Teheran 'secretly trains' Chechens to fight in Russia (well ruskies build them more nukes)

The PR China has as much to fear from the AQ as the Russians do.

I think you will find the Iranians are funding and supplying both groups.

Watch the movie Deterrence.

I'm not surprised at such a move at all. After Iranian gangster-president called in public for the destruction of Israel, the announcement that Iran is training Chechen guerillas looks mild in comparison.

The tragedy is that current Russian Government is so greedy, corrupt and blatantly anti-American that it does not think rationally. I'm afraid Putin government will continue helping Iranian regime to build a nuclear reactor that can be used for Nuclear weapons. However, Russian regime has been notified officially that they are feeding their own deadly enemy.

Here is one thread where I made 5 or 6 posts against the Chechens and showed their is a connection with al-Qaeda.

You showed nothing Gary, it's just your imagination. The fact that al-Qaida's emissary was in Chechnya means simply nothing - I bet there are TENS if not HUNDREDS of al-Qaida emissaries in US.

As for Chechens in Iraq here is an excerpt from your favorite source, Jamestown Foundation (founded by a Russian:))

ARE THERE CHECHENS IN IRAQ...

Government officials in Moscow, London and Washington constantly repeat the claim that the Chechen separatist movement cooperates with global terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda. The mainstream media often repeat this theme uncritically--much as they repeat the assertion that the Chechen people overwhelmingly endorsed the Putin and Kadyrov administrations' pro-Moscow constitution in the March referendum. By dint of sheer repetition, the official version has come to be taken for granted.

Chechnya Weekly has repeatedly tried to get those who make such allegations to provide specific details. For the most part the results have been frustrating, but we shall continue to try.

For example, vague reports have been circulating for months about the alleged presence of Chechen fighters alongside militants from Syria and other Arab countries in combat against U.S. troops in Iraq. The deputy commander of the U.S.-British coalition forces said last month that several Chechens had been killed by American forces in the fighting. Chechnya Weekly has repeatedly asked the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon for more information: For example, on what basis did U.S. forces conclude that those killed were Chechens rather than Russian-speaking Muslims from other parts of the former Soviet Union such as Uzbekistan or Tatarstan? What sort of documents were found on their bodies, if any, and what evidence is there from other sources that they were in fact Chechens? Our conversations with officials suggest that the U.S. government is not particularly interested in learning the answers; a spokeswoman for the U.S. Defense Department said that such questions were irrelevant to the mission of defeating Saddam Hussein's loyalists in Iraq. (In the short run that is of course true, but one would hope that the U.S. government would be willing to take a longer term perspective on relations with various elements of the Islamic world.)

The British parliamentary system's tradition of "question time" makes it easier in London than it is in Washington for skeptics to question the head of state directly about such matters. Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the western leaders least willing to say anything about Chechnya (or anything else) that would displease the administration of President Vladimir Putin, has personally repeated the vague reports about Chechen fighters in Iraq and has treated them as if they were established fact. On July 9 a Conservative Party member of the House of Commons challenged Blair either to produce firm proof of these allegations or to retract them. The prime minister admitted that the allegations were unverified.

In a recent telephone conversation with Chechnya Weekly, a U.S. government official who insisted on anonymity said that it was impossible to provide a precise number of Chechens known to have been killed in combat in Iraq--or indeed whether that number has been firmly established to be more than zero. But he told us that if there have been such Chechen fighters, the number most likely is in the single digits rather than in the scores or hundreds.

If there are ANY Chechens fighting Americans in Iraq they are certainly not from Chechnya

The Chechens operating in Iraq as members of the foreign jihadi terrorist force are largely of Arab origin from the Chechen diaspora in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and hence speak Arabic fluently

http://www.saag.org/papers10/paper923.html

12. Oral evidence from sources in Pakistan continues to indicate that the foreign terrorists operating in Iraq, from whose ranks the suicide bombers come, are mainly the Chechens of Afghan vintage, the majority of them Arabs of Chechen origin, who had come to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet troops. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988-89, they stayed behind and joined the various Pakistani jihadi organisations, Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami and the Taliban when it was formed in 1994.

And here is the link, Gary, you were so desperately looking for and couldn't find during our last conversation :)

THE CAUCASUS AND IRAQ---The Chechen Connection

Even if you want to believe aforementioned sources from Pakistan (which would be unreasonable, but estimates by anonymous Pakistani journalists seem to be you favorite source of information) it also proves nothing, of course. You are such a lousy propagandist Gary. You rank on Kremlin payroll must be very low.

