295개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
WELL, FIGHT THE ENEMY!!!
...or alternative...
..and please remember and learn from this
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?pid=579
DAILY, MASSIVE PUBLIC DISORDER...
IRAQ: FROM A ‘ORDINARY’ MIDDLE EAST DICTATORSHIP TO THE HUB OF RESISTANCE(aka terrorism..) AGAINST THE ‘US-IMPERIALISM’...
...TO... ya, WHAT??
I’m really not sure anymore, what was/is better – the ‘ordinary’ dictatorship of under S. Hussein and his Baath gang or what we have now.
Perhaps the Bush administration really thought that "it will be fine to liberate the Iraqi people" and "bring them democracy"(harrharr)...
At first according to many reports the majority of the Iraqis were happy about the end of S. Hussain’s dictatorship. But after that just a really small minority were ready to struggle for a kind of democratic/civil society... And from the beginning they were hunted by reactionary factions of Islamic fundamentalists and many parts of the so-called resistance. And the occupiers were not able, or(‘better’) perhaps they just had no interrest, to protect this forces and support them.
Al-Askari shrine, before...
...and after the attack
And now it seems that everything is over... Even if in the following days the complete civil war will not break out, but the people who have the interrest in such a scenario will know(at least from now) what is to do to create the definite situation for that: just attack symbols - in the last months thousands of hundreds were killed by (Shia) death squads and thousands of Shias were killed by bomb attacks by the(Sunni) ‘resistance’ and without such a result, outbreak of violence, fights each other, like the attack against the al-Askari shrine.
Shia believers in preparing...
...what for?
According to political active people in Iraq now the question is not about if the civil war will break out... the question is just WHEN IT WILL BE REALLY HAPPEN.
And let’s guess, the international peace movement have now no answer, not at all!
Sorry, these are just some of my(maybe stupid) first thoughts in the current situation(perhaps later I'll write more..) ...
Please read more about it(for example) here:
U.S. envoy says Iraq is close to civil war
And, please, just check out the intl. media...
Yesterday's(2.21) Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth/Ynet published following - in my opinion - complete STUPID story:
Israel warns of ‘Evil Axis’ World War
Israel’s UN envoy Gillerman warns of Hamas’ venture into politics, saying Islamic group is forming ‘Axis of Evil’ with Syria and Iran; Adds terror triangle likely to instigate first World War of the 21st century if not stopped
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON - Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, on Tuesday warned of a new “terror axis” between Iran, Syria and Hamas, which could kick start “the first world war of the 21st century.”
Addressing the U.N. Security Council on a quarterly session to discuss international terrorism, Gillerman asked council members if their governments would agree to al-Qaeda or the Kurdish group PKK running in elections.
“Imagine al-Qaeda or the PKK running in elections? A dictator’s democracy is a dangerous false impression,” Gillerman told the Council.
Gillerman warned of Hamas’ venture in politics, saying “the world is witnessing a new alliance between Iran, Syria and Hamas, which
constitutes an axis of terror.”
Gillerman evoked Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahamadinejad’s January visit to Syria and the warm welcome in Tehran of Hamas leaders this week. Political leader Khaled Mashaal led a Hamas delegation to Iran where he said Iran will play a more central role in Palestinian affairs after guarantees for financial backing to the Palestinian government from the Islamic Republic.
“This new terror axis poses a big threat to regional and world stability, and is a recipe for the worst ever plague. If we ignore this imminent threat, the axis of evil will be the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century,” Gillerman said.
He called on the international community “to take seriously Syria, Hamas and Iran’s joint effort and to act seriously to prevent Iran, an extremist and dangerous government that supports terror, from acquiring the knowledge to develop nuclear arms.”
Gillerman said that the democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority cannot cover up Hamas extreme ideology which calls for the destruction of Israel. He invited Council members to read Hamas’ charter, a key provision of which calls for the murder of Jews and the annihilation of the Jewish state.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3219516,00.html
Now, at least, we - strongly - should demand
(and fight for) the withdrawal of the
S. Korean troops out off Iraq...
...and we should kick all in their asses who were proclaiming the withdrawal as their 'first priority'(KCTU, DLP...), but did nothing until now - except blabla..!
