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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says North Korea's threats against South Korea will not give it the attention Pyongyang wants and will only add to its isolation. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that North Korea should live up to its promises and stop its provocations against the South. Pyongyang says Seoul's decision to join an international nuclear anti-proliferation program is tantamount to a declaration of war. The North warned of military strikes and declared their 1953 armistice null and void.

Colin Powell is a Republican. It doesn't bother me as much as it grates on the nerves of a number of movement activists who feel a sense of betrayal. I certainly don't want Republicans like Powell as a leader of the GOP since moderates of his caliber do not embody the best of conservative ideology. But I do believe in not shrinking the party by purging it of RINO/CINO "infiltrators". The real story, however, is not the media sensationalism that wishes to egg on the Powell-Cheney-Rush bickering and GOP uncivil war. NewsBusters points out the real scoop from Powell's Face...

Police: Man Shot Driving Away From FightMan Shot After Fight On Winston-Salem Street UPDATED: 3:52 pm EDT April 25, 2009 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Police in Winston-Salem arrested a man on Saturday in connection with a shooting the night before. **SNIP** While Golden was attempting to leave the area, Gilmore got a gun and fired several times outside his residence. One of the rounds entered the vehicle in which Golden was riding. The round then struck Golden on the right side of his back. He was driven to Forsyth Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening. Gilmore was arrested and...

1,000 Pounds of Fertilizer Stolen, Police searching for burglarsClarissa Stephens, Shoals Bureau ReporterApril 30, 2009Burglars targeted a Tuscumbia business early Thursday morning. What's most alarming is what the thieves took from business. The stolen property is potential dangerous material. Approximately 1,000 pounds of high-grade nitrate fertilizer was taken from Greens Keepers on Gann Boulevard in Tuscumbia. The company handles fertilization and weed control for residential and commercial lawns. The owner, John Wagner, says he's been in business for twelve years and nothing like this has ever happened. "It's very unusual," says Wagner. "It was a very big shock to walk...

Saying she still has no idea who sent her a box of dead fish, former top homeland security bioweapons official Maureen McCarthy says she has resigned from the department and begun legal action to clear her name. Occasionally breaking into tears during a 45-minute telephone interview, McCarthy called her resignation "involuntary" and said she had suffered severe financial distress since being suspended without pay in February over the incident. "I resigned against my will," she said. "I had no income, and I couldn't use my accrued annual leave" for cash. "By resigning I got that back," she said, and could...

Excerpt from CDC on transmission: "In contrast, the situation with a pandemic strain of influenza A (H5) would become only too clear because no one would have any degree of immunity against such a virus, vaccines would not be available for months, and these viruses would likely be highly virulent. Even though efficient human-to-human transmission of the A (H5N1) virus has not yet been observed (by any mode), transmission of influenza A (H5N1) by aerosols from geese to quails has been demonstrated in the laboratory." "In principle, influenza viruses can be transmitted by 3 routes: aerosols, large droplets, and direct...

The inability to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will go down as one of the greatest intelligence failures in American history. However, critical information provided by Iraqis and foreign governments was not acted upon or placed into the right hands. This additional failure is a reminder that the Intelligence Community is still broken. A series of high-level meetings were held on February 10-12, 2004, involving officials from the U.S., U.K., and Ukraine. Attendees of these meetings included Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw, director of MI6 Richard Dearlove, the head of the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service Ihor Smeshko,...

Prosecutors in New York have charged a Chinese businessman and his company with a conspiracy relating to the sale of sensitive materials to Iran, covert transactions that prosecutors say violated United Nations bans aimed at restraining Tehran’s rocket and nuclear ambitions. According to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan on Tuesday, the Chinese company sold tungsten, high-strength steels and exotic metals to the Defense Industries Organization, an arm of the Iranian military, from 2006 to 2008, often using shell companies to hide the transactions. Both Defense Industries and the Chinese parent company, the Limmt Economic and Trade Company, are banned by...

WEST PALM BEACH — Maureen Stevens may have to wait until 2011 for justice in the 2001 anthrax attack that killed her husband who worked as a photo editor for the Boca Raton-based publisher of the National Enquirer. In a hearing this morning, her attorneys and lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice agreed that January 2011 was a good target date for Stevens' lawsuit against the federal government to go to trial. Stevens is seeking $50 million, claiming the government failed to secure the deadly agent, allowing it to be used to kill her husband, Robert, in the wake...

The Manhattan district attorney's office has smashed a sinister plot to smuggle nuclear weapons materials to Iran through unwitting New York banks, the Daily News has learned. Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran.

