Free Republic

{snip}The United States has wisely been very cautious about sharing nuclear technology – military or civilian. Just a few months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Wall Street Journal that any decision to sell civilian nuclear technology to India would have "quite serious" implications for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So why did President Bush decide this week to help India build nuclear power plants and import advanced weapons? Certainly, a domestic civilian nuclear power program will aid India's economy and gives the United States another strong ally in the region against Muslim extremism, the emerging military and economic...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Philip Morrison, one of the inventors of the atomic bomb and an early leader in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, has died. He was 89. Morrison, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died in his sleep at his home Friday, the university announced Monday. "Phil was a great physicist," said Marc Kastner, chairman of the physics department at MIT. "He was spectacular at explaining physics to the public, too." Morrison was the host of "The Ring of Truth," a six-part series aired by PBS, and a book review editor for...

Israeli soldiers Saturday discovered four bombs planted near Jewish towns in Gaza amid concerns that terrorists are "seeding" the area with land mines at the rate of more than one a day. The four bombs discovered in northern and southern Gaza Saturday weighed more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds). Terrorists also shot a Kassam rocket Saturday at the Gush Katif town of N'vei Dekalim and opened fire on soldiers in the area as well as near the Egyptian border. No one was injured and no damage was reported. "In the past three weeks, we have discovered an explosive device on...

With a Little Boy in the back By Catherine Auer January/February 2005 pp. 6-8 (vol. 61, no. 01) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists n today's security-obsessed, post-9/11 era, one might think that it would be difficult to haul a convincing replica of an atomic bomb across the country. Not so, as John Coster-Mullen inadvertently proved in October 2004. "We drove a full-scale WMD 800 miles across the United States and no one stopped or questioned us," Coster-Mullen told me. "In fact, it was quite easy!" In this case, the "weapon of mass destruction" would more appropriately be called...

Intelligence reports accuse Iran of buying large amounts of a metal that has many civilian uses but which some U.S. and other countries' officials believe Tehran wanted exclusively for an atomic bomb, diplomats say. Washington says oil-rich Iran is developing atomic weapons under cover of a nuclear energy program. Tehran denies this, insisting its atomic ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity. One non-U.S. diplomat, citing intelligence gathered by his country, said Iran bought "huge amounts of beryllium from a number of countries" but gave no details on the amount or states involved. Beryllium has a long list...

Militants Discussing Report of Fatwa Issued Regarding Use of Nuclear Weapons Source: TT Analysis | 9:30:01 AM EST Militants are beginning to discuss the fatwa that was supposedly issued by a leader of Al-Qaeda religiously allowing Osama Bin Laden to use Nuclear Weapons against America. This report was released by a now retired CIA Agent and will air on CBS' 60 Minutes this evening. Although almost all of the militants are simply making comments such as "Allah is the Greatest" or "God Willing", one militant left us with this interesting piece of information, "Once again, attacking the Americans with a...

Israel's chief of military intelligence said in remarks broadcast on Monday that if Iran's atomic program is allowed to continue, Tehran will have the capability to independently develop nuclear weapons by early next year. In a Sunday speech to the Israel-Jordan Chamber of Commerce, MI chief Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash said, "If the processes continue as we are currently seeing them, the coming half year with respect to Iran will determine if Iran will achieve in the spring of 2005 an non-conventional capability in the sphere of nuclear research and development, that is, it will no longer require external aid to reach...

EMMETT, Idaho, Aug. 31 - In the 1950's and early 1960's, at the height of the cold war, people in this southeastern Idaho town thought what they occasionally saw dusting their fruit orchards and cow pastures was frost - only it was not cold to the touch, several longtime residents said. Others described it as a gray-white powder that seemed to come out of nowhere. The residents of this town of dairy and cattle farmers did not know it then, but half a century ago, northern winds blew radioactive fallout into southeastern Idaho when the federal government set off about...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on TaipeiTimes http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/08/07/2003182057 At Hiroshima's anniversary, US stands criticized ATOMIC BOMB: The mayor of the city that suffered the world's first nuclear attack wondered why there is any need for new generations of such horrific weapons AP , HIROSHIMA, JAPAN Saturday, Aug 07, 2004,Page 5 Demonstrators wearing hats that say ``peace'' stage a ``die-in'' in front of the gutted A-bomb dome in Hiroshima, Japan, yesterday. PHOTO: REUTERS The mayor of Hiroshima marked the anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack yesterday by lashing out at the US for its pursuit of next-generation nuclear weapons, and called on...

