Archive for the 'Nuclear' Category

The New York Times has an analysis of U.S. rejection of aid and Iraq-flyover permission for Israel in a possible air raid against Iranian nuclear installations.  Most of this was previously known, but the real revelation concerns other U.S. attempts to undermine the Iranian nuclear program in lieu of a sign-off for Israeli operations.

The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.

Instead, Mr. Bush embraced more intensive covert operations actions aimed at Iran, the interviews show, having concluded that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies were failing to slow the uranium enrichment efforts …

The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon …

Late last year, international inspectors estimated that Iran had 3,800 centrifuges spinning, but American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so.

While declining to be specific, one American official dismissed the latest covert operations against Iran as “science experiments.” One senior intelligence official argued that as Mr. Bush prepared to leave office, the Iranians were already so close to achieving a weapons capacity that they were unlikely to be stopped …

There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.

A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.

What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”

Analysis & Commentary

We understand Gates’ concern over the fanning of existing fires in the Middle East by launching air operations against Iranian nuclear facilities.  However, expulsion of IAEA inspectors would be a meaningless loss, since they provide almost no useful or actionable information as it is.  Further, the presence of “inspectors” has no deleterious affect at all on the Iranian nuclear program.  Gates, for one who believes that Iran is hell bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, gives us no viable options to prevent such an outcome if inspectors are his main deterrence.

As for the attempts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, we agree with the assessment by one intelligence officer: these are just science experiments.  They aren’t serious implements of strategy.  Rather, they are a testimony to the juvenile belief that the current regime can be tricked, dealt with, bargained with, negotiated with, nuanced, lawyered and inspected out of being a danger to the balance of the world.  These technological tricks are temporary at the very best, and at the worst they may be a complete waste of time and effort.

There are those who believe we can live with a nuclear Iran.

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl Reports: In contrast to U.S. officials who have consistently called a nuclear Iran unthinkable, former CENTCOM commander John Abizaid told reporters Monday that he believes the United States could live with a nuclear Iran.

“There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran,” Abizaid said.  “I believe we have the power to deter Iran if they go nuclear” he said, just as we deterred the Soviet Union and China.  “Iran is not a suicidal nation.  Nuclear deterrence would work with Iran.”

We believe that Abizaid fundamentally misjudges the nature of the radical Mullahs who rule Iran.  But the regional rulers weren’t so naive as Abizaid (even in 2007).

Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic regulators that they could foresee no need for the kingdom to develop nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy nuclear hardware and build support for a regional system of reactors.

So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs. While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong in the Middle East.

“The rules have changed,” King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Everybody’s going for nuclear programs.”

The Middle East states say they only want atomic power. Some probably do. But United States government and private analysts say they believe that the rush of activity is also intended to counter the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By nature, the underlying technologies of nuclear power can make electricity or, with more effort, warheads, as nations have demonstrated over the decades by turning ostensibly civilian programs into sources of bomb fuel. Iran’s uneasy neighbors, analysts say, may be positioning themselves to do the same.

“One danger of Iran going nuclear has always been that it might provoke others,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London. “So when you see the development of nuclear power elsewhere in the region, it’s a cause for some concern.”

The people who are most intimate with the Persian threat are the very ones who want a deterrent.  In addition to the potential that Iran would use the weapon against its enemies, there is the corollary threat of the entire Middle East engulfed in a race for nuclear weapons.

The possibility of air assaults against Iranian nuclear facilities must be a viable and considered option.  But if the U.S. wishes to avoid this last resort, regime change in Iran is the penultimate target.  We have already discussed the budding insurgency in Western Iran, as well as the strong student rejection of the schemes of the radical Mullahs.  With the U.S. reluctant even to speak with authority to support democracy efforts within Iran, it’s as if official policy is forcing us towards military confrontation – or a nuclear Iran.

Dianne Feinstein waxes mythical in the Wall Street Journal over unilateral nuclear disarmament.

When Barack Obama becomes America’s 44th president on Jan. 20, he should embrace the vision of a predecessor who declared: “We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.”

That president was Ronald Reagan, and he expressed this ambitious vision in his second inaugural address on Jan. 21, 1985. It was a remarkable statement from a president who had deployed tactical nuclear missiles in Europe to counter the Soviet Union’s fearsome SS-20 missile fleet.

President Reagan knew the grave threat nuclear weapons pose to humanity. He never achieved his goal, but President Obama should pick up where he left off.

The Cold War is over, but there remain thousands of nuclear missiles in the world’s arsenals — most maintained by the U.S. and Russia. Most are targeted at cities and are far more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today, the threat is ever more complex. As more nations pursue nuclear ambitions, the world becomes less secure, with growing odds of terrorists obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The nuclear aspirations of North Korea and Iran threaten a “cascade” of nuclear proliferation, according to a bipartisan panel led by former U.S. Defense Secretaries William J. Perry and James R. Schlesinger.

