Category Archives: Military

Arab Spring: Business Over Diplomacy

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Courtesy of Sharyl Atkisson’s FullMeasure show and hard investigative work, matters come to the surface of where the White House misplayed countless missions in foreign policy especially as it relates to the Middle East, Syria, Libya and Yemen to mention a few.

When it comes to Libya, was the Hillary Clinton State Department more focused on business opportunities than equalizing countries? The answer appears to be yes and the hearing on Tuesday will be structured to prove that over security and diplomatic objectives.

Bloomberg: By

When Hillary Clinton testifies this week before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, expect Republicans to focus on her old friend, Sidney Blumenthal.

The chairman of the Benghazi committee, Trey Gowdy, alleges that in the run-up to President Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011, Blumenthal was encouraging Clinton to support the war that he might personally profit from.

Recently released e-mails do show that Blumenthal was advocating in this period for a U.S. military contractor that sought business with the government that replaced the dictator, Muammar Qaddafi. But that contract was never signed. The contractor even lost money trying to win that business.

Blumenthal himself may have overstated his connections to the Libyan officials who would take power after Qaddafi fell. A lawyer who represented Libya’s transitional government in Washington at the time, David Tafuri, told me he didn’t recall running into Blumenthal in this period.

If Gowdy’s portrait is accurate and Blumenthal was trying to be a war profiteer, it appears he wasn’t a very good one.

Blumenthal did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.

Gowdy’s allegations stem from Blumenthal’s connection to Osprey Global Solutions, a military contractor that sought to build field hospitals in Libya during the 2011 revolution and train the country’s national police after the fall of Libya’s dictator. According to e-mails received by the committee in late September, Blumenthal promoted Osprey to Clinton in a July 14, 2011, memo to prep her for an upcoming meeting with the transitional Libyan government’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

The memo touts Osprey’s founder and chief executive, retired General David Grange, as the man who can help whip Libya’s opposition — the Transitional National Council, or TNC — into shape so it can take Tripoli. Blumenthal wrote that Grange’s company would provide direct training for Libyan fighters without the U.S. military having to be on the ground. “This is a private contract. It does not involve NATO. It puts Americans in a central role without being direct battle combatants,” Blumenthal wrote. “The TNC wants to demonstrate they are pro-US. They see this as a significant way to do that.”

Grange told me last week that he met Blumenthal only once, after being approached by Bill White, the chief executive of the consulting firm Constellations Group, to gauge his interest in doing business with the post-Qaddafi government in Libya. Constellations Group specializes in connecting people. In a 2013 interview, White said he helped put together the sale of Blackwater — the military contractor that became a target of Democrats during the George W. Bush presidency — to Academi. Grange said his understanding was that if he won any contracts in Libya, Constellations Group would get a percentage of the revenue as a finder’s fee. He did not know what Blumenthal’s relationship was with Constellations Group. “At that time I didn’t know if Blumenthal was doing this as a favor for Bill or if he was getting paid,” Grange told me. “I had no idea.”

Grange said Blumenthal in the meeting indicated that he could help expedite matters of licensing with the State Department. Mainly though, Blumenthal was promising to connect Grange to the Libyan opposition leaders who stood to take power after the fall of Qaddafi. “I knew that he was going to try to set up some meetings for us,” he said. Grange also said Blumenthal did not specifically talk about his relationship with Clinton.

Osprey never won any contracts in Libya. Grange said he spent $60,000 overall in pursuing the business in Libya. “We met with lots of people in positions of power, but they could never write a check,” Grange told me.

Blumenthal’s memo to Clinton also misstated Grange’s experience. Blumenthal wrote that Grange had helped devise the plan for U.S. Special Forces to take Baghdad in 2003. Grange told me that he was already retired from the Army by then and had nothing to do with the operation.

Democrats on the Benghazi committee say all of this strays far from the initial mandate, which was to learn more about what happened before, during and after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi. On Monday, the committee’s Democrats released a report on the investigation that said the transcript of Blumenthal’s deposition in June before the committee would show that Republicans asked him about things that had “nothing to do with Benghazi.”

