PrairiePundit

Bill Gertz: Russia increased its deployed nuclear warheads over the past six months under a strategic arms reduction treaty as U.S. nuclear warhead stocks declined sharply, according to the State Department. During the same period, the United States cut its deployed nuclear warheads by 114, increasing the disparity between the two nuclear powers. Russia’s warhead increases since 2011 suggest Moscow does not intend to cut its nuclear forces and will abandon the New START arms accord as part of a major nuclear buildup. “It is now highly unlikely that Russia intends to comply with New START,” said Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear weapons specialist now with the National Institute for Policy. At the same time, the Obama administration is continuing a program of unilateral nuclear disarmament despite promises by President Obama to modernize and maintain U.S. nuclear forces as long as strategic dangers are present. The latest Russian warhead increases coincide with incre...

Amir Taheri: With President Obama struggling to explain his failure to slow, let alone stop, the Iranian nuclear program, apologists are rushing to the rescue. They harp on three themes, all apparently aimed at confusing the debate.   The first is that we don’t know for sure that Iran is building a bomb. Well, no, we don’t — but only because the mullahs won’t let the International Atomic Energy Agency find out. Even then, in his latest report, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano states: “Iran has engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices.” There’s also the fact that, in 2003, Iran’s then-president, Muhammad Khatami, claimed that Tehran had stopped the military aspects of its project. If there’d been nothing to begin with, it would’ve been difficult to  stop  it.   The second theme is that even if the mullahs are building the bomb, the United States can stop them through sanctions. However, we know that 30 years of sanctions have ...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife Reza Kahlili: According to sources in the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei has ordered them to proceed immediately with the completion of the Iranian atomic bomb project, including testing and arming of missiles with nuclear payload. Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision is based on a belief by the Islamic regime’s strategists that both America and Israel lack the courage and the ability to dismantle the Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranian regime believes that America and Israel fear Iran’s retaliation, and that it has had them frozen in place and confused as to what action to take next. They have concluded that this presents a great opportunity for the Iranian regime to become a nuclear-armed state without any interference from the outside. Khamenei offered the  same message on June 1  at the Imam Hussein Military Academy: The Great Satan, since the early days of the Revolution, has mobilized its military, financial, propagan...

Image by adaptorplug via Flickr Fox News: On December 24, a research report from the South Korean Foreign Ministry Institute indicated that North Korea would carry out another nuclear bomb test after the beginning of the year. -- South Korean media reported earlier this month that the North was digging a tunnel in preparation for such a nuclear test. At the same time, reports from inside Iran indicate that a team of Iranian nuclear scientists have been sent to North Korea and that the two governments have agreed on a joint nuclear test in North Korea with a substantial financial reward for the Kim Jong-Il government. It is no secret that Iran and North Korea are collaborating in a ballistic missile program. The North Koreans provided Iran with the technology and know-how to build the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, which is a copy of the Nodong-1 missile. The Shahb- 3 missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) covering all of the U.S. military bases i...

CNN: A nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant in Texas was on lockdown Friday morning because of a "potential security situation," according to a news release. The Pantex Plant in Carson County, Texas, "has activated its Emergency Response Organization to respond to a potential security situation," the release said. The event, which was not described, occurred around 8 a.m. the release said. "The plant is in a lockdown status and the situation is being evaluated in order to facilitate security actions. Pantex employees are sheltered in place," it said. ... The plant is near Amarillo. The security situation was not described. With all the terrorist threats in recent weeks, they have reason to be on heightened alert.

NY Times: What’s powering your home appliances? For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones. “It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers. Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America’s 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama ’s efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did. In the last two decades, nuclear disarmament has become an integral part of the electricity industry, little known to most Americans. Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the U...

Reuters: If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan 's nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired Sunday. Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda's Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands. "God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid , the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan , said in an interview with Al Jazeera television . Abu al-Yazid was responding to a question about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so. "We expect that the Pakistani army wo...

Peter Brooks: A North Korean nuclear- weapons test, taken in isolation, is bad enough. But put into a wider context, the underground blast over the Memorial Day weekend is worse than many realize. A lot worse. First, on the political front, North Korea's Kim Jong Il has challenged President Obama more in four months than he did President George W. Bush in eight years. Since Obama has taken office, North Korea has kicked out UN nuclear inspectors, launched both short- and long-range missiles and tested a nuclear weapon. It's not clear why the dictator has chosen to badger Obama, especially considering the president's promises of a kinder, gentler touch when it comes to rogues. But it's definitely not good news for Uncle Sam -- and the conclusion has to be that more provocations are coming in our direction. The question is: When and how big will the next one be? Second, this nuclear test appears to have been more successful than North Korea's first...

CNN: North Korea delivered on its threat Monday, conducting a second nuclear test that angered governments around the globe. The North had threatened to do so unless the U.N. Security Council apologized for imposing sanctions on it following a rocket test on April 5. The secretive communist state also apparently test-fired a short-range missile on Monday, the White House said. Japan called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. One is expected Monday, said Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations. The White House -- which less than three weeks ago announced a new diplomatic effort to restart stalled talks with North Korea about its nuclear program -- said the test was in "blatant defiance" of the Security Council. Watch how the test may have taken world by surprise » "North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community," the White House said. "The danger posed by North Korea's threatening ...

