Iran joins Nuclear Club...

[FREE_AGENT]

Uh oh.....


http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/11/D8GTUL906.html

Iran Hits Milestone in Nuclear Technology
Apr 11 1:42 PM US/Eastern
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By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran

Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday. He insisted, however, that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad called on the West "not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory- scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium enrichment activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the demand, saying it has a right to develop the process. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is due in Iran this week for talks to try to resolve the standoff.

The White House denounced the latest comments from Iranian officials, with spokesman Scott McClellan saying they "continue to show that Iran is moving in the wrong direction."

Ahmadinejad said Iran "relies on the sublime beliefs that lie within the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals."

He said Iran wanted to operate its nuclear program under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency and within its rights and regulations under the regulations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

[artworx]

great...and we're being led by a man who says nucular

[FREE_AGENT]

Im just waiting to see who strikes Iran first...Isreal or the US.

[FREE_AGENT]

We're already warning other countries that we will bomb the crap out of them if diplomacy doesnt work.....


http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/06/front2453837.0534722223.html

LONDON — Western defense sources and analysts told a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations that Britain and the United States are preparing for the prospect of air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in late 2006 if diplomatic efforts at the United Nations Security Council are not succesful.

"In just the past few weeks I've been convinced that at least some in the administration have already made up their minds that they would like to launch a military strike against Iran," Joseph Cirincione, director of the Washington-based Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.

At an April 5 seminar by the Council on Foreign Relations, Cirincione said he based his assessment on conversations with those with "close connections with the White House and the Pentagon.

[On Tuesday, Iran announced the successful enrichment of uranium to the 3.5 percent level required to produce fuel to operate nuclear power reactors, Middle East Newsline reported.]

On Monday, President George Bush said Iran's nuclear program could be halted by means other than force. He dismissed reports of U.S. plans for an air strike against Teheran.

"I know we're here in Washington [where] prevention means force," Bush said. "It doesn't mean force necessarily. In this case it means diplomacy."

"There is already active discussion and even planning of such strikes," Cirincione said. "It is now my working hypothesis that at least some members of the administration, including the vice president of the United States, have made up their mind that the preferred option is to strike Iran and that a military strike will destabilize the regime and contribute to their longtime goal of overthrowing the government of Iran."

Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel and instructor at the National Defense University, held a recent simulation of a U.S. attack on Iran.

Gardiner, envisioning a five-day military operation, identified 24 nuclear-related facilities — some of them 15 meters underground — as part of 400 Iranian sites required for U.S. targeting.

The targets for the U.S. military, Gardiner told a security conference in Berlin in April, would include two Iranian chemical production plants, medium-range ballistic missile launchers and 14 airfields with sheltered aircraft. He said the United States could use its B-2 fleet to destroy these targets.

"The Bush administration is very close to being left with only the military option," Gardiner said.

[On April 9, the Iranian daily Jumhuri Eslami reported that Iran shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle launched from neighboring Iraq. The newspaper said the UAV was relaying reconnaissance of southern Iran.] On April 3, the British Defence Ministry hosted a high-level strategic meeting in London that included senior officials from the Prime Ministry, Foreign Office and military. The Telegraph newspaper reported that the meeting focused on military plans against Iran, something the government quickly denied.

"Clearly at some level, the British don't feel that the military option will come into play until, at the very earliest, the late summer," Hugh Barnes, director of the Iran program of the London-based Foreign Policy Center, said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw agreed. On April 9, Straw told the British Broadcasting Corp. that a military strike against Iran was not on the agenda.

"They [the Americans] are very committed indeed to resolving this issue by negotiation and by diplomatic pressure," Straw said. "And what the Iranians have to do is recognize they have overplayed their hand at each stage."

At this point, the Western sources said, Britain and the United States have agreed to seek support from China and Russia on UN sanctions on Iran.

They said the two countries hope to draft a unified Security Council resolution on sanctions before the G-8 summit in July.

Should that fail, the sources said, Britain and the United States would prepare for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. They said the plans would allow London and Washington to prepare for the prospect of a Shi'ite backlash in Iraq.

"It is a kind of dual policy that the military will be looking at," Barnes said. "Not just the context strategically for what an attack on Iran would involve, but also the likely fallout from such an attack if — as is not yet conceivable — it was to take place."

Richard Haas, a former White House national security adviser and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the United States has drafted a military option against Iran. Haas said the option called for a limited military strike that would destroy Iran's nuclear facilities without seeking to overthrow the regime in Teheran.

"It would be a preventive military option, not preemptive because there's no imminent threat of use [of nuclear weapons]," Haas said. "But something more limited, to basically destroy or set back their nuclear development — a classic preventive military strike."

At the Council on Foreign Relations discussion, Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA operative in the Middle East and now with the American Enterprise Institute, said the Bush administration would wait three months to determine whether the Security Council was prepared to sanction Teheran. In July 2006, Gerecht said, the military option would undergo open debate in Washington.

"We have not had that debate," Gerecht said. "We are going to have that debate. I think we should have that debate sooner, not later, so we don't have to get bogged down."