The uranium fuel for fission reactors will not make a bomb

But you just said it would. So who should we ignore, you or your source?

FYI, The designs for Iran's heavy-water reactor were sold to them by RUSSIA! - SOURCE

With sales exceeding $4 billion between 1992 and 2000, however, Iran is now the third largest customer for Russian weapons. Among the systems Russia supplied to Iran in the 1990s are three Kilo-class attack submarines, which could be used to disrupt shipping in the Gulf; eight MiG-29 fighter bombers; 10 Su-24 fighter bombers; and hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers.5
In addition, the Russian Ministry of Nuclear Industry and affiliated firms may have transferred uranium enrichment technology to Iran while building a civilian nuclear reactor slated for completion in 2003 in the Gulf port of Bushehr.6 This technology is necessary in the development of nuclear bombs. Moscow has facilitated the sale of technology to Iran that is used in the manufacture of the Soviet-era SS-4 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and has helped Iran to develop its Shahab-3 IRBM, which has a range of 1,200 kilometers and is capable of hitting targets throughout the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.7 - SOURCE

Joe,

Kindly, you are wrong and The Heritage Foundation is wrong. The two reactors being built at Bushehr are light-water reactors. They were sold to the Iranians by the Russians.

The heavy-water reactor the Iranians have secretly built is at Arak. The Russians did not sell the plans for the reactor at Arak.

Heavy Water Production Plant

Construction of the heavy water production plant at Khondab near Arak was reportedly begun in 1996 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The heavy water plant at Arak is reportedly to use the Girdler sulphide process. Canadian plants using this process required approximately 33 TJ of steam heat at moderate temperature (130 C) per metric ton of D2O produced. The Arak plant is to have an initial capacity of 8 t/yr, and thus the plant alone could dispose of around 10 MW. The location of the facility was reportedly determined by the need for large quantities of water which can be easily supplied by the Qara-Chai river.

As of mid-August 2002, the site was said to be 85% completed with some of the facility's units able to carry nuclear tests in the Fall of 2002. Distinguishing features at the site include towers that are 3 meters thick, 48 meters high and each with 70 mesh trays.

At a 13 December 2002 briefing, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher that there was what Boucher termed "hard evidence," that Iran appeared to be constructing a uranium enrichment plant at Nantaz, as well as a heavy water plant. "The suspect uranium- enrichment plant ... could be used to produce highly- enriched uranium for weapons. The heavy-water plant could support a reactor for producing weapons-grade plutonium. These facilities are not justified by the needs of Iran's civilian nuclear program," he said.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/arak.htm

Kindly, you are wrong and The Heritage Foundation is wrong.

Gee, Gary, that's not what the link you posted says.

In fact, your own source, globalsecurity.org, says this: "In December 1998, US intelligence reports were publicly cited as having revealed that two Russian nuclear research institutes were actively negotiating to sell Iran a 40-megawatt heavy-water research reactor and a uranium-conversion facility." - globalsecurity.org

But, you'd rather believe the denials from the Russians and the Ayatollahs!

Could it possibly be that YOU are wrong, and your allegiance to a foreign power hostile to U.S. interests has blinded you to the TRUTH?

Joe,

You state:

In fact, your own source, globalsecurity.org, says this: "In December 1998, US intelligence reports were publicly cited as having revealed that two Russian nuclear research institutes were actively negotiating to sell Iran a 40-megawatt heavy-water research reactor and a uranium-conversion facility." - globalsecurity.org
But, you'd rather believe the denials from the Russians and the Ayatollahs!
Could it possibly be that YOU are wrong, and your allegiance to a foreign power hostile to U.S. interests has blinded you to the TRUTH?

Firstly, let me be clear that I have no doubt Iran is trying to develop the bomb, and I am totally against that. Indeed, I will go so far as to say I would be willing to nuke any plant where they are building one. I have little doubt Israel is going to take Iran's sites out in the not too distant future, and I will applaud that. If they don't, then I hope the US does. That said, I have shown you in the past how you do not read critically, and we shall see you fail to do so again.

Secondly, The Hertiage Foundation was atributing the two light water plants as being built by Iran to build a bomb. They are totally wrong.

Thirdly, The article from Global Security states, "In December 1998, US intelligence reports were publicly cited as having revealed that two Russian nuclear research institutes were actively negotiating to sell Iran a 40-megawatt heavy-water research reactor and a uranium-conversion facility." Note carefully, the heavy water reactor at Arak was started in 1996 by the Iranians, whereas the date for the negotations by the two Russian nuclear institutes was 2 years later. More on this later.

