 What? "Terrorism," you say? I thought the "war on terror" was over! Wasn't this a "man-caused disaster"? I thought it was vicarious Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! Anyway, that Tim McVeigh is incorrigible! He must be stopped! "Fort Hood shooting was terrorism, U.S. says," by Phil Stewart for Reuters, January 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The shooting rampage at a U.S. Army base in November was "an act of terrorism," an Obama administration official said on Friday, as the Pentagon ordered an overhaul of protocols to spot threats within the military. Reviews ordered on Friday by the Pentagon and White House exposed shortcomings in both intelligence and oversight before the November 5 shooting, which authorities blame on a military psychiatrist. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said his department was still "burdened by 20th century processes and attitudes mostly rooted in the Cold War," and needed to do more to combat self-radicalization. "Our counterintelligence procedures are mostly designed to combat an external threat such as a foreign intelligence service," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon, adding there was not enough focus "on internal threats."... Watch for the new emphasis on "internal threats" to focus not on Islamic jihadists, at least after the Hasan heat is off, but on "right-wing extremists." With thanks to JihadWatch 
 WASHINGTON: Iran has hidden a large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country, shielding its infrastructure from military attack in warrens of dense rock while obscuring the scale of its nuclear effort, according to reports yesterday. The effort to hide its capability complicated the West's military and geopolitical calculus and helped shield Tehran from attack, US reports said. The Obama administration is pressing for strong and immediate new sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program. Analysts told The New York Times that Iran's tunnelling - which Tehran calls a strategy of "passive defence" - was a crucial factor behind the push for non-military solutions to the issue. The report said US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates had discounted the possibility of a military strike against Iran, in the belief it would only slow Tehran's nuclear program by one to three years while driving the project further underground. "It complicates your targeting," Richard L. Russell, a former CIA analyst now at the National Defence University, told the paper yesterday. "We're used to facilities being above ground. Underground, it becomes literally a black hole. You can't be sure what's taking place." US government and private experts told the paper there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tunnels in Iran, and that the lines separating their use could be fuzzy. Companies owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, for example, built civilian as well as military tunnels. No one in the West knows how much, or exactly what part of Iran's nuclear program lies hidden in the tunnels. The report said the original hub of the nuclear complex at Isfahan consisted of scores of buildings that were easily observed and easy to attack, but US government analysts said that in recent years Iran had honeycombed the nearby mountains with tunnels. Satellite photos showed six entrances. But the Obama administration has been careful to leave the military option on the table against Iran, and the Pentagon is racing to develop a deadly tunnel weapon. The report said the device - seven metres long and called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator - began as a 2004 recommendation from the US Defence Science Board, a high-level advisory group to the Pentagon. It underwent preliminary testing in 2007, and its first deployment is expected in the northern summer. It will be carried by the B-2 stealth bomber. The report yesterday came as a Pentagon-sponsored study by the Rand Corporation said the Revolutionary Guards had "gained primacy" in Iran since the 2009 presidential election. The Australian
 KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday it will be at least 15 years before his government can bankroll a security force strong enough to protect the country from the threat of insurgency. Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Karzai said Afghan security forces would take the lead in securing the nation within five years, but he said his nation would need financial help to pay the salaries and equip a growing army and police force. "Afghanistan is looking forward to taking on our responsibilities in terms of paying for its forces with its own resources, but that will not be for another 15 years," Karzai said. Gates is the first member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet to visit since Obama announced last week that he is sending 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, but intends to pare down the U.S. role in July 2011. He worked to convey two messages: that the U.S. would not abandon Afghanistan, as Gates said it did after the Soviets withdrew in 1989, but that the American commitment was not open-ended. The defense secretary and other administration officials have described the 2011 date as just the beginning, with the process likely take at least two or three years to complete. "There is a realism on our part that it will be some time" before the Afghan security forces can stand on their own, Gates said. "Our troops are here only as long as it takes to help you defeat your enemies," he said. "We will fight by your side until Afghan forces are large enough and strong enough to secure the nation on their own as they have already done in Kabul." FoxNews