朝鮮日報 (2.01):
Tokyo’s Iraq Pullout Reopens Debate on Korean Troops  |
| News that Japan is pulling its troops out of Iraq at the end of May has rekindled debate here over the extension of Korean soldiers’ mandate in the war-torn country. The withdrawal of all major U.S. allies increases the risk that Korea’s Zaytun Unit could become a main target of the Iraqi insurgency.
The 3,200-strong unit is stationed in Irbil, in Kurdish-majority northern Iraq, making Korea’s the third strongest force in the country after the U.S. and the U.K. The Defense Ministry plans to reduce that number by 1,000 by the end of this year, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are no plans for more troop reductions or a complete withdrawal. "The National Assembly has agreed for the division to be stationed there until the end of this year, and no change is expected as of now,” a ministry official said. Staunch U.S. ally Japan, however, is pulling its force out of Iraq by the end of May, the Japanese press reported Tuesday. The UK and Australia also plan a total withdrawal of their forces by then, starting from mid-March. The reports said diplomats and defense officials from the three countries and the U.S. agreed the date during a secret meeting in London on Jan. 23. The Japanese government has been pondering a way out of Iraq since the end of 2005 because it would be difficult for its Self-Defense Force to operate there without the U.K. and Australia providing security for the troops. Japan’s constitution prohibits its military from using force outside the country. Tokyo will hand facilities for its 600 ground forces in the southern town of Samawa to locals and says it will instead contribute more to the country’s reconstruction through Official Development Assistance.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200601/200601310022.html |
Similar reports and articles about the following issue I was reading in the last few weeks in the Isreali media, such as Jerusalem Post or Haaretz (just check it out by yourself...).
Nuclear War against Iran
By Michel Chossudovsky
January 3, 2006
The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.
Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness".
Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack.
Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels.
In recent developments, CIA Director Porter Goss on a mission to Ankara, requested Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets." Goss reportedly asked " for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation." (DDP, 30 December 2005).
In turn, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given the green light to the Israeli Armed Forces to launch the attacks by the end of March:
All top Israeli officials have pronounced the end of March, 2006, as the deadline for launching a military assault on Iran.... The end of March date also coincides with the IAEA report to the UN on Iran's nuclear energy program. Israeli policymakers believe that their threats may influence the report, or at least force the kind of ambiguities, which can be exploited by its overseas supporters to promote Security Council sanctions or justify Israeli military action.
(James Petras, Israel's War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs, Global Research, December 2005)
The US sponsored military plan has been endorsed by NATO, although it is unclear, at this stage, as to the nature of NATO's involvement in the planned aerial attacks.
"Shock and Awe"
The various components of the military operation are firmly under US Command, coordinated by the Pentagon and US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the
Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska.The actions announced by Israel would be carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The command structure of the operation is centralized and ultimately Washington will decide when to launch the military operation.
US military sources have confirmed that an aerial attack on Iran would involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US "shock and awe" bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:
American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted.
Military planners could tailor their target list to reflect the preferences of the Administration by having limited air strikes that would target only the most crucial facilities ... or the United States could opt for a far more comprehensive set of strikes against a comprehensive range of WMD related targets, as well as conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq
(See Globalsecurity.org at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htm
In November, US Strategic Command conducted a major exercise of a "global strike plan" entitled "Global Lightening". The latter involved a simulated attack using both conventional and nuclear weapons against a "fictitious enemy".
Following the "Global Lightening" exercise, US Strategic Command declared an advanced state of readiness (See our analysis below)
While Asian press reports stated that the "fictitious enemy" in the Global Lightening exercise was North Korea, the timing of the exercises, suggests that they were conducted in anticipation of a planned attack on Iran.
Consensus for Nuclear War
No dissenting political voices have emerged from within the European Union.
There are ongoing consultations between Washington, Paris and Berlin. Contrary to the invasion of Iraq, which was opposed at the diplomatic level by France and Germany, Washington has been building "a consensus" both within the Atlantic Alliance and the UN Security Council. This consensus pertains to the conduct of a nuclear war, which could potentially affect a large part of the Middle East Central Asian region.