Fourthly, this might be hard for you to grasp, but what we see in the negogations are "two" "private" Russian institutes, not govenment organizations. The Russian government is in many ways more liberal with allowing private companies to do business without restrictions than we do in America. The reactor at Bushehr is being contracted out to over 300 Russian companies, and has created 20,000 jobs. We both are very aware of what happened when WJC allowed some of our defense contractors to sell restricted technology to the Chinese. That said, I am totally against Iran getting a heavy water reactor, and if the Russian government allows their companies to sell one to Iran I will condemn Russia for it. I totally support bombing the hell out of any Iranian heavy water reactor.

Fifthly, not only did the Russian institutes talk with the Iranians about building the heavy water reactor, but so did several others. Note the following:

In July 2003, Iran revealed its plans to construct the heavy water reactor. They explained that the decision was taken in the mid-1990s after several laboratory scale experiments to produce heavy water were carried out at the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTC). The reactor is being designed and will be constructed solely by Iranian technicians. The Iranian authorities also stated that in the past they had made numerous attempts to obtain assistance to build heavy water reactors from a variety of sources.

Western official sources believe that the reactor may be based on the successful design of the 100MW Dhruva reactor that India built at Trombay in the mid-1980s (see Table 1). In 1991, India admitted that it had offered to provide Iran with a 10-15MW heavy water reactor. That deal was probably cancelled due to US pressure on India, although Indian authorities cited technical reasons for halting the transfer.

In 1992, China began negotiations with Iran to construct a 25-30MW heavy water reactor in Iran. According to Liu Xuehong, then Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Energy and Bureau of International Co-operation at the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), that reactor would have been similar to the one which China had constructed for Algeria. In 1998, media reports citing US intelligence sources alleged that the Russian Research and Planning Institute for Power Supply Technologies (NIKIET) and the Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology had begun negotiations with Iranian authorities to supply Iran with a 40MW heavy water reactor. However, both entities and the Russian government have denied these allegations. In 1999, the United States imposed sanctions on the above-mentioned companies and eight others for providing sensitive nuclear and missile related information to Iran.

While it is most likely that none of these reactor transfers ever materialised, it is possible that at least one of the entities negotiating with Iran provided designs for a heavy water reactor, which may have given the Iranians sufficient knowledge to begin construction. Additionally, since Russia is currently contracted with Iran to build a power plant at Bushehr, it is possible that Russian scientists working on the Bushehr project may be advising Iranian engineers on the design of IR-40. Also possible is that Iran has used its Chinese-supplied zero power heavy water reactor located at ENTC as a model to design the IR-40, perhaps with Chinese technical advice. Determining the origin of IR-40 will remain difficult until the reactor’s designs are finally revealed.

http://www.firstwatchint.org/IR40.htm

Personally, when the information comes out I suspect you will find the Chinese are responbile. However, if it is Russia I will condemn them for it. Now, the issue is your attitude, which is CERTAINITY the Russians sold it, but you do not have one shred of evidence. Indeed, you didn't even know the difference between a light and heavy water reactor until I pointed it out to you. I would suggest you might want to wait until we find out more about this reactor.

Now for more evidence China is likely invovled. Iran is building a heavy water plant to go with the HW reactor at Arak. Where are they getting the technology for it?

The source of Iran's hexafluoride plant technology is unclear. As part of a 1997 agreement with the United States to prevent new cooperation and to halt all existing projects with Iran in the nuclear field, China pledged to cancel a project to help Iran build a hexafluoride plant. Despite this promise, however, China appears to have provided Iran with a blueprint for the plant. Furthermore, the CIA has reported its "concern" that Chinese firms violated the 1997 agreement.

China is also widely acknowledged to have provided Iran with 400 kg. of uranium dioxide (UO2) in 1991. Iran informed the IAEA in February, 2003 that some of this material had already been processed, including at the Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories to test uranium conversion and purification processes envisioned for the uranium conversion plant under construction.

AND

The IAEA recently revealed that Iran secretly imported 1000 kg of UF6 in 1991, reportedly from China. This material could be used to test centrifuges, though Iran maintains that no material was processed. However, when the IAEA examined the two cylinders holding the UF6 in March, one was found to be lighter than declared. Iran claimed that a small amount of UF6, about 1.9 kg, was lost due to leaking valves.