A sword of Damocles hangs over our heads. It is a real threat that has been all but ignored. On Feb. 3, Iran launched a “communications satellite” into orbit. At this very moment, North Korea is threatening to do the same. The ability to launch an alleged communications satellite belies a far more frightening truth. A rocket that can carry a satellite into orbit also can drop a nuclear warhead over any location on the planet in less than 45 minutes. Far too many timid or uninformed sources maintain that a single launch of a missile poses no true threat...

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — The Marines of Security Battalion held a memorial service March 18 to honor one of their own, a two-time Iraq war veteran who carried out 32 missions in support of the Marine Corps. “She found countless weapons caches and improvised explosive devices,” said Staff Sgt. Dana Brown. She no doubt saved untold lives. The memorial service honored not just any Marine, but a military working dog named Keve. “Our military working dogs help us accomplish the mission in Iraq,” said Col. Richard A. Anderson, the commanding officer of Security Battalion. “It’s important that we...

In December 2008 a bi-partisan Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, led by former Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and Jim Talent of Missouri, predicted that within the next four years there will be a nuclear or biological terrorist attack on US shores. These experts said that we grow LESS safe from a terrorist (or man made disaster) attack every day. Now a British report has been released that comes to a similar conclusion: "Contemporary terrorist organizations aspire to use chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons," the report states. "Changing technology and the theft and smuggling...

The U.S. Homeland Security Department warned in a secret 2006 document that victims of a potential WMD attack might be few in number relative to people who imagine injuries resulting from the event, United Press International reported today (see GSN, May 1). The document states that low confidence in the leaders of an affected area could amplify public panic following a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. "Mass psychogenic illness (can) spread rapidly throughout a population," the document says, describing the ailment as a “phenomenon in which social trauma or anxiety combines with a suspicious event to produce psychosomatic symptoms,...

President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. -------snip---- Obama inherited plans to build the system in Poland and the Czech Republic from the Bush administration, but the new administration has equivocated over the project. Though the plans were put in place to deter nations like Iran and North Korea from launching attacks and developing nuclear weapons, Russia has interpreted the planned installation as a threat.

A man who embraced radical Islam after growing up in Worthington was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for plotting terrorist attacks against the United States. Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys recommended the sentence in June when Christopher Paul, 44, pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. attorney's office said Paul became a trusted member of al-Quida and spent more than a decade traveling to the Middle East and Europe to assist terrorists and prepare for a "holy war." He grew up as Paul Kenyatta Laws and graduated in 1983 from then-Worthington High School,...

Chemical composition of spores doesn't match suspect flask. The deadly bacterial spores mailed to victims in the US anthrax attacks, scientists say, share a chemical 'fingerprint' that is not found in bacteria from the flask linked to Bruce Ivins, the biodefence researcher implicated in the crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleges that Ivins, who committed suicide last July, was the person responsible for mailing letters laden with Bacillus anthracis to news media and congressional offices in 2001, killing five people and sickening 17. The FBI used genetic analyses to trace the mailed spores back to a flask called...

Satellite images show an increase in operations at a suspected chemical weapons production facility in Syria, AFP reported today. "The satellite imagery that ... Jane's has examined suggests that Damascus has sought to expand and develop al-Safir and its chemical weapons arsenal," according to Jane's Intelligence Review. "Further expansion of al-Safir is likely to antagonize Israel and highlight mutual mistrust, even as peace talks between the two neighbors progress intermittently,". "The site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility but also that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility's production...

The latest IAEA report is out and makes for some interesting reading (also see David Albright’s analysis). What’s important in the report? First, Iran has crossed the finish line in terms of breakout capacity — it has 1010 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU) in store. These remain under IAEA surveillance and seal, and diversion efforts could be easily detected. Regardless, Iran now has enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon if it chooses to reprocess its stocks of LEU and if it can enrich it to weapons grade.

Syria has stepped up production of its chemical weapons recently, according to a lengthy article featured in the latest edition of Jane's defense news Web site. Photos shown on the Web site of a DigitalGlobe's WorldView-1 satellite between 2005-2008 illustrate defining features of a chemical weapons facility. According to the article, the Al Safir facility in northwest Syria shows "significant levels of construction," including a production plant and an adjacent missile base.

The subscription-based intelligence news service Geostrategy-Direct.com is reporting that the U.S. is going to stop placing sanctions on Iranian companies involved in WMD and ballistic missile work, after concluding they aren’t working. “The officials said the new Obama administration of has decided to end sanctions against Iranian government agencies or companies that aid Teheran’s missile and nuclear program. The officials said Israel has been informed of the new U.S. policy…’We were told that sanctions do not help the new U.S. policy of dialogue with Iran,’ an official said…” “…A U.S. defense source said the White House would no longer enforce...