Moreover, a number of frontline Arab states are now tacit partners in the US/ Israeli military project. A year ago in November 2004, Israel's top military brass met at NATO headqaurters in Brtussels with their counterparts from six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. A NATO-Israel protocol was signed. Following these meetings, j
oint military exercises were held off the coast of Syria involving the US, Israel and Turkey. and in February 2005, Israel participated in military exercises and "anti-terror maneuvers" together with several Arab countries.The media in chorus has unequivocally pointed to Iran as a "threat to World Peace".
The antiwar movement has swallowed the media lies. The fact that the US and Israel are planning a Middle East nuclear holocaust is not part of the antiwar/ anti- globalization agenda.
The "surgical strikes" are presented to world public opinion as a means to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
We are told that this is not a war but a military peace-keeping operation, in the form of aerial attacks directed against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Mini-nukes: "Safe for Civilians"
The press reports, while revealing certain features of the military agenda, largely serve to distort the broader nature of the military operation, which contemplates the preemptive use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The war agenda is based on the Bush administration's doctrine of "preemptive" nuclear war under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review.
Media disinformation has been used extensively to conceal the devastating consequences of military action involving nuclear warheads against Iran. The fact that these surgical strikes would be carried out using both conventional and nuclear weapons is not an object of debate.
According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground.
Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use", they are slated to be used in the next stage of America's "war on Terrorism" alongside conventional weapons:
Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent. ( Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)
In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage". The Pentagon has intimated, in this regard, that the ‘mini-nukes’ (with a yield of less than 5000 tons) are harmless to civilians because the explosions ‘take place under ground’. Each of these ‘mini-nukes’, nonetheless, constitutes – in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout – a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Estimates of yield for Nagasaki and Hiroshima indicate that they were respectively of 21000 and 15000 tons (
http://www.warbirdforum.com/hiroshim.htm
In other words, the low yielding mini-nukes have an explosive capacity of one third of a Hiroshima bomb.
|
The earth-penetrating capability of the [nuclear] B61-11 is fairly limited, however. Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. Even so, by burying itself into the ground before detonation, a much higher proportion of the explosion energy is transferred to ground shock compared to a surface bursts. Any attempt to use it in an urban environment, however, would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area. http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/images/gbu28.jpg Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) |
The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:
'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox,' said Kristensen. (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)
We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda.
The military manuals state that this new generation of nuclear weapons are "safe" for use in the battlefield. They are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused the Bush Administration for having developed "a generation of more useable nuclear weapons."
The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of World Peace.
"Making the World safer" is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.
But nuclear holocausts are not front page news! In the words of Mordechai Vanunu,
The Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. (See interview with Mordechai Vanunu, December 2005).
Space and Earth Attack Command Unit
A preemptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons would be coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with US and coalition command units in the Persian Gulf, the Diego Garcia military base, Israel and Turkey.
Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for "overseeing a global strike plan" consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of "a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence.... "
In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction."
To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created.
JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against "rogue states" but also against China and Russia.
Since November, JFCCSGS is said to be in "an advance state of readiness" following the conduct of relevant military exercises. The announcement was made in early December by U.S. Strategic Command to the effect that the command unit had achieved "an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons." The exercises conducted in November used "a fictional country believed to represent North Korea" (see David Ruppe, 2 December 2005):
"The new unit [JFCCSGS] has 'met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability' as of Nov. 18. A week before this announcement, the unit finished a command-post exercise, dubbed Global Lightening, which was linked with another exercise, called Vigilant Shield, conducted by the North American Aerospace Defend Command, or NORAD, in charge of missile defense for North America.
'After assuming several new missions in 2002, U.S. Strategic Command was reorganized to create better cooperation and cross-functional awareness,' said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a chief spokesperson for STRATCOM. 'By May of this year, the JFCCSGS has published a concept of operations and began to develop its day-to-day operational requirements and integrated planning process.'
'The command's performance during Global Lightning demonstrated its preparedness to execute its mission of proving integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM,' he added without elaborating about 'new missions' of the new command unit that has around 250 personnel.