 THE US will launch a new effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border, US national security adviser James Jones says. Asked in an interview if the administration planned a fresh attempt to go after al-Qaeda's leader, Mr Jones said: "I think so." The latest intelligence reports suggested Bin Laden was "somewhere inside north Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border, hiding in very, very rough mountainous area, generally ungoverned," he told CNN's State of the Union program. "We're going to have to get after that to make sure a very important symbol of what al-Qaeda stands for is once again on the run or captured," said Mr Jones, a retired marine general. Al-Qaeda was plotting more attacks against US and other Western targets and the United Stated needed to ensure those plots did not "become a reality", he said. Mr Jones said the US was working closely with Islamabad to disrupt militant networks inside Pakistan's borders. However, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in another interview that Washington did not know where the al-Qaeda leader was and had lacked reliable information on his whereabouts for years. A Senate report released last week said Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of American forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements. News.Com
 by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters It's not true that the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. Even dead terrorists aren't good. But at least they're dead. And that helps. But political correctness has possessed Washington. It's so bad that even Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who's done a great job in many other respects, parrots the cliché that "we can't kill our way out of this." Well, folks, there's no other way out of this all-or-nothing struggle with fanatics. Three thousand years of history teach that there's no alternative -- none -- to killing fanatics in large numbers when your enemies are ablaze with religious zeal. What Gates and countless others really mean is that we're unwilling to kill our way out of this assault on our civilization. So the terrorists keep on killing us. We tell ourselves that one more charm offensive, one more inept aid program, one more surge of troops who aren't allowed to fight will persuade terrorists on a murderous mission from their god to lay down their arms and run for alderman. We refuse to see the world through terrorist eyes. Instead, we superimpose liberal-arts-faculty values on bloodthirsty zealots, asking what we've done to make them so angry. The result? We grant captured terrorists more rights and better treatment than nonviolent offenders in a US county jail. We cater to them at the gentrified prison at Guantanamo (yet the global media insist that Gitmo's just a big torture chamber). We tell ourselves we'll impress our enemies with our humanitarianism. But how many Gitmo prisoners have turned pacifist or expressed regrets? If you were convinced that you were doing God's will, would you be budged by a captor who gives you priority health care, a religiously correct diet, special worship privileges and free legal counsel? Allah has made his enemies weak .
The laws of war provide for the battlefield execution of illegal combatants -- those who refuse to wear uniforms or identifying insignia or who commit atrocities. Instead, we give them flu shots before American citizens can get them. When a madcap ideologue such as Attorney General Eric Holder tells Congress we mustn't be afraid to try terrorists in our judicial system, he gets it exactly wrong. The terrorists believe we're afraid to kill them. And they're right. So we'll get the upcoming propaganda bonanza of the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his terrorist barbershop quartet. And we'll squander hundreds of millions of dollars on special security precautions in Manhattan. The inevitable outcome? We'll make heroes of the terrorists throughout the Muslim world. Meanwhile, down in Texas, terrorist assassin Maj. Nidal Hasan's lawyer is already making a mockery of our judicial system. Hasan will become a terrorist icon, too. And even if Hasan, KSM and the boys are all convicted of multiple counts of premeditated murder, they won't be executed for many years to come -- if ever. How does this deter fanatical enemies? Our insistence on treating terrorism as shoplifting that got a little out of hand does not protect Americans. Terrified of the new global reality, Washington refuses to accept that we're no longer dealing with the political terrorists of the 20th century -- some of whom could, indeed, be won over or bought off. We're now dealing with religious madmen hungry for an apocalypse. And our government and the media scramble to deny that Islam has anything to do with it. The poor terrorists just have grievances. If Khalid Sheik Mohammed has a heart attack during his trial, he'll get better health care than most Post readers. Paralyzed from the waist down, Maj. Hasan will get priority on rehab treatment over our vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring terrorists to Manhattan? They should never have made it to Gitmo. Ralph Peters' latest book is "The War After Armageddon." NYPost
 US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has announced a review of the Fort Hood shootings to examine if the military had missed warning signs or remained "vulnerable" to similar assaults. The 45-day review would look at possible "lapses or problems" before this month's army base shooting that killed 13 people and "what can we do to prevent something like this from happening again", Mr Gates said. "We do not enter this process with any preconceived notions," he said. "However, it is prudent to determine immediately whether there are internal weaknesses or procedural shortcomings in the department that could make us vulnerable in the future." The probe will be led by former US Army secretary, Togo West, and former chief of naval operations, Admiral Vernon Clark. An army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Hasan, has been charged with the murder of 13 people in the November 5 rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, in which 42 people were also wounded. US Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday he found contacts between the alleged gunman and the Yemeni cleric "disturbing". The issue of Hasan's "contacts" gained fresh import this week as the cleric "blessed the act" and said the deadly shooting was "permissible" under Islam. The Australian
