Still Defiant, Iran Doubles Uranium Centrifuges

Posted on November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 by Denise Simon

RFERL: The UN’s nuclear watchdog has issued a report saying Iran is preparing for possible major expansion of uranium enrichment in a fortified underground facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report also says “extensive activities” — a reference to suspected sanitization efforts — at Iran’s Parchin military complex will hamper its investigation of possible past nuclear weapons development work there, if inspectors are granted access.

Parchin

The report says Iran has produced 189 kilograms of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010 — up from 145 kilograms since May, when the previous quarterly report was issued.

The IAEA reported last year that Iran placed “a large explosives containment vessel” in Parchin in 2000 and constructed a building around it.

The facilities were designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives — something the IAEA called “relevant to the development of an explosive nuclear device.”

Since that report, the IAEA has sought to send inspectors to the site of the suspected building but have been denied access by Iran to that part of the military base.

In recent months, the agency also has obtained information that indicates Iran has been busy cleaning up the suspected site, including tearing down some buildings and removing soil.

The last effort by the IAEA to convince Iran to let inspectors visit the site — where Iran denies clean-up activities are taking place — broke down in June when Tehran accused the agency of acting like an “intelligence organization.”

More Centrifuges At Fordow Site

Fordow

The IAEA’s latest report also says the number of enrichment centrifuges at Fordow has more than doubled to 2,140 from 1,064 in May.

The Fordow facility is extremely controversial for two reasons.

First, it is dug into a mountain, making it difficult to bomb — suggesting it could have a military purpose.

Secondly, the centrifuges at the facility are being used to enrich uranium to purities of 20 percent — far higher than the 4 percent needed for fuel for commercial reactors.

Iran has said it is producing the 20 percent-enriched fuel for use in research reactors to produce medical isotopes.

But arms-control experts worry that creating large stockpiles of 20 percent-enriched uranium makes it much easier for Iran to later complete the jump to 90 percent-enriched uranium needed for nuclear bombs.

In Washington, the White House said it was closely studying the fresh IAEA report.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, denied his country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, adding Iran will “never abandon its right for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

In what appears to be a sign of the IAEA’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear activities, the agency this week revealed it was creating a special Iran “task force.”

The task force is to scrutinize Tehran’s nuclear program and its compliance with UN resolutions — including those demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment.

Iran has denied any interest in nuclear arms.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Liz Cheney is introducing legislation to fully terminate all of the Iran nuclear deal including the remaining sanctions waivers.

Yet, it seems that Turkey, a NATO member and in major dispute with the United States over Syria has not only defied NATO rules and the United States but has fully allied with Russia but for sure now as well Iran.

FDD: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced yesterday that it will sell its 10 percent stake in the Istanbul stock exchange after Turkey named as its CEO a Turkish banker convicted in U.S. court for his role in a multi-billion dollar scheme to evade Washington’s sanctions on Iran. Ankara’s move to reward a sanctions buster further strengthens the argument that Turkey has become a permissive jurisdiction for illicit finance.

Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund offered today to buy EBRD’s shares, which would increase the fund’s stake in the stock exchange to over 90 percent. EBRD’s exit will mean the departure of Borsa Istanbul’s only major foreign stakeholder at a critical moment in Turkey’s relations with its western allies. Ankara’s military operation in northeast Syria targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces – Washington’s key partner in the fight against the Islamic State – has drawn sweeping condemnation from the international community.

Five days after Ankara launched its Syria incursion, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three Turkish officials and Turkey’s ministries of energy and defense. That same week, the Southern District of New York filed an indictment charging Halkbank, a Turkish public lender, for its role in the multi-billion dollar gas-for-gold scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. Halkbank’s deputy general manager, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, in 2018 received a sentence of 32 months for his role in the affair. At the time of Atilla’s sentencing, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the trial as a political attack on his government.

Atilla returned to Turkey in July after serving his U.S. sentence. Last week, just days after U.S. federal prosecutors indicted Halkbank, Turkish Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, named Atilla as CEO of the Istanbul stock exchange.

Atilla’s promotion is part of a string of appointments that showcase Erdogan’s policy of rehabilitating Iran sanctions busters and rewarding corrupt officials who further his personal ambitions. In September, Erdogan appointed former Minister for European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis as Turkey’s ambassador to Prague. Bagis had resigned from the ministry after a 2013 corruption scandal implicated him in accepting bribes related to the gas-for-gold scheme run through Halkbank.

