RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Iran Volunteers to Test Israeli Nukes

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Iran threatens reprisals if punished
By Mark Heinrich and Parisa Hafezi

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran warned the United States on Wednesday it could inflict "harm and pain" to match whatever punishment Washington persuaded the U.N. Security Council to dole out for Tehran's refusal to halt atomic research.

"So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll," Tehran national security official Javad Vaeedi said.

Security Council diplomats said it would probably start debating Iran next week and U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said it would be Monday or Tuesday.

The council's first move is likely to be urging Tehran to halt nuclear fuel work and cooperate with U.N. inspectors, without setting a deadline or threatening action.

Iran, the world's No. 4 oil provider, also said it would review its oil export policy should the council tackle its case, which EU powers said was now inevitable as Tehran had flouted demands to prove it was not secretly seeking atom bombs.

"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain," Vaeedi said.

Asked about Iran's warning, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in New Orleans: "Provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world."

Tehran and the United States, arch-foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, clashed at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board called to consider an IAEA report that says Iran is accelerating nuclear research.

The report by IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei, to be sent to the Security Council later in the day, will form part of the basis for any U.N. action. The U.N. agency's board decided a month ago to send Iran's nuclear dossier to the council, as long as it deferred any measures until after ElBaradei's report.

In testimony to the U.S. Congress, Burns said Iran "directly threatens vital American interests." He said "we plan a concerted approach (in the council) ... that gradually escalates pressure on Iran."

But Washington's top EU allies, Germany, France and Britain, were more cautious. "This is not the end of diplomacy," the "EU3" told the Vienna-based IAEA board.

U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte said "the time has now come for the council to act" as Iran had defied a February 4 IAEA resolution to cease trying to master technology to produce fuel for nuclear power plants or, potentially, bombs.

"(Iran) has so far chose a course of flagrant threats and phony negotiations. They hoped this would keep the international community divided and their nuclear ambitions unchecked," he told reporters outside the closed board session.

"Instead the course they have chosen has left them increasingly isolated and increasingly at risk of meaningful consequences (in the Security Council)," he added.

But any U.S.-led move to impose sanctions would face stiff resistance from veto-wielding council members China and Russia, which share the West's wish to deny Iran nuclear know-how but have lucrative energy investments in the Islamic Republic.

Winning consensus even for targeted sanctions such as travel bans on Iranian leaders could be a slow struggle given non-Western resentment that Iran is being singled out while nuclear proliferators such as India, Pakistan and Israel, all with good ties to the West, escape similar treatment.

IRAN DENIES MILITARY INTENT

Iran insists it wants only nuclear-generated electricity but hid atomic work from the IAEA for 18 years. Its recent calls for Israel's destruction have heightened alarm in the West.

Iran, which U.S. and Israeli officials accuse of backing Islamic militants in neighboring
Iraq and elsewhere has said previously it can create problems for Washington in the region.

Asked whether the Islamic Republic could use an "oil weapon," Vaeedi said: "We will not (do so now), but if the situation changes, we will have to review our oil policies."

Vaeedi said Iran remained opened to a negotiated deal, but added: "In any case, we will continue to exercise our (nuclear) research and development activities based on our right."

Iran has accused the United States of having orchestrated the IAEA move to report it to the Security Council as part of a U.S. policy of "regime change" in states it deems hostile.

The West has backed a Russian compromise formula for a joint venture to supply Tehran with low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plants as long as this takes place only on Russian soil.

But Moscow's offer has snagged on Iranian insistence in pursuing its own research with centrifuge enrichment machines

"Iran's unwillingness to cooperate fully with the IAEA, to do what is necessary to rebuild confidence ... has made Security Council action inevitable," EU3 powers said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy, Irwin Arieff at the United Nations, Carol Giacomo in Washington and Matt Spetalnick in New Orleans)

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thedoctor said:
Iran warned the United States on Wednesday it could inflict "harm and pain" to match whatever punishment Washington persuaded the U.N. Security Council to dole out for Tehran's refusal to halt atomic research.

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On the day that Iran stated it would not halt uranium enrichment, the U.S. military made what some are interpreting as a thinly-veilled threat:

The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said.

"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters.

"We also have -- are you ready for this - a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we're going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada," he said.

U.S. Mulls Nuke Strike On Iran

April 9, 2006
(AP / CBS)


(CBS/AP) The United States is exploring plans for a military strike on Iran because of its nuclear ambitions, according to reports by the Washington Post and The New Yorker magazine.