Another bipartisan panel has warned that the world can expect a nuclear or biological terror attack by 2013 — unless urgent action is taken.

Nuclear weapons pose grave dangers to all nations. Seeking new weapons and maintaining massive arsenals makes no sense. It is vital that we seek a world free of nuclear weapons. The United States should lead the way, and a President Obama should challenge Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to join us.

Regardless of what Ronald Reagan did or didn’t say about this subject, reference to him by Feinstein is a Red herring, and she doesn’t really believe in the doctrine of peace through strength that marked his presidency.  Rather, Feinstein believes in myths.

It is analogous to the myth that disarmament of the population through gun control will make it safer.  Her worldview has no category for unrepentant, intentional evil, and thus it cannot exist.  Further, because evil cannot exist, it necessarily follows that behavior we might define as not conducive to the advancement of mankind (from a utilitarian or instrumentalist view) is able to be rectified by education.

Hence, Feinstein proposes the only remedy available in her world view for this behavior – example by unilateral disarmament.  But evil exists, and the bad actors in the world require deterrence, just like criminals need to know that the population is armed.  Peace through strength isn’t merely a byline; it’s the irreplaceable doctrine upon which safety and security are built.

The Obama administration has an opportunity to continue to ignore the nuclear weapons stockpile and refuse to engage in further research.  This would bring joy in the land of fairy tales, but the real world requires leadership by example, and not the kind of example that Feinstein is proposing.

Prior:

Sounding the Nuclear Alarm

An Aging Nuclear Weapons Stockpile

Richard Fernandez writing for Pajamas Media latches onto a significant report about the thinking of President-elect Obama and his team of advisers concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

President-elect Barack Obama will offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.

Haaretz, quoting an unnamed source, said the Obama administration would pledge under the proposed “nuclear umbrella” to respond to any Iranian strike on Israel with a “devastating U.S. nuclear response.”

Granting Israel a nuclear guarantee would essentially suggest the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran, the paper reported.

According to the paper’s source, Obama’s nuclear guarantee would be backed by a new and improved Israeli anti-ballistic missile system. The Bush administration took the first step by deploying an early-warning radar system, which enhances the ability to detect Iranian ballistic missiles.

No immediate comment from Israeli officials or the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv was offered.

Iran denies its nuclear program has military designs. But tough anti-Israel rhetoric from Tehran has spread fears that the Israelis, who are believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, could attack their arch-foe pre-emptively.

The source, according to Haaretz, noted that the discussion of the possibility of a nuclear Iran undermines efforts to prevent Tehran from acquiring such arms.

A senior Bush administration source reportedly said the nuclear umbrella was ridiculous and lacked credibility.

“Who will convince the citizen in Kansas that the U.S. needs to get mixed up in a nuclear war because Haifa was bombed? And what is the point of an American response, after Israel’s cities are destroyed in an Iranian nuclear strike?,” he said.

Richard then goes on to consider a possible U.S. response to an Iranian strike, and then concludes:

A combination of tacitly accepting an nuclear-armed Iran and reposing deterrence in Washington could make the Ayatollahs more willing to run the risk. What are the odds that the West can bring itself to enter into a nuclear exchange with Iran if it could not muster the will to prevent Teheran’s acquisition of those weapons in the first place?

Michael Ledeen also weighs in with his always educational and interesting prose.  I agree with both Richard and Michael, but would add a significant forecast to the discussion.  It won’t happen this way.

Iran will not entrust the deployment of a nuclear warhead to an air delivery system (since achieving enrichment doesn’t mean achieving miniturization of nuclear weapons to decrease overall mass) – nor will it be that overt.  Instead, acceptance of a nuclear Iran will mean the turnover of a nuclear weapon to Hezbollah or some allied group, and detonation somewhere around Tel Aviv (with its metropolitan population of more than three million people).

Since IAEA inspectors have been effectively booted from Iran for months, it won’t be possible early on to ascertain, even with gamma spectrographic analysis, the fission product and actinide composition and thus the initial mixture of high enriched Uranium.  Another way of saying it is that we have no “signature” for Iranian weapons.

By the time it has been determined through intelligence that the weapon came from Iran, the spin machine will have been active for weeks convincing the world community that the weapon fell into the hands of rogue elements, and that any attack on Iran would mean the deaths of innocent civilians.  World pressure will build for Israel to refuse to retaliate.  Even if Israel retaliates, the military forces and authorities will have relocated to unknown locations.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis will be dead and much of the surrounding land will be uninhabitable for years.  The toll on the medical care system will be so enormous that it won’t be able to keep up, and the seat of power – the government – will effectively cease to exist.  At this time Hezbollah will attack from the North and Hamas and allied groups will attack from Gaza.

