A diplomat based in Islamabad said on Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iran would force Pakistan to support a Iranian response, according to the Israeli website Ynetnews.com.

The diplomat did not say if the Pakistani retaliation would be diplomatic or involve a conventional military or nuclear response.

Although estimates of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile vary, it is believed the Islamic country has between 70 and 90 warheads. In 2000, U.S. military and intelligence sources put the number at 100. In 2007, retired PakistaniBrigadier-General Feroz Khan told a Pakistani newspaper that his country has “about 80 to 120 genuinewarheads.”

Pakistan also has a number of delivery system for its nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear MIRV-equipped medium range ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2500 kilometers. It also has cruise missiles and is believed to be working on tactical nuclear weapons.
In August of 2011, it was reported that theUnited States considers Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal a threat and it has a “snatch-and-grab” plan for a worse case scenario.

Both Russia and China have said that an attack on Iran would be an attack on their national security.

“Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former envoy to NATO, said in mid-January.

“China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third world war,” said Major General Zhang Zhaozhong in December.

Source.

With ongoing war games on both sides, armed hostilities between the US-Israel led coalition and Iran are, according to Israeli military analysts, “dangerously close”.

There has been a massive deployment of troops which have been dispatched to the Middle East, not to mention the redeployment of US and allied troops previously stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nine thousand US troops have been dispatched to Israel to participate in what is described by the Israeli press as the largest joint air defense war exercise in Israeli history.

The drill, called “Austere Challenge 12,” is scheduled to take place within the next few weeks. Its stated purpose “is to test multiple Israeli and US air defense systems, especially the “Arrow” system, which the country specifically developed with help from the US to intercept Iranian missiles.”

In the course of December, Iran conducted its own war games with a major ten days naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, (December 24, 2011- January 2, 2012).

Missile defense and naval war games are being conducted simultaneously.  While Israel  and the US are preparing to launch major naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, Tehran has announced that it plans to conduct major naval exercises in February.

An impressive deployment of troops and advanced military hardware is unfolding.

Meanwhile, Israel has become a de facto US military outpost. US and Israeli command structures are being integrated, with close consultations between the Pentagon and Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

A large number of US troops will be stationed in Israel once the war games are completed.

The assumption of this military deployment is the staging of a joint US-Israeli air attack on Iran. Military escalation towards a regional war is part of the military scenario.

Ultimately Israel is an American pawn.

The people of Israel are the unspoken victims of US military ambitions, which consist in the conquest and “recolonization” –under a US mandate– of the Anglo-Persian oil empire.

The History of War Planning: “Theater Iran Near Term” (TIRANNT)

A review of the history of war planning –including war games and simulations– directed against Iran is essential to an understanding of recent developments in the Persian Gulf.

Active war preparations directed against Iran (with the involvement of Israel and NATO) were initiated in May 2003, one month after the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It should be understood that from the outset of these war preparations, a World War III scenario was envisaged by US war planners.

The assumption of escalation was embedded in the simulations and the war games.

Moreover, the war on Iran was formulated as a “Global Strike” plan involving centralized military decision-making and coordination by US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). A “Concept Plan” entitled CONPLAN 8022 was established in 2003. The operational CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022 is described as “an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers.”

A simulated scenario of an all out bombing campaign against Iran entitled “Theater Iran Near Term” was implemented in May 2003.  (To be noted, there have been numerous simulations and war games which have remained classified). .

Code named by US military planners as TIRANNT,  “Theater Iran Near Term” had identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg. (The analysis contained in this section is based on my earlier 2007 article entitled Theater Iran Near Term, Global Research, February 21, 2007)

“In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “theater Iran near term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasionand a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for ”major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form.
… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-year scenarios for war with Iran, including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (William Arkin, The Pentagon Preps for Iran  Washington Post, 16 April 2006, emphasis added)

What distinguishes the TIRANNT simulations in relation to previous (pre-2003) war game scenarios, is that a) they were conducted in the wake of the Iraq war and b) the Blitzkrieg assumptions behind TIRANNT are similar to those used in the intense March 2003 bombing campaign directed against Iraq.

In other words, the bombing campaign scenarios under TIRANNT are not limited to surgical strikes directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities. They also involve an “invasion scenario”, the deployment of Marines Corps, as well as “the mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.”

The assessment of these war games is crucial in evaluating recent developments in the Persian Gulf because it suggests that if an attack on Iran is implemented it will inevitably evolve towards an all out bombing campaign as well as a ground war.