Members of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) who dare criticize his policy of rehabilitating sanctions evaders continue to draw the Turkish president’s wrath. After publicly pronouncing strong opposition to Bagis’s ambassadorial appointment and other party policies, a senior AKP lawmaker, Mustafa Yeneroglu, resigned from the party yesterday after Erdogan commanded him to step down.

Another minister implicated in taking bribes as part of the Halkbank scheme, Zafer Caglayan, who served as minister of Economy in 2013 before resigning due to corruption allegations, has returned to political life as an AKP delegate from the Turkish city of Mersin. Caglayan is best known for accepting bribes of cash and jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars.

Erdogan’s rehabilitation of sanctions evaders continues to hurt Turkey’s image, economy, and investment climate. Ankara’s apparent disregard for U.S. sanctions, including those targeting Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, does not bode well for Washington or other NATO allies. Yet so far, President Donald Trump has shielded Erdogan from U.S. sanctions, the most recent of which he lifted after only nine days. In contrast, a biting sanctions bill focused on Turkey passed the House 403 to 16 on Tuesday. Like Congress, Trump should communicate to his Turkish counterpart that his policy of evading sanctions and rewarding sanctions busters could have dire consequences.

The Secret X-37B Just Landed After 2 Years in Space

Posted on October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 by Denise Simon

Though the Air Force doesn’t disclose the X-37B’s precise orbit, keen-eyed amateur astronomers have managed to track the vehicle from the ground — and so can you, thanks to their efforts.Check out Space.com’s satellite tracker to see where the X-37B is overhead during a mission. The view won’t be dramatic; the space plane usually looks like a star of middling brightness moving across the sky. More here.

The U.S. Air Force’s top secret spaceplane, the Boeing X-37B, landed in Florida early Sunday after 780 days—over 2 years and one month—in orbit around the Earth. And we still have no idea what it was doing while it was up there.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-5 (OTV-5) mission was the fifth time that the uncrewed vehicle has flown around the world, beating the duration of the fourth mission, which landed in May of 2017 after 718 days in orbit. This most recent mission launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on September 7, 2017.

“The X-37B continues to demonstrate the importance of a reusable spaceplane,” Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said in a statement posted online. “Each successive mission advances our nation’s space capabilities.”

What are those capabilities? We don’t know the specifics. But according to the Air Force, the X-37B has the unique ability to “test new systems in space and return them to Earth” and the mission “successfully completed” all of its objectives.

Military leaders, many of whom were previously skeptical of the need for an entirely new branch of the armed services, appear to be excited about President Donald Trump’s Space Force and the way that the X-37B might play a role in that branch of the military. At least that’s the gist you get reading the Air Force’s press release.

“The safe return of this spacecraft, after breaking its own endurance record, is the result of the innovative partnership between Government and Industry,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein said in a press release. “The sky is no longer the limit for the Air Force and, if Congress approves, the U.S. Space Force.”

This latest mission launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on October 27, 2019 at 3:51 a.m. The last time this spaceplane came back to Earth there was video of the landing. This time, however, there was no video, perhaps because the landing took place in the predawn hours.

“This program continues to push the envelope as the world’s only reusable space vehicle. With a successful landing today, the X-37B completed its longest flight to date and successfully completed all mission objectives,” said Randy Walden, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director.

“This mission successfully hosted Air Force Research Laboratory experiments, among others, as well as providing a ride for small satellites.”

The Air Force says it plans to launch the sixth X-37B mission from CCAFS in 2020. And you can bet good money we won’t know much about that launch either.

What do you think they were doing up there? A couple of missions ago, something like “aliens” may have been a ridiculous guess. But we’ve sure learned a lot about U.S. military contact with unidentified flying objects since this mission first launched in September of 2017.

I’m not saying they’re flying aliens around in a super secret Air Force spaceplane. But they’re probably flying aliens around in a super secret Air Force spaceplane.

Big Warnings of China Military Expansion

Posted on October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 by Denise Simon

McRaven, the former head of Joint Special Operations Command overseeing the U.S. Navy SEAL team that took down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his Pakistan compound in 2011, noted that Chinese technologies such as 5G commercialization is already beating the United States.

