Free Republic

Exclusive: Watchdog fears Tehran has key component to put bombs in missiles The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned. The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency...

Seoul, Washington round out plans to handle N. Korean regime collapse: source SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the U.S. have completed joint action plans to respond to a regime collapse and other internal emergency situations in North Korea, a ranking government source said Sunday. The so-called "Operational Plan (OPLAN) 5029," drawn after years of bilateral consultation, dictates respective military responses by Seoul and Washington to several types of emergency situation in the communist North -- a civil war, an outflow of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the kidnapping of South Korean citizens, a mass influx of refugees...

If you want to witness a massacre on television, take at look at this debate on MSNBC’s Morning Joe between Joe Scarborough and Lawrence O’Donnell over Dick Cheney, Iraq, and weapons of mass destruction. Scarborough uses an avalanche of facts to bury O’Donnell’s contention that Dick Cheney lied about WMD and based the case for war on a “wild guess.” In addition to all the sources Scarborough cited and who claimed Saddam Hussein possessed WMD — including leading Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, and more — you could add the intelligence agencies of...

Iran would not agree in multilateral talks this week to ship a portion of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to other countries for further refinement, but would instead seek to purchase more highly enriched material from abroad for use in a Tehran research reactor, state media quoted anonymous officials as saying (see GSN, Oct. 16). If Iran balks at the understanding, reached earlier this month in talks with the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany, the nation could eliminate the possibility of a compromise with Western powers aimed at creating additional time for negotiations over its disputed nuclear...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

Ahwazi Organization: Iran is Planning to Attack the Gulf Countries; Iran is Producing Chemical Weapons and Burying the Waste in Ahwaz On October 5, 2009, Alarabiya.net posted an interview with an Arab Ahwazi man who was presented as a former undercover agent for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The man claimed that 40,000 well-trained operatives, mostly Shi'ites, are in the service of Iran in the ArabGulf states - 3,000 of them in Kuwait alone. He stated that the cells formed by these operatives were trained to collect intelligence, sabotage installations in the Gulf region, and assassinate senior officials. He...

North Korea’s armed forces are capable of carrying out 13 kinds of viral and bacterial attack, the South Korean Government said yesterday in one of the most detailed assessments of the dictatorship’s biological weapons arsenal. In a submission to the South Korean National Assembly, the Defence Minister also said that the North had 5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, believed to include mustard gas, phosgene and sarin. Among its biological agents are cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery. Despite the alarming assessment, Kim Tae Young also said that his country’s armed forces had the capacity pre-emptively to destroy...

The history of warfare and the history of disease are unquestionably interwoven. Throughout the history of warfare, disease and non-battle injury have accounted for more deaths and loss of combat capability than from actual battle in war itself. The most striking example is the great influenza pandemic during World War I that killed 20 million people or more worldwide in 1918.1 Although this was a naturally occurring event, what if a country could create a biological agent that could yield the same catastrophic loss of life on the enemy? That, in essence, is the potential effect of applying genetic engineering2...

A few days back it was written on this site that the United States should pull out conventional combat troops out of Afghanistan. I am working on the whys. And it has to deal with Israel, Iran the Missile Defense System in Europe. Russia through Putin and Obama, wittingly or unwittingly, are playing the U.S. to our demise. The conservatives who signed the letter to bolster troops in Afghanistan are playing into Russia's hand. It was then written on this site that Putin got Eastern Europe and the United States got a lousy washing machine. Russia admitted that it signed...

IRAN TESTS MULTIPLE MISSILE LAUNCHER - STATE TV. Headline only at this time.

Where to begin with the “surprise” announcement of a second, previously undisclosed “nuclear facility”? Some thoughts: (1) This is Iran’s answer to the Obama video peace offensive. This summer we kept quiet while thousands went into the streets of Tehran to protest brutality and a rigged election — just so that Obama’s much-heralded peace offensive, planned for October, could showcase his transnational diplomatic charisma. I think all that brilliance has just been preempted by the theocracy, which quite understandably concluded that Obama not only would not support democratic dissidents in the new “reset button” era, but was increasingly desperate, as...

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Brazil's vice president says his country should develop nuclear weapons. Jose Alencar says "a nuclear weapon has great importance" to prevent attacks on Brazil because of its extensive borders and maritime holdings. Alencar tells Brazilian newspapers that Brazil doesn't have a program to develop nuclear weapons, but should.

Libya's Moammar Gadhafi said Thursday, in a rare appearance before a U.S. audience, that he evolved from a firebrand revolutionary into a seasoned ruler over four decades in power, contributing to his decision six years ago to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction... Clad in a black suit and a transparent black robe, he fielded questions for an hour Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a prestigious think tank. Under Gadhafi, Libya had long been a pariah state, sponsoring terrorist groups and trying to undermine pro-Western governments in Africa. The nation gradually emerged from its isolation in recent...

