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Gary Edwards

One Year of Silence on Hillary Clinton Uranium Deal - Breitbart - 0 views

www.breitbart.com/...e-hillary-clinton-uranium-deal

Clinto Uranium

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 May 16 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 May 16
     
    "For more than a year, the mainstream media has failed to ask Hillary Clinton some very basic questions about a series of extremely troubling deals. Why? Last Spring, my book Clinton Cash was released and it initially set off a media maelstrom. It began on April 19, 2015, with a leaked copy of the book going to the New York Times. The copy was not sent by me or my publisher. If the Clintons leaked the book with the hope of having it prematurely dismissed, that proved to be a mistake. The paper called the book "the most anticipated and feared book" of the political season. The Times went on to note that the book was hardly a hysterical attack on the Clintons, but rather, "mainly in the voice of a neutral journalist" who "meticulously documents his sources, including tax records and government documents." Things got worse for the Clintons a few days later when two New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters, Jo Becker and Mike McIntire, took two of the most explosive chapters in the book and did their own digging. What they found confirmed what I had reported. They ran a 3,000-word, front-page article in the paper confirming that: -Bill and Hillary Clinton had helped a Canadian financier named Frank Giustra and a small Canadian company obtain a lucrative uranium mining concession from the dictator in Kazakhstan; -The same Canadian company, renamed Uranium One, bought uranium concessions in the United States; -The Russian government came calling and sought to buy that Canadian company for a price that would mean big profits for the Canadian investors; -For the Russians to buy that Canadian company, it would require the approval of the Obama administration, including Hillary's State Department, because uranium is a strategically important commodity; -Nine shareholders in Uranium One just happened to provide more than $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation in the run-up to State Department approval; -Some o
Paul Merrell

FBI Informant "Threatened" After Offering Details Linking Clinton Foundation To Russian... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...tails-linking-clinton-foundati

Clinton-Foundation corruption Uranium-One pay-for-play

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • While the mainstream media has largely ignored it, the scandal surrounding Russian efforts to acquire 20% of America's uranium reserves, a deal which was ultimately approved by the Obama administration, and more specifically the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which included Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, is becoming more problematic for Democrats by the hour.  As The Hill pointed out earlier this morning, the latest development in this sordid tale revolves around a man that the FBI used as an informant back in 2009 and beyond to build a case against a Russian perpetrator who ultimately admitted to bribery, extortion and money laundering.  The informant, who is so far only known as "Confidential Source 1," says that when he attempted to come forward last year with information that linked the Clinton Foundation directly to the scandal he was promptly silenced by the FBI and the Obama administration.
  • Working as a confidential witness, the businessman made kickback payments to the Russians with the approval of his FBI handlers and gathered other evidence, the records show.   Sources told The Hill the informant's work was crucial to the government's ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil that involved bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion. In the end, the main Russian executive sent to the U.S. to expand Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear business, an executive of an American trucking firm and a Russian financier from New Jersey pled guilty to various crimes in a case that started in 2009 and ended in late 2015.   Toensing added her client has had contact from multiple congressional committees seeking information about what he witnessed inside the Russian nuclear industry and has been unable to provide that information because of the NDA.   “He can’t disclose anything that he came upon in the course of his work,” she said.   The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration's 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the U.S. to an entity assisting Bill Clinton's foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said.
  • In the midst of the new discoveries revealed yesterday about the Uranium One case (see: FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions), "Confidential Source 1" has once again hired an attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to get his story out. Sitting down with The Hill earlier, Toensing said that the last time her client tried to speak out "both his reputation and liberty" were "threatened" by the Obama administration in a effort to force his silence.  “All of the information about this corruption has not come out,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “And so my client, the same part of my client that made him go into the FBI in the first place, says, 'This is wrong. What should I do about it?'”   Toensing said she also possesses memos that recount how the Justice Department last year threatened her client when he attempted to file a lawsuit that could have drawn attention to the Russian corruption during the 2016 presidential race as well as helped him recover some of the money Russians stole from him through kickbacks during the FBI probe.   The undercover client witnessed “a lot of bribery going on around the U.S.” but was asked by the FBI to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevents him from revealing what he knows to Congress, Toensing explained.   When he tried to bring some of the allegations to light in the lawsuit last year, “the Obama Justice Department threatened him with loss of freedom. They said they would bring a criminal case against him for violating an NDA,” she added.
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  • As we pointed out last summer when Peter Schweizer first released his feature documentary Clinton Cash, the Uranium One deal at the center of this scandal is believed to have netted the Clintons and their Clinton Foundation millions of dollars in donations and 'speaking fees' from Uranium One shareholders and other Russian entities. Russian Purchase of US Uranium Assets in Return for $145mm in Contributions to the Clinton Foundation - Bill and Hillary Clinton assisted a Canadian financier, Frank Giustra, and his company, Uranium One, in the acquisition of uranium mining concessions in Kazakhstan and the United States.  Subsequently, the Russian government sought to purchase Uranium One but required approval from the Obama administration given the strategic importance of the uranium assets.  In the run-up to the approval of the deal by the State Department, nine shareholders of Uranium One just happened to make $145mm in donations to the Clinton Foundation.  Moreover, the New Yorker confirmed that Bill Clinton received $500,000 in speaking fees from a Russian investment bank, with ties to the Kremlin, around the same time.  Needless to say, the State Department approved the deal giving Russia ownership of 20% of U.S. uranium assets 
Paul Merrell