The probe’s new focus on Blumenthal is nonetheless a serious matter. Gowdy’s letter earlier this month said nearly half the personal e-mails Clinton received about Libya prior to the Benghazi attack were from Blumenthal. This includes the period when the Obama administration was deciding whether to intervene against Qaddafi in 2011.

These e-mails show that Blumenthal was often a cheerleader for the intervention, even suggesting that Qaddafi’s ouster would benefit Obama in the polls. His messages often contained freelance intelligence about the situation in Libya, some of it wrong.

Blumenthal has said he never profited from his work for Osprey. In June following his closed testimony to the committee, he said the Osprey venture was one “in which I had little involvement, [that] [n]ever got off the ground, in which no money was ever exchanged, no favor sought and which had nothing to do with my sending these emails.”

But the July 14 memo from Blumenthal to Clinton says that he and two associates “acted as honest brokers, putting this arrangement together through a series of connections, linking the Libyans to Osprey and keeping it moving.”

Republicans on the committee tell me that they will be calling Blumenthal back soon to clarify answers he provided to the committee in June.

The irony is that Republicans are sounding a lot like the Democrats of 10 years ago, who accused some Republicans of seeking to profit from the war President Bush waged in Iraq.

But there is an important difference. In Iraq, the U.S. invested hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the country after the dictator fell, and many American companies like Halliburton profited from this nation building. In the case of Libya, Obama lost interest after Qaddafi’s regime fell and never committed the resources to keep the country together after the dictator was gone.

That decision was likely one reason Osprey never won the contract that Blumenthal tried to set up. That decision also lies at the heart of the Benghazi committee’s mandate: President Obama allowed Libya to descend into a state so chaotic that terrorists could murder a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans only a year after the nation’s liberation.

Never Before in History Now the Doomsday Supply

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It boils down to Syria, the failed policy to control Bashir al Assad or remove him when the 5 year civil war has caused a global crisis. A country that once had a population of more than 20 million, today, an estimated 11 million Syrians are no longer in their home country. The crisis? The United Nations and member countries are out of money and resources to aid and provide humanitarian support for refugees any where they are located.

The United States as the historic world’s equalizer, failed to act in Syria for up to now 5 years….shameful as the consequences are worldwide and deaths are reported to be approaching 300,000 if not more.

The decision was made last month with no fanfare to break into the Doomsday inventory.

Arctic ‘Doomsday Vault’ opens to retrieve vital seeds for Syria

Svalbard, Norway (CNN)Humanity has had to cash in on its insurance policy earlier than expected.

Deep in the side of a mountain in the Arctic archipelago is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

 

Known as the “Doomsday Vault,” this seed bank — operated by the Norwegian government and containing a seed of just about every known crop in the world — is meant to be humanity’s backup in the event of a catastrophe that devastates crops.

But it was not a natural disaster that has caused scientists to have to dip in and make the first significant withdrawal from the vault. Rather, it was the most preventable of man-made disasters — war.

The bloody conflict in Syria has left scientists at an important gene bank in Aleppo — where new strains of drought- and heat-resistant wheat have been developed over time — unable to continue their work in recent years.

Now, with no sign of conditions in Syria improving, scientists have begun recovering their critical inventory of seeds, sourced from around the Fertile Crescent and beyond, that have been in safekeeping beneath the Arctic ice.

The seeds are being planted at new facilities in Lebanon and Morocco, allowing scientists to resume the important research they’ve been doing for decades, away from the barrel bombs of Aleppo.

READ: Syrian war forces first ‘Doomsday Vault’ withdrawal

An important storehouse in the Fertile Crescent

The gene bank in Aleppo, run by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, is one of the most important in the world and includes more than 135,000 varieties of wheat, fava bean, lentil and chickpea crops, as well as the world’s most valuable barley collection.

“These are land races that were inherited from our grand-grandparents, most of them are unfortunately extinct now,” ICARDA Director General Mahmoud El-Solh said. “And this is where the cradle of agriculture (was)10,000 years ago. In this part of the world, many of the important crops were domesticated from the wild to cultivation.”

ICARDA representative Thanos Tsivelikas, who is overseeing the withdrawal from the vault, describes the operation as “a rescue mission; these seeds cannot be replaced.”

