Secret Document Exposes Iran’s Nuclear Trigger

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6955351.ece

Confidential intelligence documents obtained by The Times show that Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.

The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.

An Asian intelligence source last week confirmed to The Times that his country also believed that weapons work was being carried out as recently as 2007 — specifically, work on a neutron initiator.
The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.

“Although Iran might claim that this work is for civil purposes, there is no civil application,” said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, which has analysed hundreds of pages of documents related to the Iranian programme. “This is a very strong indicator of weapons work.”

IAEA chief: Iran Investigation at 'Dead End'

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9C7C6VG0&show_article=1

The International Atomic Energy Agency probe of Iran's nuclear program is at a dead end because Tehran is not cooperating, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Thursday in an unusually blunt expression of frustration four days before he leaves office.

Mohamed ElBaradei also warned that international confidence in Iran's assertions of purely peaceful intent shrank after its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility. And he criticized Tehran for not accepting an internationally endorsed plan meant to delay its achieving the ability to make nuclear weapons.

Iran says it is enriching only to power a future network of nuclear reactors. But enrichment can also produce fissile warhead material. Iran continues enriching, despite three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to make it freeze that activity and has built an enriched stockpile that could arm two nuclear warheads.

Obama Cuts Pro-Democracy Funds for Iran

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_iran_human_rights/2009/10/14/272402.html

The Obama administration has cut funding for pro-democracy and human rights programs in Iran, reversing years of efforts during the Bush administration to help develop a civil society.

The move is apparently intended to please Iran’s rulers after they criticized President Obama and the State Department for allegedly seeking to fund a “velvet revolution” during the June presidential elections in Iran.

“It sounds like the Iranians complained in Geneva and we acceded to their demands.”

Our enemies are using our own institutions against us...and succeeding.

Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-preparing-bomb-iran/story?id=8765343

The comptroller said the Pentagon planned to spend $19.1 million to procure four of the bombs, $28.3 million to accelerate the bomb's "development and testing", and $21 million to accelerate the integration of the bomb onto B-2 stealth bombers.

"The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON." It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).

The request was quietly approved. On Friday, McDonnell Douglas was awarded a $51.9 million contract to provide "Massive Penetrator Ordnance Integration" on B-2 aircraft.

This is not the kind of weapon that would be particularly useful in Iraq or Afghanistan, but it is ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran.

Iran Says Makes New Model of Nuclear Centrifuges

http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINLM24002120090922

Iran has built a new generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium and is testing them, the official news agency IRNA quoted its nuclear energy agency chief as saying on Tuesday.

"Iranian scientists have made a new generation of centrifuges that are currently undergoing necessary tests," Ali Akbar Salehi told a Tehran news conference as reported by IRNA.

"Chains of 10 centrifuges are now under test," he said, and the number in each chain "will be gradually increased."

Salehi did not say when the new model of centrifuge would be introduced to the production line in its Natanz enrichment plant but said it was stronger and faster than those now in operation.

Nuke Agency Says Iran Can Make Bomb

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9AP714G0&show_article=1

Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead.

Wait, I thought Biden said Iran wasn't a threat?

Obama's Deadly Defense Cuts

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/wallop_obama_defense/2009/08/13/247692.html

The Pentagon’s proposed 2010 budget would cut the funding for homeland missile defense – known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD – in half, allowing the U.S.’s only defense against long-range ballistic missiles to stall and eventually become obsolete.

The budget halts the installation of interceptor missiles in silos in Alaska and California, leaving us approximately a dozen missiles short of what security analysis has shown we need to counter the threat from North Korea.

Reports of Prison Abuse and Deaths Anger Iranians

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?_r=2&hp

"Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls."

"More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials have told human rights workers that they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have died since the vote."

"Hospital officials have described receiving bodies of those killed in protests, with the total far in excess of 20, the government’s initial figure."

And our president had trouble speaking out against a government that would do this for a week.

First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1396

This system is capable of conducting "deep packet inspection" of every type of text and video communication in all parts of Iran on three tracks:

1. Like other advanced electronic spy systems in the world, this one uses such keywords as attack, weapons, cash, data, explosives, meeting, demonstration, resistance, protest, etc. to alert Iran within milliseconds to feeds of interest by computer or phone - mail, signals or visuals.
In a flash, intelligence analysts get a fix on the sender and the electronic addressee which are then placed on a surveillance list for further monitoring. Once identified, the sender or receiver and their connections are closely shadowed by field agents.