U.S. Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East | War Is A Crime .org - 0 views

warisacrime.org/...d-depleted-uranium-middle-east

war & peace U.S.-military depleted-uranium

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them. A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard's 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). "Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round," said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.
  • The crews will load PGU-14 depleted uranium rounds into their 30mm Gatling cannons and use them as needed, said Hubble. "If the need is to explode something -- for example a tank -- they will be used."
  • On Thursday, several nations, including Iraq, spoke to the United Nations First Committee, against the use of Depleted Uranium and in support of studying and mitigating the damage in already contaminated areas. A non-binding resolution is expected to be voted on by the Committee this week, urging nations that have used DU to provide information on locations targeted. A number of organizations are delivering a petition to U.S. officials this week urging them not to oppose the resolution. In 2012 a resolution on DU was supported by 155 nations and opposed by just the UK, U.S., France, and Israel. Several nations have banned DU, and in June Iraq proposed a global treaty banning it -- a step also supported by the European and Latin American Parliaments.
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  • DU is classed as a Group 1 Carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and evidence of health damage produced by its use is extensive. The damage is compounded, Jeena Shah at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) told me, when the nation that uses DU refuses to identify locations targeted. Contamination enters soil and water. Contaminated scrap metal is used in factories or made into cooking pots or played with by children. CCR and Iraq Veterans Against the War have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in an attempt to learn the locations targeted in Iraq during and after the 1991 and 2003 assaults. The UK and the Netherlands have revealed targeted locations, Shah pointed out, as did NATO following DU use in the Balkans. And the United States has revealed locations it targeted with cluster munitions. So why not now?
  • "For years," Shah said, "the U.S. has denied a relationship between DU and health problems in civilians and veterans. Studies of UK veterans are highly suggestive of a connection. The U.S. doesn't want studies done." In addition, the United States has used DU in civilian areas and identifying those locations could suggest violations of Geneva Conventions.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 14
     
    Splattering radioactive depleted uranium around the globe is idiocy. The trick is to shut down nuclear power plants so they don't produce any more radioactive waste. Unless society decides it wants to foot the bill to shoot depleted nuclear fuel rods into the Sun. 
Paul Merrell

Republicans are relying on a 'secret informant' to nail Hillary Clinton over Uranium One - 0 views

theweek.com/...l-hillary-clinton-over-uranium

Hillary Uranium-One ocrruption

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • Senate Republicans are reportedly banking on the testimony of a "secret informant" to deepen their investigation into Hillary Clinton's role in the 2010 sale of uranium assets to Russia, Reuters reported Thursday. The GOP's source — a former FBI informant and lobbyist for the U.S.-based unit of Rosatom, a Russian-owned nuclear power company — will appear before the upper chamber as part of the probe into the so-called Uranium One deal. Although the Senate committee did not reveal the witness' name, former lobbyist William D. Campbell identified himself to Reuters. "I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it," Campbell said. Campbell was once a "star witness" in an FBI case against a Rosatom, until his credibility and motivations as an informant were called into question by defense attorneys. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Uranium One's sale was approved by Clinton's State Department in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, and deal skeptics point to the fact that the Clinton Foundation received $145 million in donations from owners of Uranium One. In a statement to Reuters, Rosatom noted that the State Department is only one of nine government agencies that had to approve the sale.
Paul Merrell

Hillary In The Crosshairs As DOJ Prosecutors Begin Asking FBI Agents About Uranium One ... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...g-fbi-agents-about-uranium-one

corruption Clinton-Foundation pay-for-play FBI IRS investigations

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions has instructed DOJ prosecutors to begin asking FBI agents for explanations regarding evidence pertaining to a dormant criminal investigation into the controversial Uranium One deal linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to NBC. 
  • The order comes as part of a promise made last month by Sessions to examine whether or not a special counsel was warranted in the deal which saw 20% of American Uranium sold to a Russian state-owned energy company in a 2010 transaction allowed by the Obama administration. Prior to the deal, individual connected with Uranium One deal had donated over $140 million to the Clinton Foundation. Moreover, Bill Clinton gave a $500,000 speech to a Russian bank which issued a favorable rating on Uranium One stock. Clinton and Putin met the same day of the speech at the Russian leader's private homestead.
  • A report by the New York Times and the book Clinton Cash by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer in 2015 are said to have convinced the FBI in large part to launch their investigation into the Clinton Foundation over several claims of pay-for-play before and during Hillary Clinton's role as Secretary of State, including the Uranium One deal and several international arms sales.  As reported in International Business Times:  The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration.
Paul Merrell