Another possibility to consider is Pakistan, which traded nuclear technology to North Korea for missiles, albeit the Pakis are Sunnis and the Iranians are Shias. It may even be North Korea which is supplying the technology to Iran. We know for a fact they have shipped them missiles in the past, and if any country on earth would sell muke technology it would be North Korea.

Here is a couple of interesting points:

The Russian government, the supplier of the Bushehr power reactor--caught unaware and embarrassed by Iran's revelation of the secret plant--must now decide whether it wants to fulfill, let alone increase, its nuclear contracts with Iran. Those contracts have been important to Russia, helping to prop up its sagging nuclear industry. The roughly $1 billion Bushehr reactor is nearly completed, and Russia is scheduled to ship low-enriched uranium fuel to it soon. In a March 18 article in The Guardian, Russia's minister of atomic energy said that Iran had not told its Russian partners about its other nuclear projects, including the gas centrifuge facility at Natanz. Compounding their embarrassment, Russian officials had long defended their nuclear dealings with Iran by insisting that Iran would never be able to build gas centrifuges--that the required expertise was simply outside Iran's reach. Russia could face further embarrassment if it turns out that its enterprises have provided significant assistance to sensitive Iranian fuel-cycle facilities.

Then there's Pakistan. Despite persistent media reports and statements by U.S. officials about significant and perhaps multi-year Pakistani nuclear assistance to Iran, Pakistan denies that it or any of its nuclear scientists were Iran's source of centrifuge design or equipment. However, such assistance is widely believed to have been provided in the early 1990s, a time when Iran is believed to have accelerated its centrifuge program (see David Albright's "An Iranian Bomb," July/August 1995 Bulletin). Pakistan's assistance may have been crucial to Iran's early efforts, although the centrifuges Iran is now building appear to be several generations beyond the first-generation machine whose design could have been provided by a Pakistani. According to one official, the origin of the centrifuges in the pilot plant could not be determined from a cursory visual inspection. However, he added, they did not appear to be of Russian centrifuge design.

Indeed, you didn't even know the difference between a light and heavy water reactor until I pointed it out to you.

That's nothing but a lie you just made up Gary. It's a habit of yours.

I will NEVER forget the time you lied and said I supported the Chechens. I have never supported the Chechen cause because I believe that a sovereign nation has a right to defend its territorial integrity, and it is not America's place to take sides in a Russian civil war.

You posture yourself as a pious Christian, but you're really nothing but a low-class smear artist.

I'll take the eminent word of the Heritage Foundation over that of someone so dishonest and untrustworthy, not to mention disloyal, as yourself.

You have even posted pro-Russian propaganda from LYNDON LAROUCHE's website, so it's no wonder that you distrust the U.S. intelligence "cabal" and believe every anti-American lie the Russians utter.

We both know that the nuclear fuel RUSSIA is supplying to Iran for its "civilian nuclear reactor" will be converted into weapons grade plutonium for nuclear warheads for the Shahab-3 missiles RUSSIA has helped Iran develop.

It's easy for Russia to say that Iran lacks the expertise to make a nuke when they know full well Putin's comrades in North Korea are willing to help the Ayatollahs with whatever they need.

NKorea Obtains Aluminium Pipes From Russia For Uranium Program: Report - 06/06/2005 - North Korea has acquired 150 tons of aluminium piping from Russia to use in its covert uranium-based nuclear weapons program

Official: NKorea Developing New Missile [Russian Sales] - 9/11/03 - Officials in the Bush administration have evidence that North Korea has been using Russian technology to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching targets in the continental United States

Russia, N. Korea oppose U.S. missile shield - 07/20/2000 - North Korea ``stated that its missile program does not pose any threat to anybody but is purely peaceful in its nature.''