The ICARDA Aleppo center had sent nearly 80% of the seeds and samples to the Global Seed Vault as a backup by 2012, with its last deposit being in 2014.

And now, Solh and his ICARDA team have the challenge of keeping and reproducing one of humanity’s most important collections of food crop genetic lines.

Moved to neighboring Lebanon

Relocated to Lebanon, Solh opens the door to a vault on the Agricultural Research and Educational Center of the American University of Beirut campus in the Bekaa Valley. This is where the seeds ICARDA received back from Svalbard are housed.

Solh carefully shakes out a few wisps of what looks like wheat from a brown envelope. It is the plant from which the wheat we eat today originated 10 millennia ago.

“This is a source of desirable traits including drought tolerance, including heat tolerance, including resistance to disease and so forth. So this had lived through natural selection for over hundreds of years,” he said.

A 10-minute drive away and just across the mountain range from Syria, a new vault is being built by ICARDA.

To begin replenishing the stock, there are greenhouses nearby where the seeds will be planted, grown and reproduced. Once restocked, the seeds will once again become available for researchers and other seed vaults.

A parallel project is being set up in Morocco to ensure that humanity always has access to this irreplaceable cache of genetic material.

“Two-thirds of material is coming from dry areas which … are adapted to very harsh environments and have desirable traits” for drought, heat, cold, salinity and pests, Solh said.

Researchers are looking at ways to improve food crops with existing and extinct-in-nature genetic lines that are more adapted to the challenges that may lie ahead with global warming.

The answers could very well be in these specific seeds harvested from a specific moment in time. “This variety could help us adapt to climate change,” Solh said, holding up a small fava bean.

“You know that climate change is a reality and climate change is changing the whole environment in terms of more drought, hotter environments and even new diseases.”

ICARDA and others know that the past could very well contain the key to our future, though no one thought they would see such a mass withdrawal in their lifetime.

Secret Memo, Blair-Bush WMD Iraq

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Even the New York Times did an investigative piece in October of 2014 noting the American soldiers who were victims of WMD.

All three men recall an awkward pause. Then Sergeant Duling gave an order: “Get the hell out.”
Five years after President George W. Bush sent troops into Iraq, these soldiers had entered an expansive but largely secret chapter of America’s long and bitter involvement in Iraq.
From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence.

A hit piece on UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and former President George W. Bush on the matter of removing Saddam Hussein over WMD. Okay, there is an argument to be had for sure, yet it should be further asked or published in this article, all the causes and evidence and players in the WMD debate in Iraq. Click here for the once secret memos now located on Hillary’s server.

Smoking gun emails reveal Blair’s ‘deal in blood’ with George Bush over Iraq war was forged a YEAR before the invasion had even started

  • Leaked White House memo shows former Prime Minister’s support for war at summit with U.S. President in 2002
  • Bombshell document shows Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for Bush, who was told ‘the UK will follow our lead’
  • Publicly, Blair still claimed to be looking for diplomatic solution – in direct contrast to email revelations
  • New light was shed on Bush-Blair relations by material disclosed by Hillary Clinton at the order of the U.S. courts
***MAIL ONLINE - IF RUN FULL DOCUMENTPLEASE SUN SIDE BY SIDE AND MAKE FONTS LOOK SAME SIZE *** For Tony Blair story for Mail on Sunday Politics page Email from Colin Powell Image vis Glen Owen MOS political reporter

***MAIL ONLINE – IF RUN FULL DOCUMENTPLEASE SUN SIDE BY SIDE AND MAKE FONTS LOOK SAME SIZE ***
For Tony Blair story for Mail on Sunday Politics page
Email from Colin Powell
Image vis Glen Owen MOS political reporter

 

 

 

 

Full story here.

 Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction
Introduction
On November 8, 2002, the United Nations Security Council gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council” with the adoption of Resolution 1441. Iraq formally accepted the resolution and inspectors began their work in Iraq on November 27. On December 7, Iraq provided a 12,000-page declaration of its WMD programs and capabilities, which largely recycled old declarations and maintained that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On December 19th, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC),1 the two organizations charged with inspecting Iraq, reported that the declaration was incomplete. UNMOVIC and the IAEA told the U.N. Security Council that Baghdad “missed an opportunity” to come clean about its arms programs.
Between November 2002 and mid-March 2003, UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors conducted 750 inspections at 550 sites. They conducted unannounced inspections, interviewed Iraqi personnel, taken samples, and collected documents. Although Iraq initially objected to reconnaissance flights (by U-2, Mirage 4 and Russian Antonov aircraft) and reportedly actively discouraged scientists from being interviewed in private, by mid-February Iraq acquiesced to these rights of the inspectorate. Both UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei generally characterized Iraqi cooperation as good on process and lacking on substance.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 states that “the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations” (emphasis added). Although four years had lapsed in inspections since 1998, President Bush’s September 12, 2002 speech to the United Nations and Congress’ authorization of the use of force against Iraq (P.L. 107-243) in October 2002 lent urgency to the inspections.2 In retrospect, a key question is: What purpose did inspections serve? Were they a trip-wire for military action to disarm Saddam Hussein, or were they part of an ongoing inspection and disarmament process that will continue at some point in the future?
Few doubt the difficulty of establishing confidence that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. On the one hand, inspections in Iraq have the logically impossible task of proving a negative – that Iraq is not trying to acquire WMD. For those who believe that inspections cannot provide such assurances, obstruction of those inspections hints at (or to some, proves) the concealment of some WMD- related activities.4 In this view, even cooperation in the process of inspections provides few assurances of the absence of WMD programs, and the failure of inspections to turn up evidence of WMD-related activities would, in this view, not confer innocence, but illustrate the shortcomings of inspections.
For some observers who are opposed to inspections, a key assumption is that the task of disarming Iraq is insurmountable without genuine Iraqi cooperation, which requires the leadership in Iraq to give up its WMD aspirations. The Bush Administration in January 2003 cited South Africa, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan as models of cooperative disarmament and contrasted Iraq’s actions with those of the three models.5 The former deputy executive chairman of UNSCOM (U.N. Special Commission), Charles Duelfer, compared inspections in Iraq with those conducted in Germany between World War I and World War II, which were ultimately unsuccessful.6 Duelfer argued that this kind of coercive disarmament by an international organization is doomed to failure. CIA Director George Tenet remarked in a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 11, 2003, that “unless he [Saddam Hussein] provides the data to build on, provides the access, provides the unfettered access that he’s supposed to, provides us with surveillance capability, there’s little chance you are going to find weapons of mass destruction under the rubric he’s created inside the country.”7
Other observers point to the knowledge gained from 1991 to 1998 by inspectors about the extent of Iraq’s WMD programs, even in the face of strong Iraqi resistance and deception, to the uncertainties of waging war against an opponent that may have and be inclined to use WMD, and to the value in an approach that has broad international support. Some questioned the ability of intelligence agencies alone to detect WMD programs, citing reports of the CIA’s lack of knowledge about Iraq’s WMD programs prior to 1991 and the evident surprise about the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.8 In the nonproliferation community, most agree that treaties and agreements ultimately cannot stop a country that is determined to acquire WMD, but rather make the process more difficult and costly, thereby buying time for political change. In the case of Iraq, four years without inspections elapsed with relatively little public debate, but the tragedies of September 11, 2001 seem to have convinced many observers that delay in disarming Iraq could increase the threat to international security. A relatively new concern in the debate on Iraq’s disarmament is the alleged support Iraq might provide to terrorists. Some observers say there appears to be little evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, but some posit that Iraq might have incentives to provide WMD materials or weapons to terrorists, which would call for quick disarmament of Iraq. (footnotes from the above text comes from the 2003 Congressional Research Service document found here)

 

 

 

 

U.S. Defense-Less During Iran Missile Testing

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Navy won’t have aircraft carrier in Persian Gulf as Iran deal takes effect

TheHill: The Navy does not have an aircraft carrier in the Middle East region as the Iran deal takes effect and just days after Tehran conducted a controversial ballistic missile test, raising concerns.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt pulled out of the Middle East region on Tuesday, and the next carrier, the USS Harry Truman, won’t arrive to the Persian Gulf area until winter, leaving a months-long gap without a carrier. The Navy’s moves were planned well in advance, but Iran’s recent missile test, which the Obama administration said violated international sanctions, is sparking worries about Tehran’s actions without a visible symbol of American deterrence in the region. The missile test came just one day after the Roosevelt pulled out of the Persian Gulf. It leaves the Gulf area without a continuous U.S. aircraft carrier presence for the first time since 2008.