Nunn-Lugar Revisited - 0 views

www2.gwu.edu/...NSAEBB447

war & peace U.S. Soviet Union Russia nuclear-disarmament

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Washington, DC, November 22, 2013 – The final shipment of highly enriched uranium from former Soviet nuclear warheads to the U.S. on November 14, and President Obama's award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Senator Richard Lugar on November 20, have brought new public attention to the underappreciated success story of the Nunn-Lugar initiative — the subject of a new research project by the National Security Archive, which organized the first "critical oral history" gathering this fall of U.S. and Russian veterans of Nunn-Lugar. The former Soviet Union in the 1990s achieved an unprecedented "proliferation in reverse" with the denuclearization of former republics and the consolidation of nuclear weapons and fissile material inside Russia. Notwithstanding the well-grounded fears of policymakers on both sides of the waning Cold War in 1990-1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not result in a nuclear Yugoslavia spread over eleven time zones. Instead, the "doomsday clock" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists marched backwards, in its largest leaps ever away from midnight. Key to this extraordinary accomplishment was the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, colloquially known as Nunn-Lugar after its two leading sponsors in the U.S. Senate, Sam Nunn of Georgia and Richard Lugar of Indiana.
  • Unfortunately, this success did not get major publicity at the time, and remains largely unknown today outside the expert communities in both countries. This lack of appreciation culminated in 2012 with Russia's withdrawal from the program and assertion of independence from foreign aid. Yet below the radar the cooperation continued, for example with the February 2013 U.S.-Russian removal of enriched uranium from the Czech Republic, and the September 2013 agreement to work together to destroy Syrian chemical weapons — clear signals of the continuing relevance of the two-decade-long Nunn-Lugar experiment.
  • One week earlier, on November 14, the Washington Post reported from St. Petersburg, Russia: "Take a canister, fill it with down-blended uranium worth $2.5 million, secure it and 39 others to the deck of a container ship, send it off toward Baltimore, and you've just about completed a deal that provided commercial uses in the United States for the remains of 20,000 dismantled Russian nuclear bombs." The story, headlined "U.S.-Russia uranium deal sends its last shipment," by Will Englund, reported: "The program provided jobs to nuclear technicians at a time when Russia was in chaos; it sparked the development of a dilution process than enables bombs to become fuel for power plants; and it may have helped to keep poorly secured nuclear materials out of the wrong hands — at least that's what Americans say. Russians strongly deny that the materials were not secured."
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  • To ground the Musgrove discussions in the primary sources, Archive staff prepared a 450-page conference briefing book containing 70 key documents, primarily on the early Nunn-Lugar years from 1991 through 1997, but also including the March 2013 summary of Nunn-Lugar success that is featured on The Lugar Center website. The documents range from telcons of President George H. W. Bush's conversations with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about safe dismantling of nuclear warheads in 1991, to the memcons of the Bush meetings with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 on nuclear weapons withdrawal from the former Soviet republics, to the State Department cables about negotiations with Ukraine over the Soviet-era nuclear weapons located there. Sources of the documents range from Freedom of Information Act requests to the Bush Presidential Library, to donations by veterans such as Ambassador James Goodby and experts such as David Hoffman, to files at the Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
  • Today's posting is the first in the Nunn-Lugar series of electronic briefing books in Russian and English that will make widely available the documents from all sides. The transcripts of the "critical oral history" conferences organized by the Archive will provide the foundation for one or more books analyzing the Nunn-Lugar experience, and will guide further research both by the Archive staff and by the conference participants. Maintaining this expert dialogue about the cooperative threat reduction experience will also make a significant contribution to the ongoing challenge of U.S.-Russia engagement.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 13
     
    Nice graphic image on the linked web page breaking down accomplishments in  nuclear disarmament by former Soviet republics. The downside: all of those former Soviet warheads had their uranium diluted and exported to the U.S. for manufacturer of nuclear fuel rods, which means that the U.S. nuclear power industry was perpetuated and our legacy of radioactive wastes continues to grow, despite not even yet having a safe disposal site or method. All of those expended nuclear fuel rods still sitting on reactor sites around the nation, being water cooled, and posing the risk of Fukushima-like disasters. This is progress?  
Paul Merrell