NEW YORK (CBS) - Najibullah Zazi, the Denver man believed to be the central figure in a terror plot against the New York City transit system, has officially been indicted on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the United States, CBS 2 has learned. According to the Department of Justice, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York returned a one-count indictment alleging that between Aug. 1, 2008 and Sept. 21, 2009, Zazi knowingly and intentionally conspired with others to use one or more weapons of mass destruction, specifically...

NEW YORK (CNN) – President Obama spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly as he tackles a range of thorny international issues with his counterparts. Obama said Iran and North Korea “must be held accountable” if they continue to ignore international nuclear weapons treaties. Iran recently reiterated its unwillingness to give up its nuclear program, which the United States and other Western nations fear is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is strictly for civilian power. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said she didn’t expect a direct meeting between Obama and Iran’s president, Mahmoud...

VIENNA – Iran experts at the U.N nuclear monitoring agency believe Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and worked on developing a missile system that can carry an atomic warhead, according to a confidential report seen by The Associated Press. The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that those officials share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities and missile technology — even if they have not made those views public. The document, titled "Possible Military Dimension of Iran's Nuclear Program," appeared to be the so-called IAEA "secret...

I posted this Saddam regime document translation on September 9 2006 but in light of the Associated Press despicable act to publish a picture of a dying Marine Hero, I think it is worth reposting again to show what the despicable AP is really about. Document ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf dated July 25 2000 is a report from an Iraqi Intelligence officer to different Iraqi Intelligence Directorates talking about information provided to them from a trusted source that works in the Associated Press (AP). The information is about the formation a newly formed UN weapons inspectors team called UNMOVIC. Translation of page 4...

In July there was a mysterious explosion at the Hirbet Salim village in South Lebanon, heard on both sides of the border. According to IDF military sources the explosion happened , at one of the 35 Illegal large weapons caches Hizballah built as near as 20 kilometers from the Israel border right in front of the noses of the United Nations UNIFIL forces. The Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa reported today, that chemical weapons were stored in the hidden Hizballah arms warehouse which blew up at Hirbet Salim near the Israeli border in mid-July. Of the 11 Hizballah operatives killed in the...

2. On 12 August 2009, Iran was feeding UF6 into Unit A24, and ten cascades of Unit A26, at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz.1 On that day, the eight other cascades of Unit A26 were under vacuum. Iran has continued with the installation of cascades at Unit A28; fourteen cascades have been installed and the installation of another cascade is continuing.2 All machines installed to date are IR-1 centrifuges. Installation work at Units A25 and A27 is also continuing.3. Iran has estimated that, between 18 November 2008 and 31 July 2009, 7942 kg of UF6 was fed into...

CROMWELL, Conn. -- A Connecticut nuclear engineer is under investigation in a federal terrorism probe, but denies allegations he offered support to a militant Islamic Web site and said he's being targeted because he is Muslim. Syed R. Maswood, 41, confirmed that he is the unnamed Connecticut resident mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British national with supporting terrorism. Federal agents raided Maswood's home March 17, seizing computer equipment and financial records, he said. Investigators discovered his e-mail address among files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and equipment to terrorists, according to the...

Pakistan, accused by some powers of blocking progress in the world's top disarmament forum, insisted on Wednesday that it wants an end to nuclear weaponry and is playing an active role to bring this about. But in a statement issued in Islamabad, it argued that "the legitimate security interests of all states" had to be protected in any move towards new talks in the long-stalled Conference on Disarmament, under UN auspices, in Geneva. Pakistan "subscribes to the goals of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation... and has always played an active and constructive role in the conference," the Pakistan Online News Service...

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has lashed out at the United States by likening the 1986 U.S. Strikes on Libya to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks on the United States in 2001. He was speaking Thursday in Rome, where he is on a three-day official visit. In a speech to Italian lawmakers, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi urged the world to understand the reasons that motivate terrorists. He called for dialogue with terrorists, saying, "One must talk to the devil, if it brings about a solution." While condemning al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, he implied there was little difference between bin Laden's...

Libya’s sudden decision to end its years in the international wilderness and embrace the West has abruptly transformed one of the world’s most isolated countries. Iason Athanasiadis reports from a nation in flux There is something of the pasha in Khalifa Mahdaoui, a descendant of one of Libya’s most influential tribes. It is not just the red fez perched on his head as he ambles in his suit and tie from his ground-floor office to the trellised porch outside, lights a menthol cigarette and takes a sip from the dainty cup of Turkish coffee delivered by an aide.The impression is...

