb would not fry every circuit. They would need three or more.
Agree! EMP is the silent threat that is seldom discussed in public. It's also possible to create a skyborne pulse with a conventional burst. Horrifying to contemplate.
We know that no one with nukes will fire missiles at our cities, nobody is so stupid to think that they could possibly survive after doing so. But the Iranians are betting that an EMP strike on the U.S. would be so crippling as to make a counterstrike impossible to deliver.
Iran needs to be taken out. Now.
I'm an old Army Commo (amongst other things) guy, and had a short course in EMP stuff... And while I'll admit that my info is 20+ years old, and things might have changed since then.
But, I seriously doubt that ONE nuclear airburst of anything that the mullahs could build or buy would literally cripple the entire nation, even if they could launch and guide it straight.
It WOULD, unfortunately, for practical purposes cripple the civilian population though, because the infrastructure is so fragile, so deeply and widely integrated, with no redundancies or even backup plans (and we rely too much on computers) and beause the people aren't prepared for it mentally or physically.
I know this because the two or three times a year that the power goes out here for more than a couple of hours, the entire area comes to a screeching halt including emergency services. Stores can't sell because their computers don't run and the clerks are too stupid to make change in their heads or with pencil and paper. Gas doesn't pump because not one station within 70 miles has a backup generator.
Even the airport closes down because their landing lights, radios and beacons don't have power. When the batteries run down in their handheld units and the patrol cars run out of gas the police can't communicate unless someone lends them a generator or two, and some contractor doesn't let them refuel from his gravity fed fuel tank.... Heck, even the city water will only last for 2 days because the gravity tanks have to be filled by electrical pumps.
As to the survival of electronics in the area within range of the EMP: EVEN IF THEY ARE TURNED OFF, EVEN IF THEY ARE UNPLUGGED, there is a good chance that they will "fry". Anything with an inductor (coil of wire) will probably get enough of a jolt to destroy integrated circuits, memory chips, processors etc.
Fortunately, the range of the EMPs are not as far as many people are fearing. And there are things that you can do to to help your electronics survive. Heck, even wrapping them (completely) in a couple of layers of aluminum foil will increase the range of "survivability" by 5 -10%.
Build yourself a good little Faraday cage out of scrap metal and any electronics you put in it stuff will probably survive even a moderately close proximity pulse.
And I know that the mullahs are pretty stupid, but even most of them aren't THAT stupid that they aren't able to realize that our military would STILL have to vaporize their every city, (Especially Mecca, Medina & Tehran, turn 85% of Iran into a "glass parking lot" and require Allah to come up with about 7,200.000,000 virgins on very short notice.
That reminds me... I need to overhaul my generator, build a faraday cage for it and refresh the gasoline in storage.
The problem with your suggestion is that these Islamic terrorists do not fear the retaliation that we would respond with. These people after all, are suicide murderers who are more than willing to kill themselves in the name of Allah.
We need just to target Mecca.
Yeah we better give his company all our money or we are doomed.
What's next that we should be very affraid off ? Are they going to redirect asteroids, too ?
The AF was well on the way toward hardening operations to counter EMP many years ago. I doubt our strategic response would be affected in any major way by this type of minimal attack.
Ramcharger sounds cool!
I guess we may as well start learning how to make some home made moonshine errr, i mean fuel! ! :)
That's something that should have been done on Sept. 12, 2001! Along with another half dozen cities in the area.
Very decent link regarding EMP, including the info that vehicles are less vulnerable than might be suspected. It seems reasonabe information, and the language used is fairly understandable.
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Not proven. It is on the order of mere specualtion that such a explosion at that hieght would have that effect.
Maybe if the Iranians could develop a pig with wings, it could fly one of these payloads under the radar.
There are 1,001 different things to be more worried about than this.
and another thing...
sounds like the Iranians are prepared for when the sentinals attack.
You're probably right, but a much smaller EMP directed at the north-east corridor, catching NYC and DC, and maybe Boston, if the generating blast was big enough and located out to sea, would take out the computing infrastructure for the stock-exchanges, a fair proportion of our other financial institiutions, the civilian side of the government, and put the electrical power grid down for maybe a quarter of our population.
I stopped reading when I saw WND.
I agree with your assessment. I keep remembering in the 60's when we had Nike Hercules missiles with nuclear warheads on them . These missiles stationed all around the US had a specific purpose of exploding in the air and taking down enemy craft. Did we know of magnetic pulse then?
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