2. By "deep packet inspection," the secret controllers can cause delays in online data transfers, which surfers may attribute to glitches connected with their providers. The more targets under surveillance, the more online transfers are slowed down. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that the day after the presidential poll and resulting street outbreaks, Iran's Internet control and tracking supervisors took over the 10 leading service providers in the country. Their first action was to slow down incoming and outgoing cyber traffic from 1,500 to 54 kilobytes to make sure that not a single byte by Internet or cell phone to or from protest leaders escaped their notice.

3. Iranian intelligence made cynical use of the large amount of electronic and personal data accumulated on anti-regime elements. Instead of detaining their prey at once, Iranian intelligence invaded their computers and cell phones to plant false leads for smoking unsuspecting activists out in the open and keeping them under inspection. Within a few days of their protest, Mir Hossein Mousavi and the bulk of his supporters, realizing their electronic campaign had been taken over by the regime to hunt them down, disappeared from the streets of Tehran.

Obama holds to measured course on unrest in Iran

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZfgLuKrg3QBRltJ0qQMIzgIohdQD98U22IG2

Is anyone really surprised? It is quite easy to do without convictions. Do you really think that by not speaking out about tyrannical crackdowns on civilians is going to leave you in a stronger position when push comes to shove? Absolutely not. They now will see us as even weaker for not having the backbone to speak out against something that is supposedly against your values.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wins Victory in Iran's Turbulent Presidential Election

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1395

Is the White House just naive or is it just me? You are talking about a theocracy-dictatorship and you say that there has been "robust debate" and that "the reformist Mousavi could still make it in a run-off." You can't hope your way into a better world. Of course the reformer won, but did you guys really think that the election would be fair? C'mon now!

The White House was given erroneous intelligence evaluations about the way Iran's presidential election was managed. The administration's Iranian experts missed the point that in Middle East politics (except for Israel) it is not the people who determine an election, the shape of government and its policies but the unelected head of the tribe - in this case supreme ruler Khamenei
Riiighhhttt. Who the Hell are these people giving intelligence? I learned in a basic international relations class in college that the really power in Iran lies in the supreme ruler, the president is just a figure head. Seriously, you are the president of the United States and you have people less intelligent than me giving you intelligence. That is saying quite a lot.

"Despite the US envoy George Mitchell's unquestioned diplomatic skills, the tour he began in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, moving on to Cairo, Amman, Beirut and finally Damascus on Saturday, has produced no breakthroughs."
What dialogue doesn't work with tyrants and murders, who would have thunk it?

U.N. Nuke Watchdog Finds 'Manmade' Uranium in Syria

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525233,00.html

Obama says Iran's energy concerns legitimate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060200947_pf.html

"Oil reserves in Iran, according to its government, rank third largest in the world at approximately 136 billion barrels (21.6×109 m3) as of 2007, although it ranks second if Canadian reserves of non-conventional oil are excluded. This is roughly 10% of the world's total proven petroleum reserves. Iran is the world's fourth largest oil producer and is OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Iran

So they need nuclear power why?

Israel's Secret War With Iran

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124243059842325581-lMyQjAxMDI5NDEyNTQxMzUwWj.html

Clinton says Israel risks losing support on Iran

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE53M5CZ20090423?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

No Mrs. Secretary, Arab support for Israel against Iran does not go hand in hand with Israeli participation in Palestinian peace talks, are you mad? There isn't one Arab country that on some level doesn't want Israel to wither and die. The only reason they want Israel at the negotiation table is so they can stall longer. The Palestinians, strike that, the leaders of the Palestinians don't want a two state solution, they want a one state, their own state, with the disappearance of Israel. At the Oslo accords a Palestinian state was handed to them on a silver platter and Arafat turned it down. Why? Because the plan involved the continued existence of Israel. If they wanted peace, we would have had it by now, Israel has offered up dozens of different concessions of the years except for the one that Arabs want. Therefore, we will continue to have Middle East turmoil until one side is eradicated.

Iran could produce first nuke in 60 days with 7,000 centrifuges working 24/7

http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=6035

Here's predicting that by this time next, Israel will have struck Iran...

Experts Predict Pakistan’s Collapse

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/04/16/experts-predict-pakistan’s-collapse/

Maybe we should be paying less attention to Iran and North Korea...