​Energy ballet: Iran, Russia and 'Pipelineistan' - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

rt.com/...1364-russia-iran-energy-ballet

Iran Russia sanctions Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations EU Israel U.S.-foreign-policy pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • A fascinating nuclear/energy ballet involving Iran, Russia, the US and the EU is bound to determine much of what happens next in the new great game in Eurasia. Let’s start with what’s going on with the Iranian nuclear dossier.
  • As we stand, the gap between the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on one side, and Iran on the other side, remains very wide. Essentially, the gap that really matters is between Washington and Tehran. And that, unfortunately, translates as a few more months for the vast sabotage brigade – from US neo-cons and assorted warmongers to Israel and the House of Saud – to force the deal to collapse. One of Washington’s sabotage mantras is “breakout capability”; a dodgy concept which boils down to total centrifuge capacity/capability to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear bomb. This implies an arbitrary limit on Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium. The other sabotage mantra forces Iran to shut down the whole of its uranium enrichment program, and on top of it negotiate on its missiles. That’s preposterous; missiles are part of conventional armed forces. Washington in this instance is changing the subject to missiles that might carry the nuclear warheads that Iran does not have. So they should also be banned. Moscow and Beijing see “breakout capability” for what it is; a manufactured issue. While Washington says it wants a deal, Moscow and Beijing do want a deal – stressing it can be respected via strict monitoring.
  • ranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has established his red line on the record, so there should be no misunderstanding; the final nuclear deal must preserve Tehran’s legitimate right to enrich uranium - on an industrial scale – as part of a long-term energy policy. This is what Iranian negotiators have been saying from the beginning. So shutting down uranium enrichment is a non-starter. Sanction me baby one more time Uranium enrichment, predictably, is the key to the riddle. As it stands, Tehran now has more than 19,000 installed enrichment centrifuges. Washington wants it reduced to a few thousand. Needless to add, Israel – which has over 200 nuclear warheads and the missiles to bomb Iran, the whole thing acquired through espionage and illegal arms deals – presses for zero enrichment. In parallel undercurrents, we still have the usual US/Israeli “experts” predicting that Iran can produce a bomb in two to three months while blasting Tehran for “roadblocks” defending its “illicit” nuclear program. At least US National Security Adviser Susan Rice has momentarily shut up.
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  • Another key contention point is the Arak heavy-water research reactor. Washington wants it scrapped – or converted into a light-water plant. Tehran refuses, arguing the reactor would only produce isotopes for medicine and agriculture. And then there’s the sanctions hysteria. The UN and the US have been surfing a sanction tidal wave since 2006. Tehran initially wanted those heavy sanctions which amount to economic war lifted as soon as possible; then it settled for a progressive approach. Obama might be able to lift some sanctions – but a US Congress remote-controlled by Tel Aviv will try to keep others for eternity. Here, with plenty of caveats is a somewhat detailed defense of a good deal compared to what may lead towards an apocalyptic road to war.
  • It’s a tragicomedy, really. Washington plays The Great Pretender, faking it full-time that Israel is not a nuclear-armed power while trying to convince the whole planet Israel is entitled to amass as many weapons as it wants while Iran is not allowed to even have conventional means to defend itself. Not to mention that nuclear-armed Israel has threatened and invaded virtually all of its neighbors, while Iran has invaded nothing.
  • As harsh as they really are, sanctions did not force Tehran to kneel and submit. Khamenei has repeatedly said he’s not optimistic about a nuclear deal. What he really wants, much more than a deal, is an improved economy. Now, with the sanctions cracking after the initial Geneva agreement, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Enter turbo-charged Russia-Iran negotiations. They include a power deal worth up to $10 billion, including new thermal and hydroelectric plants and a transmission network.
  • In many overlapping ways, the Iranian nuclear dossier now is like a hall of mirrors. It reflects an unstated Washington dream; unfettered access for US corporations to a virgin market of 77 million, including a well- educated young urban population, plus an energy bonanza for US Big Oil. But in the hall of mirrors there’s also the Iranian projection – as in fulfilling its destiny as the top geopolitical power in Southwest Asia, the ultimate crossroads between East and West. So in a sense the Supreme Leader has it all covered. If Rouhani shines and there is a final nuclear deal, the economic scenario will vastly improve, especially via massive European investment. If Washington scotches the deal over pressure from the usual lobbies, Tehran can always say it exercised all of its “heroic flexibility,” and move on – as in closer and closer integration with both Russia and China.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Aug 14
     
    Pepe Escobar
Paul Merrell

State: US concerned about missile defense system at Iranian uranium facility | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...em-at-iranian-uranium-facility

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • The State Department said Monday it is concerned about Iranian state media reports that the country has deployed an advanced missile defense system around its Fordow underground uranium facility.  The S-300 surface-to-air missile system was sold to Iran by Russia over U.S. objections, after an international accord was reached last July that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits to its nuclear program. 
  • Russia had canceled a contract to deliver the systems to Iran in 2010, under pressure from the West, but announced it was reviving the contract in April 2015, as reaching a final nuclear deal appeared imminent. On Sunday, Iranian state TV reported that the S-300 was deployed at the Fordow facility, about 60 miles south of Tehran, according to Reuters. Since the signing of the deal in January, Iran has stopped enriching uranium there.  But U.S. officials and allies are concerned that the deployment of the S-300, which intercepts missiles, would limit potential future military options. Last August, the Pentagon expressed objections to the sale, but said it was "confident" the president would "have all the options he needs" to counteract the system.  
  • In October, former Marine Corps commandant retired Gen. James Conway warned the S-300's deployment "would be a game changer in the region." Iranian officials characterized the deployment of the system as defensive. "Our main priority is to protect Iran's nuclear facilities under any circumstances," said Brig. Gen. Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' air defense force. "Today, Iran's sky is one of the most secure in the Middle East." "The S-300 system is a defense system, not an assault one, but the Americans did their utmost to prevent Iran from getting it," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. Sen. Tom CottonTom CottonState: US concerned about missile defense system at Iranian uranium facility GOP senators argue DOJ pressured Aetna on ObamaCare Trump, GOP see gold in Clinton Foundation attacks MORE (R-Ark.), member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, on Monday blasted the administration's Iran policy, saying it emboldened the "ayatollahs in Tehran" and led to the deal going through. "Had the Obama Administration not rushed to dismantle the international sanctions restraining Iran’s belligerence in the Middle East in pursuit of a legacy, Iran would not have been able to acquire and deploy such destabilizing weapons," he said.  
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 16
     
