Posted on 01/10/2008 8:41:05 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
CIA reveals: We said in 1974 that Israel had nuclear weapons
By Amir Oren
The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled."
Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries. Advertisement
This top secret document, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32 years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and on the eve of his trip to the Persian Gulf.
A small part of the document was released in early 2006 under a Freedom of Information Request placed by scholars Avner Cohen and William Burr, but only as an attachment to a 1975 State Department paper ostensibly disputing the the portrayal of Israel's nuclear weapons as a fact.
This served the Department of State's effort to avoid addressing Israel's nuclear status in response to a query by Congressman Alan Steelman.
The Department of State, led in this exercise by officials Joseph Sisco, Alfred (Roy) Atherton and Harold Saunders, tried to depict the 1974 Special National Intelligence Assesment, "Prospects for further proliferation of nuclear weapons," as a CIA project, while in fact it was an agency-wide effort that included its own intelligence chief, William Hyland, as a senior member of the board that agreed to the conclusions.
The CIA was asked yesterday via e-mail about the strange coincidence of the document's release a mere month after the publication of its awkwardly worded NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It did not respond by deadline.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Oh, well.
it never seems amazing to news reporters the timing of these so called reports with Bush’s international visits.
we must have a ship of rats at the state dept.
Today, though, Israel is thought to not have had nuclear weapons until 1976-77 at the earliest... at least not domestically produced ones.
I suppose it’s possible that the Israelis would have begged, borrowed, or stolen an already assembled nuke or three from somewhere. The Russian arsenal is the most likely source, followed by the Brits.
Oh, and it can be pretty much assumed that Israel had them from 79-80 on, if they didn’t have them before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident
This was done to boost Bush’s position, this release was done under aegis of Bush’s appointees. Bush, Rice, the US State Dept, Olmert, Kadima and Olmert’s leftist Knesset allies have to minimize the ability of the old guard military intelligence officials now in public life as politicians from having the ability to take down the Olmert coalition through a no confidence vote. This is an attempt to erase Ariel Sharon from the history of the founding of the Kadima party, replaced with Olmert as the figurehead. This ruse only has to last until Bush’s last day of office.
More treasonous leaks.
Although to be fair, that idiot Olmert publically stated that Israel had nukes, I think sometime this past year.
Olmert was the first Israeli spokesman to make such a statement. Apparently he just shot off his mouth without thinking.
Israel’s Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview
U.S. intelligence reports
After the United States discovered the Dimona reactor in 1960, U.S. nuclear specialists inspected Dimona every year from 1965 through 1969, looking for signs of nuclear weapon production. It is not clear what they found, but in 1968 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported to President Lyndon Johnson its conclusion that Israel had already made an atomic bomb. In 1969, Israel limited inspection visits by U.S. scientists to such an extent that the Americans complained in writing. Without explanation, the Nixon administration ended the visits the following year.
The CIA continued to report on Israel’s nuclear weapon progress during the 1970s. In a September 1974 memorandum, “Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” the CIA cited “Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium, partly by clandestine means” as further evidence that “Israel already has produced nuclear weapons.” The CIA also cited Israeli missile development as evidence that Israel had made nuclear weapons—the CIA said the Jericho made little sense as a conventional missile and was “designed to accommodate nuclear warheads.” In a February 1976 report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett reported that Israel was already making bombs with plutonium produced in its Dimona reactor.
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html
I suppose it’s possible that the Israelis would have begged, borrowed, or stolen an already assembled nuke or three from somewhere. The Russian arsenal is the most likely source, followed by the Brits.The froggies were behind the Israeli bomb.
Several sources say that Israel had atleast 2 nukes by the time of 1967 war & around 13 by the Yom Kippur war.
Most of Israel’s initial N-cooperation was with the French,their first strategic partner.
THe weird part about that is that they then went in with South Africa and Taiwan to develop something (known to be nukes, but type unknown) in the 70s. Why waste all that money and time if they already had them?
I’d considered the “to disguise where they got them/built them if they ever needed to be used” theory, but that doesn’t hold water.
I’d read that, but then what was their 70’s nuke program with SA and Taiwan about? Camouflage?