The Chinese military displayed several weapons during its National Day parade, including a new supersonic jet that can reportedly reach speeds faster than Mach 3.3, at more than 2500 miles per hour.

The supersonic jet, called the DR-8, could play a key role in a potential conflict with the U.S. military in the South China Sea.

“China has invested a lot of resources into military science and technology development in a bid to enhance its nuclear deterrence capability over the past years, which Beijing believes represents a strategic measure in countering the global military hegemony [of the United States],” Hong Kong-based military analyst Song Zhongping said.

Additionally, China doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past decade and is set to double it again in the next, top U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) officials stated in August.

“China has long had a no-first-use policy, and yet they’ve doubled their nuclear arsenal in about the last decade, and they’re on track to double it again in the next decade,” said Rear Admiral Michael Brookes, director of intelligence for Stratcom.

As noted by Newt Gingrich:

Now, imagine that China launches a campaign against Taiwan with the help of Russian air forces.

This would entirely change the dynamic, making it much more difficult and costly (in blood and treasure) – and much less likely for any sort of U.S. victory. Now, instead of a focused conflict with China over a specific piece of territory, the U.S. would have to decide whether it wanted to risk engaging with a cooperative China and Russia at the same time.

For many years, China and Russia were like two estranged communist relatives, but that is changing. In recent years, China and Russia have cooperated in a number of military exercises – and their first long-range joint air patrol in the Asia-Pacific region this past summer.

Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin 24 times since 2013, while he has only met with his U.S. counterpart 16 times during that period.

This activity creates a real potential for a China-Russia strategic alliance which would turn much of our national security planning and strategy on its head.

Republic of China, Taiwan | Operation World

China considers Taiwan one of it’s own provinces yet Taiwan is independent which China is fighting. Known as the ‘one China policy’, Western nations including the United States are not to have any kind of relationship with Taiwan but the United States does and this is one of the causes in the trade negotiations.

After decades of China’s veiled threats to invade and a long-running campaign to get Taiwan’s allies to shift their diplomatic allegiance to Beijing, researchers, government officials, and lawmakers in Taipei all say that China is pursuing a new tactic in the runup to Taiwan’s Jan. 11 presidential vote: election meddling. “China is following the steps from Russia,” says Tzeng Yi-suo, head of cyberwarfare at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is advising Taiwan’s government on ways to counteract the interference. “In our election campaign periods, there is a most striking influence campaign coming from the Chinese Communist Party.”

China’s disinformation apparatus goes well beyond what it considers its borders, according to an analysis published by Harvard researchers in April. Using proxies around the world and some of the same social media platforms it bans at home, the government in Beijing posts 448 million comments a year aimed at promoting a pro-China agenda or sowing discord, the researchers found. In August, Twitter Inc. suspended 936 mainland Chinese accounts, part of a larger network of 200,000 spam accounts it disabled because of what it called a “significant state-backed operation” working to undermine Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations. On Sept. 20 it suspended an additional 10,000. Facebook Inc. and YouTube have disabled accounts for similar reasons. In December, new foreign-influence laws went into effect in Australia aimed at blocking China’s efforts to sway politics and key decision-makers in that country.

Chinese agencies have been launching an estimated 30 million cyberattacks against Taiwan a month, according to the government’s director general of cybersecurity, Jyan Hong-wei. The patterns indicate Chinese state involvement, he says. Read the full detailed summary here.

9/11, 18 Years Later

Posted on September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 by Denise Simon

It is a solemn day for sure. It is a day where memories begin to fade and for some there are no memories at all. The ‘Never Again’ must be taught and understood to those that were not yet born at the time or too younger to comprehend the details.
But, America, don’t be sad. Each year that passes from that struck the hearts and souls of America, we have come to learn more and America DID prove how resolute and resilient we actually are as citizens. Those attributes are to be celebrated. Sure, we have given up too many freedoms to prevent another such attack. Our way of life did change forever that day, yet for the victims of 9/11 and those so near to all that occurred that day and for all the days that followed, many of their lives changed in often unspeakable ways.

A firefighter at the site of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11 2001 photo
This is a time to review what has past to ensure it is not dismissed as a distant chapter in American history.