Nuclear specialists and governmental sources pointed out that one of its main missions would be to implement the 2001 nuclear strategy that includes an option of preemptive nuclear attacks on 'rogue states' with WMDs. (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005)
CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022
JFCCSGS is in an advanced state of readiness to trigger nuclear attacks directed against Iran or North Korea.
The operational implementation of the Global Strike is called CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022. The latter is described as "an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,' (Ibid).
CONPLAN 8022 is 'the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.'
'It's specifically focused on these new types of threats -- Iran, North Korea -- proliferators and potentially terrorists too,' he said. 'There's nothing that says that they can't use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.'(According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese economic News Wire, op cit)
The mission of JFCCSGS is to implement CONPLAN 8022, in other words to trigger a nuclear war with Iran.
The Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush would instruct the Secretary of Defense, who would then instruct the Joint Chiefs of staff to activate CONPLAN 8022.
CONPLAN is distinct from other military operations. it does not contemplate the deployment of ground troops.
CONPLAN 8022 is different from other war plans in that it posits a small-scale operation and no "boots on the ground." The typical war plan encompasses an amalgam of forces -- air, ground, sea -- and takes into account the logistics and political dimensions needed to sustain those forces in protracted operations.... The global strike plan is offensive, triggered by the perception of an imminent threat and carried out by presidential order.) (William Arkin, Washington Post, May 2005)
The Role of Israel
Since late 2004, Israel has been stockpiling US made conventional and nuclear weapons systems in anticipation of an attack on Iran. This stockpiling which is financed by US military aid was largely completed in June 2005. Israel has taken delivery from the US of several thousand "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 'bunker-buster bombs, which can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs.
The B61-11 is the "nuclear version" of the "conventional" BLU 113, can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html , see also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris ) .
Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/THO311A.html
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Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs: Coinciding with Putin's visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as "a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions." The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator" (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as "a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World's most deadly "conventional" weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions.The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft. (See text of DSCA news release at http://www.dsca.osd.mil/PressReleases/36-b/2005/Israel_05-10_corrected.pdf |
Extension of the War
Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in Iraq and Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.
At present there are three distinct war theaters: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.
Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following last year's agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
More recently, Tehran has beefed up its air defenses through the acquisition of Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems. In October, with Moscow`s collaboration, "a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit." (see Chris Floyd)
The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months.
Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullah’s beard. What’s more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months. (op.cit.)
Ground War
While a ground war is not envisaged under CONPLAN, the aerial bombings could lead through the process of escalation into a ground war.
Iranian troops could cross the Iran-Iraq border and confront coalition forces inside Iraq. Israeli troops and/or Special Forces could enter into Lebanon and Syria.
In recent developments, Israel plans to conduct military exercises as well as deploy Special Forces in the mountainous areas of Turkey bordering Iran and Syria with the collaboration of the Ankara government:
Ankara and Tel Aviv have come to an agreement on allowing the Israeli army to carry out military exercises in the mountainous areas [in Turkey] that border Iran.
[According to] ... a UAE newspaper ..., according to the agreement reached by the Joint Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Dan Halutz, and Turkish officials, Israel is to carry out various military manoeuvres in the areas that border Iran and Syria. [Punctuation as published here and throughout.] [Dan Halutz] had gone to Turkey a few days earlier.
Citing certain sources without naming them, the UAE daily goes on to stress: The Israeli side made the request to carry out the manoeuvres because of the difficulty of passage in the mountain terrains close to Iran's borders in winter.
The two Hakari [phonetic; not traced] and Bulo [phonetic; not traced] units are to take part in the manoeuvres that have not been scheduled yet. The units are the most important of Israel's special military units and are charged with fighting terrorism and carrying out guerrilla warfare.
Earlier Turkey had agreed to Israeli pilots being trained in the area bordering Iran. The news [of the agreement] is released at a time when Turkish officials are trying to evade the accusation of cooperating with America in espionage operations against its neighbouring countries Syria and Iran. Since last week the Arab press has been publishing various reports about Ankara's readiness or, at least, agreement in principle to carry out negotiations about its soil and air space being used for action against Iran.
(E'temad website, Tehran, in Persian 28 Dec 05, BBC Monitoring Services Translation)
Concluding remarks
The implications are overwhelming.
The so-called international community has accepted the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust.