 THE US envoy to Afghanistan has written memos to Washington expressing deep concern over possible deployment of thousands of new troops to the country. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's classified cables reportedly detail his strong reservations against sending reinforcements until Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government shows it can tackle insipid corruption that has spurred the Taliban's resurgence, The Washington Post and New York Times report. Mr Eikenberry's cables also expressed worries over Mr Karzai's erratic behaviour, according to US officials familiar with the memos, the Post said. The correspondence was sent ahead of US President Barack Obama's critical war cabinet meeting at the White House today on what course to pursue against the bloody insurgency in the country. Mr Eikenberry joined the policy meeting by video link from Kabul, said the Times, adding that Mr Obama discussed his concerns with him, according to officials who requested anonymity. Mr Eikenberry's views are in stark contrast to top US and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal, who warned that without tens of thousands more US troops in the next 12 months, the Afghan mission “will likely result in failure”. Four options were on the table at high-stakes talks in the White House situation room, which also involved General McChrystal and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, after which officials reported the president had not yet made a decision. Source: The Australian
 The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, plans to address NATO defense ministers Friday about the next steps for the military strategy. The NATO meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, comes as the United States wraps up a review of its own military strategy in Afghanistan. "As has been said in Washington, I think the analytical phase is coming to an end and probably over the next two or three weeks we're going to be considering specific options and teeing them up for decision by the president," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday after the morning NATO session. McChrystal is pushing Washington to send 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan amid skepticism from some of President Barack Obama's top advisers. The general planned to address the NATO defense ministers at a Friday afternoon "working lunch" that will focus on the Afghanistan war strategy, Gates said. Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak will also be present, he noted. A main focus of the meeting is how to transition power of security to Afghan forces. But that is still a long way off, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday. "We need to start thinking about and planning towards progressively handing over lead responsibility to the Afghan army and the Afghan police," Rasmussen said. "Now let me be clear: We have not agreed to start handing over the lead. The conditions are not yet right. The Afghan security forces are not yet strong enough." He stressed that when the transition happens, it "doesn't mean NATO forces leave. It means they go into a supporting role." NATO's International Security Assistance Force is made up of more than 71,000 forces from 43 contributing nations, including more than 34,000 from the United States. Source: CNN
 Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared Monday that the United States will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, no matter what President Obama decides on immediate troop levels. "We're not leaving Afghanistan," Gates said in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that also included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "There should be no uncertainly in terms of our determination to remain in Afghanistan and to continue to build a relationship of partnership ... with the Pakistanis," Gates said. "That's a strategic objective." Because of our inability and the inability, frankly, of our allies to put enough troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban now have the momentum," Gates said. Gates added that an eventual Taliban victory would provide "added space" for al Qaeda to set up in the country and enhance recruiting and fundraising, bolstered by the perspective of a second victory over a superpower by Muslim forces after driving out the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Source: CNN