Confirmed by Arkin, the active component of the Iran military agenda was launched in May 2003 “when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran.” (Arkin, op cit). In October 2003, different theater scenarios for an Iran war were contemplated:

“The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).” (New Statesman, 19 February 2007)

It is worth noting that following the implementation of TIRANNT, starting in 2004, there was a stepped up delivery of weapons systems to Israel.

Military Alliances. Simulating World War III

A World War III scenario has been the object of numerous simulations and war games, going back to the Cold War era.

We have no details regarding the geopolitical assumptions underlying the TIRANNT war scenarios, –i.e. regarding analysis of major military actors, alliances, etc. From the available information, the simulations pertained to an all out war (bombing campaign and ground war) directed against Iran, without taking into account possible responses by Iran’s allies, namely China and Russia.

In 2006, The Pentagon launched another set of war simulations entitled Vigilant Shield 07  (conducted from September through December 2006). These war simulations were not limited to a single Middle East war theater as in the case of TIRANNT (e.g. Iran), they also included Russia, China and North Korea.

The core assumption behind Vigilant Shield 07 is “Global Warfare”. In the light of recent war preparations directed against Iran, the Road to Conflict in the Vigilant Shield 07 war games should be examined very carefully. They anticipate the “New Cold War”. They reflect US foreign policy and military doctrine during both the Bush and Obama administrations. The declared enemies of America under Vigilant Shield are Irmingham [Iran],Nemazee [North Korea], Ruebek [Russia], Churya [China]

Vigilant Shield 07 is a World War III Scenario which also includes an active and aggressive role for North Korea.
The simulations are predicated on the assumption that Iran constitutes a nuclear threat and that Russia and North Korea –which are allies of Iran– will attack America and that America and its allies will wage a pre-emptive (defensive) war.
While China is included in the simulations as a threat as well as an enemy of America, it is not directly involved, in the simulations, in attacking America.

The war simulations commence with Iran and Russia conducting joint air defense exercises, followed by nuclear testing by North Korea.

A terrorist attack on America is also contemplated in Vigilant Shield 07 based on the assumption that the “axis of evil” “rogue states” are supporting “non-State” terrorist organizations.

The diplomatic agenda is also envisaged as well as a media campaign to discredit Russia and Iran.

It should be understood that the conduct of these war scenarios with America under attack is also intended as an instrument of internal propaganda within the upper the echelons of Military, Intelligence and participating government agencies, with a view to developing a an unbending consensus pertaining to the preemptive war doctrine, –i.e that the threat against the “American Homeland” is “real” and that a pre-emptive attack –including the use of US nuclear weapons–  against rogue enemies is justified. And that premeptive warfare is an instrument of peacemaking which contributes to global security.

Irmingham [Iran], Nemazee [North Korea], Ruebek [Russia], Churya [China]

Details and Sequencing: [emphasis added]

” Road to Conflict (RTC): 11 Sep – 15 Oct 06

Initial Irmingham Enrichment [indications and warning]
Initial Ruebeki & Irmingham Involvement
 – Ruebek I&W, PACFLT [U.S. Pacific Fleet] Sub Deployments
– Initial Nemazee ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] I&W
– Initial MHLD [homeland defense?] I&W
Strategic IO [information operations (cyber warfare)] operations (Ruebek & Churya)
Ruebek & Irmingham Conduct Joint AD [air defense] Exercise

Phase 1 / Deployment: 4 – 8 Dec 06

– Rogue LRA [Russian long-range aviation] w/CALCM [conventional air launched cruise missile] Launch
– Continue Monitoring Strategic Situation
– Continue Monitoring Nemazee Situation

 Possible Nuclear Testing
 Probable ICBM Preparation
– Continue Monitoring MHLD Situation

Five VOIs [vessels of interest]
 Churya Flagged VOI into Dutch Harbor Supports BMDS [ballistic missile defense system] Threat to Ft Greely

– Continue Monitoring IO Activities
Nemazee Conducts SLV [space launch vehicle] Launch – 8 Dec 06

Phase 2 Minus 42 Days:

Additional Nemazee ICBM Shipments to Launch Facilities
RMOB [Russian main operating bases] Acft Conduct LR Navigation Flights
AS-15 [nuclear armed cruise missile] Handling at RMOBs