Those who decide have swallowed their own war propaganda.
A political consensus has developed in Western Europe and North America regarding the aerial attacks using tactical nuclear weapons, without considering their devastating implications.
This profit driven military adventure ultimately threatens the future of humanity.
What is needed in the months ahead is a major thrust, nationally and internationally which breaks the conspiracy of silence, which acknowledges the dangers, which brings this war project to the forefront of political debate and media attentiion, at all levels, which confronts and requires political and military leaders to take a firm stance against the US sponsored nuclear war.
Ultimately what is required are extensive international sanctions directed against the United States of America and Israel.
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best seller "The Globalization of Poverty " published in eleven languages. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, at www.globalresearch.ca . He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His most recent book is entitled: America’s "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005.,
Related article: Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, by Michel Chossudovsky
George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?
In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco
Thursday January 5, 2006
The Guardian
Mistake piled on mistake. As the CIA later learned, the Iranian who received the download was a double agent. The agent quickly turned the data over to Iranian security officials, and it enabled them to "roll up" the CIA's network throughout Iran. CIA sources say that several of the Iranian agents were arrested and jailed, while the fates of some of the others is still unknown.
This espionage disaster, of course, was not reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the most critical issues facing the US - whether Tehran was about to go nuclear.
In fact, just as President Bush and his aides were making the case in 2004 and 2005 that Iran was moving rapidly to develop nuclear weapons, the American intelligence community found itself unable to provide the evidence to back up the administration's public arguments. On the heels of the CIA's failure to provide accurate pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the agency was once again clueless in the Middle East. In the spring of 2005, in the wake of the CIA's Iranian disaster, Porter Goss, its new director, told President Bush in a White House briefing that the CIA really didn't know how close Iran was to becoming a nuclear power.
But it's worse than that. Deep in the bowels of the CIA, someone must be nervously, but very privately, wondering: "Whatever happened to those nuclear blueprints we gave to the Iranians?"
The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna's winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb.
To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a "firing set", for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.
The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn't believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organisation created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology.
The Russian was a nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, which had arranged for him to become an American citizen and funded him to the tune of $5,000 a month. It seemed like easy money, with few strings attached.
Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front line of a plan that seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the US, and it had taken a lot of persuading by his CIA case officer to convince him to go through with what appeared to be a rogue operation.
The case officer worked hard to convince him - even though he had doubts about the plan as well. As he was sweet-talking the Russian into flying to Vienna, the case officer wondered whether he was involved in an illegal covert action. Should he expect to be hauled before a congressional committee and grilled because he was the officer who helped give nuclear blueprints to Iran? The code name for this operation was Merlin; to the officer, that seemed like a wry tip-off that nothing about this programme was what it appeared to be. He did his best to hide his concerns from his Russian agent.
The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognise their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran.
The plan had been laid out for the defector during a CIA-financed trip to San Francisco, where he had meetings with CIA officers and nuclear experts mixed in with leisurely wine-tasting trips to Sonoma County. In a luxurious San Francisco hotel room, a senior CIA official involved in the operation talked the Russian through the details of the plan. He brought in experts from one of the national laboratories to go over the blueprints that he was supposed to give the Iranians.
The senior CIA officer could see that the Russian was nervous, and so he tried to downplay the significance of what they were asking him to do. He said the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find out where the Iranians were with their nuclear programme. This was just an intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them. It was all a game. Nothing too serious.
On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran's goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran's reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran's weapons programme, which has been shrouded in secrecy.
The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.
In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw."
"Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter."
The CIA case officer couldn't believe the senior CIA officer's answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission.
After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA's instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game.
The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.
In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn't tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.
The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA's operation in the only way he thought would work.
The Russian soon found 19 Heinstrasse, a five-storey office and apartment building with a flat, pale green and beige facade in a quiet, slightly down-at-heel neighbourhood in Vienna's north end. Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: "PM/Iran." The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity. An Austrian postman helped him. As the Russian stood by, the postman opened the building door and dropped off the mail. The Russian followed suit; he realised that he could leave his package without actually having to talk to anyone. He slipped through the front door, and hurriedly shoved his envelope through the inner-door slot at the Iranian office.