 The United States wants Iran to provide international inspectors with full access to a newly disclosed underground uranium enrichment plant that Obama administration officials say is both illegal and probably intended for developing weapons. However, an Iranian official called U.S. accusations about the planned facility -- which Iran disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency last week -- a propaganda effort to discredit his country before crucial talks with the international community on its nuclear energy program. Ali Akbar Salehi, director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, called the new facility at the Qom site "very small" and "a back-up installation," the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported Sunday. Salehi repeated earlier assertions that Iran complied with all international regulations in reporting the existence of the planned site, according to the IRNA report. Two U.S. administration officials told CNN on Sunday that the United States plans to tell Iran this week it must provide "unfettered access" to the Qom site, the people involved in its construction and the timeline of its construction "within weeks." The latest dispute comes ahead of planned talks Thursday involving Iran and the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and China about international concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions. In interviews broadcast Sunday, top U.S. officials said Iran's newly revealed underground nuclear facility violates international requirements for reporting such operations, reinforcing the perception that Iran is trying to hide a weapons program. "I think that, certainly, the intelligence people have no doubt that ... this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only ... because the Iranians kept it a secret," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. "If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a ... secret for a protracted period of time," Gates said in the interview recorded Friday. In a separate interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the strongest possible sanctions if Iran can't prove a peaceful intent for the newly disclosed facility and its entire nuclear program. "It would have been disclosed if it were for peaceful purposes," said Clinton, who also was interviewed Friday. She added that Iran must do more than provide assurances at the meeting on Thursday, because past assurances proved false. "They can open up their entire system to the kind of extensive investigation that the facts call for," Clinton said. Later, she said: "The Iranians keep insisting no, no, that's for peaceful purposes. That's fine. Prove it. Don't assert it. Prove it." Clinton acknowledged that the United States knew of the previously undisclosed Iranian enrichment plant before Iran reported its existence to the IAEA. After the interview with Clinton took place on Friday, Iran announced it would allow international inspection of the plant and said it met international guidelines for disclosing such a facility. Iran also repeated its insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production. Read more here,,,, Source: CNN
 THE US is threatening to launch air strikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in the Pakistani city of Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they find sanctuary across the Afghanistan border. The threat comes amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists. The US military sent a request over the weekend to Defence Secretary Robert Gates for more troops for Afghanistan, as urged by General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander there. In a leaked assessment of the war, General McChrystal urged extra troops within a year to avert the risk of failure. He is believed to want up to 40,000 troops. However, with US President Barack Obama under pressure from Democrats not to intensify the war, the administration has let it be known it is rethinking strategy. Vice-President Joe Biden has suggested reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan and focusing on the Taliban and al-Qa'ida in Pakistan. Last week, General McChrystal denied any rift with the administration, saying "a policy debate is warranted". According to The New York Times, he flew from Kabul to Ramstein airbase in Germany on Friday for a secret meeting with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss the request for more troops. Mr Obama has refused to set a deadline for a new strategy on troop numbers, The Washington Post reported yesterday. He will begin the first of five high-level meetings on Afghanistan tomorrow, the newspaper added. The President will encourage open debate at the meetings, which will begin with the assumption that General McChrystal's assessment is correct. Read more here,,,, Source: The Australian
 by Hana Levi Julian A top official in the Obama Administration has at last admitted what intelligence agents and Israeli government officials have been warning about for years: Iran intends to build a nuclear arsenal. In media interviews with American television news networks scheduled to air Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said bluntly, "The Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons." The statement was made just days after the discovery of a covert uranian enrichment site in Iran. Even as the world expressed its outrage, however, Gates pointed out that there was little left to be done about it. "The reality is there is no military option that does anything more than buy time," he told CNN. "The estimates are three years or so." In a separate interview with ABC News, he noted that Iran had engaged in "a pattern of deception and lies... from the very beginning," even as it claimed it was developing nuclear power for peaceful domestic energy purposes. "If this were a peaceful nuclear program, why didn't they announce this site when they began to construct it?" Gates asked. "Why didn't they allow IAEA inspectors in from the very beginning?" International leaders demanded the Islamic Republic immediately disclose all its nuclear efforts, including any programs involving weapons development, or face the consequences. "The Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions, or be held accountable to international standards and international law," said U.S. President Barack Obama following the discovery. In a statement made at the G-20 meeting in Europe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Obama ordered Iran to allow the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the newly revealed site. "We will not let this matter rest," Brown said. Sarkozy