Given this scenario, i.e., the delivery of a weapon by means other than air delivery, the notion of a “nuclear umbrella” is ridiculous and irrelevant.  Team Obama is naive to the point of childish if this is their level of analysis of the situation.

Further, acquiescence to a nuclear Iran will mean a certain nuclear arms race in the Middle East.  Just recently Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak explained how most if not all Middle Easterners see Iran.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke out against Iran during a meeting with members of the Egyptian ruling party, according to a report in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida on Thursday, cited by Israel Radio.

Mubarak accused the Islamic Republic of trying to subsume its Muslim neighbors, telling the forum that “the Persians are trying to devour the Arab states.”

Mubarak’s comments came after the Egyptian leader recalled the country’s diplomatic envoy from the Iranian capital earlier this week following an increase in tension between the two countries.

Recent strain between Cairo and Teheran has grown as several demonstrations in Iran called for the hanging of the Egyptian leader. The Iranian FARS news service reported that participants in recent student demonstrations outside the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Teheran also chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” and burned an Israeli flag.

On Wednesday the Egyptian ministry was quoted as criticizing some Iranian newspapers that have repeatedly insulted Egyptian policies and leadership recently. Teheran media, for example, broadcast incitement against Cairo’s policy allegedly preventing aid from reaching Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Democratic revolution and regime change remain the best options, but the State Department effectively killed the last such remaining program and no politician has shown any interest in the easy solution.  They are all seeking the hard ones.

For team-Obama, it’s three strikes and an out the first time at bat.

One month ago in An Aging Nuclear Weapoms Stockpile we sounded an alarm regarding refurbishment of the existing stockpile of nuclear weapons with Tritium. While not as technically detailed as our warning, General Kevin Chilton is also sounding an alarm, and his is even broader and more informed than ours.

Gen. Kevin Chilton, a former command astronaut, is no stranger to cutting-edge technology. But these days the man responsible for the command and control of U.S. nuclear forces finds himself talking more often about ’57 Chevys than the space shuttle. On a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal he wheeled out the Chevy analogy to describe the nation’s aging arsenal of nuclear warheads. The message he’s carrying to the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, the press and anyone else who will listen is: Modernize, modernize, modernize.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has suffered from neglect. Warheads are old. There’s been no new warhead design since the 1980s, and the last time one was tested was 1992, when the U.S. unilaterally stopped testing. Gen. Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, has been sounding the alarm, as has Defense Secretary Robert Gates. So far few seem to be listening.

The U.S. is alone among the five declared nuclear nations in not modernizing its arsenal. The U.K. and France are both doing so. Ditto China and Russia. “We’re the only ones who aren’t,” Gen. Chilton says. Congress has refused to fund the Department of Energy’s Reliable Replacement Warhead program beyond the concept stage and this year it cut funding even for that.

Gen. Chilton stresses that StratCom is “very prepared right now to conduct our nuclear deterrent mission” — a point he takes pains to repeat more than once. But the words “right now” are carefully chosen too, and the general also conveys a sense of urgency. “We’re at a point where we need to make some very hard choices and decisions,” he says. These need to be “based on good studies that would tell us how we would modernize this force for the future to incorporate 21st century requirements, which I believe are different than in the Cold War.”

“We’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining our delivery platforms,” the general says, by which he means submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles and intercontinental bombers. But nuclear warheads are a different story. They are Cold War legacies, he says, “designed for about a 15- to 20-year life.” That worked fine back when “we had a very robust infrastructure . . . that replenished those families of weapons at regular intervals.” Now, however, “they’re all older than 20 years . . . . The analogy would be trying to extend the life of your ’57 Chevrolet into the 21st century.”

Gen. Chilton pulls out a prop to illustrate his point: a glass bulb about two inches high. “This is a component of a V-61” nuclear warhead, he says. It was in “one of our gravity weapons” — a weapon from the 1950s and ’60s that is still in the U.S. arsenal. He pauses to look around the Journal’s conference table. “I remember what these things were for. I bet you don’t. It’s a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and ’60s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them.”

And here comes the punch line: “This is the technology that we have . . . today.” The technology in the weapons the U.S. relies on for its nuclear deterrent dates back to before many of the people in the room were born.

The general then pulls out another prop: a circuit board that he holds in the palm of his hand. “Compare that to this,” he says, pointing to the vacuum tube. “That’s just a tiny, little chip on this” circuit board. But replacing the vacuum tube with a chip isn’t going to happen anytime soon. The Department of Energy can’t even study how to do so since Congress has not appropriated the money for its Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

It ought to go without saying, but the general says it anyway: His first priority for nuclear weapons is reliability. “The deterrent isn’t useful if it’s not believable, and to be believable you got to have tremendous, complete confidence that your stockpile will work. . . . We have that today. Let me be clear: We have that. We’ve monitored the stockpile, made adjustments as necessary, but, again, we’re on the path of sustaining your ’57 Chevrolet.”