The test also comes just before the Iran nuclear deal’s “adoption day” on Sunday — when it is Iran’s turn to take actions to implement its side of the deal.

On adoption day, sanctions waivers will be issued but won’t be effective until the deal is implemented in the spring.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Friday that the test violated United Nations Security Council resolutions to curb Iran’s ballistic missile activities, and the U.S. would file a report with the UNSC on the matter.

“The Security Council prohibition on Iran’s ballistic missile activities, as well as the arms embargo, remain in place and we will continue to press the Security Council for an appropriate response to Iran’s disregard for its international obligations,” she said.

Administration officials have insisted the launch does not violate the terms of the nuclear deal, which places limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions.

And the administration has sought to assure allies in the region that it would keep a close watch on Iran after the deal was signed and counter its support for terrorism throughout the region.

President Obama just last week cited having an aircraft carrier as a projection of strength in the Middle East, in response to a question about whether U.S. adversaries and allies perceive the U.S. as retreating from the region.

“We have enormous presence in the Middle East. We have bases and we have aircraft carriers, and our pilots are flying through those skies,” Obama said during his interview on CBS “60 Minutes” last Sunday.

While officials say there are plenty of other assets in the region, some argue that an aircraft carrier is critical and its absence is being noticed.

“The most important thing you need a carrier for is for what you don’t know is going to happen next,” Peter Daly, a retired Navy vice admiral and CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute told NBC News.

“The biggest value to those carriers is that they are huge, and you have the capability to go from one stop to another, and we don’t need a permission slip from another nation when we want to fly planes,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Navy’s top officer said he was concerned about the lack of an aircraft carrier’s presence in the Middle East at a time the U.S. is conducting an airstrike campaign in Iraq and Syria.

“Without that carrier, there will be a detriment to our capability there,” the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his July 30 confirmation hearing.

From 2010 through 2013, the U.S. maintained two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, known as a “2.0 carrier presence,” although it sometimes temporarily dipped below that level.

The heightened presence was to support U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and also to deter Iran from bad behavior in the region and keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

However, the U.S. stepped away from that in 2013, after steep budget cuts hit the Pentagon, forcing the Defense Department to curtail deployments, defer maintenance, and delay major purchases.

A U.S. official told The Hill in August that the Navy could have an even more reduced presence in the Persian Gulf in coming years, due to budget cuts, but also a prioritization of the Asia-Pacific.

“All I can say is that in the short-term, we need a continuous presence. The demand is out there, the [combatant commander] is asking for it, and the [Pacific Command] commander is asking for it. They’re asking for it. There’s just not enough peanut butter to spread around,” the official said.

“So what are you going to do? You’re going to give what you can. You’re going to prioritize based on what the president wants us to do, what the [Defense] secretary wants us to do and allocate those forces to meet those needs,” the official said.

“Iran last Sunday successfully test-fired the country’s new precision-guided long-range ballistic missile that can be controlled until the moment of impact. Emad carries a conventional warhead.”

Let’s be clear about this: does anyone really think that a long-range ballistic missile carrying a warhead of a few hundred kilograms with an accuracy of half a kilometer is being built for the purposes of carrying conventional explosives? Aim it at a target – an airport, a port, a chemical plant, Israel’s IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv – you name it – and what are the odds that a conventional explosion is actually going to damage the target? ]

Top Security Official Dismisses US Ballyhoos over Iran’s Missile Test as Irrelevant Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:9

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940726000483

TEHRAN (FNA)- Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani rejected the US officials’ hues and cries over Tehran’s recent missile test as pointless, stressing that no threat can ever stop the country’s military progress.

“We have never accepted (UN Security Council) Resolution 1929 and I should say that Iran’s missile test was not a violation of Resolution 2231 either,”

Shamkhani told reporters on the sidelines of the preliminary meeting of the Munich Security Conference in Tehran on Saturday.

