Free Republic

Iran is unlikely to move toward building a nuclear weapon this year because it does not yet have the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium, a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security said on Wednesday. The report by the institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offered a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Tehran. "Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as...

The rhetoric of U.S. and Arab officials over their divergent policies toward Iran has become curiously more heated since the release last week of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear ambitions. This is odd. The NIE claim that Iran's nuclear weapons program was suspended four years ago should have been, in Arab eyes, a signal that the prospect of a U.S. airstrike against Iran was off the table, and business That has not been the way the Americans see it. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has been attending a security conference in Bahrain, the Gulf headquarters of the...

The threat of war with Iran has ebbed and with new UN sanctions now an even harder sell, the United States has scant options even if it were to reverse course and engage Tehran, experts say. President George W. Bush insists that Iran remains a threat despite Monday's appraisal by US intelligence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, a change of heart that has sent shockwaves around the world. Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that in light of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE): "The military option...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Israel accused Iran of lying Friday while Tehran challenged the international community to send inspectors for a probe of its arch-rival's nuclear capabilities, in a rare and unusually bitter direct confrontation. U.N. officials at a 148-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency said they had no memory of the two hostile nations ever engaging each other directly at previous meetings and noted that development — and the unusually harsh tone of their statements — in part reflected Middle East tensions. The exchange came after Iran's chief delegate Ail Asghar Soltanieh — like Arab delegates before...

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the release of the 15 captured British sailors and marines, he already knew that exactly four days later he would be celebrating Iran's "joining the nuclear club." In the same way, his regime is closely monitoring and controlling the actions of Hizbullah in Lebanon; they were fully aware of Hassan Nasrallah's intention to publicly promise that the organization was defying UN Resolution 1701 and would continue arming itself for a future confrontation with Israel, while stepping up its campaign of undermining the Saniora government. It is hard to glean any hard information from the...

Western governments must take seriously the possibility of terrorists exploding a nuclear bomb as the necessary materials and know-how become easier to acquire, security analysts argue in two new reports. "The threat of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons is real ... moreover, the likelihood of terrorists acquiring such weapons is growing as more states aggressively pursue their own nuclear ambitions," the EastWest Institute said in a study. It said the first nuclear terrorist may turn out to be an American or European, reflecting a likely evolution in security threats over the next 10-15 years and a possible shift away from al...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) today introduced legislation in both chambers of Congress to help prevent nuclear terrorism. The Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Act of 2006 would create a senior advisor to the President to focus solely on preventing nuclear terrorism. The bill would also require the President to develop a comprehensive plan to work with the international community to secure the nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build a nuclear weapon. Senator Clinton announced that she would introduce this legislation in a major address to the Council on Foreign Relations on October 31. In...

If it’s any consolation, this is not the beginning of the end of Western civilization. It is the end of the beginning… of the end of Western civilization. Three years ago, I wrote a screed called Tet II in which I predicted that American liberals would once again turn victory into defeat – this time in Iraq. But Bush did not crack, and I found myself actually daring to hope that our Captain MacWhirr would, out of sheer unimaginative stubbornness, tame the coolies in the hold and outlast the typhoon. [Read Conrad’s masterpiece and experience the first six years...

Dubai, 12 Sept. (AKI) - Osama bin Laden is planning to carry out new, more destructive attacks inside the United States, and there is someone working on this terror plot currently in the US, according to Hamid Mir, the famed Pakistani journalist who obtained the only post-9/11 interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In an interview quoted on the website of the al-Arabiya television network, Mir spoke about his last trip to Afghanistan and his meeting with al-Qaeda members and Taliban leaders. In his interview with Al.Arabiya.net, Mir said that the al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters referred to attacks...

The Dunces of Doomsday documents sixteen blunders that resulted in an invigorated radical Islam, terrorism worldwide, and the coming "American Hiroshima." The blunders documented include: • "The Peanut Farmer and the Ayatollah"—How the worst president in America's history permitted and invigorated the rise of radical Islam • "The Great Offense Against Islam"—How the invasion of Iraq under President George H. W. Bush and the installation of U.S. military bases between Islam's holy cities of Mecca and Medina sparked the holy war and the plan for the American Hiroshima • "The Poppy Fields Remain in Bloom"—How the war on terror could...

TEHRAN, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Iran confirmed it will resume research on nuclear fuel on Monday, a move that could amplify calls for the Islamic Republic to be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. "Iran will today resume nuclear fuel research as scheduled," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told a news conference on Monday morning. European Union and U.S. officials say that, if Iran goes ahead with the move, diplomatic efforts to settle the issue would be endangered and that could lead to Tehran being referred to the Security Council for possible sanctions. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...

THE RUTHLESS DEDICATION OF OUR ENEMIES TO OUR DESTRUCTION was written across our sky with two pillars of flame and smoke in our largest city. We've seen that dedication continue, punctuated by car bombs, mortars, and random attacks against our soldiers. We've seen it continue in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Spain, Russia, Italy and England. Our unluckiest citizens have had their heads severed from their bodies as pilot episodes of what promises to be a long running reality television series in which American heads are held up, to our horror and for the delight of those many millions that support those...

The newly formed Iran Freedom Foundation has launched two television commercials warning that American cities are vulnerable to attack by an improvised nuclear device detonated by Iranian-backed terrorists. Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spots are based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians", by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command." The ads can be viewed on the IFF website. Corsi believes an atomic 9-11 is an imminent threat once a terrorist state like Iran has the capability...

ISLAMABAD : US leading daily New Yark Times report on Friday that selling of atomic secrets and equipment around the world began from Europe and not Islamabad. Its Paris correspondent, Craig S. Smith quote documents and experts who monitor proliferation says that the court record shows that industry, scientists and Western intelligence agencies had known for decades that nuclear technology was pouring out of Europe despite national export control efforts to contain it. It says many of the names that have turned up among list of suppliers and middlemen, who fed equipment, material and knowledge to nuclear programmes to the...

<p>Washington -- President Bush is asking Congress to create a national research center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to help protect Americans against biological and radiological attacks -- almost two weeks after the White House proposed transferring nearly all of the lab's budget to the newly proposed Department of Homeland Security.</p>