– Minus 41 Days:
Additional Nemazee ICBM Preps at Launch Pad # 2
– Minus 40 Days:
 Activity at Nemazee Nuclear Test Facilities
– Minus 35 Days:
 DOS [Department of State] Travel Warning
 – Minus 30 Days:
Ruebek LRA Deploys Acft to Anadyr & Vorkuta

Phase 2 Minus 30 Days:

Growing International Condemnation of Ruebek
Ruebek Deploys Submarines

– Minus 20 Days:
 Nemazee Recalls Reservists
 – Minus 14 Days:
DOS Draw-down Sequencing
– Minus 13 Days:
 Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
 – Minus 11 Days:
Nemazee Conducts Fueling of Additional ICBMs
 Ruebeki Presidential Statement on Possible US Attack

Phase 2 Minus 10 Days:

POTUS Addresses Congress on War Powers Act
– Minus 6 Days:
 Ruebek President Calls Situation Grave
 – Minus 5 Days:
CALCM Activity at Anadyr, Vorkuta, and Tiksi
Ruebeki SS-25 [nuclear armed mobile ICBMs] Conduct out of Garrison Deployments
Nemazee Assembling ICBM for Probable Launch
– Minus 4 Days:
 Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
 Ruebek Acft Conduct Outer ADIZ [air defense identification zone] Pentrations
Mid-Air Collison w/NORAD Acft During ADIZ Penetration

Phase 2 Minus 4 Days:

Nemazee ICBM Launch Azimuth Threatens US

– Minus 3 Days:
NATO Diplomatic Efforts Fail to Diffuse Crisis
USAMB to Ruebek Recalled for Consultation
POTUS Addresses Nation
 – Minus 2 Days:
Nemazee Leadership Movement
 – Minus 1 Day:
Ruebek Expels US Mission

Phase 2 / Execution: 10 – 14 Dec 06

– Pre-Attack I & W
Imminent Terrorist Attack on Pentagon Suggests Pentagon COOP [continuity of operations plan]
Nemazee Conducts 2 x ICBM Combat Launches Against United States
Ruebek Conducts Limited Strategic Attack on United States
Wave 1 – 8 x Bear H Defense Suppression w/CALCM
Wave 2 – Limited ICBM & SLBM Attack
– 2 x ICBM Launched (1 impacts CMOC [Cheyenne Mountain], 1 malfunctions)
– 2 x SLBM Launched Pierside (1 impacts SITE-R ["Raven Rock" bunker on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border], 1 malfunctions)
– 3 x Bear H from Dispersal Bases w/ALCM (Eielson AFB, CANR, Cold Lake)
– US Conducts Limited Retaliatory Attack on Ruebek
1 x ICBM C2 Facility
1 x ICBM Against ICBM Launch Location
Phase 2 / Execution:
Ruebek Prepares Additional Attack on United States
Wave 3 Prepares for Additional Strategic Attacks
  – 1 x ICBM Movement, NO Launch
– 3 x SLBM PACFLT Pierside Missile Handling Activity (NO Launch)
– 6 x BEAR H (launch & RTB [return to base]) w/6 x ALCM (NO launch)”

[source Northern Command and William Arkin] emphasis added

Complacency of Western Public Opinion

The complacency of Western public opinion (including segments of the US anti-war movement) is disturbing.

No concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of  a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran using US and/or Israeli nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

Moreover, public opinion is led to believe that the war will be limited to surgical strikes directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities and that neither Russia nor China will intervene.

The war on Iran and the dangers of escalation are not considered “front page news.” The mainstream media has excluded in-depth analysis and debate on the implications of these war plans.

The absence of public awareness, the complacency of the antiwar movement as well as the weakness of organized social movements indelibly contribute to the real possibility that this war could be carried out, leading to the unthinkable: a nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East and Central Asia involving millions of civilian casualties.

It should be noted that a nuclear nightmare would occur even if nuclear weapons are not used.

The bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities using conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing a Chernobyl-Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout.

Global Research, January 8, 2012

Israel is preparing to shut its nuclear reactor at Dimona, where it makes nuclear weapons, because of the site’s vulnerability in a war with Iran.

The decision, taken by the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and the country’s civil defence authorities, follows a realisation that the facility could be vulnerable to a missile attack.

Generals are quoted as saying the Iranians possess about 15 thousand missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Source.

Russian strategic missiles may target American anti-ballistic missile shield facilities in Europe, the commander of the Russian missile troops has warned.