Note: The following text is a quote: July 30, 2009 TG-247 Treasury Designates North Korean Entity Tied to Weapons of Mass Destruction Development WASHINGTON – The U.S. Treasury Department today designated a North Korean entity, the Korea Hyoksin Trading Corporation (Hyoksin), under Executive Order 13382 for being owned or controlled by a North Korean entity, the Korea Ryonbong General Corporation (Ryonbong), which was identified in the Annex to E.O. 13382. E.O. 13382 freezes the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters, and it prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with them, thereby isolating...

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be asked to testify to a panel investigating the Iraq war, the head of the inquiry said Thursday. Former civil servant John Chilcot said the inquiry, set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, would look at British involvement in the war, covering the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July this year. "The people we invite to give evidence will be those we judge ... are best placed to supply the information we need to conduct our task thoroughly," the inquiry chairman told a news conference....

Note: The following text is a quote: Former President Clinton Visits CIA July 27, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton visited the Central Intelligence Agency today to thank the men and women of CIA for their essential work in protecting the United States from foreign threats. Welcoming the former President back to CIA, Director Leon E. Panetta said: “President Clinton understood very well the role of intelligence and its vital importance in the post-Cold War era. He relied on this Agency for information and insight, as he and his team confronted an array of foreign challenges.” In remarks to hundreds of...

Im was an officer in one of North Korea’s elite special forces. He fought for his government, even though it oppressed his people on a scale seldom seen before. Im’s superior had a 12-year old mentally challenged daughter. She was a good girl, but not very intelligent. She needed a lot of attention from her parents; a mother and a father she loved very much. There is no room for the mentally challenged in Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea, however. Im’s superior was told to hand his daughter over to the government. Because the officer knew what happens to such children...

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...

Pirates who hijacked an Iranian ship have become sick and some have died after coming into contact with the ships’ cargo. The 40 pirates hijacked the M.V. Deyanat in the Gulf of Aden. The Sunday Times reported that the pirates became ill, suffered apparent skin burns and lost hair. The Director of the East African Seafarer’s Assistance Programme, Andrew Mwangira, said We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship. The ship, which is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran...

<p>Thursday, July 2, 2009 BAGHDAD - After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein stayed in Baghdad until he saw "the city was about to fall."</p> <p>Th dcuens ls cnfrmprvious reports that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - the main U.S. rationale behind the war - because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.</p>

America in the Crossfire by: Alana Goodman, July 07, 2009 At a foreign policy discussion at the Heritage Foundation on June 29th, former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) warned that there would likely be a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) attack somewhere in the world within the next four years. According to former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Talent, other threats on the horizon are North Korea, which currently has enough plutonium for 10-12 nuclear weapons and almost has the ability to produce these weapons at an assembly line basis; the South Asia nuclear arms race between China, Pakistan, and India;...

(snip) In 1995 Colin Powell said that if the North dared to use its missiles and weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. would turn North Korea into "a charcoal briquette." Clearly North Korea cannot use its missiles without risking its own complete destruction. Now that Powell is Secretary of State, he appears to grasp the importance of the missile deal that Bill Clinton nearly pulled off. Once others in the Bush administration understand that the alternatives to negotiating with the North are all worse than agreements that have been gotten (in 1994) and can still be gotten today, one hopes...

James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News has posted two recent stories based on documents he obtained through FOIA on the FBI's interview of Saddam Hussein. Meek says that, according to the documents, Saddam denied links to al Qaeda just as he did prior to the invasion and the Baath party recently denied again on their website. In one of the documented interviews Hussein referred to America as his enemy and in another interview discussed Iraq's relationship with, and level of support for anti-Israel groups linked with Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, who he referred to as "guests."

Not only is this old news, but it’s old news I’ve written about multiple times. Why cover it again? Because: It can’t be stressed enough that as bad as the current nuclear standoff with Iran is, it could have been that much worse if a certain nutjob wild card was still part of the international deck. Hussein’s fear of Iran, which he said he considered a greater threat than the United States, featured prominently in the discussion about weapons of mass destruction. Iran and Iraq had fought a grinding eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein said he was convinced...

The farm where Saddam Hussein hid from U.S. forces before he was captured in December 2003 was familiar ground for the Iraqi dictator: It was the same place, he told an FBI agent, where he sought refuge 44 years earlier after taking part in a failed attempt to kill Iraq's president. Saddam also told the U.S. official that he had used telephones only twice in the last 14 years, and moved his locations daily. With troops closing in on him, Saddam returned to the farm outside Tikrit where he hid in 1959 after joining in a failed bid to assassinate...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader. "Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction. He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said. The FBI reports, released...