On September 11, 2001–a clear, sunny, late summer day–al Qaeda terrorists aboard three hijacked passenger planes carried out coordinated suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board the planes and nearly 3,000 people on the ground. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board, after passengers and crew attempted to wrest control from the hijackers.

***

JAKARTA — The plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic, uncovered by British authorities, bears a striking, if not eerie, resemblance to a plot hatched 12 years ago to simultaneously blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific.

That scheme was developed in Manila by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was starting his climb to become a top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who was a mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Philippine investigators came to believe that the Manila operation was financed by Bin Laden.

Mohammed code-named the operation Bojinka, which was widely reported to have been adopted from Serbo-Croatian, meaning big bang. But Mohammed has told his C.I.A. interrogators that it was just a “nonsense word” he adopted after hearing it when he was fighting in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet Union, according to “The 9/11 Commission Report.” Mohammed was seized in Pakistan in 2003, and is now being held by the CIA at an undisclosed location.

The Bojinka plot in 1995 was anything but nonsense. At an apartment in Manila, Yousef began mixing chemicals, which he planned to put into containers that would be carried on board airliners, much like the plotters in Britain are alleged to have been planning.

In those days, it would have been relatively easy to get liquid explosives past a checkpoint. Mohammed and Yousef, according to the 9/11 Commission, studied airline schedules and planned to sneak the liquid on a dozen planes headed to Seoul, South Korea, and Hong Kong and then on to the United States. The idea was that the bombs, complete with timing devices, would be left on the airliners, but that the plotters would disembark at a stop before detonating the devices.

To rehearse the operations, a practice bomb was detonated in a Manila theater late in 1994. Another bomb was concealed aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434 from Manila to Tokyo 10 days later. The bomb exploded on the way to Tokyo, killing a passenger, but the pilot managed to land the damaged 747. American prosecutors later concluded that Yousef had taken a liquid explosive onto the plane before disembarking.

The plot, however, was foiled in early 1995 when a fire broke out in the apartment where some of the conspirators were working. Among the things found when the police investigated was Yousef’s laptop, with a file named “Bojinka.” They also found dolls with clothes containing nitrocellulose, according to the 9/11 Commission.

Yousef was captured in Pakistan, turned over to the United States, convicted in New York and sentenced to life without parole.

According to investigators, Yousef’s specialty was making bombs from innocuous-looking objects that could be smuggled through airport security – a digital wristwatch modified to serve as a timer, or a plastic bottle for contact lens solution filled with liquid components for nitroglycerine.

When questioned after his arrest, Yousef refused to explain precisely how he had planned to carry out the bombings, according to testimony at his trial for the Bojinka plot.

Brian Parr, a Secret Service agent, testified at the trial that under questioning Yousef made clear that other terrorists were aware of the explosive technique, and he did not want to compromise their ability to carry out similar acts.

“He said that he didn’t want us to have knowledge of the techniques that they were going to use,” Parr testified, “because it may help us prevent other people from using those techniques.”

And Yousef, in his statement to Parr, made clear that he had carefully analyzed how to carry explosives through airline security.

For example, when questioned about one chemical mixture that could be used in explosives, Yousef said he would not have used it because it could have “been easily detected by airport security screening,” Parr testified.

Parr said that Yousef “specifically said that he would have used a different type of device that even the most sophisticated bomb-screening machines would not have been able to detect.”

Mary Jo White, the former United States attorney whose office successfully investigated and prosecuted Yousef in the Bojinka plot, recalled: “It was frightening. There were people wandering the globe able to do this. And that was 10 years ago.”

Mohammed has told his interrogators that after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which involved explosives loaded onto a truck that failed to bring down the building, he “needed to graduate to a more novel form of attack,” as the 9/11 report puts it. That led to Bojinka, and the first thoughts about using planes to bomb the World Trade Center.

***

To hear the 2 hours of audio of the FAA, NORAD and American Airlines, click here.

photo

September 11, 2001
Hijackers crash two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York. A third strikes the Pentagon, and a fourth crashes in a field in rural Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people are killed in the terror attacks.

September 13, 2001
The White House announces that there is “overwhelming evidence” that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks.

September 14, 2001
Congress authorizes [PDF; requires free Adobe Reader] President George W. Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

September 16, 2001
Osama bin Laden denies any involvement in the 9/11 attacks in a statement to Al Jazeera television, saying, “I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons.”