    The S-300 is not state of the art, like Russia's S-500, but it's still a formidable deterrent to attack by air, particularly by the nation most likely to do so, Israel. The U.S. might conceivably do a saturation missile strike that could overcome the S-300. But Iran is correct: it's a defensive weapon. And the Iranian Nukes Myth is still a myth.
Paul Merrell

FBI Informant Has Video Of Russian Agents With Briefcases Of Bribe Money In Clinton-Ura... - 0 views

ibankcoin.com/...ney-in-clinton-uranium-scandal

Hillary Uranium-One corruption

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • An undercover FBI informant in the Russian nuclear industry who was made to sign an “illegal NDA” by former AG Loretta Lynch, claims to have video evidence showing Russian agents with briefcases full of bribe money related to the controversial Uranium One deal – according to The Hill investigative journalist John Solomon and Circa‘s Sara Carter. The informant, whose identity was revealed by Reuters as energy industry consultant William D. Campbell – and is very ill battling cancer –  is testifying before congress next week after the NDA which carried the threat of prison time was lifted. As previously reported, Campbell was deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry where he gathered extensive evidence of a racketeering scheme involving bribes and kickbacks. “The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials. –The Hill Campbell’s attorney, former Regan Justice Department official Victoria Toensing, previously told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs “He can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made.”
Paul Merrell

Iranians draft bill to up enrichment to 60 percent | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/to-up-enrichment-to-60-percent

war & peace Iran Iranian-nukes-myth Israel negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Iranian parliamentarians have proposed a bill to increase uranium enrichment to 60 percent in the event of new Western sanctions, the Iranian Press TV reported Wednesday. In addition to raising the enrichment level significantly, the draft, signed by 100 legislators, would resume activity at the Arak heavy water reactor.
  • “If the bill is approved, the government will be obliged to complete nuclear infrastructure at the Fordo and Natanz [enrichment facilities] if sanctions [against Iran] are ratcheted up, new sanctions are imposed, the country’s nuclear rights are violated and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s peaceful nuclear rights are ignored by members of the P5+1,” Seyyed Mehdi Mousavinejad, an Iranian lawmaker, said on Wednesday, according to Press TV.
  • The new bill would be in direct violation of the November 24 interim agreement forged between Iran and six world powers, under which Tehran agreed to halt work at Arak, cap its enrichment at five percent, and neutralize its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium. That agreement has not yet been implemented, because the sides still have to resolve “technical details.” The proposal also serves as a message to world powers about the Iranian commitment to advancing the nuclear program, lawmakers said. “The bill is aimed at giving an upper hand to our government and the negotiating team… It will allow the government to continue our nuclear program if the Geneva deal fails,” Hossein Taghavi Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs committee, said, according to IRNA.
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  • The bill was presented to the parliament’s presiding board and will be voted on at a later date, Iranian media reported. The drafting of the bill came days after a group of US senators proposed The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, which would ramp up sanctions against Iran in the event that the Islamic Republic violates the interim deal, or should later nuclear talks fail to produce a long-term agreement.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Dec 13
     
    Hawks on all fronts trying to blow up the negotiations with Iran, including inside Iran. However, the article errs somewhat in stating that the Iranian bill would violate the interim agreement between Iran and the PF+1 nations. The bill as reported would only take effect if new sanctions are adopted by the U.S. In the interim agreement, Obama committed to vetoing any new sanctions enacted during the period of the interim agreement. So the actual position of the Iranian legislators is that the U.S. has to violate the agreement before the bill would take effect.   But I think this is a blunder anyway. Iran has no need to enrich uranium beyond 20 per cent, which is the maximum allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement. This bit of grandstanding will be used by Iran's enemies as "proof" that Iran has nuclear weapon ambitions.   However, I'm sensitive to the fact that this is an article in The Times of Israel, which often puts a rather overt Zionist spin on news. I'll be watching for less prejudiced sources on this issue.
Paul Merrell

