Free Republic

The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction. The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes. The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed. At the beginning of October, Israel's military...

U.S. nuclear weapon chief fired www.chinaview.cn 2007-01-06 05:37:42 WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The head of U.S. nuclear weapons agency has been fired following security breakdowns at different federal facilities, including a nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, CNN reported on Friday. Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the nation's nuclear weapons labs for the U.S. Energy Department, said in a statement that he would leave the job within two to three weeks, according to the report. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters that the nuclear agency under Brooks had not adequately corrected security...

PARIS, Nov 9, 2006 (AFP) - France on Thursday successfully carried out a first test on its new M-51 ballistic missile which is to carry submarine-based nuclear weapons, the defense ministry said. The unarmed missile was fired over the Bay of Biscay from a launch test centre on France's southern Atlantic coast. The M51, with a range of some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles), is to replace France's existing submarine-based missiles by 2010. "This test flight was carried out ... in conformity with all France's international commitments concerning safety, transparency and non-proliferation," a ministry statement said. Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said...

Citizens want nuclear weapons: poll October 12, 2006 02:28pm A MAJORITY of South Koreans believe Seoul should respond to North Korea's nuclear test announcement by starting its own nuclear weapons program, a survey has found. North Korea said on Monday it had detonated a nuclear device, causing great anxiety in the South, which is still technically at war with its neighbour and directly in the firing line of the North's 1.2 million-strong army. According to today's poll by the major daily JoongAng Ilbo, 65 per cent of respondents have said South Korea should pursue a path to making itself a...

North Korea Claims It Is Not Little Boy By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter North Korea is not a ``little boy'' as it already has nuclear weapons and will not succumb to the pressure from ``big brothers,'' Kim Gye-gwan, North Korea's vice foreign minister, told three Americans visiting Pyongyang when the North launched missiles. The plural form of brother indicates that the North was irritated by the pressure not only from the United States but also from China, its long-time communist ally and the main provider of humanitarian goods. The Nautilus Institute, a U.S. think tank on security and sustainability, posted...

MUMBAI: The International Atomic Energy Agency's Co-ordinated Research Project has described the Indian nuclear data on thorium as unique and of high quality and its contribution very valuable for the international nuclear community. The nuclear data on thorium is much better than the six-decade data on natural uranium U-238 in both light water and pressurised heavy water reactors. "With these new evaluations done through the CRP on thorium, India has joined select band of criticality safety benchmark," Andrej Trkov, IAEA Scientific Secretary of Coordinated Research Project (CRP), said. The main Indian contribution is completion of the KAMINI reactor benchmark which...

The US will use "all the tools" at its disposal to stop the threat the Iranian regime poses. US ambassador to the UN John Bolton sent Sunday a tough message towards Teheran and urged the international community to take action quickly in order to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capability. "The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve," Bolton told a crowd of 5,000 AIPAC members at the lobby's annual policy conference in Washington. On the eve of the discussion at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about...

A document obtained by Iran on the nuclear black market serves no other purpose than to make an atomic bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday. The finding was made in a report prepared for presentation to the 35-nation IAEA board when it meets, starting Thursday, on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran. The report was made available in full to The Associated Press.

Rafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type. "Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," repeating it in various versions. His efforts at denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were slaughtered prove that there is method in Ahmadinejad's madness. "Don't treat him like a madman," Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz recently cautioned. Eitan's assessment of the situation is especially important because of his extensive intelligence experience...

Tehran plans a nuclear weapons test before March 20, 2006 – the Iranian New Year, moves Shahab-3 missiles within striking range of Israel. Reporting this, the dissident Foundation for Democracy in Iran, a US-based watch group, cites sources in the US and Iran. The FDI adds from Iran: on June 16, the high command of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force ordered Shahab-3 missile units to move mobile launchers every 24 hours instead of weekly. This is in view of a potential pre-emptive strike by the US or Israel. Advance Shahab-3 units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamad within striking...

Iran, in what has been regarded as a major step, has announced development of technology to separate uranium from its ore. The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization has achieved indigenous capability to separate uranium from its ore, officials said. They said the technology, known as a mixer-settler, would enable the extraction of uranium from the mined ore to produce concentrated uranium oxide, or yellowcake. "The mixer-settler can be used effectively in the fuel cycle for producing zirconium and uranium," an Iranian engineer told state television on Jan. 1. "It minimizes the use of solvent and has a recycling mechanism." In 2003,...

“First call, first call to Colors.” Lieutenant Commander Thomas Carter stood at attention on the flight deck of USS RONALD REAGAN. He waited in silent anticipation for the first strains of the “Star Spangled Banner,” the signal for the petty officers of the watch to begin raising the extra large flag, only displayed on Sundays and holidays. Tom loved weekend duty—a heart-pumping bike ride up the Strand, bounding up to the Quarterdeck (“Good morning, Sir!), shower, uniform, coffee, Quarters and then observing Colors—that bright, broad and magnificent flag rising over the blue-green water of San Diego Bay under the sleek...

Iran obtained detailed instructions on how to set up the complicated process of enriching uranium, which can used to make nuclear arms, from the black market network run by a Pakistani scientist, the U.N. atomic monitoring agency said Friday. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran was not giving inspectors access to a sensitive site that could be used to store equipment indicating whether the military is running a secret nuclear program. The five-page report seen by The Associated Press was prepared for Thursday's meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board, which could decide to refer...