The missiles on duty have blank flight programs, but they can be promptly targeted at any destination, including the controversial European AMD sites, Lieutenant General Sergey Karakaev told journalists on Friday.

“There are no technical limitations on the use of strategic missiles. It would take very little time to select a new target and upload a new missile flight program,” he assured.

He added that “the combat use of missile troop forces is done on command of the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces, while planning objectives for possible strikes is the job of the General Staff.”

The general also announced the military’s plans to create a new heavy silo-based liquid propellant strategic missile. It will “have improved capabilities to overcome multiple echelons of an anti-missile system” through the use of advanced design of the vehicle and its warhead as well as better fuel.

Karakaev stressed that the need for the new missile comes due to development of ABM technology by the United States.

“If the USA deploys space-based strike anti-ballistic missile forces, which is not excluded due to intensive research in that area it carries out, the potential of small solid propellant missiles would not be enough to overcome such a system,” he said. “In this situation deployment of a liquid propellant ICBM with a launch weigh about 100 tonnes is preferable, since it would be noticeably better than a solid propellant missile of a similar size in terms of the payload-to-weight ratio.”

He added that such a missile can be used to deliver conventional precision warheads and will still have a virtually global reach, which gives more options for Russia in warfare.

In the short-term period, the existing Topol-M and Yars ICBMs are capable of overcoming any challenges the strategic missile troops may face, the commander assured. He said that by year’s end, a quarter of the missiles deployed by Russia will be of these advanced designs. The near-total rearmament of the military is currently being carried out and will be finished by 2012.

The American plans to deploy its anti-missile sites in Europe are a long-standing point of conflict between Moscow and Washington. Russia wants legal guarantees that the system will not undermine its nuclear deterrence, which the US is reluctant to provide such assurances.

Lately Moscow has taken a tougher stance on the issue, opting for a military response to the threat, which politics is failing to address. It plans to deploy Iskander tactical missiles in Kaliningrad exclave, which would allow destruction of the future ABM facilities, should this be needed. President Medvedev also ordered defense ministry to develop further measures to counter the American system.

Source.

A grim Ministry of Defense bulletin issued to Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev today states that President Hu has “agreed in principal” that the only way to stop the West’s aggression led by the United States is through “direct and immediate military action” and that the Chinese leader has ordered his Naval Forces to “prepare for warfare.”

Hu’s call for war joins Chinese Rear Admiral and prominent military commentator Zhang Zhaozhong who, likewise, warned this past week that “China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a Third World War,” and Russian General Nikolai Makarov who grimly stated last week, “I do not rule out local and regional armed conflicts developing into a large-scale war, including using nuclear weapons.”

The raising of global tensions between the East and West was exploded this past fortnight when Russian Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko and two of his aides retuning from Syria were brutally assaulted and put in hospital by Qatar security forces aided by CIA and British MI6 agents attempting to gain access to diplomatic pouches containing information from Syrian intelligence that the United States was flooding Syria and Iran with the same US-backed al Qaida mercenaries who toppled the Libyan government.

Further evidence in these diplomatic pouches, this bulletin says, reveals that the United States is preparing an “ultimate solution” to the Middle East Crisis should nuclear war break out by attacking Syria and Iran with lethal biological agents intended to kill tens of millions of innocent civilians.

The discovery of the biological agent to be used by the West was revealed a fortnight ago by Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands who lead a team of scientists that discovered that a mere five mutations to the avian flu virus was sufficient to make it spread far more easily and would make it the most lethal killer of mankind ever invented.

Should the US begin an attack utilizing this deadly virus, this bulletin continues, its most likely method of delivery would be via its RQ-170 Sentinel Drone which is operated by the CIA.

These frightening assessments of future US actions against its enemies were revealed in this bulletin based upon Russian intelligence analysts examination of the RQ-170 Sentinel Drone brought down over Iranian territory last week by the Russian made Avtobaza ground-based electronic intelligence and jamming system used against this unmanned aerial vehicle with little damage and that showed it be equipped with a sophisticated aerosol delivery system.

Important to note is that the Western powers first use of a deadly flu virus to destroy their enemies and overthrow the established global order was first used less than a century ago in 1918 when the Spanish Flu variant was unleashed at the ending of World War I and killed an estimated 500 million people which represented fully 3% of the world’s entire population.

Archived KGB files on the Spanish Flu pandemic have always stated that this deadly virus was “bio-engineered” by US military scientists who used as their“guinea pigs” American Soldiers who were the first recorded victims and were stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas.