It has been confirmed across the board that 18-wheelers were seen going into Syria before the war, crossing the border soon after Iraqi intelligence replaced the border guards and cleared nearby areas for their passage. There are also eyewitness reports of the trucks going into Syria, and eyewitness reports of their burial in Lebanon. The trucks with the weapons were tracked to three locations in Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, currently controlled by the Syrians, Iranians, and Hezbollah. Sources I've spoken with that have seen satellite photos of the movements confirm that the WMD in Syria are at military bases,...

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he led the world to believe that his country had weapons of mass destruction because he did not want to appear weak to the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to declassified FBI documents released Wednesday. Hussein was quoted as saying that he was so concerned about radical Iranian leaders that he was ready to sign a security agreement with the United States guaranteeing protection from Iran.... Hussein also referred to Osama Bin Laden as a "zealot" and said that he did not deal with al-Qaida....

( The media and the democrats knew all along Saddam had WMD...we sent an engraved invite we were coming three months in advance, of course he moved his WMD to Syria----but the bloodthirsty "Bush Lied" chorus was allowed to perpetuate to destroy Bush) Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada updated 6:57 p.m. ET, Sat., July 5, 2008 The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a...

The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the war crimes conviction of a businessman for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein that his regime in Iraq turned into poison gas and unleashed on Kurds and Iranians. ... In May 2007 a Hague appeals court upheld Van Anraat's 2005 conviction for complicity in war crimes and increased his sentence from 15 to 17 years. ... Presiding Judge Leo van Dorst said that from the mid-1980s Van Anraat was Iraq's sole supplier of a chemical called TDG, or thiodiglycol, for its mustard gas production program. "The suspect knew ... the TDG he was...

After repudiating negotiations on dismantling its plutonium-based nuclear program, North Korea admitted this month to having an even more worrying way to make bombs. Following nearly seven years of adamant denials, North Korea announced it can enrich uranium—a simpler method of building nuclear weapons than reprocessing plutonium. Uranium can be enriched in relatively inconspicuous factories that can better evade spy-satellite detection, and uranium bombs may work without test explosions. The admission—made in a threatening response to a June 12 U.N. Security Council resolution punishing Pyongyang for an underground plutonium bomb test last month—poses a new challenge to the U.S., China,...

N.Korea 'Helping Burma with WMD'North Korea is helping Burma with the acquisition of so-called weapons of mass destruction, with the U.S. claiming that the North Korean ship Kangnam is headed for the Southeast Asian country. The Burmese junta "has bought technologies on the open market that are potentially usable in a nuclear program, and North Korean arms companies involved in the nuclear trade have become active" in Burma, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday said quoting speculation by U.S., Asian and UN officials. "North Korea has used [Burmese] ports and airstrips to transfer arms and contraband to third countries, including...

Note: Video included. SNIPPET: "In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Mustafa Abul-Yazeed, al-Qaeda's third in command, gives a rare insight into the group's campaign. He even said al-Qaeda would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the US should his group get hold of them."

It is rare to get an insider's perspective on the emergence of al-Qaeda. It is also rare to get a glimpse of the world of spies and agents. To provide both is incredibly unusual. Omar Nasiri - not his real name but one chosen to protect his identity - says he spent seven years working as an agent for European intelligence services and as an al-Qaeda operative, part of the time in the UK. He provides a unique insight into how al-Qaeda was far more organised, coherent and determined in the 1990s than was appreciated at the time. Jihad militants...

On June 5, the IAEA reported that new traces of uranium had been discovered at a suspected nuclear site in Syria. As the U.S. tries to get the international community to stop Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, Syria is acting as a critical link in the WMD alliance of the remaining Axis of Evil members. The programs in Iran and North Korea could be temporarily shut down, but so long as Syria acts as a satellite station for their activities, their capabilities will continue to grow. The IAEA report stated that the uranium traces recently found in...

SEOUL, June 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday it will start enriching uranium and weaponize all new plutonium, protesting the U.N. Security Council resolution expanding sanctions on it. The North, which triggered the resolution after its second nuclear test on May 25, also said it will "respond militarily" if the U.S. and other countries attempt what it called a "blockade." The resolution calls on states to conduct inspections of North Korea ships suspected of carrying materials related to weapons of mass destruction.

Al Qaeda eyes bio attack via Mexico border Seeks white militias as allies By Sara A. Carter Wednesday, June 3, 2009 U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia...

Muslims should not use weapons of mass destruction and possess them only as a deterrent, a top Islamic cleric says. Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa said using such weapons would violate Islamic teachings as Muslims as well as non-Muslims could be killed. He issued the religious ruling, or fatwa, following reports that the use of such weapons was legitimate, the state news agency MENA said. His ruling comes just days before the visit of US President Barack Obama... Cairo has said it does not want to make atomic bombs and in the past has called for a region...