Security is another priority — especially keeping nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. This, he says, is another vital reason to modernize weapons that were designed and built in another era.

“In the Cold War you didn’t worry about the Soviets coming over here and stealing one of our weapons. They had plenty of their own. . . . But now you worry about these things.”

It’s possible to design a terrorist-proof nuke, the general says. “We have the capability to design into these weapons today systems that, should they fall into wrong hands — [should] someone either attempt to detonate them or open them up to take the material out — that they would become not only nonfunctional, but the material inside would become unusable.”

The general stresses the need to “revitalize” the infrastructure for producing nuclear weapons. The U.S. hasn’t built a nuclear weapon in more than two decades and the manufacturing infrastructure has disappeared. The U.S. today “has no nuclear weapon production capacity,” he says flatly. “We can produce a handful of weapons in a laboratory but we’ve taken down the manufacturing capability.” At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. produced 3,000 weapons a year.

Under the Moscow Treaty, signed in 2002, the U.S. has committed to reducing its strategic nuclear arsenal by two-thirds — to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons from about 10,000 at the height of the Cold War. “Deployed means they’re either on top of an ICBM, on top of a submarine, or in a bunker on the base where the aircraft are located,” Gen. Chilton says. “We’re supposed to be down to those numbers by 2012, but we’re on a glide path to actually get down to those numbers by the end of next year.”

But these already-old weapons aren’t going to last forever, and part of the general’s job is to prepare for their refurbishing or replacement. “Think about what it’s going to take to recapitalize or replace those 2,000 weapons over a period of time. . . . If you could do 10 a year, it takes you 200 years. If you build an infrastructure that would allow you to do 100 a year, then you could envision recapitalizing that over a 20-year-period.”

There’s also the issue of human capital, which is graying. It’s “every bit as important as the aging of the weapon systems,” the general says. “The last individual to have worked on an actual nuclear test in this country, the last scientist or engineer, will have retired or passed on in the next five years.” The younger generation has no practical experience with designing or building nuclear warheads.

Generals don’t talk politics, and the closest Gen. Chilton gets to the subject is to say that he had spoken to no one from either of the campaigns in the recent presidential election. It’s a fair bet, though, that Barack Obama’s comments on the campaign trail will not have escaped his notice. The president-elect likes to talk about a nuclear-free world and has said, “I will not authorize the development of new nuclear weapons.” He has not weighed in on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

Gen. Chilton says the modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons is “an important issue for the next administration in their first year.” At the very least, he says, the U.S. needs to “go out and do those studies” on design, cost and implementation. As for his own role: “You’ve got to talk about it. You can’t just one day show up and say we have a problem.”

We’ve duplicated the entire article above because it’s so important and the warning is so critical. The incoming administration, as we pointed out in our own warning, doesn’t even support refurbishment of the existing stockpile, much less the development of new weapons. The incoming administration intends to press forward with a global consensus to forgo nuclear weapons entirely.

This naivety can be explained only by a stupid, pre-adolescent faith in the inherent goodness of mankind and the belief that if we only do the “right thing” we will lead others to mimic our actions. But contra this Carter-esque view of the world, reality is a much different experience where evil men stand ready to harm our people, and the irony that isn’t apparent to the do-gooders and well-wishers is that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is only necessary precisely because we wish to avoid a nuclear confrontation. Power through strength had to wait on Ronald Reagan, and the next administration might very well witness the diminution of our national security if they follow Carter rather than Reagan.

Glenn Reynolds linked a report that the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are calling for refurbishment of the existing nuclear weapons in the U.S.  Good find by Glenn.  A brief word of explanation.

It has always been true that we can’t sit on the nuclear weapons stockpile without working to maintain the purity of the materials.  Uranium and transuranics (e.g., Plutonium) do decay, albeit most isotopes with very long decay half lives (e.g., Pu-239 has a half life of 24,100 years).  Decay introduces impurities into the material, and purity is a requirement for miniturization of nuclear weapons, something the Chinese have not yet learned like the U.S. (this means that weapon delivery is made easier).

But by far the larger effect of decay is tritium, which is used as material for fussion in thermonuclear weapons in conjuction with the fission to enhance their power.  The half life for tritium is 12.32 years.  In other words, as the stockpile sits, its effectiveness decays away.  This must be considered in thinking about national security as we move forward into the twenty first century.  In the ongoing work to maintain the effectiveness of the stockpile, TVA won a bid for a government program to produce Tritium (this is done by activation of Lithium) at their Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant.