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration espouse a nationalist agenda that seeks to re-establish Russia as a great world power and to offset America's global leadership position. Putin and his security team have issued a series of documents that call the United States, and the "unipolar world order" it allegedly promotes, a major threat to the Russian state. Clearly, relations with Russia will pose serious policy challenges for the new American President.
Russia's elites are preoccupied with advancing "Eurasianism," which sees Russia as the "ultimate World-Island state" apart from, and hostile to, the maritime and commercial Euro-Atlantic world.12 Russian analysts such as Yu. V. Tikhonravov argue that the nation holds a special place in the Eastern Hemisphere as a counterbalance to the "globalist" U.S.-led hegemony; their works are now part of the college curriculum approved by the Ministry of Higher Education.
Moscow disclosed that, in summer and fall 2000, it shipped 325 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft SA-16 missiles to Tehran, part of a deal totaling 700 missiles worth $1.75 billion. Because Tehran is known for re-exporting weapons to Islamic radicals in the Middle East, such as the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, it is only a matter of time before these latest missiles find their way to Hezbollah terrorists or the Islamic Jihad.19 U.S. objections over this sale were met with terse advice from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov: "The issue is that Russia, when it comes to military cooperation with Iran as well as with other countries, does not consider itself constrained by any special obligations in spheres which are not restricted by international obligations."
The most disturbing development under Putin is the extent to which Russia's national security and diplomatic institutions attempt to sway public opinion against the United States and its policies. These institutions include not only the Putin administration, but also the Security Council, the foreign and defense ministries, the general staff of the armed forces, and the intelligence services, such as the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the successor to the KGB secret police, the Federal Security Service (FSB).
For example, during the Kosovo operation, the Russian military accused NATO of preparing a full-scale attack on Russia. It advocated rearmament and war in Chechnya as Russia's response to the NATO operation against Slobodan Milosevic. Marshal Igor Sergeev went so far as to accuse the United States of provoking the war in Chechnya.27 The commander of the Russian air force, General Anatoly Kornukov, who was responsible for downing a Korean passenger jumbo jet in 1983, recently boasted about a surprise flight made by Russian Su-24 reconnaissance planes over the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.28 The Russian military has also blamed U.S. and British submarines for the Kursk submarine disaster, despite offers from the United States and other countries to lend assistance in rescuing the crew.
Even before Vladimir Putin ascended to his country's highest office, as the head of the National Security Council, director of the FSB, and then acting prime minister, he presided over the formulation of four important government documents that articulate Russia's foreign and defense policy. These documents, taken together, explain the new "Putin Doctrine" for Russian national security in the 21st century and demonstrate Moscow's step back to more traditional Russian and Soviet threat assessments. The documents include:

A Defense Doctrine, published in draft form in October 1999 and reissued by presidential decree on April 21, 2000;
A National Security Concept unveiled in January 2000;
The Foreign Policy Concept adopted on July 30, 2000; and
The Information Security Concept adopted in August 2000.33

Following the themes first espoused by former Prime Minister Primakov, these documents decry the emergence of a unipolar world dominated by the United States. They lay claim to a sphere of influence that encompasses most of the Eastern Hemisphere. The National Security Concept, for example, names Europe, the Trans-Caucasus, Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Middle East as spheres of influence for Russia. It also names the expanding NATO alliance as a danger to the Russian homeland and condemns the use of force by NATO under U.S. leadership as both a violation of international law and a dangerous security trend.
More important, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Kremlin calls the United States a major threat to the Russian state.
In the Foreign Policy Concept, Russia for the first time has made an open claim to the need to dominate its neighbors. The Foreign Policy Concept adopted by presidential decree on June 28, 2000, calls for the establishment of a belt of good neighbors around Russia's perimeter. As "the strongest Eurasian power," Russia asserts in the Concept that "the [U.S.] strategy of unilateral action may destabilize the world, because the use of force represents the basis for international conflict."37
The Information Security Concept signed by Putin in August 2000 articulates the view that television, mass media, and the Internet are avenues that threaten Russian security and must therefore be controlled by the state. The document calls upon the Federal Security Service to monitor all e-mail traffic; it also stipulates registration and control of Web sites and all national TV channels.38 This same strategy was taught in the Soviet-era KGB academies.39
These documents reflect the military, KGB, and Communist Party mindset, training, and education of Russia's current national security and foreign policy elites. Each one is also larded with rhetoric about peace and appeals for cooperation from other foreign governments that support international fora such as the United Nations. These appeals are an attempt to offset Russia's conventional military weakness, especially in regions where it currently lacks power projection capabilities. Despite these appeals, each document is an obvious rallying cry to countries that resent America's power and military dominance. Clearly, Russia is seeking international support for its efforts to become an alternative power center to challenge the United States. - SOURCE

I have never supported the Chechen cause because I believe that a sovereign nation has a right to defend its territorial integrity, and it is not America's place to take sides in a Russian civil war.

It's a pity you never supported Chechens, because this little and unhappy nation really deserves support from people in the US. I do not believe that a country has the right to fight the secession of a certain territory under its rule, provided that the secession is supported by a majority ot its population. (Secession of the American South is a noted exception, as it was about slavery really). Otherwise, how can you argue for the fairness of American secession from the British Empire? Were Americans nor "RIGHT" in this war, but only "STRONGER"? A nation that was born from a rebellion should understand other rebels.