America's Lead Iran Negotiator Misrepresents U.S. Policy (and International L... - 0 views

goingtotehran.com/-international-law-to-congress

war & peace Iran nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty NNTP Iranian-nukes-myth Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Last month, while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wendy Sherman—Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the senior U.S. representative in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran—said, with reference to Iranians, “We know that deception is part of the DNA.”  This statement goes beyond orientalist stereotyping; it is, in the most literal sense, racist.  And it evidently was not a mere “slip of the tongue”:  a former Obama administration senior official told us that Sherman has used such language before about Iranians. 
  • Putting aside Sherman’s glaring display of anti-Iranian racism, there was another egregious manifestation of prejudice-cum-lie in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we want to explore more fully.  It came in a response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) about whether states have a right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  Here is the relevant passage in Sherman’s reply:  “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.  It simply says that you have the right to research and development.”  Sherman goes on to acknowledge that “many countries such as Japan and Germany have taken that [uranium enrichment] to be a right.”  But, she says, “the United States does not take that position.  We take the position that we look at each one of these [cases].”  Or, as she put it at the beginning of her response to Sen. Rubio, “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all” (emphasis added). 
  • Two points should be made here.  First, the claim that the NPT’s Article IV does not affirm the right of non-nuclear-weapons states to pursue indigenous development of fuel-cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment, under international safeguards is flat-out false.  Article IV makes a blanket statement that “nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”  And it’s not just “countries such as Japan and Germany”—both close U.S. allies—which affirm that this includes the right of non-weapons states to enrich uranium under safeguards.  The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (whose 120 countries represent a large majority of UN members) have all clearly affirmed the right of non-nuclear-weapons states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to pursue indigenous safeguarded enrichment.  In fact, just four countries in the world hold that there is no right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT:  the United States, Britain, France, and Israel (which isn’t even a NPT signatory).  That’s it.  Moreover, the right to indigenous technological development—including nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, should a state choose to pursue them—is a sovereign right.  It is not conferred by the NPT; the NPT’s Article IV recognizes states’ “inalienable right” in this regard, while other provisions bind non-weapons states that join the Treaty to exercise this right under international safeguards.       
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  • There have been many first-rate analyses demonstrating that the right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT is crystal clear—from the Treaty itself, from its negotiating history, and from subsequent practice, with at least a dozen non-weapons states building fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially capable of supporting weapons programs.  Bill Beeman published a nice Op Ed in the Huffington Post on this question in response to Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, see here and, for a text including references, here.  For truly definitive legal analyses, see the work of Daniel Joyner, for example here and here.  The issue will also be dealt with in articles by Flynt Leverett and Dan Joyner in a forthcoming special issue of the Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, which should appear within the next few days.         From any objectively informed legal perspective, denying non-weapons states’ right of safeguarded enrichment amounts to nothing more than a shameless effort to rewrite the NPT unilaterally.  And this brings us to our second point about Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. 
  • Sherman claims that “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.”  But, in fact, the United States originally held that the right to peaceful use recognized in the NPT’s Article IV includes the indigenous development of safeguarded fuel-cycle capabilities.  In 1968, as America and the Soviet Union, the NPT’s sponsors, prepared to open it for signature, the founding Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, William Foster, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—the same committee to which Sherman untruthfully testified last month—that the Treaty permitted non-weapons states to pursue the fuel cycle.  We quote Foster on this point:   “Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III.”  [Note:  In Article II of the NPT, non-weapons states commit not to build or acquire nuclear weapons; in Article III, they agree to accept safeguards on the nuclear activities, “as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”] 
  • Thus, it is a bald-faced lie to say that the United States has “always” held that the NPT does not recognize a right to safeguarded enrichment.  As a matter of policy, the United States held that that the NPT recognized such a right even before it was opened for signature; this continued to be the U.S. position for more than a quarter century thereafter.  It was only after the Cold War ended that the United States—along with Britain, France, and Israel—decided that the NPT should be, in effect, unilaterally rewritten (by them) to constrain the diffusion of fuel-cycle capabilities to non-Western states.  And their main motive for trying to do so has been to maximize America’s freedom of unilateral military initiative and, in the Middle East, that of Israel.  This is the agenda for which Wendy Sherman tells falsehoods to a Congress that is all too happy to accept them.    
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13
     
    What should be the reaction of Congress upon discovering that the U.S. lead negotiator with Iran in regard to its budding peaceful use of nuclear power lies to Congress about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's applicability to Iran's actions? 
Paul Merrell