How does Obama stack up against the nuclear stockpile?  Opposed.

Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

“In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together,” Mr. Obama is planning to say, according to an excerpt of remarks provided by his aides. “If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another.”

This places Obama and current military leadership (Gates and Mullen) on a direct collision course over national security and the need for maintenance of nuclear weapons.

In Baitullah Mehsud: The Making of a Terror State we discussed the consolidation of power in the NWFP under the umbrella of Baitullah Medsud and the Tehrik-i-Taliban, and even though different subsets of Taliban currently threaten Peshawar, they are ultimately part of the Tehrik-i-Taliban. Now it is being reported that internal Pakistan analysts and watchers are concerned about the total loss of the North West Frontier Province to the Taliban. “I am telling you that the Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan,” the newspaper quoted Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the junior coalition partner Jamiat-ul-Ulama-i-Islam (JUI) as saying.

A CRISIS meeting of Pakistan’s new coalition Government has been warned that it could lose control of the North West Frontier Province, which is believed to hold most of its nuclear arsenal.

The warning came yesterday from the coalition leader, who, although he is part of the new Government, is regarded as having the closest links to al-Qa’ida and Taliban militants sweeping through the region.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman bluntly told his colleagues: “The North West Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan. That is what is happening. That is the reality.”

This came just days before new Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s scheduled meeting with US President George W. Bush to discuss al-Qa’ida and Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Reports last night said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, regarded as having unparalleled insight into the mood of the three million tribesmen in the NWFP, and leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, was backed in his assessment by members of the coalition Government from the Awami National Party, which rules in the province’s capital, Peshawar.

They, too, told the meeting of jihadi militant advances throughout the province, with their influence extending to most so-called “settled areas”, including Peshawar …

For a first-hand account of the increasing Talibanization of the Peshawar region, see a must read article by M Waqar Bhatti with The International News. As for the nuclear arsenal, there were reports near the end of 2007 by Stratfor that they are not in jeopardy.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are already under American control even as analysts are working themselves into a lather on the subject, a well-regarded intelligence journal has said.

In a stunning disclosure certain to stir up things in Washington’s (and in Islamabad and New Delhi’s) strategic community, the journal Stratfor reported on Monday that the “United States delivered a very clear ultimatum to Musharraf in the wake of 9/11: Unless Pakistan allowed US forces to take control of Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States would be left with no choice but to destroy those facilities, possibly with India’s help.”

“This was a fait accompli that Musharraf, for credibility reasons, had every reason to cover up and pretend never happened, and Washington was fully willing to keep things quiet,” the journal, which is widely read among the intelligence community, said.

The Stratfor commentary came in response to an earlier New York Times story that reported that the Bush administration had spent around $100 million to help Pakistan safeguard its nuclear weapons, but left it unclear if Washington has a handle on the arsenal.

The Captain’s Journal doesn’t believe this. Regardless of where the nuclear arsenal is located, the notion that the U.S. could garrison enough troops and military materiel inside Pakistan proper to provide force protection for itself and a nuclear arsenal is ridiculous. This might make for interesting intelligence community “reports” and tabloid -type discussions over discussion forums, but it doesn’t pass the reality test.

Finally, the idea that the highly anti-India sentiments inside the Pakistani military would allow something like this to happen without so much as a word seeping out – except of course to Stratfor – is dubious. Even if the U.S. does indeed have intelligence resources or other troops garrisoned with the nuclear arsenal, they cannot deploy with enough forces to prevent being overrun in the case that either the Taliban or the Pakistani military decides to gain (or regain) control of the munitions.

In the case of NWFP, the best bet is to have already moved the arsenal out of this region and closer to Rawalpindi or Islamabad.  But the security of the nuclear arsenal is only problematic because of the Pakistani refusal to take military action against the terror state that is Baitullah Mehsud and the NWFP.

The Captain’s Journal is fond of Defense Secretary Gates.  Nonetheless, he leaves us with no good choice concerning the nuclear future of Iran.  This is in logical terms what is called a dilemma.  Gates spoke at West Point (h/t Small Wars Journal Blog), and in part had this to say.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is “hell bent” on acquiring nuclear weapons, but he warned in strong terms of the consequences of going to war over that.

“Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need and, in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels,” he said in a speech he was delivering Monday evening at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

A copy of his prepared remarks was provided in advance by the Pentagon.

He said he favors keeping the military option against Iran on the table, “given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat — either directly or through proliferation.”

Gates also said that if the war in Iraq is not finished on favorable terms the consequences could be dire.

“It is a hard sell to say we must sustain the fight in Iraq right now, and continue to absorb the high financial and human costs of this struggle, in order to avoid an even uglier fight or even greater danger to our country in the future,” he said.