It's no secret the city's Police and Fire Departments are preparing for possible terrorist attacks, but now there's word that one of the main threats the FDNY is planning for is a nuclear attack. The FDNY says it's been training to combat threats like dirty bomb attacks or the detonation of a crude nuclear device. The department says it's particularly concerned about attacks on skyscrapers in Midtown Manhattan which would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties. As many as 3,000 firefighters have been trained as hazardous materials specialists, and every unit is now outfitted with radiation devices. The news comes...

Papers Show N. Korea Sought Nukes in 1960s By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer Tue May 17, 3:19 AM ET WASHINGTON - North Korea began nagging its communist allies as early as the 1960s to obtain a nuclear reactor with the intent of launching a hidden weapons program, according to former Soviet bloc documents released Tuesday. Over the next two decades, responses generally were negative, sometimes to the point of hostility. Having largely failed during the Cold War, North Korea in the years since then as put together a nuclear program that the Bush administration considers the equal of...

/begin my translation<N. Korea: S. Korea is under N. Korean Nuclear Umbrella>Yonhap News 05/06/05Choi Sun-yong(Seoul: Yonhap News)  The National Peace and Unification Committee(Jo-pyong-tong) of N. Korea, while assailing remarks of Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon regarding N. Korean nuclear problem during his press conference today, drew attention by proclaiming that S. Korea is now benefiting from 'N. Korean nuclear umbrella.'Jo-pyong-tong claimed that it is true that S. Korea is benefiting from N. Korean nuclear deterrence, adding, "With S. Korea benefiting from our Military First Policy and nuclear umbrella, it should be condemning U.S. for blaming  Korean people for the horrors of war." Their claim of benefiting from their...

Dog Skin Report: Sleepwalking To Disaster In Iran Below is a piece by former US Marine and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. It deserves to be read and re-read. And passed on. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, information that completely contradicted the BushCo. line was readily available for all those with an open mind and anything beyond flat-line brain activity. Dogskinreport.com published many of these reports. I can say with more than a little pride that 99% of what we reported proved true. Contrast that with the claims from BushCo. We’ve moved far beyond Fox News’ “We lie,...

Ariel Sharon’s military attache presented aerial photos of Iranian nuclear installations during the Israeli prime minister’s summit with US President George W. Bush, Israeli public radio reported on Tuesday. General Yoav Gallan, who accompanied Sharon to Monday’s talks at Bush’s Texas ranch, presented the photos as well as information gathered by the Israeli intelligence services on Teheran’s nuclear programme. The radio, which did not give details on how the photos were taken, said the images proved that the Iranian nuclear programme was at a “very advanced” stage. White House spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed the two leaders had “talked about their...

All the critics of the Bush Strategy have it wrong, the basic strategy is sound; where it needs to be strengthened is in the area of deterrence. The Bush strategy statements in Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction really fail to warn others, whether they are friend or foe, from proliferating technologies to second or third parties that may result in a catastrophic event on U.S. soil. Needless to say a nuclear detonation in a major U.S. city would have incalculable, far-ranging global reverberations beyond the direct physical destruction. Therefore, what is required is a new statement of U.S. proliferation deterrence...

GEORGE W. Bush is calling on Europe to join the US in increasing pressure on Syria and Iran to reform, as the two Middle Eastern nations tout a new strategic Islamic alliance against US and Israeli "plots". With Tehran's alleged nuclear ambitions the new flashpoint in the volatile region, Mr Bush also warned that the US would support Israel in any military action against Iran. At a press conference ahead of his visit to Europe next week, the US President promised to work with European leaders to produce a strategy to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear bomb. But he gave...

It remains to be seen whether intelligence reform legislation will produce substantive improvements in our national security. Republicans and Democrats alike certainly hope so, as do we all. But Congress and the White House failed to approve other reforms passed by the House of Representatives that would have ensured heightened border security and the ability to control immigrant documentation and identification, which the 9/11 commission recommended. The debate over intelligence legislation, thanks to Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner and Duncan Hunter, did succeed in raising the level of a critical political and public dialogue on the importance of securing our borders and...

BERLIN, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Iran is working on a secret nuclear programme for military purposes despite promising the European Union it would halt all activities related to uranium enrichment, the news magazine Der Spiegel said on Saturday. The magazine said it had obtained documents from an unnamed intelligence agency showing that Iran had dug a secret tunnel near an Isfahan facility preparing raw uranium for enrichment, even though operations there had been stopped. Iran, which has repeatedly denied trying to develop nuclear weapons, promised the European Union on Nov. 14 it would halt all activities related to uranium enrichment,...

Russia Developing New Nuclear Missile. MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile unlike those held by other countries, news agencies reported. Speaking at a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership, Putin reportedly said that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems. ``I am sure that ... they will be put in service within the next few years and, what is more, they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have,'' Putin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass...

/begin my translationIsrael To Bomb A Iran's Nuclear Power Plant Israel informed U.S. that, in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, she plans to bomb Busheher Nuclear Power Plant, under construction in Iran, if Russian-supplied fuel rods are put into its reactor(s.) The fuel rods are now at a Russian port, which are to be shipped in the first half of next year. 24 years ago, Israel's squadron of (F-15's and) F-16's bombed Iraq's Osirak Reactor which was being constructed using French technology, stopping Iraq's nuclear weapon's program on its track. /end my translation

The German weekly Tagesspiegel am Sonntag reports that dozens of Iranian scientists are secretly working on the construction of nuclear weapons. The publication bases its information on Western intelligence sources. The Iranian government insists that its nuclear facilities are only used for peaceful purposes. Iran has offered to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but only if they are announced in advance.