The NUMEC Affair: Was Nuclear Weapons Fuel Diverted to Israel? - 0 views

nsarchive.gwu.edu/...eapons-Fuel-Diverted-to-Israel

war & peace Israel espionage nukes U.S.-uranium

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Beginning more than 50 years ago, and extending over the period from 1957 to 1978, according to official U.S. government records and studies, more than 300 kilograms of uranium 235 (U-235) in the form of highly enriched uranium (HEU) went missing from a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant in the small town of Apollo, Pennsylvania. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) concluded in 1966 that there was about a 200-kilogram deficit between the U-235 in the form of HEU supplied to the plant and the amount returned in products to customers. After the AEC and its Oak Ridge office calculated the processing losses based on NUMEC’s records, they determined that the fate of about 100 kilograms of U-235 in the form of HEU remained unexplained. NUMEC paid for the missing material, but later disputed the AEC calculations, maintaining that the unexplained 100 kgs could be attributed to other processing losses. After decommissioning of the Apollo plant, more than 330 kgs of U-235 in the form of HEU were unaccounted for, with most of that deficit occurring while NUMEC ran the plant. For decades there have been allegations and suspicions that foreign agents, perhaps aided by American citizens, diverted a significant fraction of NUMEC’s unexplained uranium deficits to Israel for its nuclear-weapons program. Because of the high stakes involved, the affair has been clouded in denial and concealment for nearly a half century. Several recent books and articles, including a book by this Briefing Book’s primary author, Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel, have attempted to account for what is known and what is still a mystery.[1] Using recently declassified documents published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, this Electronic Briefing Book aims to make more widely available to the public the fascinating information that has been declassified so far.
Paul Merrell

What Really Matters About the Extended Negotiations with Iran « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/xtended-negotiations-with-iran

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The single most important fact about the extension of the nuclear negotiations with Iran is that the obligations established by the Joint Plan of Action negotiated a year ago will remain in effect as negotiations continue. This means that our side will continue to enjoy what these negotiations are supposed to be about: preclusion of any Iranian nuclear weapon, through the combination of tight restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and intrusive monitoring to ensure the program stays peaceful. Not only that, but also continuing will be the rollback of Iran’s program that the JPOA achieved, such that Iran will remain farther away from any capability to build a bomb than it was a year ago, and even farther away from where it would have been if the negotiations had never begun or from where it would be if negotiations were to break down. Our side—the United States and its partners in the P5+1—got by far the better side of the deal in the JPOA. We got the fundamental bomb-preventing restrictions (including most significantly a complete elimination of medium-level uranium enrichment) and enhanced inspections we sought, in return for only minor sanctions relief to Iran that leaves all the major banking and oil sanctions in place. If negotiations were to go on forever under these terms, we would have no cause to complain to the Iranians.
  • But the Iranians do not have comparable reason to be happy about this week’s development. The arrangement announced in Vienna is bound to be a tough sell back in Tehran for President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif. The sanctions continue, and continue to hurt, even though the Iranian negotiators have conceded most of what they could concede regarding restrictions on the nuclear program. There will be a lot of talk in Tehran about how the West is stringing them along, probably with the intent of undermining the regime and not just determining its nuclear policies.
  • That the Iranian decision-makers have put themselves in this position is an indication of the seriousness with which they are committed to these negotiations. This week’s extension is of little use to them except to keep alive the prospect that a final deal will be completed. Also indicating their seriousness is the diligence with which Iran has complied with its obligations under the JPOA. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed today Iran’s compliance with its final pre-November 24th obligation, which had to do with reducing its stock of low-enriched uranium in gaseous form.
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  • Because the P5+1 got much the better side of the preliminary agreement, the P5+1 will have to make more of the remaining concessions to complete a final agreement. The main hazard to concluding a final deal is not an Iranian unwillingness to make concessions. The main hazard is a possible Iranian conclusion that it does not have an interlocutor on the U.S. side that is bargaining in good faith. We push the Iranians closer to such a conclusion the more talk there is in Washington about imposing additional pressure and additional sanctions, as people such as Marco Rubio and AIPAC have offered in response to today’s announcement about the extension of negotiations. We have sanctioned the dickens out of Iran for years and are continuing to do so, but the only time all this pressure got any results is when we started to negotiate in good faith. Surly sanctions talk on Capitol Hill only strengthens Iranian doubts about whether the U.S. administration will be able to deliver on its side of a final agreement, making it less, not more, likely the Iranians would offer still more concessions. Any actual sanctions legislation would blatantly violate the terms of the JPOA and give the Iranians good reason to walk away from the whole business, marking the end of any special restrictions on their nuclear program.
  • Indefinite continuation of the terms of the existing agreement would suit us well, but completion of a final agreement would be even better—and without one the Iranians eventually would have to walk away, because indefinite continuation certainly does not suit them. And besides, the sanctions hurt us economically too. To get a final agreement does not mean fixating on the details of plumbing in enrichment cascades, which do not affect our security anyway. It means realizing what kind of deal we got with the preliminary agreement, and negotiating in good faith to get the final agreement.
Paul Merrell