But he added that the U.S. experience with Afghanistan — helping the Afghans oust Russian invaders in the 1980s only to abandon the country and see it become a haven for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network — makes it clear to him that a similar approach in Iraq would have similar results.

The Captain’s Journal echoes these sentiments in the superlative.  Iraq must be finished, and Afghanistan is suffering for troop presence.  So is Iran really “hell bent” on aquiring nuclear weapons?  Common sense says that she is.

While there are several more enrichment facilities that are in the planning stages, the U.S. has only a single operating commercial enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and this to support approximately one hundred nuclear reactors (some amount comes from Russian facilities).  Enrichment, whether via gaseous diffusion or centrifuges, is simply difficult.  The technology is complex, the maintenance is never ending, intricate and onerous, and the process is expensive.  There is absolutely no economic justification for starting and continuing the technology for doing it if it can be done in Russia or elsewhere.  Yet Iran wants enrichment, and the reason can only be nuclear weapons.

So if this is so, and if Gates [a] knows it to be true, but [b] warns against war and doesn’t give us any other choice, then have we not been impaled on the horns of a dilemma?  In fact, Gates has not mentioned the only truly viable option, i.e., regime change in Iran.

In IRack, Iraq and Iran, we observed “The opinions on Iran seem to hang around on the edges of the extreme.  Either have talks with them and hope to be successful without ever threatening military action, or go full bore into conventional operations against a uniformed army.  Each option is ugly.  The first will be unsuccessful, the second will be bloody.”

We then opined that the only real option is turnover of the Khamenei regime to democracy, that is, removal of the radical Mullahs from power.  There are any number of ways to be a catalyst for this change, from State Department support for democracy programs to fomenting an insurgency inside of Iran.

Whatever path or combination of paths is chosen, being on the horns of a dilemma calls for escaping the dilemma and pursuing something viable.  Gates should have at least pointed this out to his listeners.

When the National Intelligence Estimate that was recently released concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program, my initial inclination was to summarily ignore it.  It wasn’t that I saw it as a weighty and significant assessment that might challenge my own suspicions concerning Iran.  No, it seemed to me to be a thing of pity.  It was as if a committee had been asked to formulate an assessment that was far beyond their capabilities or knowledge level.  Undaunted, they plowed ahead, pretending they knew something that they didn’t, and the NIE was the product.  It wasn’t right, or wrong, or in between, or important.  It was simply fantasy – irrelevant and not worthy of any time or attention.

Now we are provided clarity concerning the Iranian nuclear weapons program with a recent report from intelligence obtained directly from Iran.

The U.S. has recently shared sensitive information with the International Atomic Energy Agency on key aspects of Iran’s nuclear program that Washington says shows Tehran was directly engaged in trying to make an atomic weapon, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The diplomats said Washington also gave the IAEA permission to confront Iran with at least some of the evidence in an attempt to pry details out of the Islamic republic on the activities, as part of the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s attempts to investigate Iran’s suspicious nuclear past.

The decision by the U.S. administration to declassify its intelligence and indirectly share it with Iran through the IAEA was a clear reflection of Washington’s’ drive to pressure Iran into admitting that it had focused part of its nuclear efforts toward developing a weapons program.

While the Americans have previously declassified and then forwarded intelligence to the IAEA to help its investigations, they do so on a selective basis.

Following Israel’s bombing of a Syrian site late last year, and media reports citing unidentified U.S. officials as saying the target was a nuclear installation, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei turned, in vain to the U.S. in asking for details on what was struck, said a diplomat who—like others—asked for anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information.

Shared in the past two weeks was material on a laptop computer reportedly smuggled out of Iran, said another diplomat, accredited to the IAEA. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.

He said that after declassification, U.S. intelligence also was forwarded on two other issues—the “Green Salt Project”—a plan the U.S. alleges links diverse components of a nuclear weapons program, including uranium enrichment, high explosives testing and a missile re-entry vehicle, and material in Iran’s possession showing how to mold uranium metal into warhead form.

It appears as if my initial inclination concerning the NIE was correct.

H/T to Ed Morrissey, the Canadian press has compiled a catalog of missing radioactive sources.

Radioactive devices — some of which have the potential to be used in terrorist attacks — have gone missing in alarming numbers in Canada over the past five years.

A new database compiled by The Canadian Press shows that the devices, which are used in everything from medical research to measuring oil wells, are becoming a favoured target of thieves.

At least 76 have gone missing in Canada over the past five years — disappearing from construction sites, specialized tool boxes, and generally growing legs and walking away.

Some of the devices could be used in a “dirty bomb,” where conventional explosives are used to detonate nuclear material, spreading the contamination over a wide area, said Alan Bell, a security and international terrorism expert from Globe Risk Security Holdings.

He told CTV Newsnet on Thursday that the problem isn’t new, but it has gained new attention as a result of the CP report.