Washington Times: President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say. The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal. ... I don't see Israel agreeing to this. It certainly would not make Israel safer. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons because it fears attacks from Israel, It is...

NY Daily News: The Manhattan district attorney's office has smashed a sinister plot to smuggle nuclear weapons materials to Iran through unwitting New York banks, the Daily News has learned. Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran . "This case will cut off a major source of supply to Iran and it shows how they are going ahead full steam to get a nuclear bomb. Long-range missiles they pretty much have already," a law enforcement source close to the case said. ... The indictment will outline the financial conspiracy behind 58 different transactions, including shipments of various banned materials from China to Iran between 2006 and late 2008. Among them: 33,000 pounds of a specialized aluminum alloy used almost exclusively in long-range missile production. 66,000 pounds of tungsten copper plate, wh...

Telegraph: It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say. The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations. Despite fears in Israel and the US that Iran is approaching the point of no return in its ability to build atom bomb, Israeli officials are aware of the change in mood in Washington since President Barack Obama took office. They privately acknowledge the new US administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and Mr Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now. The aim is to slow down or interrupt Iran's research programme, without the gamble of a direct confrontation that could lead to a wider war. A former CIA officer on Iran told The Daily Telegraph: ...

Reuters /NY Times: A Pakistani court declared disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan free on Friday, ending five years of house arrest for the man at the center of the world's most serious proliferation scandal. Khan, lionized by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb, confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004, but was immediately pardoned by the government, although his movements were restricted to effective house arrest. "It's a matter of joy. The judgment, by the grace of Allah, is good," Khan told reporters outside his Islamabad house soon after news of the High Court ruling broke. ... Pardon me if I don't share his joy. He is a man who was willing to sell weapons of mass destruction to some of the most evil regimes in the world. That makes him one of the more despicable men walking free in this world.

CNN: Senior North Korean officials say the communist regime has "weaponized" its stockpile of plutonium, according to a U.S. scholar, in a move suggesting that North Korea may have significantly hardened its stance on nuclear negotiations. Selig Harrison, one of the few U.S. scholars granted access to senior North Korean officials, said at a news conference in Beijing that the officials told him they had weaponized 30.8 kilograms of plutonium, enough for four or five warheads. The director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, who just returned from a five-day visit to Pyongyang, said senior North Korean officials told him the warheads will not be open for inspection. If it is true, the news portends a gloomy outlook for the future of the six-party talks that began in 2003 with the goal of getting North Korea to end its nuclear program. "It does change the game," Harrison said. South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia are pa...

NY Times: International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments on how to detonate a nuclear weapon, according to European and American officials. As part of the investigation, inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the scientist, who they believe acted on his own as an adviser on experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency, the officials said. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way, said that the document appeared authentic, without explaining why, but they made it clear that they did not think the scientist was working on behalf of the Russian government. Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has suggested that Iran may have received help from a foreign weapons scientist in developing nuclear arms. The American and European officials said the new document, written in Farsi, was part o...

NY Times: Every week, a group of experts from agencies around the government — including the C.I.A., the Pentagon, the F.B.I. and the Energy Department — meet to assess Washington’s progress toward solving a grim problem: if a terrorist set off a nuclear bomb in an American city, could the United States determine who detonated it and who provided the nuclear material? So far, the answer is maybe. That uncertainty lies at the center of a vigorous, but carefully cloaked, debate within the Bush administration. It focuses on how to refashion the American approach to nuclear deterrence in an attempt to counter the threat posed by terrorists who could obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium to make and deliver a weapon. A previously undisclosed meeting last year of President Bush’s most senior national security advisers was the highest level discussion about how to rewrite the cold war rules. The existing approach to deterrence dates from the time when the nuclear attacks Washington worried a...

AP /Houston Chronicle: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran would only halt its uranium enrichment program and return to negotiations if other Western nations do the same. Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran one day ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline that it was no problem for his country to stop, but that "fair talks" demanded a similar gesture from the West. "That ... we shut down our nuclear fuel cycle program to let talks begin. It's no problem. But justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere," Ahmadinejad said. The Security Council has set Wednesday as a deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment or face further economic sanctions. Ahmadinejad spoke in a far more conciliatory tone than the one he usually adopts, avoiding fiery denunciations of the West with a call for talks. "We are for talks but the...

James Taranto: When NBC's Tim Russert asked John Edwards on Sunday if he, as president, would accept a nuclear-armed Iran, the silver-tongued lawyer got tongue-tied: "I--there's no answer to that question at this moment. I think that it's a--it's a--it's a very bad thing for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. I think we have--we have many steps in front of us that have not been used. We ought to negotiate directly with the Iranians, which has not, not been done. The things that I just talked about, I think, are the right approach in dealing with Iran. And then we'll, we'll see what the result is. . . . I think--I think the--we don't know, and you have to make a judgment as you go along, and that's what I would do as president." Less than two weeks earlier, Mr. Edwards had spoken by satellite to Israel's annual Herzliya Conference. "Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons. . . . To ensure that ...