Seymour Hersh writes in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker, that members of the U.S. military, more and more, believe President Bush is leaning toward a "regime change" in Iran as the best way to quell the country's quest for nuclear capabilities.
Hersh writes that the Bush administration has "increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack," including the use of nuclear, bunker-busting bombs.

The New Yorker article quotes one former senior intelligence official as saying that Mr. Bush views Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "potential Adolph Hitler."

The Washington Post article, written by Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks, says that officials are looking at air strikes and bombing campaigns, but not a land invasion.

"Surely, the reports will spur debate about U.S. military action against Iran, particularly since U.S.-Iran talks regarding Iraq are tentatively scheduled for mid-April and because U.S. military action would be opposed by most world leaders," CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk says.

The Post reports possible targets for a U.S. attack on Iran include facilities where uranium enrichment plant and a uranium conversion take place, according to current and former officials with the Pentagon and CIA.

Iranian officials, according to the Post, have already begun reinforcing key sites "by building concrete ceilings, tunneling into mountains and camouflaging facilities."

Hersh identifies the same targets in The New Yorker and says some inside the Pentagon have proposed using tactical nuclear weapons to penetrate the increased defenses. But, Hersch also writes, "The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Senior administration officials are calling the New Yorker article "ill-informed," reports CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante.

The White House insists it is pursuing diplomatic solutions with Iran and a military strike is the last option.

Iran's president says [he] dismisses the reports as tools of "psychological warfare" from enemies who do not want his country to develop.
"Through these acts of misinformation, they want to get concessions from us," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said through the Iranian state media agency.

"Our nation will respond [to] the enemies and the mischievous ones resolutely," he warned.

Despite accusations about weapons development, Iran has said its nuclear research is for civilian purposes only.

But, Iran has not fully cooperated with international nuclear controls.

In February, Iran barred surprise International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear facilities after the nuclear agency referred it to the U.N. Security Council in response to the resumption of work at Natanz. But Tehran continued allowing normal inspections under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

More than three years of IAEA probing have failed to produce concrete evidence of any Iranian nuclear weapons program. But the agency discovered suspicious activity, including plutonium experiments and long-secret efforts to develop enriched uranium.

The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend all enrichment of uranium – a key process that can produce either fuel for a reactor or the material for a nuclear warhead – and gave Tehran until April 28 to comply before the IAEA reports back to the council on its progress.

"The U.N. in late March gave Iran one month and asked the international watchdog agency to report back on Iran's compliance on freezing its nuclear program, but according to the Hersh report, the White House has increased its military planning for possible attacks against Iran and has not ruled out using tactical bunker-busting nuclear weapons, in the event negotiations fail," Falk says.

But, the American strike plans do not appear to have international support. Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, called the plans "completely nuts" in a Sunday interview with the BBC.

"We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is therefore not a basis for which anybody would gain authority to go to military action," he said.

The Washington Post, however, reports that Britain – Washington's closest ally in the War on Terror – is already planning for a potential U.S. strike. The British government is studying security options for its citizens, embassy and consular offices in Iran, according to the report, but "their government is unlikely to participate directly in any attacks."

"The unity of the world powers at the United Nations ends with a stern warning, mainly because Russia and China have made no bones about opposing sanctions or harsher action," Falk says, "leaving the Bush administration planning for a coalition of countries to impose sanctions and, according to the Hersh report, military action."

©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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PenWing said:
You also don't want some who will use the nukes against another nation to have them. Iran will attempt to nuke Israel. If Iran is allowed to have nukes, Israel will make a move to protect itself from a group of people who breed hate against them. To sum it all up, if Iran gets nukes, there will be war, it will be ugly, and many people you claim are innocent will die. The solution is to deny Iran nukes. No nukes means no war means business as usual.

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U.S. Central Command has been preparing for the prospect of an American-led war against Iran.

Officials stressed that Centcom has not received orders to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. But they said the command, which covers an area of 27 countries from North Africa to Central Asia, was preparing to respond quickly to any contingency in the region.

"I remain persuaded that we would be able to do anything that our nation asks us to do," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, director of strategic policy and planning at Centcom, said. "And any nation that somehow miscalculates in that regard is making a tremendous mistake."

Kimmitt told Arab journalists in a briefing in London that the United States remains committed to resolving the crisis with Iran through diplomacy. But he said Centcom was studying a range of scenarios, including the prospect of an Iranian-sponsored Islamic insurgency campaign in wake of a U.S. military confrontation with Teheran.