Syria's state news agency hustled out an announcement on Tuesday, Feb. 10, saying that the "U.S. Trade Department agrees to provide spare parts for rehabilitating Syrian Airlines..." ... The planes will be overhauled by a Saudi-based Boeing-Saudi joint venture, Alsalam Aircraft Co...

What’s tougher for an American president: 1. Determining the status of highly-secret operations in an enemy state that is one of the world’s most closed societies; or 2. Checking someone’s tax returns submitted to an IRS that reports to you? The answer speaks for itself. But that answer has profound implications. Barack Obama is a president who rode to power in part on excoriating Pres. Bush for getting it wrong on WMD in Iraq. And yet . . .

"Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a single nuclear weapon later this year, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) predicts." (cut)

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. (SNIP) AQIM, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, maintains about a dozen bases in Algeria, where the group has waged a terrorist campaign against government forces and civilians. In 2006, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on foreign contractors. In 2007, the group said it bombed U.N. headquarters in Algiers, an attack that killed 41 people. Al Qaeda is believed by U.S. and Western experts to have been pursuing biological weapons since at...

THE kumbaya crowd which pressed for East Timor's independence must shoulder much of the blame for the failure of its dysfunctional Government. But while the collective of liberation theologists and civil rights lawyers cheered Fretilin's Portugese-educated Marxist guerrilla leaders, the same candle-wavers protested against the toppling of the mass murdering Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Yet East Timor, with a population estimated at about one million, whose independence was internationally recognised on May 20, 2002, is now arguably in proportionately worse shape than Iraq, population 26 million, where the first election under its new constitution took place just last December. The...

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss man suspected of being involved in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring claims he supplied the CIA with information that led to the breakup of the black market nuclear network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. In a documentary airing Thursday on Swiss TV station SF1, Urs Tinner says he tipped off U.S. intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons program. The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The 43-year-old Tinner...

International News Saddam Has Tested Nuclear Weaponby Gwynne Robers, London Sunday Times - 02/25/2001Posted: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 11:07 am CST On a visit to northern Iraq, Gwynne Roberts stumbled on a trail of compelling evidence that the 'Butcher of Baghdad' has successfully tested a nuclear bomb. Could he really have hoodwinked the West? Was this Saddam's bomb? The mysterious visitor emerged from the shadows outside my hotel in Kurdish controlled northern Iraq, just as a crisis between Washington and Baghdad was reaching a climax in January 1998. His appearance set alarm bells ringing. Several westerners had recently been ...

An Al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 Al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

  From the Trinity Atomic Bomb to the M65 280mm Atomic (!) Cannon 1951 going through a Minuteman II, these photographs show the horror of Weapons of Mass Destruction under beautiful lighting, almost like art objects.My favorite is the weird, Star Wars training droid-like innards of the Peacekeeper MX ICBM's inertial guidance module, from 1986. Absolutely wonderful. Head to Photography Served for the rest of the gallery. [Photography Server via Defense Tech]   

That little attack of bubonic plague may have been a Biological Weapons screw up. The al-Qaeda cell wiped out by Black Death may have infected ITSELF while developing biological weapons according to some sources. The terrorists to infect on Western targets but fell victims to their own weapon, a leading expert on chemical warfare believes. The news broke yesterday that the plague killed at least 40 fanatics at a terror training camp in Algeria earlier this month. It was thought they caught the disease through poor living conditions in their forest hideouts. Well maybe not according to the Washington Times:

Seeing and reading the media blitz of inconsequential and historically inaccurate obituaries of the Bush Administration (particularly the smarmy vitriol from the pathetic hosts at MSNBC) has got my blood boiling. Here are some facts to help set the record straight. Their most often heard complaint is that the Iraq war was this country's “greatest strategic blunder”. In researching my book Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents it became quite clear to me how this narrative developed. It began with the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections and the nomination of Senator John Kerry. Before that time, in...

HP-1359 SNIPPET: "Washington, DC--The U.S. Department of Treasury today designated two Taiwanese individuals and two Taiwanese entities pursuant to Executive Order 13382, an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems. "Proliferators depend on access to the international financial and commercial systems to support their dangerous trade," said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Our action today exposes a North Korean procurement channel, and we urge governments and companies worldwide to cut this channel off entirely." Alex...

Early last year I think it was, there was an e-mail circulating concerning various agencies, governments, and individuals, supporting President Bush's claims of WMDs in Iraq. I really need a copy of that e-mail. Thanks in advance.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the notorious Nazi propaganda minister, once said if you repeat a lie often enough, the people will come to believe it. One of the biggest lies perpetuated by the DemocRATS in recent years is that "Bush lied, people died" with respects to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's WMD programs. I am currently reading "Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender" by Kenneth R. Timmerman. On page 119, Timmerman writes the following: "In his interim report to a joint session of the House and Senate intelligence committees on October 2, 2003, David Kay...