Friday, August 6, 2004 at 08:51 JST HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima on Friday morning marked the 59th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city. An estimated 40,000 people attended the ceremony that started at 8 a.m. at the Peace Memorial Park in the downtown part of the western Japan city that was devastated in the world's first nuclear attack Aug 6, 1945, three days before the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. In his peace declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba voiced serious concern over the "egocentric worldview" of the United States and moves in Japan to revise the country's pacifist...

Thursday, June 17, 2004 at 08:42 JST SAIPAN — Paul Tibbets, the American pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, on Wednesday returned to the small island from where he launched the attack 59 years ago. Tibbets, a retired Air Force brigadier general, is visiting the Northern Marianas to mark the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Saipan in which American forces liberated this U.S. territory from Japanese occupation forces in World War II. On Wednesday he visited Tinian Island where on Aug 16, 1945, he took off in a B29 bomber named Enola Gay and flew to Hiroshima...

Krakow, Poland-AP -- A new report by the U-N atomic agency says Iran has acknowledged importing parts for centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium. The Associated Press has obtained a copy of a confidential report prepared for a meeting late this month of the the U-N agency's 35-nation board. It credits Iran with more openness about its nuclear program, but says the agency still has questions about nearly two decades of secret activities. The report also says Iran has continued production of centrifuge components at three workshops belonging to private companies. That, despite the country's declaration it would...

While we look at Iraq or at Gaza and worry about peace, it would be wiser to look east of those lands where the prospect for genuine and benign peace has seldom been greater. One quarter of the human race lives in the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plains within those nations we call India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Iran. Two planet has seven which have publicly announced nuclear powers or are considered immediately - America, Russia, China, Britain and France - are four nations which are considered almost certainly to posses such weapons - Israel, South Africa, India and...

"An investigation, based on newly released documents, into President Truman's controversial decision to drop the A-bomb. Concludes that the real reason the U.S. dropped the bomb was to intimidate the Soviet Union." Several 'experts' explained that dropping the A-bombs on Japan were unnecessary [there were no dissenting points of view aired]. The announcer -- bearing an English accent -- explained that the reasons that Truman decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki were: 1. A raving desire for revenge on the part of the American people. 2. To use the opportunity to 'experiment' the new weapon on an expendable population. 3....

Bush on warpath over UN's shock report on Iran A-bomb Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin (Filed: 07/09/2003) America will tomorrow demand that the United Nations takes urgent action to prevent Iran acquiring the atom bomb as fears mount that Teheran is on course to develop a nuclear weapons capability within two years. United States officials will make the demand at a special meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that has been arranged to consider a 10-page report by Mohammed al-Baradei, the agency's director-general, into the state of Iran's nuclear programme. Washington has already expressed deep concern about...

A pair of rabbits are put in a field and, if rabbits take a month to become mature and then produce a new pair every month after that, how many pairs will there be in twelve months time? Somewhere around 1200 A.D. an Italian mathematician who went by the pen-name Fibonacci pondered this very problem, a task made a bit easier by his pioneering adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numeric system. The 1,1,2,3,5,8... sequence which resulted is known as the Fibonacci Sequence, and it's connected to both the critical artistic concept of the "golden section" and the "propagating spiral." Hmmm. Breeding...

Recently we had to go back and visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the A-bombs. Or the effects thereof. On Aug 6th 1945 Hiroshima was bombed with a uranium load. On Aug 9th 1945 Nagasaki was bombed with a plutonium load. The total number killed was 210,000 and another 130,000 within 5 years from after effects. 340,000 attributed to 2 nuclear bombs. Of course America is blamed exclusively because we “dropped the big one” It is not the duty of our President, then Harry Truman to minimize the deaths of our enemies by sacrificing more Americans. Conventional fighting on Okinawa cost...

<p>The mayor of Hiroshima criticized U.S. officials on Wednesday for pursuing new nuclear weapons technology, as he marked the 58th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.</p> <p>Tadatoshi Akiba said Washington's apparent worship of "nuclear weapons as God" was threatening world peace.</p>

Monica Crowley was a guest on Fox and Friends today. She was claiming that her sources were telling her that they believed Saddam was dead. They also believed that Russia was directing the anti-US war, and that they had helped Saddam build the A-bomb lab that was recently found. If so, this is a very serious offense.

More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has intensified its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today. Over the past 14 months, Iraq has tried to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said that several efforts to arrange the shipment of the high-strength tubes were blocked or intercepted, but they declined to say, citing the extreme sensitivity of the...