The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel and said yesterday that it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it had successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians.

"The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

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Randal_Flagg said:
Screw it! I always wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic world. I guess I'll just start stockpiling can goods, potable water, gasoline, and shotgun shells. Talk to you guys later.... I got work to do.

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Maybe Golden Dave can get us a deal on some beach front property in Australia!

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magicjay38 said:

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Randal_Flagg said:
Screw it! I always wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic world. I guess I'll just start stockpiling can goods, potable water, gasoline, and shotgun shells. Talk to you guys later.... I got work to do.

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Maybe Golden Dave can get us a deal on some beach front property in Australia!

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First Amongst Daves said:
I definitely have a problem with a nuclear strike - I can't imagine any American official seriously contemplating a nuclear strike on Iran. Setting aside the ethical, legal and humanitarian issues of using a thermonuclear blast on a city filled with civilians, it would invite a war of terrorism that would last for generations.

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Iran has discovered new deposits of uranium and is continuing its nuclear enrichment program despite international protests, a top nuclear official said Tuesday.

The deputy chief for nuclear research and technology, Mohammad Ghannadi, said at least three new uranium deposits were found, and the government was working toward mining them.

He said the deposits were found in the Khoshoomi region, Charchooleh and Narigan.

Iran already has substantial uranium resources, principally at the Saghand mine in the center of the country.

Ghannadi said Iran's enrichment of uranium was continuing. Last week, the country flouted a U.N. deadline to cease enrichment, saying it would never give up the program. Enriched uranium is used a fuel for nuclear power generators or in nuclear warheads.

Iran's parliament threatened the nation's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the United Nations pressures Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

The UN security council, meanwhile, remains at odds on a resolution over Iran's nuclear program.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Iranian lawmakers said they would force the government to withdraw from the treaty if "the U.N. Secretary General and other members of the Security Council fail in their crucial responsibility to resolve differences peacefully."

Under Article 10 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty a nation can pull out of the treaty if it decides that an "extraordinary" event has jeopardized the interests of the nation. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 on that basis.

The Security Council has been considering a resolution that demands Iran stop uranium enrichment. However, permanent members Russia and China disagree with the United States, Britain and France over how strong the resolution should be.

The draft resolution, put together by Britain and France and the U.S., would oblige Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter. A resolution under Chapter 7 would be binding under international law and would permit sanctions and even war.

China and Russia, which both have veto power in the Security Council, have argued there is no evidence that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons.

The foreign ministers of the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany -- are meeting in New York Monday.

The U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said he believed the resolution would be voted on next week, with or without support from Russia and China.

Bolton dismissed Iran's threat of withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty, saying it would not deter Western nations trying to push through the resolution.

"This is a typical Iranian threat. It shows they remain desperate to conceal that their nuclear program is in fact a weapons program," he said. "I'm confident that these statements from Iran will not deter the sponsors of the draft resolution from proceeding in the Security Council."

Six world powers searched for common ground Wednesday on rewarding Iran if it gives up uranium enrichment, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Tehran to “lift the cloud of uncertainty” about its nuclear program.

Among the issues at a meeting in London grouping the five U.N. Security Council nations and Germany was a compromise proposal for possible sanctions against Iran should it refuse to halt uranium enrichment, diplomats said.

The compromise — which would drop the automatic threat of military action if Iran remains defiant — is part of a proposed basket of incentives meant to entice Iran to give up the activity, a possible pathway to nuclear arms. It also spells out the penalties if it does not. It is meant to get support both from Russia and China, which fiercely oppose any suggestion of force in pressuring Iran.

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the G-man said:
The compromise — which would drop the automatic threat of military action if Iran remains defiant — is part of a proposed basket of incentives meant to entice Iran to give up the activity, a possible pathway to nuclear arms. It also spells out the penalties if it does not. It is meant to get support both from Russia and China, which fiercely oppose any suggestion of force in pressuring Iran.[/LIST]

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Wiat one second here. So, if Iran agrees to the "compomise", then they can still go ahead with their nuclear program without the treat of a military response? That's just . For Iran, I mean. The UN, on the other hand, is .

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said talks with the United States would have "no benefit" for Iran, so there's no need to hold them.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said officials don't consider the supreme leader's comments to be an official response. The United States and its allies in Europe are waiting for Iran's top nuclear negotiator to talk to the European Union's foreign policy chief, Snow said.

