Free Republic

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Authorities investigating the theft of 64 missile warheads from a train transporting military equipment to Bulgaria sought to reassure the public Monday that the components are no danger to the public.

BRUSSELS, Belgium Sept. 30 A former pro soccer player who joined the al-Qaida terrorist network was convicted and sentenced to prison Tuesday for plotting to bomb a NATO base believed to contain nuclear weapons. Nizar Trabelsi of Tunisia, who once played professional soccer in Germany, received the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison from a court that also convicted 17 other men and acquitted five others in the largest terrorism trial in Belgium's history. Trabelsi admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen of the Kleine Brogel air base, a Belgian military post used by NATO where...

China's Great Leap Forward in Computers The Chinese dictator Chairman Mao Zedong launched China on a Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, aiming to surpass Britain in steel production within a few years. Instead, his back yard furnaces produced brittle, useless iron. Now China is taking a real huge stride forward, but in the high tech realm of fast computers. Bloomberg Businessweek reported on October 5th that when the list of the world's 500 fastest computers is published on November 15th, it will stun many. While the mainland now has the second-fastest computer, it may grab the lead. Jack...

The US Air Force could soon deploy a 226kg (500lb)-class guided bomb designed with a composite warhead to destroy targets while causing the least amount of collateral damage. The first 50 Precision Lethality Mk 82 bombs could be delivered by January 2011, with up to 750 carbonfibre-wound warheads designated as BLU-129/B to follow. The air force has issued a market survey seeking contractors that can deliver the composite warheads rapidly in response to an urgent request by Central Command, the US headquarters in the Middle East and parts of south Asia. The Air Armament Center could award a contract as...

Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

The United States today for the first time since 1962 disclosed the size of its nuclear arsenal in what officials described as an as an unprecedented unveiling of a state secret and an attempt to encourage other countries to be open about their nuclear capabilities. The Pentagon announced the U.S. currently has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile – an 84 percent reduction from a peak of 31,255 warheads in 1967. "For those who doubt that the United States will do its part on disarmament, this is our record, these are our commitments, and they send a clear, unmistakable signal,"...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- President Bush took the first step in a historic reduction of strategic nuclear weapons Tuesday, slashing the U.S. stockpile by two-thirds and winning a commitment from Russian President Vladimir Putin to "try to respond in kind." In a joint news conference at the White House on the first day of a three-day summit meeting, Bush said he had informed Putin "that the United States will reduce our operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons to a level between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next decade." "Current levels of our nuclear forces do not reflect today's strategic realities,"...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency now not only admits that Iran's at work on nuclear warheads, but acknowledges that Tehran never stopped working on them -- despite no end of pleas, pledges and promises. Burned by its miscall on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the US intelligence community has played it too safe on this one, long insisting that Iran halted warhead research in 2003. There were plenty of dissenting voices. But President George Bush didn't want another fight, and President Obama's already punch drunk. Now the genie's out of the bottle of isotopes. With the departure of anti-Israel...

China has followed a different path in developing strategic weapons. It hasn't. Although the technology was available from Russia, China has, instead, concentrated on creating more accurate, and cheaper, shorter range weapons. This appears to be in recognition of the fact that a war involving nuclear armed ICBMs would be a losing proposition, with no winners. This would be especially true against the United States. In effect, China has dropped out that arms race. With only a few dozen ICBMs, none of which can reach all of the United States, China sees most of the long range ballistic missiles it...

Mideast: Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It's five minutes to midnight. Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the U.S. and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America. Israel last week seized what it said was the largest arms cache ever intercepted in the region. Israeli navy commandos boarded the Francop,...

Defense: President Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Unless testing and maintenance of our nuclear deterrent is resumed, it will be a world without American nuclear weapons.In his Prague speech this spring, the president spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure. We recently observed the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions that brought an abrupt end to the carnage of World War II and arguably...

China is providing assistance to Pakistan in developing its plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme, a Congressional report has told US lawmakers. Besides the conventional uranium-based nuclear weapons, said Pakistan has also pursued plutonium-based warheads since the 1990s and continues to produce plutonium for weapons, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in latest its report on the country's nuclear programme. "Pakistan has received Chinese assistance for its plutonium programme," said the report by CRS, the research wing of the Congress that regularly prepares reports in issues of interest by the US lawmakers. The 40-50 megawatt heavy water Khushab plutonium production reactor has...

MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow is awaiting Washington's proposals on control over the number of nuclear warheads stored by both countries, Russia's foreign minister said on Tuesday. According to some sources, the U.S. is not planning to include control over currently stored nuclear warheads in the provisions of a new strategic arms reductions treaty aimed to replace the START-1 treaty due to expire in December this year. "As to stored nuclear warheads, it is important to understand how they will be counted [toward the new limit]. We are waiting for U.S. proposals in order to analyze them in...

Russia will deploy a new multiple-warhead, nuclear-capable missile after a key US-Russian arms control treaty expires in December, a top general said.... .... a regiment with one command centre and one rocket division armed with RS-24 complexes with detachable warheads will be placed on a state of combat readiness,"

Nuclear Terror: The illusions created by a politicized intelligence report and pacifist wishful thinking don't change the reality of Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration has just provided expanded evidence.Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wonders why the publicly released portion of last December's National Intelligence Estimate, contending that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003, placed so much emphasis on the building of nuclear warheads. After all, Bolton reasons, that's a small task compared with the years of uranium enrichment that Tehran has steadfastly refused to abandon in the face of U.N. sanctions. "The way...

India sets sights on cruise missile market By Siddharth Srivastava NEW DELHI - Long considered among the top importing nations for defense hardware, India is now looking to access the fast-growing international market for cruise missiles, considered a lethally efficient weapon. US forces used almost 1,000 such missiles when they first entered Iraq in 2003, and the total worldwide market is expected to be more than US$10 billion in the next decade. An inventory of more than 80,000 such missiles is estimated already to exist around the world. Indian Defense Minister A K Anthony has said New Delhi is holding...

<p>A U.S. military spokesman in Tikrit told United Press International that the report was untrue. "Nothing's been found. The report is not factual," said Master Sgt. Robert Cowens, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division...</p> <p>A spokesman with Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office told UPI that the report concerning the alleged missiles and warheads emerged "while gathering information for Saddam Hussein's tribunal" during the interrogation of a captured former official of Saddam's regime.</p>

Iran has missiles to carry nuclear warheads By Con Coughlin (Filed: 07/04/2006) Iran has successfully developed ballistic missiles with the capability to carry nuclear warheads. Detailed analysis of recent test firings of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile by military experts has concluded that Iran has been able to modify the nose cone to carry a basic nuclear bomb. The discovery will intensify international pressure on Teheran to provide a comprehensive breakdown of its nuclear research programme. An Iranian Shahab-3 missile on parade in Teheran Last week, the United Nations Security Council gave Iran 30 days to freeze its uranium enrichment programme...