To fully understand the underlying reasons behind the United States and its Western allies push for Total Global War was recently detailed by the top American investigative journalist Greg Hunter whose shocking in depth report titled “Is the World Spinning Out of Control?” revealed that the entire edifice of the Western economic systems is crumbling under the weight of over $100 Trillion in debt no one is able to pay and wherein he warned: “Never in history has the world been this close to total financial chaos and nuclear war at the same time.”

Sadly, but as always, the American people are not being allowed to know the horrific future their elite leaders are planning for them, a situation made even worse this past week when the US Senate passed a new law by a 93-7 vote that is warned will destroy America for all time by giving total control of this once free nation over to its military forces and destroy their Constitution.

As we noted in our previous report, it is worth mentioning again the words of the American Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, who warned his fellow citizens over 200 years ago about what is happening today by saying:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

December 7, 2011 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Georgetown University students under the instruction of a former Pentagon official have assembled the largest body of public knowledge yet about a vast network of secret tunnels dug by China’s secretive Second Artillery Corps, responsible for nuclear warheads.

The 363-page study has not yet been published, but has already sparked a congressional hearing and been circulated among top US defence officials, including the Air Force vice chief of staff, the Post reported.

“It’s not quite a bombshell, but those thoughts and estimates are being checked against what people think they know based on classified information,” it quoted an unnamed Defense Department strategist as saying.

The newspaper said critics of the report had questioned the students methods, which included using internet-based sources like Google Earth, blogs, military journals and even a fictionalised Chinese TV show.

But the Post also said the students were able to obtain a 400-page manual produced by the Second Artillery and usually only available to Chinese military personnel.

The students’ professor, Phillip Karber, 65, spent the Cold War as a top strategist reporting directly to the secretary of defence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Post said.

Karber said that – based on the study of the tunnels – China could have up to 3,000 nuclear warheads, far higher than the current estimates, which range from 80 to 400, according to the Post.

US officials could not immediately be reached to comment on the report.

Source.

Santa Claus Exists!

Iran has acquired the knowledge and technology to create a nuclear bomb within months according to information leaked from a report by the United Nation’s atomic watchdog.

A report by the Washington Post on Sunday said Iran appears to have gotten key technical assistance from foreign experts according to the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA investigation will apparently detail a secret research program.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Akbar Salehi responded to the leak over the weekend and accused the IAEA of giving in to U.S. pressure to level accusations against Iran.

“The IAEA should not do things under pressure,” said Salehi. “Iran’s nuclear issue is not a technical or legal issue. It’s a totally political case.”

Western powers believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons through its civilian nuclear energy program. Iranian officials say they are enriching uranium only to power reactors for electricity generation. The U.S., the European Union and their allies have imposed economic sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program.

Facility is just 30km from Tehran

The report is due out in days but it’s already triggering concern, especially in Israel where there’s a debate over whether the government should unilaterally bomb the Iranian nuclear facility located just 30 kilometres from Tehran.

President Shimon Peres stirred up the debate over the weekend by saying that a military solution is closer now than ever.

However, a dozen former chiefs of defence staff in Israel and the recent director of the country’s spy agency, Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, have said they are opposed to that.

Joel Rubin, head of Project Ploughshares, an international organization dedicated to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, says everyone should exercise caution.

“What the report does not do is provide a sort of smoking gun,” Rubin told CBC News Network on Monday.

“It does not say that Iran has decided to make a nuclear weapon. It does not say that a nuclear weapon is imminent.. It does not create the Doomsday scenario that many are talking about.”

Rubin said international sanctions have done a lot to slow down Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s previous allies, Russia and China, have also joined that effort.

“The Iranian leadership is in a state of flux and chaos and that means diplomacy, not just talking but really trying to understand what is going on inside of the leadership’s decision-making is what is essential.”

Source.

Report: U.K. preparing for military strike on Iran nuclear facilities

The Guardian newspaper says U.K. increasingly concerned over Iran’s enrichment program, and is preparing to deploy warships to assist a possible U.S. strike.

The U.K. is stepping up its preparations for a military strike on Iran, the Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday. According to the report, the U.K. is increasingly concerned over Tehran’s nuclear program, and is preparing to deploy Royal Navy ships in the in the coming months to assist a possible U.S. attack on key facilities in Iran.