The Russian fled the mission without being seen. He was deeply relieved that he had made the hand-off without having to come face to face with a real live Iranian. He flew back to the US without being detected by either Austrian security or, more importantly, Iranian intelligence.
Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian mission, the National Security Agency reported that an Iranian official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule, making airline reservations to fly home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear blueprints were now in Tehran.
The Russian scientist's fears about the operation seemed well founded. He was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the "axis of evil".
Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states.
Several former CIA officials say that the theory behind Merlin - handing over tainted weapon designs to confound one of America's adversaries - is a trick that has been used many times in past operations, stretching back to the cold war. But in previous cases, such Trojan horse operations involved conventional weapons; none of the former officials had ever heard of the CIA attempting to conduct this kind of high-risk operation with designs for a nuclear bomb. The former officials also said these kind of programmes must be closely monitored by senior CIA managers in order to control the flow of information to the adversary. If mishandled, they could easily help an enemy accelerate its weapons development. That may be what happened with Merlin.
Iran has spent nearly 20 years trying to develop nuclear weapons, and in the process has created a strong base of sophisticated scientists knowledgeable enough to spot flaws in nuclear blueprints. Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.
"If [the flaw] is bad enough," warned a nuclear weapons expert with the IAEA, "they will find it quite quickly. That would be my fear"
© James Risen 2006
· This is an edited extract from State of War, by James Risen, published by The Free Press
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1678220,00.html
NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS FROM
ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS
Some days ago I posted on the Anti-war/anti-troop dispatching web site (www.antiwar.or.kr), on the their freeboard(게시판), a kind of critic about the last anti-war activities. Just three days ago I got a(self-critically) reply including nice greetings for the New Year and following beautiful picture (the song I got from the same site...).
同志, 고맙습니다!
...축하(??)
Instead to meet our aim to force the government to bring home the S. Korean occupation troops(from Iraq), they(a part of the NA) decided yesterday to extend the occupation by S.K. troops until(at least) the end of next year.
Semi-official news agency Yonhap wrote y'day:
Assembly endorses troop cut, extended stay in Iraq
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) -- The National Assembly on Friday approved the government's plan to reduce the size of South Korea's troops in Iraq by one-third but extend their deployment in the Gulf state until the end of next year.
South Korea's parliament endorsed the defense ministry bill by 110-31 votes with 17 abstentions, effectively granting permission to slash the 3,200-strong South Korean contingent in a Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq to 2,300 troops.
The government plans to act on parliament's approval in the first half of 2006, but the downsized force will still leave South Korea as the second-largest U.S. coalition partner after Britain.
...
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20051230/610000000020051230184227E8.html
But actually it's not just the failure of the anti-war movement - it's the fault of the entire so-called progressive society(KCTU, DLP, NGOs, 'All Together' and so on)...
Finally it is not a successful end of 2005, not really...
S. KOREAN TROOPS OUT OFF IRAQ!!
Anti-war Demonstration
12.17 (Sat.), 2 pm
Daehak-ro (Hyehwa Stn)
Of course the activists of MTU, right now
occupying the NHRC, will join the demo!!
(according to my last informations from y'day...)
At the same place, just 30 min. later KCTU want to held a rally against oppressing of irregular workers... And the Natl Peasants League will join them, or perhaps, will have their own demo.. who knows..??
And everything on the same place, at the same time..^^
And at least the anti-war demo will march to the Gwanghwamun IC...
Happy battle, I wish (Please, just avoid the water cannon!! It's winter time..)!!
ALL TOGETHER (^^),
FIGHT THE POWER!
The US-administration and
the Islam-fascism
Please check out this - in my opinion - very interesting article, published by the HK based Asia Times (11.30):
What 'staying the course' really means
Nearly three years into the war in Iraq, the Bush administration tells us that it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction or Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, but about America's holy mission to spread democracy to the benighted regions of the Middle East. However, postwar Iraq is anything but a democracy. In fact, if Iraq manages to avoid all-out civil war, it is likely to end up with a government that is fiercely undemocratic - a Shi'ite theocratic dictatorship that rules by terror, torture, and armed might.
...
Please read the entire article here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL01Ak01.html
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