noted that the G-6 had given Iran until December to comply or face additional, intensified economic sanctions. While Iran is to meet with the U.S. and others next week to discuss its nuclear program, however, it is planning to conduct war games on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. The announcement of the drill, which will include firing missiles that can hit Israel, was made at the same time the covert uranium enrichment site was revealed. "Allah willing, this plant will be put into operation soon and will blind the eyes of the enemies," boasted Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, the head of the office of the Supreme Leader. The Revolutionary Guards website said over the weekend that military exercises, including the simultaneous firing of missiles at targets, will begin Sunday and last for several days. Israeli officials do not necessarily agree that the military option would be ineffective. IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi last week politely warned the Islamic Republic that the Jewish State is prepared to defend itself against any nuclear or other attack it might launch. "We all understand that the best way of coping [with the Iranian nuclear threat] is through international sanctions," Ashkenazi told an interviewer on IDF Army Radio. However, he added, "Israel has the right to defend itself, and all options are open. The IDF's working premise is that we have to be prepared for that possibility, and that is exactly what we are doing." Source: INN
 THE top military commander in Afghanistan warns in a classified document that more forces are needed within the next year or the mission "will likely result in failure". General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in the country, writes in a grim assessment of the eight-year conflict:
“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) - while Afghan security capacity matures - risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
The document, first reported in the Washington Post, was presented to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on August 30 and is currently being reviewed by the White House.
In the most alarming passage of the report, General McChrystal writes: “Inadequate resources will likely result in failure.”
Failure to provide adequate resources, he writes, “also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure.”
The 66-page document - a declassified version of which is published at washingtonpost.com - describes a strengthening, intelligent enemy in the Taliban insurgency.
General McChrystal also slams the corruption-riddled Afghan government and a strategy by international forces in the country that has failed to win over the civilian population.
“The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and (the International Security Assistance Force's) own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government,” writes General McChrystal.
 AL-QA'IDA leader Osama bin Laden has told Americans in a new message their support for Israel prompted him to launch the September 11 attacks in 2001, a US-based terror monitoring group says.
Al-Qa'ida's As-Sahab media released a video titled "Message to the American People," which features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter.
The release came two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the al-Qa'ida-sponsored attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
According to the centre, Bin Laden said that among "some other injustices,'' US support to Israel motivated al-Qa'ida to launch the 9/11 attacks.
He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, not Islamic militants.
"If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,'' he said, according to IntelCenter. "Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq - as Bush claimed - it (the White House) should have been liberated.''
He was referring to former US president George W Bush, who launched an invasion of Iraq in 2003.
According to bin Laden, current US President Barack Obama is powerless to change the course of the wars.
Obama's retention of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of the president's weakness, the al-Qa'ida chief argued.
Bin Laden urges Americans to pressure White House leaders to cease the wars and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called "the ideological terrorism'' exercised by neo-conservatives.
"The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you,'' he insisted.
If the wars are not ended, "all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for ten years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past,'' bin Laden vowed.
IntelCenter said bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October.
The last audiotape by bin Laden was released on June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama's overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.
That audiotape aired on Qatar's Al-Jazeera news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's home country, at the start of a Mideast tour.
Obama "has followed the steps of his predecessor in antagonising Muslims... and laying the foundation for long wars," bin Laden said in the June release, referring to deadly clashes in Pakistan between the US-backed government and Islamist militants.
"Obama and his administration have sowed new seeds of hatred against America,'' he said.
"Let the American people prepare to harvest the crops of what the leaders of the White House plant in the next years and decades."
Bin Laden has a $US50 million ($A58 million) bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.
Intelligence officials, US military analysts and other experts have long said they believe the world's most wanted man is hiding in either Pakistan or Afghanistan near the remote mountainous border between the two countries.