“Such remarks are a propaganda hype and Iran doesn’t stop (enhancement of) its defensive and deterrent capability under any threat,” he added.

Shamkhani also underscored that Iran’s missile tests shouldn’t affect the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed by Iran and the world powers on July 14.

In relevant remarks on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underscored that Tehran has not violated the UN Security Council resolution 2231 by testing missiles, reiterating that Tehran would never accept to let the nuclear agreement leave an impact on its defensive measures.

“No reference has been made to the missile issue in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and I seriously believe that our missile tests are no way related to Resolution 2231,” Zarif said in a joint press conference with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Tehran.

“Resolution 2231 speaks of missiles which have been designed for nuclear capabilities while none of our missiles have been designed for nuclear capabilities and our missile program is aimed at defending our territorial integrity,” he added.

Noting that all involved parties, including the Americans, have admitted that Iran’s missile tests haven’t violated the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers, Zarif said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has proved and shows again that the nuclear weapons didn’t and don’t have any place in its defensive doctrine and our missiles have not been designed for carrying nuclear warheads since we didn’t and don’t have any plan to have nuclear warheads.”

Some western media outlets have cast doubt about Iran’s recent missile test, saying that it could have violated the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers.

Iran last Sunday successfully test-fired the country’s new precision-guided long-range ballistic missile that can be controlled until the moment of impact. Emad carries a conventional warhead.

“This missile (Emad) which has been fully designed and made by Iranian Defense Ministry’s scientists and experts is the country’ first long-range missile with navigation and strike controlling capability; it is capable of hitting and destroying the targets with high-precision,” Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan told reporters after the successful test of Emad missile.

The Iranian Defense Minister reiterated that the manufacture and successful testing of Emad missile is a technological and operational jump in a strategic field, and said, “We don’t ask for anyone’s permission for boosting our defense and missile power; we resolutely continue our defense programs, specially in the missile field, and Emad missile is a conspicuous example.”

General Dehqan felicitated Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iranian Armed Forces and the Iranian nation on the successful testing, and appreciated the scientists and experts of the Aerospace Industries Organization of the Defense Ministry.

The Iranian Defense Minister reiterated that the mass production and delivery of Emad missile to the country’s Armed Forces will considerably increase their power and tactical capabilities.

The Iranian Armed Forces have recently test-fired different types of newly-developed missiles and torpedoes and tested a large number of home-made weapons, tools and equipment, including submarines, military ships, artillery, choppers, aircrafts, UAVs and air defense and electronic systems, during massive military drills.

Defense analysts and military observers say that Iran’s wargames and its advancements in weapons production have proved as a deterrent factor.

The Iranian officials have always underscored that the country’s defense program cannot be affected by the nuclear deal clinched between Iran and the world powers on July 14.

Next up, Normalizing Relations with North Korea

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Sheesh, this blogger has been predicting this….. THE MADNESS CONTINUES:

North Korea reportedly willing to sign peace treaty with US to end conflict

FNC: North Korea reportedly rejected the idea of resuming talks to abandon its nuclear program on Saturday, but said it would welcome negotiations for a peace treaty with Washington.

North Korea’s foreign ministry made the statement one day after President Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye said they were ready to open talks with Pyongyang on sanctions if they were serious about dissolving its nuclear program, according to Reuters.

“If the United States insists on taking a different path, the Korean peninsula will only see our unlimited nuclear deterrent being strengthened further,” the North said in a statement.

North and South Korea are still technically at war after signing a truce in 1953 to temporarily end their conflict. The U.S. also signed the deal after backing the South.

Obama, while meeting with Park on Friday, said Iran had been prepared to have a “serious conversation” about the possibility of giving up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. He said there’s no indication of that in North Korea’s case.

“At the point where Pyongyang says, `We’re interested in seeing relief from sanctions and improved relations, and we are prepared to have a serious conversation about denuclearization,’ it’s fair to say we’ll be right there at the table,” Obama told a joint news conference.

In a joint statement after Friday’s meeting, the U.S. and South Korea said that if North Korea decides to launch another rocket into space or test a nuclear explosion, “it will face consequences, including seeking further significant measures by the U.N. Security Council.” The statement also said they would never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea had walked away from talks involving the U.S. and four other countries in 2008 and continued to conduct nuclear tests. It claims the only way to end conflict with Washington is to sign a peace treaty.