The West is offering Iran a package of incentives to give up its nuclear activities. But Khamenei — who has final say on all state matters in Iran — believes any negotiations would only pressure his country.

The U.N. Security Council passed a weakened resolution yesterday, giving Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Iran immediately rejected the resolution, saying it would only complicate negotiations over an incentive package offered in June.

Because of Russian and Chinese demands, the text was watered down from drafts that would have made the threat of sanctions immediate. It now essentially requires the council to hold more discussions before weighing sanctions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay.

He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

....according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?

Iran’s nuke-kook leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, took the podium at the United Nations last night — and delivered a mad rant against the United States, blaming it for the world’s ills and claiming Israel should not exist. He spoke hours after President Bush addressed the world body, urging the people of Islamic nations not to be deceived by anti-U.S. propaganda.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called Israel's leaders a "group of terrorists" and threatened any country that supports the Jewish state.

"You imposed a group of terrorists ... on the region," Ahmadinejad said, addressing the U.S. and its allies. "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

"Nations will take revenge," he told a crowd of thousands gathered at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital Tehran.

Ahmadinejad said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear.

"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said.

"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

What Ahmadinejad's thinly-veiled threat failed to mention is that his apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect quite likely has the intention of "helping" Israel out of existence once Iran has both nuclear warheads and the ability to deliver them.

The implicit threats of this particular exchange, which CNN provides coverage of in greater depth, are directed at Europe:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Europe that it may pay a heavy price for its support of Israel.

"You should believe that this regime (Israel) cannot last and has no more benefit to you. What benefit have you got in supporting this regime, except the hatred of the nations?" he said in nationally broadcast speech Friday.

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region," he said.

"We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt."

I wonder how much longer the pint-sized Holocaust denier will continue to issue threats against the world community without any measurable response from those countries he has threatened to put in the crosshairs.

Time and again, Ahmadinejad says Iran only wants to continue its nuclear program for peaceful means, only to quickly reissue threats that most understand to be links to implied of attacks by MIRV-equipped ICBMs.

I won't be shocked to find that the world will only recognize the threat that Ahmadinejad's Hojjatieh sect brings to hundreds of thousand if not millions of lives as they attempt to bring forth the Hidden Imam. I suspect it will only be after Iran's missiles are launched, and by then it will be far too late.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in congressional elections a victory for Iran.

Bush has accused Iran of trying to make a nuclear bomb, being a state sponsor of terrorism and stoking sectarian conflict in Iraq, all charges Tehran denies.

"This issue (the elections) is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world," Khamenei said in remarks reported by Iran's student news agency ISNA on Friday.

"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

The leader of al Qaida in Iraq made new threats today.
A recorded message said to be from Abu Ayyab al-Masri claimed his group has 12,000 fighters in Iraq.
He dared President Bush to keep U.S. troops in the country.

He said: "We call on the lame duck not to hurry his escape, as the Defense Secretary [Rumsfeld] did.
For we haven't enough of your blood yet."

The message applauded U.S. voters for the election results.
It said: "They voted for something reasonable."

Yahoo News

United Press International

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Matter-eater Man said:
I think over the years it's become evident that Bush's leadership hasn't been effective. For whatever reason, Bush has stuck with not using enough troops to get Iraq under control. He's been the gift that keeps on giving for creating more terrorist & more dead troops.

Bush is still in charge btw, so for those that take terrorist propaganda to heart Bush still has two more years till somebody from either party comes in to start cleaning up his mess.

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Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems to Iran, a Defense Ministry official said yesterday, confirming that Moscow plans to proceed with arms deals with the outlaw nation despite Western criticism.

The official, who insisted on anonymity, declined to specify when the deliveries were made and how many. Ministry officials have said Moscow would supply 29 of the missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract signed last December.

The United States last spring called on all nations to cease all nuclear cooperation with Iran, thought to be seeking to enrich uranium in a bid for nuclear weapons.

The U.N. Security Council, where Russia wields a veto, is stalemated as to the severity of Iran sanctions.

U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.

Two senior U.S. defense officials confirmed to ABC News earlier reports that fighters from the Mahdi army have traveled to Lebanon to receive training from Hezbollah.

A federal judge in Washington yesterday blamed the Iranian government for the deaths of 19 members of the U.S. Air Force in a 1996 terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia, allowing the victims' families to seek more than $260 million in compensation from the Islamic regime in Tehran.