Posted on 04/18/2006 2:50:09 PM PDT by Candor7
Not meant to scare, rather to serve as a wake-up call.
This Monday Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that part of Ukraine's Soviet-era nuclear arsenal may well have found its way to Iran. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians agreed to transfer the Soviet nuclear arsenal that remained in Ukraine after independence to Russia. According to Novaya Gazeta, some 250 nuclear warheads never made it to Russia and are thought to have been sent to Iran instead. The report further noted that the warheads in question will remain operational until 2010.
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Iran's recent financial maneuverings also indicate general preparations for global war. The Swiss newspaper Der Bund reported the Iranian regime recently withdrew $31 billion of its gold reserves and foreign exchange from European financial institutions. Additionally, this week Iran renewed its gasoline rationing for the general public.
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In February Canada's Globe and Mail published a report where Lebanese parliament member for Hizbullah terror group Hussein Hajj Hassan declared that on January 20 the Islamist axis was formally cemented in Damascus. The parley which brought about the entente was led by Ahmadinejad and attended by axis members, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas chief Khaled Mashal, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shalah and the commanders of PLO breakaway front groups. Iraqi Shiite terror chief Muqtada al-Sadr also pledged his allegiance to the axis. The jihad summit took place five days before the Palestinian elections and on the same day a suicide bomb exploded in Tel Aviv.
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(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
If Iran had nukes, we would know it. Their president would tell the world. Deterrents are not deterrents if no one knows you have them. AND Iran wants respect. They don't get respect hiding nukes, they get respect in the Mid-East by flaunting them.
......looks like we're in for a kewl light show after all.
I hope this one turns out to be the "shock and awe" promised a few years ago.
The bad thing is that if the Iranians have Soviet warheads they will be of a launchable weight.
There are a lot of assumptions in the article. Iran has had Russian help and has computers. I see no reason not to believe that their bomb will be much smaller than "Fat Man".
By the way, they would probably build a "fat man" type bomb, rather than a "little boy" type. Because the "fat man" type (mit-baseball) is easier to build.
Ummmm Remain operational till 2010??
Flag me at the other one. I needs some clarification on this...
i agree, they would have an above ground nuclear test by now.
Even a small nuke will generate a substantial EMP pulse. Everything I've read indicates that an EMP attack is what Iran has in mind. It doesn't even have to hit a target, just explode high in the atmosphere.
WND has run several articles on this threat and it's a very realistic assessment. Iran has curiously launched missiles to an altitude of about 400 km and had them self-destruct, afterwards calling the test a success. A nuclear detonation at that altitude would basically send a powerful EMP burst about 3000 miles in all directions, frying electrical grids, computers, electronic ignitions, cell phones, and other unprotected devices, rendering them useless. Iran has also practiced launching missiles from ships. Even an old SCUD would be sufficient to launch such an attack. It's cheap, effective, and would be almost impossible to stop.
DOD has hardened systems, but civilian infrastructure doesn't. Imagine setting the US back to about 1850 in terms of ability to generate and distribute electricity. The biggest problem we'll have, regardless of who initiates the attack, is maintaining internal order.
Critics of the Strategic Defense Initiative ignorantly bash the concept of shooting down hundreds of incoming ICBMs. The realistic concept is that we really need to stop just one from coming in from a rogue state like Iran or North Korea.
Iran believes, perhaps not without cause, that one EMP burst would cause enough havoc that America would collapse from internal conflict in the aftermath. Just take what happened after Katrina and multiply it to a national scale and it might be a fatal blow. America would still exist, but it would be so torn apart from internal strife that it would cease to effectively act as a superpower. That's why Russia and China are so slow to get on our side on this problem. They see a window of opportunity to lose their chief competitor without having to get involved directly.
Scenario: We all think they are years away from having a nuclear weapon.
Negroponte is reported in JWR to have said they are a threat NOW.
Quote:
In recent testimony before the US Congress, John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence said that the danger that Tehran "will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with ballistic missiles that Iran already possesses" is a cause "for immediate concern."
Unquote
Finally the Muslim world gets the drop on the Great Satan. Russian and/or Chinese help vitiates a need for any test, especially if they have surplus Ukranian nukes.
Why would China and Russia do that??
Billions of cubic feat of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil wouldn't have anything to do with it now, would it?
I would say this is all hogwash but for the fact that the Iranians withdrew all their gold financial resources from European Banks last week.That makes it true in my book. The Iranians have a very nasty surprise for the world, maybe in a nuclear mine floated in the Gulf or maybe a nuke suicide boat.
In their book we dare not retaliate with a nuclear strike. Are the Iranians right or wrong on that score ??
I hope our Navy in the Gulf is being extremely vigilant right now.
It is MUCH easier to make a large (i.e., heavy) nuke than a small nuke.
As you probably know,nuclear war head electronics have an end point and then the device needs to be dismantled, serviced, reassembled and the service timers reset. Until that time, the weapons can have the ignition code entered and the device can be set for detonation.
I do not know if those nukes have both pressure ignition and timed ignition options. I do not know enough about them. Maybe someone else here knows enough to set us straighter on it.
'preciate the response. I was not aware they had "service timers" on them. Makes a little more sense now...
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