 By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Al Jazeera network Monday that the Arab world should built up its “security capabilities” as a signal to Iran to think twice about developing a nuclear weapon.He said that the Islamic Republic has to understand “that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it.” However, he stopped short of saying that war will break out with Iran and stated that the Obama administration still prefers diplomatic and economic measures to persuade Iran to cooperate with international atomic energy inspectors. The Arab world buys billions of dollars of weapons from the United States and other countries, but the Defense Secretary voiced doubt regarding a claim that American arm sales to the region have reached $100 billion. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who last month said Iran is preparing new proposals for talks with the world’s major powers, continues to maintain that Iran will not negotiate what he called its “undeniable” rights to develop nuclear power. Diplomatic pressure on Iran is expected to increase after the American Congress ends its summer recess and its members meet to consider tougher sanctions against Iran. However, China and Russia, which have invested heavily in Iran’s nuclear facilities, have indicated they will continue to oppose crippling sanctions if the issue reaches the United Nations Security Council. Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated on Monday that the agency has reached an “impasse” with Iran. Source: INN
The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.
A US National Intelligence Estimate nearly two years ago concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources have told The Times that Tehran had actually halted the research because it had achieved its aim - to find a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.
They said that, should Ayatollah Khamenei approve the building of a nuclear device, it would take six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. The Iranian Defence Ministry has been running a covert nuclear research department for years, employing hundreds of scientists, researchers and metallurgists in a multibillion-dollar programme to develop nuclear technology alongside the civilian nuclear programme.
"The main thing (in 2003) was the lack of fissile material, so it was best to slow it down," the sources said. "We think that the leader himself decided back then (to halt the programme), after the good results."
Iran's scientists have been trying to master a method of detonating a bomb known as the "multipoint initiation system" - wrapping highly enriched uranium in high explosives and then detonating it. The sources said that the Iranian Defence Ministry had used a secret internal agency called Amad ("Supply" in Farsi), led by Mohsin Fakhri Zadeh, a physics professor and senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council.
The system operates by creating a series of explosive grooves on a metal hemisphere covering the uranium, which links explosives-filled holes opening onto a layer of high explosives enveloping the uranium. By detonating the explosives at either pole at the same time, the method ensures simultaneous impact around the sphere to achieve critical density.
"If the Supreme Leader takes the decision (to build a bomb), we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating. We don't know if the decision was made yet," said the intelligence sources, adding that Iran could have created smaller, secret facilities, other than those at the heavily guarded underground bunker at Natanz to develop the materials for a first bomb. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency only keep tabs on fissile material produced at monitored sites and not the number of centrifuges Iran has built.
Washington has given Iran until next month to open talks on resolving the nuclear crisis, although hopes of any constructive engagement have dimmed since the regime's crackdown on pro-reformist protesters after June's disputed presidential elections.
Ehud Barak, Israel's Defence Minister, last week reiterated that a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities was still an option, should the talks fail. Israeli officials estimate that a raid on Natanz and a nuclear facility at Arak, in central Iran, would set Iran's nuclear programme back by two to three years.
An Israeli official said that Iran had poured billions of dollars over three decades into what he called a two-pronged "master plan" to build a nuclear bomb. He said that Iran had enriched 1,010kg of uranium to 3.9 per cent, which would be sufficient for 30kg of highly enriched uranium at 95 per cent. About 30kg is needed to build one bomb.
British intelligence services are familiar with the secret information about Iran's experiments, sources at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. Although British agencies did not have their own "independent evidence" that Iran had successfully tested the explosive component of a nuclear warhead, they said there was no reason to doubt the assessment.
If Iran's leader does decide to build a bomb, he will have two choices, intelligence sources said. One would be to take the high-risk approach of kicking out the international inspectors and making a sprint to complete Iran's first bomb, as the country weathered international sanctions or possible air strikes in the ensuing crisis. The other would be to covertly develop the materials needed for an arsenal in secret desert facilities.
Last week, during a series of high-level US visits to Israel, officials outlined Washington's plans to step up sanctions on Iran, should Tehran fail to agree on talks. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, and General James Jones, the National Security Adviser, said that Iran had until the end of next month, when the UN General Assembly is to meet, to make a positive move towards engagement.