September 18, 2001
The Justice Department publishes an interim regulation allowing non-citizens suspected of terrorism to be detained without charge for 48 hours or “an additional reasonable period of time” in the event of an “emergency or other extraordinary circumstance.” The new rule is used to hold hundreds indefinitely until the USA Patriot Act passes in October.

September 20, 2001
President Bush announces the new cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security, to be led by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Ridge later becomes secretary of a new Homeland Security Department.

In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Bush declares, “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

British Prime Minister Tony Blair meets with President George Bush at the White House. According to former British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, who also attended the dinner, Bush indicates that he is determined to remove Saddam Hussein from power: “We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.”

October 2, 2001
The USA Patriot Act [PDF; requires free Adobe Reader] is introduced in Congress.

October 4, 2001
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking before an emergency session of Parliament, says that three of the 19 9/11 hijackers have been positively identified as “known associates” of Osama bin Laden.

October 5, 2001
A photographer for the tabloid newspaper The Sun dies of inhalation anthrax in Boca Raton, Florida. Over the next several weeks, along with several false alarms, four other letters containing anthrax are received, by NBC News, the New York Post, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Eleven people are infected; five people die.

October 5, 2001
One thousand soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division are sent to the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan.

October 7, 2001
The U.S. begins bombing Afghanistan. In a televised address, President Bush tells the nation: “On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.”

October 24, 2001
The House of Representatives passes the final version of the USA Patriot Act [PDF; requires free Adobe Reader].

October 26, 2001
President Bush signs the USA Patriot Act [PDF; requires free Adobe Reader] into law.
Learn more about the USA Patriot Act: Flashpoints USA – Sacrifices of Security

November 5, 2001
The Justice Department announces that it has put 1,182 people into secret custody since 9/11. Nearly all of them are from the Middle East or South Asia.

November 21, 2001
Speaking at a Thanksgiving dinner for troops and their families at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, President Bush states, “Afghanistan is just the beginning on the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all of these threats are defeated. Across the world and across the years, we will fight these evil ones, and we will win.”

December 11, 2001
In the first criminal indictments stemming from the 9/11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is charged with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to “murder thousands of people” in New York, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.

The House International Relations Committee drafts House Joint Resolution 75, which states that if Iraq refuses to allow U.N. inspectors to investigate freely in Iraq, the refusal will constitute an “act of aggression against the United States.” The bill is sponsored by Representatives Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Porter Goss (R-FL) and Henry Hyde (R-IL).

December 13, 2001
The U.S. Army responds to an investigation by the Baltimore Sun and confirms that it has been making weapons grade anthrax in recent years, in violation of an international treaty.

December 17, 2001
The Northern Alliance defeats Taliban forces in the battle of Tora Bora, eliminating the last major pocket of Taliban resistance and effectively ending the Afghan war.

December 22, 2001
British citizen Richard Reid is arrested for allegedly trying to blow up a Miami-bound jet using explosives hidden in his shoe. He later pleads guilty to all charges, and declares himself a follower of Osama bin Laden.

January 23, 2002
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, Pakistan to investigate the case of alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid, is kidnapped while on his way to meet a source. A group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty claims responsibility and demands the release of all Pakistani terror detainees and the release of a halted shipment of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani government. A videotape of Pearl’s murder surfaces on February 23, and his body is discovered in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Karachi on May 16.

January 29, 2002
In his State of the Union address, President Bush describes an “axis of evil” between Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden is not mentioned in the speech.

February 6, 2002
In a Senate hearing CIA Director George Tenet denies that there was any 9/11 intelligence failure, and states that the 9/11 plot was “in the heads of three or four people” and thus nearly impossible to prevent. He tells the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “our major near-term concern is the possibility that Saddam might gain access to fissile material, . . . [and] with substantial foreign assistance, [Iraq] could flight-test a longer-range ballistic missile within the next five years.”

February 12, 2002
Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell states: “With respect to Iraq, it’s long been, for several years now, a policy of the United States’ government that regime change would be in the best interest of the region, the best interest of the Iraqi people. And we’re looking at a variety of options that would bring that about.”