The paper cited senior officials who said they believed Iran had regained its technological capabilities which were severely damaged in a cyber-attack last year. Iran said the Stuxnet worm infected personal computers of employees at the Bushehr plant, but not the plant’s main systems. The New York Times reported last January that the worm was a joint Israeli-U.S. effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran’s military chief warned Wednesday that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear development sites will come at a heavy price, according to the Iranian ISNA news agency.

Responding to reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to gain a majority in the cabinet for an attack on Iran, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, warned both Israel and the U.S. against such a move.

Meanwhile, the Israel Air Force continues conducting comprehensive drills on long-range attacks.

The last drill of this sort took place last week at the NATO base in Italy, in which six different types of air force squadrons participated. The drill was widely covered on websites around the world that specialize in aviation.

Also on Wednesday, Israel test-fired a ballistic missile at the Palmahim Israel Defense Forces base in central Israel. The test was part of an examination of a new missile currently being developed by the defense establishment. The missile left behind a fire trail that could be seen throughout central Israel.

Source.

(AGI) Tripoli – The outgoing premier of Libya’s NTC, Mahmoud Jibril, has announced that nuclear weapons were found in the country.

It was reported by TV network Al Arabiya. Muammar Gaddafi officially gave up his nuclear weapons program in 2004 in a bid to strengthen Libya’s ties with the West.

Jibril also said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will provide further details on the weapons found in the next few days. . .

The outgoing premier of Libya’s NTC, Mahmoud Jibril said Sunday that nuclear weapons were found in the country, according to the Al Arabiya TV network, Israel Radio reported.

Jibril also said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will provide further details on the weapons found in the next few days, according to the report.

By Richard Walker - American Free Press

A leading Japanese journalist recently made two incredible claims about the Fukushima power plant that suffered a nuclear meltdown in March 2011, sending shockwaves around the world. First, the former editor of a national newspaper in Japan says the U.S. and Israel knew Fukushima had weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that were exposed to the atmosphere after a massive tsunami wave hit the reactor. Second, he  contends that Israeli intelligence sabotaged the reactor in retaliation for Japan’s support of an independent Palestinian state.

According to Yoishi Shimatsu, a former editor of Japan Times Weekly, these nuclear materials were shipped to the plant in 2007 on the orders of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, with the connivance of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The shipment was in the form of warhead cores secretly removed from the U.S. nuclear warheads facility BWXT Plantex near Amarillo, Texas. While acting as the middleman, Israel transported warheads from the port of Houston, and in the process kept the best ones while giving the Japanese older warhead cores that had to be further enriched at Fukushima.

Shimatsu credits retired CIA agent and mercenary Roland Vincent Carnaby with learning the warheads were being transported from Houston. In a strange twist, Carnaby was mysteriously shot dead less than a year later by Houston police at a traffic stop. He was shot once in the back and once in the chest. He did not have a weapon in his hands. Intelligence sources said he had been tracking a Mossad unit that was smuggling U.S. plutonium out of Houston docks for an Israeli nuclear reactor.

In an even more explosive charge, the journalist says that 20 minutes before the Fukushima plant’s nuclear meltdown, Israel was so upset with Japanese support for a Palestinian declaration of statehood that it double-crossed Japan by unleashing the Stuxnet virus on the plant’s  computers. The virus hampered the shutdown, leading to fallout from a section of the plant housing uranium and plutonium retrieved from the warheads supplied in 2007.

While it is impossible to verify some of Shimatsu’s claims, there was a massive cover-up at the time of the Fukushima disaster in March.  Explosions at the site were immediately downplayed. While it was subsequently reported that three reactors suffered meltdowns, Japanese authorities tried to rate the disaster as a Level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, although outside experts declared it a 7, which is the highest level.

Something worth noting is how in 2009, two years after Shimatsu says the warheads were secretly moved to Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a veiled warning to Japan not to abandon its anti-nuclear weapons policy.

The IAEA had to know, however, that Japan has long retained the potential to build nuclear weapons. That was made clear as far back as 1996 when a leaked Ministry of Foreign Affairs document exposed how Japan had been promoting a dual strategy in respect to nuclear weapons since the mid-1960s. It would often publicly profess a non-nuclear policy while maintaining the ability to build a nuclear arsenal. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics, has always said there is no constitutional impediment to nukes.

A factor that undoubtedly would have encouraged the Bush-Cheney White House to provide Japan with the means to secretly build nukes was the growing power of China. Cheney and Bush sought to arm Japan and India with nuclear weapons as a means of curbing China.