So the CIA managed to figure out at least one of the nuclear countries anywhere near the time they became nuclear.
I guess that now makes them 0 for (India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, etc)
Yeah the timing of this report is suspicious, although I have heard Israeli intelligence people state that they were ready to use nukes during the Yom Kippur War....fall of 1973
France already had an established N-programme by the 50s.You can’t count South Africa & Taiwan on the same plane.
The French supposedly stopped cooperation after the 67 war,so it would make sense for Israel to go elsewhere.
I’d read that, but then what was their 70’s nuke program with SA and Taiwan about? Camouflage?AFAIK they gave the SA Gov the goodies, rather than it being a partnership.
A curious Pakistani article-which got some press coverage after Pakistan’s N-tests in 1998.
http://www.fas.org/news/pakistan/1999/990528-indo_israeli.htm
INDO-ISRAELI NUCLEAR COLLISION
By Ishtiaq Ahmad
At least two of the five nuclear tests conducted by India may actually be Israeli nuclear tests. The components for these tests, according to highly placed Western sources, might have been shipped to India in an “Israel C-130 military transport aircraft that landed in India just two weeks before” the Indian tests.
Pakistani government officials have received information from the United States, which is based on Pentagon sources, that American experts believed that the two low-yield nuclear explosion which took place at Pokhran were produced by a type of warhead that has been developed by Israel but not by India.
“An Israeli C-130 military transport aircraft had landed in India just two weeks before nuclear tests took place. Israel has been sharing its nuclear know-how with India in exchange for being allowed to conduct its tests at Pakistan, thus avoiding an international outcry,” the US Defence Department-based information reveals.
The possibility of Indo-Israeli collaboration in the Indian nuclear testing is further strengthened by the increased exchange of nuclear scientists and military officials of the two countries in the months preceding Indian nuclear tests.
“There is an overwhelming evidence that India and Israel might have collaborated for the nuclear testing. Abdul Kalam, the head of India’s space programme, had also visited Israel . During this period, many Israeli technical also visited India,” confirmed Munir Ahmad Khan, former Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Agency.
“The two sub-kiloton tests conducted by India are meant to produce tactical nuclear arms, such as artillary shells, nuclear devices which Israel considers essential for the peculiar Arab theatre.” Ami Ziv, Director Operations of the Israeli Atomic Energy, had also disclosed to this corespondent in Brussels that Israel would like to develop such nuclear devices whose radio-active effects are limited to neighbouring Arab countries and should not in turn have any harmful impact on Israel.
Since Israel has signed the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the possibility of nuclear testing by Israel on its own territory after signing the CTBT can be ruled out. India, which yet to conclude the CTBT can therefore be the best place for Israel to test its tactical nuclear arms.
Mr. Ziv, who was also the head of the Israeli delegation during the 1996 CTBT negotiations in Geneva, was of the view that Israel had signed the CTBT only after it was confident that it does not need any nuclear testing.
The above quoted Pentagon information on an Israeli warhead test in Pokhran are further confirmed by an early 1990s investigative book on the Israeli nuclear programme, the Samson option, by Seymour Hersh. The publication that shocked the world had disclosed that Israel was in possession of some 200 tactical nuclear warheads, which, with its delivery vehicles, can hit places as for away as Central Asia and even Pakistan and Iran.
The book also disclosed that Israel received consistent help from Western powers, especially the United States, in expanding its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israelis are believed to have acquired the capability to test thermo-nuclear devices, one that India claims it has tested at Pokhran.
From what I’ve read, the Taiwanese were more or less driving it.
I guess it’s possible that the Israelis bought some in from the French, and didn’t actually have a program of their own in place at the time, too.
That said, the only evidence we have is spotty and fragmentary at best. We may never know; I wouldn’t trust the CIA to tell me the sky was blue.
B*ll sh*t—who do you think gave it to us; who do you think gave it to the Russians? It was those pesky Jewish German Scientists. I don’t believe that they need our expertise to devise a device, since they showed us how to do it.
The funny thing, is do you know what Kadima means in English? It means Forward, but when they started the coalition, they didn’t realize it meant foward into hell.....
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