March 19, 2002
Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director George Tenet claims that there are links between Iraq and al Qaeda: “There is no doubt that there have been (Iraqi) contacts and linkages to the al Qaeda organization. As to where we are on September 11, the jury is still out. As I said carefully in my statement, it would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility of state sponsorship whether Iranian or Iraqi and we’ll see where the evidence takes us.”

May 5, 2002
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Secretary of State Colin Powell says, “The United States reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime change…. U.S. policy is that regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad.”

May 20-24, 2002
The Bush administration issues an unprecedented series of terror warnings. Vice President Cheney warns it is “not a matter of if, but when” al Qaeda will next attack the U.S., a warning repeated by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that terrorists will “inevitably” obtain weapons of mass destruction, and FBI Director Mueller says more suicide bombings are “inevitable.” Authorities also issue separate warnings that al Qaeda terrorists might target apartment buildings nationwide, banks, rail and transit systems, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

June 1, 2002
In a speech to the graduating class at West Point, President Bush announces a new U.S. policy of preemptive military action: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.” This preemptive strategy is included in a defensive strategic paper the next month, and formally announced in September 2002. More here.

There of course is so much more to know, yet this timeline will help teach the facts and context. Citizens have a duty. Share, remember and explain.

About Those NK Miniature Warheads

Posted on August 22, 2019August 22, 2019 by Denise Simon

Primer: North Korea could now have as many as 60 nuclear warheads in its inventory. The new number is more than double the maximum estimate of 20 to 25 weapons by Siegfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor at Stanford University. Hecker was the last American scientist to visit North Korea’s nuclear weapons complex, in late 2010. Most estimates of the size of the North’s inventory have been far more conservative, generally in the range of 12 to 15 to 20.

photo

Japan defense white paper to concede North Korea has miniaturized nuclear warheads, report says

Reuters, Kyodo

TOKYO/BEIJING – Japan has upgraded its estimate of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability in an upcoming annual defense white paper, saying it seems Pyongyang has already achieved the miniaturization of warheads, the Yomiuri newspaper said in an unsourced report Wednesday.

That compares with the assessment in last year’s report in which the government said it was possible North Korea had achieved miniaturization, the daily said without citing sources.

The report, to be approved at a Cabinet meeting in mid-September, will maintain the assessment that North Korea’s military activities pose a “serious and imminent threat,” the Yomiuri said.

South Korea’s 2018 defense white paper, released in January, reported that North Korea’s ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons “appears to have reached a considerable level.”

According to South Korean media reports late last year, the South Korean intelligence agency told lawmakers that North Korea had continued to miniaturize nuclear warheads even after the Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June 2018.

At that time, North Korea committed “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and destroyed some tunnels and buildings at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

But a second Trump-Kim meeting in February collapsed without an agreement, and North Korea has since resumed missile tests.

American officials have concluded for years that North Korea had likely produced miniaturized nuclear warheads. A leaked report by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 concluded that North Korea had successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, according to The Washington Post.

In last year’s defense white paper, Japan said “miniaturizing a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on a ballistic missile requires a considerably high degree of technological capacity,” and that “it is possible that North Korea has achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has developed nuclear warheads.”

Also Wednesday, North Korea voiced its eagerness via its state-run media to continue developing and testing new weapons while accusing the United States of seeking confrontation through joint military drills with the South.

“There can be no constructive dialogue while confrontation is fueled,” the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, said. “We have to develop, test and deploy powerful physical means essential for national defense.”

The remarks by North Korea’s most influential newspaper came a day after the United States and South Korea ended their joint military exercise that started Aug. 5. Pyongyang has denounced such drills as a rehearsal for an invasion.

North Korea has repeatedly launched projectiles, including what appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles, off its east coast since July 25, in protest against the latest U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise.

The moves came despite Trump’s revelation earlier this month that he received what he called a “beautiful” letter from Kim. Trump said Kim expressed his desire in the letter to hold more summit talks following the end of the military drill.

North Korea is scheduled to convene the second session of its top legislative body this year on Aug. 29. All eyes are on whether Kim will make a speech at the legislature to announce his policy of how to proceed with denuclearization negotiations with the United States.

At their June 30 meeting at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom, Trump and Kim agreed that Washington and Pyongyang would resume stalled denuclearization talks within weeks, but they have yet to take place.