Park’s visit Friday further strengthened South Korea’s ties with the U.S.

U.S. retains 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, and nearly 50,000 troops in Japan. Obama called the U.S.-South Korean alliance “unbreakable.” Park called it a “lynchpin” of regional security.

In August, the two Koreas threatened each other with war after two South Korean soldiers were wounded by land mines Seoul says were planted by the North. The tensions have since eased, and the two sides have agreed to resume next week reunions of Korean families divided by the Korean War.

The Obama administration has faced criticism from hawks and doves alike for a lack of high-level attention on North Korea, which estimated to have enough fissile material for between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons. More details here.

From McClatchy:

Obama said the U.S. would be willing to talk with North Korea about sanctions relief and improved relations if it agreed to give up nuclear weapons. He said there’s no indication that the government in Pyongyang can “foresee a future in which they did not possess or were not pursuing nuclear weapons.”

Citing the U.S. outreach to Cuba and the agreement to limit Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, Obama said the U.S. is “prepared to engage nations with which we have had troubled histories.” He stressed that he and Park reaffirmed that neither country would accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state and will insist that Pyongyang abide by its obligations.

“These are both countries that have a long history of antagonism towards the United States,” he said of Iran and North Korea. “But we were prepared to have a serious conversation with the Iranians once they showed that they were serious about the possibility of giving up the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Saying nothing of human rights violations, the official White House statement is here:

2015 United States-Republic of Korea Joint Statement on North Korea

On October 16, 2015, President Barack Obama of the United States of America and President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea committed to the following.

The United States-Republic of Korea alliance remains committed to countering the threat to peace and security posed by North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs as well as other provocations. We will maintain our robust deterrence posture and continue to modernize our alliance and enhance our close collaboration to better respond to all forms of North Korean provocations.

The United States and the Republic of Korea share deep concern about the continued advancement of North Korea’s UN-proscribed nuclear and missile capabilities and commit to address the North Korean nuclear problem with utmost urgency and determination.

We reaffirm our commitment to our common goal, shared by the international community, to achieve the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea in a peaceful manner. North Korea’s continuing development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs is an ongoing violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and is contrary to North Korea’s commitments under the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks. We strongly urge North Korea to immediately and fully comply with its international obligations and commitments.

We oppose any actions by North Korea that raise tensions or violate UN Security Council resolutions. In particular, if North Korea carries out a launch using ballistic missile technology or a nuclear test, it will face consequences, including seeking further significant measures by the UN Security Council.  In this regard, we are committed to working with the international community to ensure the effective and transparent implementation of all UN Security Council resolutions, including sanctions measures, concerning North Korea, and we encourage all states to exercise strict vigilance against North Korea’s prohibited activities.

The United States and the Republic of Korea maintain no hostile policy towards North Korea and remain open to dialogue with North Korea to achieve our shared goal of denuclearization. Recognizing the common interests of our Six-Party Talks partners in the denuclearization of North Korea, we will continue to strengthen our coordination with China and the other parties in order to bring North Korea, which has refused all offers of denuclearization dialogue, back to credible and meaningful talks as soon as possible.

We reaffirm that we will never accept North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state, and that its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is incompatible with its economic development goals. Along with the rest of the international community, we stand ready to offer a brighter future to North Korea, if North Korea demonstrates a genuine willingness to completely abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and agrees to abide by its international obligations and commitments.

The United States appreciates President Park’s tireless efforts to improve inter-Korean relations, including through repeated overtures to North Korea, and welcomes President Park’s principled approach that resulted in a peaceful resolution of the August tensions.  The United States will continue to strongly support her vision of a peacefully unified Korean Peninsula, as envisaged in her Dresden address. We will intensify high-level strategic consultations to create a favorable environment for the peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula.

The Republic of Korea and the United States join the international community in condemning the deplorable human rights situation in North Korea as documented in the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report. We look forward to supporting the work of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul). We remain dedicated to working with the international community to improve the human rights situation in North Korea and ensure accountability for human rights violations, as well as to improve the livelihood of the people in North Korea.