Copyright © 2006 East West Ser

[auralassassin]

I think we should wait to see what they start doing with this Uranium first.

[artworx]

I think we should wait to see what they start doing with this Uranium first.

oh now thats funny! Welcome to America! are you new? hehe

[frooky]

That's it! I'm moving to Canada!

[FREE_AGENT]

eh...figured I would post this.


Condi calls for strong action against Iran

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/12/D8GUJVRG2.html

Denouncing Iran's successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the U.N. Security Council must consider "strong steps" to induce Tehran to change course.

Rice also telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to ask him to reinforce demands that Iran comply with its nonproliferation requirements when he holds talks in Tehran on Friday.

While Rice took a strong line, she did not call for an emergency meeting of the Council, saying it should consider action after receiving an IAEA report by April 28. She did not elaborate on what measures the United States would support, but economic and political sanctions are under consideration.

The European Union is considering travel restrictions on Iranian officials, but White House and State Department spokesmen said what the Security Council might be asked to do was under discussion.

"It's time for action and that is what the secretary was expressing," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said. "The president wanted to make sure that she made that very clear to all that were listening."

On March 29, the Security Council adopted a statement that gave Iran 30 days to clear up suspicion that it wants to become a nuclear power. The statement demanded Iran comply with IAEA demands that it suspend enrichment and allow unannounced IAEA inspections.

If Iran goes ahead with its enrichment program the United States and European allies are certain to press for a Council resolution.

"You can be sure that it needs to be more than a presidential statement at this point," McClellan said.

Asked if the United States would be running a risk of a disagreement with other members of the Council by pushing for strong measures, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "There is now a consensus Iran should not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapons program."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announcing on Tuesday that his country had crossed the line into enrichment, said Iran's objectives were peaceful. Iran is said by many analysts to lack the equipment, including a nuclear reactor, to make nuclear weapons.

But Rice brushed aside suggestions Iran was far from the goal the United States and its allies suspect _ nuclear weaponry.

She said the world believes Iran has the capacity and the technology that lead to nuclear weapons. "The Security Counil will need to take into consideration this move by Iran," she said. "It will be time when it reconvenes on this case for strong steps to make certain that we maintain the credibility of the international community."

"This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power," she while greeting President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Moasogo of Equatorial Guinea. "This is a question of, ... the world does not believe that Iran should have the capability and the technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon."

At the private Arms Control Association, executive director Daryl Kimball said the administration should consider direct talks with Iran on the nuclear issue. And, he said in an interview, "the administration should be extending non-aggression pledges rather than implied threats in order to weaken Iran's rationale for a nuclear weapons program."

"Otherwise," Kimball said, "the Bush administration is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure and military confrontation."

At the private Center for Strategic and International Studies, analyst Anthony Cordesman said, "What we need to understand when we call for strong action by the Security Council, we may not expect it today or on this particular round."

But, Cordesman added in an interview, "this issue is not going away. The more Iran pushes the tolerance of the international community to its limits, the more support the United States can count on in the future."

"This is a very complex and uncertain process," he said.

[frooky]

Can't we all just get along?!?

[auralassassin]

Can't we all just get along?!?

Terrorist!!!!!!1!!!eleven!!!one!1

[uncle_jessie]

Im just waiting to see who strikes Iran first...Isreal or the US.

It would be interesting to see if Israel could pull of a stike like the one they did in Iraq some years back. Their F-16's had a pretty hard time making it there and back without running out of fuel and going to Iran would be even further. They had to take some pretty drastic measures to make it to Iraq with the fuel they had. Don't get me wrong...I think if anyone is going to jump to the plate first, it's Israel. Just don't know if it will be in the same way as in Iraq years ago.

[auralassassin]

I don't think attacking Iran is a good idea... like I said, so far they haven't done anything to warrant attacking them... they arejust trying to have nuclear power for their country, so they can export their oil for revenue... bastards.

[FREE_AGENT]

Im not saying I agree w/ attacking Iran. But Isreal and its people support a premptive strike on Iran's Nuclear facilities. But you do bring up a good point about their F-16's making it there and back...its true, they almost didnt make it back. They need to refuel midflight and hit multiple targets...its a massive undertaking to say the least.

Right now the propaganda machine is building its case against Iran. Something is gonna happen before Bush is out of office. But it is not smart for a nation to Nuke another country in anyway shape or form. If Iran used a Nuke, they are invertantly saying that its ok to come in and bomb their entire country and wipe out their entire population.

And dont think that we are above it either, we did it to japan...right before we nuked them! We came in w/ incinerary (sp?) bombs and would wipe out 100,000-150,000 people over night. And the thing to remember is that at the time, cities in Japan were mainly made out of wood so entire cities would just burn to the ground. And we did this to sooooo many cities in Japan. Seriously....anybody who hasnt seen The Fog of War, should. Its an eye opener. 11 lessons from the life of Robert MacNamara (sp?)

Why do we learn history in school...well, supposedly to learn from our mistakes in the past. Whatever!!!

[r0t8]

i think we need a civil war in this country to wipe out all the evangelical christians. ;)