“It’s come to the fore over the last couple of days but it has always been there. We’ve had this problem. It’s only a matter of time before terrorists use a dirty bomb process to attack the world,” Bell said.

The database compiled by CP tracks the rate at which the devices have gone missing in recent years.

It points to dozens of cases where hazardous materials have gone missing, been stolen or lost in a variety of mishaps.

Of the 76, 35 were stolen, three others were found in a ditch beside a road, in a dump and in a farmer’s field.

Dozens were still unaccounted for at last count.

Bell said there is a lack of streamlining among the different federal departments responsible for nuclear materials and a single agency should be set up to track the transportation of nuclear materials.

“But one of the biggest problems is yes, we do keep track of them to the best of our ability, but things fall through the cracks as they always do,” Bell said.

The CP report comes in the wake of the release of a federal study that said the detonation of a small dirty bomb near Toronto’s CN Tower would send radiation out over a four kilometre area, causing economic devastation and slamming the city’s emergency medical services.

Bell said such reports could actually help motivate terrorists to strike the city.

“I was surprised. Why tell the terrorists where to place the device? This is the ramifications of the weather, this is the area that’s contaminated or affected. I thought it was irresponsible to do that.”

For the benefit of the reader, the radioactive sources to which the report refers come from commercial applications such as medical uses (PET scans, radioactive tracers), radiography (of industrial welds with Co-60, etc.), and other fairly large scale industrial uses.  Mr. Bell’s concern about informing the terrorists of the best tactics is irrelevant.  The terrorists already know that atmospheric dispersion is important.  The communication of basic science in the media doesn’t constitute assistance to terrorists.  However, lack of control over radioactive sources does, and we might point out that the number of sources discussed in this report is very small compared to that existing in the U.S.  Amelioration of missing or stray sources has been an issue in the U.S. for some time, and there has been a concerted recovery effort over the past months.

Under the NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), excess, unwanted, or abandoned radioactive sealed sources and other radioactive material are recovered and secured by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) Off-site Source Recovery Project (OSRP) from commercial firms and academic institutions. Sources containing radioactive plutonium, americium, californium, caesium, cobalt, iridium, radium, and strontium have been recovered from medical, educational, agricultural, research and industrial facilities throughout the USA.

Radioactive sealed sources packaged by NNSA’s OSRP include more than 15,000 curies of americium-241, 10,000 curies of plutonium-238, and 10,000 grams of plutonium-239, collected from more than 600 sites. The sealed sources were once used in applications ranging from nuclear-powered cardiac pacemakers to gauges used in the manufacture of paper.

The aim of the GTRI program is to remove and securely manage radioactive materials that could be at risk of theft or used in a radiological dispersal device (‘dirty bomb’).

The OSRP was initiated by the DoE in 1999 as an environmental management project to recover and dispose of excess and unwanted sealed radioactive sources. The NNSA was established by Congress in 2000 as a separately organized agency within the DoE responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. The OSRP was transferred to NNSA’s Office of Global Threat Reduction in 2003. In 2006, OSRP also began recovering unwanted or unused US-origin sealed sources distributed overseas.

Russia is planning on consolidating control over radioactive materials for the same reason that the U.S. has already been on this quest for recovery of sources, i.e., prevention of nuclear terrorism.  Russia is planning on this central authority also having responsibility for control over “special nuclear materials,” or fissile material (already under extremely strict controls in the U.S.).

None of the controls discussed above, whether U.S. or Russian, pertain to small radioactive sources such as calibration sources, “button” sources, etc.  For instance, if you pull your smoke detector down and read the back panel, you will see that it contains 1 microCurie of Am-241 (Americium 241).  Such sources are too small to warrant control, although they are widely distributed and readily available.

Use and effectiveness of such a device is subject to atmospheric conditions, amount of radioactive material, emergency actions such as evacuation, and other things not under the control of the terrorists.  The terrorists will also consider use of such a device in a confined area such as a subway.  The discussing of this tactic here is not tantamount to divulging operational security to the enemy.  The enemy already knows it.

The solution to this kind of terrorism lies in prevention.  First, the terrorists themselves must be found out, and second, radioactive sources must be controlled.  Finally, an effective emergency response must be fielded and an information campaign must inform the public as to the precise consequences of such an event (both projected and actual).  It is likely that the consequences will redound more to public fear and reaction than to real health effects.

H/T to Ed Morrissey, the Canadian press has compiled a catalog of missing radioactive sources.

Radioactive devices — some of which have the potential to be used in terrorist attacks — have gone missing in alarming numbers in Canada over the past five years.

A new database compiled by The Canadian Press shows that the devices, which are used in everything from medical research to measuring oil wells, are becoming a favoured target of thieves.