There’s an old saying that genius is the ability to see the obvious. I’d modify that to say that idiocy is the inability to see the obvious and I regretfully report the world is suffering from a heavy dose of old-fashioned idiocy. Most of the world is standing by and letting Iran march toward nuclear weapons, and in that line of march, will be supplying nuclear materials and weapons to terrorists, using nuclear weapons to intimidate and blackmail its neighbors, and following through on its promise of genocide. The Iranian nuclear capability also means the beginning of an arms race...

An intelligence assessment, the "Internal Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013, obtained by the Associated Press projected several "dramatic" developments. Among these projections that terrorism directed against the US will "continue to be driven by driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa." The report asserted that WMD attacks "could be carried out against America" but then added that "these threats are also the most unlikely because it is so difficult for al-Qaida and similar groups to acquire the materials needed to carry out such plots." The report reasserts a number of predictions made before and noted...

Israeli says “We told you so.” Investigators from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) which works under the auspices of the United Nations have found traces of enriched uranium in Syria, a sign the country had been attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported Monday. The enriched uranium was discovered at the same site of a North Korea built and Iran financed reactor which was destroyed by what many feel was a combined bombing by the Israeli Air Force jets and special operations forces in September 2007. The raid has been criticized as illegitimate but this discovery lessens...

How will America react if diplomacy fails and Tel Aviv is hit with a nuke? How will America react if New York is hit with a terrorist nuke?

How legit is the theory that the wmd's were moved to syria? I mean we had photos of the evidence and everybody including russia and europe and even sadaam said he had weapons. I know saddam admitted he purposely made us believe he had wmd's to scare off iran from making a nuke program and he thought we would only do an airstrike. But has this scenario been debunked or not covered at all??

Another terrorist attack could hit the United States in the next five years — and North Texas could be a key target next time. By 2013, the U.S. “more likely than not” could be hit by another deadly attack, this time using something possibly like anthrax, according to the new report, World at Risk. And some fear that North Texas, with its population, sports and entertainment venues and businesses — not to mention the fact that President George W. Bush is moving back here after he leaves office in January — could be a target next time. “Everybody should be...

I had posted about this before. I wrote an article last March that was published on American Thinker. I just completed my book The Link: The Secret Relationship between Saddam and al Qaida. For more info: http://lfairmont.wordpress.com/ My agent is looking for a traditional publisher, but in the meantime I have self-published. The book is primarily sourced from Iraqi documents retrieved by the US military in Iraq. The media has suppressed the truth. I have Saddam talking about al Qaida being in Iraq in 1995. I have new evidence about WMDs and Saddam saying he gave the order for the...

Peter Bergenen, CNN National Security Analyst, in an article posted on CNN dated December 5, 2008, entitled Commentary: WMD terrorism fears are overblown, poo-poos the conclusions of “The Congressionally authorized Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism” report issued the first week of December, that concluded: "It is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013." Mr. Bergen, according to his biography posted on his website is an experienced, well traveled journalists with no military, engineering, weapons,...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081203-4.html For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary December 3, 2008 Fact Sheet: Defending Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Commission Report Endorses Administration Initiatives and Calls for Continuation of Successful WMD Policies to Address Increasing Threat White House News Today, President Bush was briefed on the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Proliferation and Terrorism report on U.S. progress against the threat of WMD proliferation and terrorism. President Bush welcomes the Commission's report and findings on the greatest threat to our national security and notes their affirmation...

WASHINGTON  —  The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.It suggests the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists."Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday.The commission is also encouraging the new White House to appoint one official on the National Security Council to exclusively coordinate U.S. intelligence and foreign policy on combatting the...

"WASHINGTON — The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. It suggests the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists. "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday. Click here for the report. The commission is also encouraging the new White House to appoint one official on the National Security Council to exclusively coordinate...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chances of a terror attack on a major city somewhere in the world using weapons of mass destruction are better than even, according to a task force mandated by the U.S. Congress, The Washington Post reported in its Tuesday edition. A draft study by the panel warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling rings and the spread of atomic information in the developing world, the newspaper reported. The panel, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its network of...

The Coast Guard Commandant says we need a new approach to counter the risks of the small vessel threat in our ports and on our waterways. In keeping with the traditions of the sea-going services, I generally start my day with a hot cup of coffee. For the past several years, I have been drinking from a mug with the crest of the USS Cole (DDG-67) on it. I received it as a gift when I was the Coast Guard's Seventh District Commander in Miami, Florida, and the Cole visited Fort Lauderdale prior to her deployment and port call in...