If Tehran fails to respond, Washington aims to build a tough international coalition to impose harsh sanctions focusing on petroleum products - an area where Iran is particularly vulnerable because it sends almost all of its crude abroad for refinement.
Experts believe that the unrest of the summer will make Iran particularly vulnerable to sanctions. They would also hit the Revolutionary Guards Council, which finances its operations by running a huge conglomerate of international companies, rather than drawing directly from state coffers.
PAKISTAN has ordered its military to eliminate "terrorists" as air and ground troops pounded extremists branded by Washington a threat to the nuclear-armed country's very existence.As the US moves forward in Afghanistan and considers reconciliation with some members of the Taliban, the Swat Valley in Pakistan offers some lessons. Attack helicopters and war planes bombarded suspected Taliban hideouts in the Swat Valley during the deadliest fighting to grip the northwest district since the government brokered a February peace agreement with hardliners. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani delivered a televised address urging the nation to unite against extremists, whom he said were threatening the country's sovereignty and who had violated the peace deal with attacks. And Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari vowed that military operations would last until “normalcy” had returned to the troubled Swat Valley. The deeply controversial agreement between the government and a pro-Taliban cleric to put three million people in a wide region of northwest Pakistan under sharia law had been meant to end a nearly two-year violent Taliban uprising. In order to restore honour and dignity of our homeland, and to protect people, the armed forces have been called to eliminate the militants and terrorists,” said Gilani, dressed symbolically in traditional Pakistani dress. “The time has come when the entire nation should side with the government and the armed forces against those who want to make the entire country hostage and darken our future at gunpoint,” the premier added. Thousands of civilians streamed out of the Taliban stronghold and former tourist resort of Swat on foot or crammed into cars in the face of the fighting, as the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian crisis was escalating. Pakistan is under heavy US pressure to crush militants, whom Washington have called the biggest terror threat to the West. US President Barack Obama has put the nuclear-armed Muslim country at the heart of the fight against al-Qa’ida. “(The operation) is going to carry on until life in Swat comes back to normalcy,” Zardari told reporters at the US Capitol after meeting key senators. “It's a regional problem, it's a worldwide problem,” Zardari said. “I think the world is coming to that realisation,” he added. Following talks with Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Senator John Kerry said the US Congress would urgently complete an aid bill to stabilise Pakistan. Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, speaking in Kabul, praised Pakistan's action against the Taliban. Read more....
BARACK Obama is on the verge of breaking two key campaign promises in his troubled attempt to shut Guantanamo Bay, with plans to revive the military tribunal system set up by George W. Bush and to continue the indefinite detention of up to 100 inmates. The moves, which have not yet been signed off by the US President but look increasingly likely, are a result of his promise on his second day in office to shut the Guantánamo Bay prison within a year.
Since then, officials charged with working out how to shut down the prison concede that up to 100 of the 241 detainees remaining are either too dangerous to release or cannot be tried in a military or civilian court.
The evidence against many of them is tainted because they were tortured, or involves sensitive issues of national security that cannot be revealed.
The latest Administration thinking has been decried by human rights groups who point out that as a presidential candidate, Mr Obama called the military tribunal system an enormous failure and condemned the indefinite detention of detainees as a gross breach of the US Constitution.
In addition to his pledge to shut Guantánamo, Mr Obama ordered a 120-day suspension of the military tribunal system, pending a review. Officials say that they now want a three-month extension, and have indicated that the hearings are likely to be restarted, with some modifications.
On the campaign trail, Mr Obama criticised the military tribunals because they drastically reduced the rights of defendants, with hearsay evidence permitted and even testimony produced under the harsh interrogation techniques the new Administration says amounted to torture.