At least 76 have gone missing in Canada over the past five years — disappearing from construction sites, specialized tool boxes, and generally growing legs and walking away.

Some of the devices could be used in a “dirty bomb,” where conventional explosives are used to detonate nuclear material, spreading the contamination over a wide area, said Alan Bell, a security and international terrorism expert from Globe Risk Security Holdings.

He told CTV Newsnet on Thursday that the problem isn’t new, but it has gained new attention as a result of the CP report.

“It’s come to the fore over the last couple of days but it has always been there. We’ve had this problem. It’s only a matter of time before terrorists use a dirty bomb process to attack the world,” Bell said.

The database compiled by CP tracks the rate at which the devices have gone missing in recent years.

It points to dozens of cases where hazardous materials have gone missing, been stolen or lost in a variety of mishaps.

Of the 76, 35 were stolen, three others were found in a ditch beside a road, in a dump and in a farmer’s field.

Dozens were still unaccounted for at last count.

Bell said there is a lack of streamlining among the different federal departments responsible for nuclear materials and a single agency should be set up to track the transportation of nuclear materials.

“But one of the biggest problems is yes, we do keep track of them to the best of our ability, but things fall through the cracks as they always do,” Bell said.

The CP report comes in the wake of the release of a federal study that said the detonation of a small dirty bomb near Toronto’s CN Tower would send radiation out over a four kilometre area, causing economic devastation and slamming the city’s emergency medical services.

Bell said such reports could actually help motivate terrorists to strike the city.

“I was surprised. Why tell the terrorists where to place the device? This is the ramifications of the weather, this is the area that’s contaminated or affected. I thought it was irresponsible to do that.”

For the benefit of the reader, the radioactive sources to which the report refers come from commercial applications such as medical uses (PET scans, radioactive tracers), radiography (of industrial welds with Co-60, etc.), and other fairly large scale industrial uses.  Mr. Bell’s concern about informing the terrorists of the best tactics is irrelevant.  The terrorists already know that atmospheric dispersion is important.  The communication of basic science in the media doesn’t constitute assistance to terrorists.  However, lack of control over radioactive sources does, and we might point out that the number of sources discussed in this report is very small compared to that existing in the U.S.  Amelioration of missing or stray sources has been an issue in the U.S. for some time, and there has been a concerted recovery effort over the past months.

Under the NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), excess, unwanted, or abandoned radioactive sealed sources and other radioactive material are recovered and secured by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) Off-site Source Recovery Project (OSRP) from commercial firms and academic institutions. Sources containing radioactive plutonium, americium, californium, caesium, cobalt, iridium, radium, and strontium have been recovered from medical, educational, agricultural, research and industrial facilities throughout the USA.

Radioactive sealed sources packaged by NNSA’s OSRP include more than 15,000 curies of americium-241, 10,000 curies of plutonium-238, and 10,000 grams of plutonium-239, collected from more than 600 sites. The sealed sources were once used in applications ranging from nuclear-powered cardiac pacemakers to gauges used in the manufacture of paper.

The aim of the GTRI program is to remove and securely manage radioactive materials that could be at risk of theft or used in a radiological dispersal device (‘dirty bomb’).

The OSRP was initiated by the DoE in 1999 as an environmental management project to recover and dispose of excess and unwanted sealed radioactive sources. The NNSA was established by Congress in 2000 as a separately organized agency within the DoE responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. The OSRP was transferred to NNSA’s Office of Global Threat Reduction in 2003. In 2006, OSRP also began recovering unwanted or unused US-origin sealed sources distributed overseas.

Russia is planning on consolidating control over radioactive materials for the same reason that the U.S. has already been on this quest for recovery of sources, i.e., prevention of nuclear terrorism.  Russia is planning on this central authority also having responsibility for control over “special nuclear materials,” or fissile material (already under extremely strict controls in the U.S.).

None of the controls discussed above, whether U.S. or Russian, pertain to small radioactive sources such as calibration sources, “button” sources, etc.  For instance, if you pull your smoke detector down and read the back panel, you will see that it contains 1 microCurie of Am-241 (Americium 241).  Such sources are too small to warrant control, although they are widely distributed and readily available.

Use and effectiveness of such a device is subject to atmospheric conditions, amount of radioactive material, emergency actions such as evacuation, and other things not under the control of the terrorists.  The terrorists will also consider use of such a device in a confined area such as a subway.  The discussing of this tactic here is not tantamount to divulging operational security to the enemy.  The enemy already knows it.

The solution to this kind of terrorism lies in prevention.  First, the terrorists themselves must be found out, and second, radioactive sources must be controlled.  Finally, an effective emergency response must be fielded and an information campaign must inform the public as to the precise consequences of such an event (both projected and actual).  It is likely that the consequences will redound more to public fear and reaction than to real health effects.