 Rosa Brooks: Gihadis' Useful IdiotBy Dave Eberhart A liberal newspaper columnist and former counsel to billionaire George Soros’ Open Societies Institute has been tapped for a key Defense Department position despite what Washington insiders have termed her “extremist,” Bush-bashing views. Rosa Brooks will serve as principal adviser to Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, according to a report in the Weekly Standard. In that substantial insider position, Brooks, who once famously penned that the Bush administration’s “big legal lies paved the way for some of the most shameful episodes in our history,” will have constant contact with DOD policy chief Flournoy, who reports directly to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and eyeballs every major defense department decision. Gates, a holdover from the Bush era, hasn’t exactly embraced the controversial Brooks. One anonymous staffer characterized Brooks as an “extremist,” noting that her coming onboard was Flournoy’s doing, not his leader’s, according to a report in HumanEvents.com. Read more ...Source: NewsmaxRosa Brooks
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 Christina Lamb | March 16
TALIBAN leader Mullah Omar has given his approval for talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan and has allowed his representatives to attend Saudi-sponsored peace negotiations.
"Mullah Omar has given the green light to talks," said one of the mediators, Abdullah Anas, a former friend of Osama bin Laden who used to fight in Afghanistan but now lives in London.
A source negotiating for the Afghan Government confirmed: "It's extremely sensitive but we have been in contact both with Mullah Omar's direct representatives and commanders from the front line."
The breakthrough emerged after President Barack Obama admitted that US-led forces were not winning the war in Afghanistan and called for negotiations with "moderate Taliban".
"A big, big step has happened," Mr Anas said yesterday. "For the first time, there is a language of ... peace on both sides."
His words were echoed by the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has been attending talks on his behalf. "I have been meeting with Taliban for the last five days and I can tell you Obama's words have created enormous optimism," Qayum Karzai said. "There is no other way left but talks. All sides know more fighting is not the way."
But the Pentagon said last week it would not support a reconciliation effort with Mullah Omar. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said such an initiative would ultimately be up to the Afghan Government, but he did not believe "anybody in this building would support the notion of reconciling with people with that kind of blood on their hands".
The Taliban leader sheltered al-Qa'ida and was ousted from power in Afghanistan in a US-led campaign in 2001.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates also appeared to draw limits around a reconciliation process, when he said that "at a minimum" Washington must prevent Taliban insurgents from returning to power in Kabul.
Mr Obama suggested last week the US would consider talks with moderate elements of the Taliban, saying there might be opportunities in Afghanistan comparable with those exploited among Sunni tribes in Iraq, whom US forces have managed to recruit away from more radical al-Qa'ida fighters.
Mr Morrell said there was no inconsistency between Mr Gates and either Mr Obama or US Vice-President Joe Biden, who said in Brussels last week that reaching out to Taliban moderates was "worth exploring".
"We are fully supportive of any efforts undertaken by the Government of Afghanistan to try to reconcile with members of the Taliban who are willing to accept the democratic will of the people of Afghanistan, which has elected this Government," Mr Morrell said.
As Britain and the US have increased troop numbers in the past two years, security has worsened, leading many to doubt the wisdom of sending in more.
Although observers question why the Taliban would agree to talks when they appear to have the upper hand in the conflict, Mr Anas said its leaders knew they could not retake power without a bloodbath.
"Taliban are in a strong position now but that doesn't mean they can control the state," he said. "They are well aware that it's a different situation to 1996 when they swept to power because Afghans saw them as bringing peace."
Britain is also backing talks with the Taliban that could lead to their inclusion in the Afghan Government and is pushing for a "reconciliation tsar" to co-ordinate efforts. "Economic development and a workable reconciliation strategy are as crucial as boots on the ground when it comes to dismantling the insurgency," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.
The US at the weekend downplayed the latest audio recording by al-Qa'ida leader bin Laden, saying there was nothing new about the tape.
In the recording, broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden accused moderate Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel and the West against Muslims.
Bin Laden called Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip a "holocaust" and lashed out at Arab governments that he said failed to stop the bloodshed. Source: The Australian
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
What? "Terrorism," you say? I thought the "war on terror" was over! Wasn't this a "man-caused disaster"? I thought it was vicarious Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! Anyway, that Tim McVeigh is incorrigible! He must be stopped! 
Posts