Presence of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Okinawa - 0 views

nsarchive.gwu.edu/...s-on-Okinawa-Declassified-2016

war & peace Iraq nuclear-weapons-myth CIA Iraq-War

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Also posted today are recently released CIA documents containing bogus information about Iraq’s nuclear programs
  • Two CIA reports on Iraq and its weapons activities produced during the months after 9/11; the CIA had denied both in their entirety. Neither treated Iraq as a significant threat, but both made claims which would become part of the justification for the 2003 war: that Iraq 1) had acquired aluminum tubes for gas centrifuges and 2) had deployed mobile biological laboratories, claims which were later disproven.
  • Documents 5A-B: Iraq through CIA Eyes after 9/11 A: Central Intelligence Agency, “The Iraq Threat,” 15 December 2001, SPWR [Senior Publish When Ready] 12501-07, Top Secret, excised copy B: Central Intelligence Agency, Senior Executive Memorandum [SEM], “In Response to a query about the status of Iran’s nuclear program,” 11 January 2002, Top Secret, excised copy Source: MDR request to CIA These two high-level CIA assessments from late 2001 and early 2002 demonstrate the lack of solid intelligence regarding Iraq’s WMD programs during the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq.[3] There was a marked gap between the empirical information which the CIA could report, and be certain about, and the threat assessments which analysts were tasked to produce. Worst-case outcomes are proposed, then quickly undermined by admitting the lack of any intelligence to support doomsday scenarios. “The worst case scenario is illicit acquisition of sufficient fissile material, uranium or plutonium, to allow Baghdad to produce a crude nuclear weapon within a year. CIA has not detected a dedicated Iraqi effort to obtain fissile material from another government or on the black market but Baghdad could be expected to entertain any offers it deems credible” [SEM].
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  • The memoranda also indicate a significant disparity between what was probable, and what was feared. The analysts were most confident assessing that Saddam Hussein could be developing nuclear capabilities in just under ten years. Iraq might produce a “nuclear weapon, potentially late this decade,” the SEM notes. The SPWR, on the other hand, concludes: “Iraq is trying to jump-start a clandestine uranium enrichment program to produce the fissile material for a weapon, potentially by late this decade.” Those assessments were produced in the shadow of the failure of U.S. intelligence to detect Saddam Hussein’s clandestine nuclear program before the Gulf War. CIA analysts were hesitant to conclude that Iraq was not an immediate threat, yet they had little evidence indicating the existence of an Iraqi nuclear program that genuinely posed a hazard. “Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons program, but reporting on Iraqi efforts to revive it is limited. Iraq continues to employ effective denial and deception measures and there are no indicators that Baghdad has embarked on an extensive nuclear weapons effort as it did before the Gulf War” [SEM]. The released paragraphs addressing Iraq’s support of terrorism failed to mention al-Qaeda, surprising in light of claims from Bush Administration officials that Iraq was linked to terrorism and September 11. The Senior Executive Memorandum notes: “Baghdad has reduced its reliance on surrogates, preferring instead to use its own intelligence services for sensitive terrorist operations,” making a connection to non-Iraqi terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, doubtful. Within Iraq, the 2001 memo notes how Saddam maintained a “multilayered and pervasive security apparatus.” The underground networks were critical to the anti-American insurgency that developed following the 2003 U.S. invasion, fragments of which have since evolved into the Islamic State. 
  • Despite their equivocal findings, these reports are evidence of the intelligence failure which contributed to the U.S. war. For example, CIA analysts linked the procurement of aluminum tubes to the potential development of centrifuges for uranium enrichment – an assertion later seized on by top officials as evidence that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. Interestingly, intelligence analysts at the Department of Energy disagreed with this CIA contention, instead assessing that the aluminum tubes in question were much more likely intended for more benign purposes. However this disagreement did not appear to receive a full vetting during the lead-up to the 2003 war. Just as dubious were the CIA statements about mobile biological warfare laboratories, information that can be traced back to the notorious dissembler Curveball.
Paul Merrell

George Bush was "angry" when US intelligence said Iran hadn't got an active nuclear wea... - 0 views

www.david-morrison.org.uk/...iran-bush-on-nie.htm

war & peace Bush-II Iranian-nukes-myth

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • In the National Intelligence Estimate, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, produced in November 2007, the 16 US intelligence services expressed the consensus view that Iran hadn’t got an active nuclear weapons programme at that time.  That is still their view today.   As he revealed in his memoir Decision Points, instead of being pleased that Iran was almost certainly not developing nuclear weapons, President Bush was “angry” that his intelligence services had expressed this view.  He was “angry” because it cut the ground from under his efforts to gain international support for what he termed “dealing with Iran”, which clearly went beyond ensuring that it did not possess nuclear weapons.  The NIE had a big impact, he concluded – and not a good one.   His full comments on the NIE in Decision Points are as follows:
  • In November 2007, the intelligence community produced a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program. It confirmed that, as we suspected, Iran had operated a secret nuclear weapons program in defiance of its treaty obligations. It also reported that, in 2003, Iran had suspended its covert effort to design a warhead – considered by some to be the least challenging part of building a weapon.  Despite the fact that Iran was testing missiles that could be used as a delivery system and had announced its resumption of uranium enrichment, the NIE opened with an eye-popping declaration: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”   The NIE’s conclusion was so stunning that I felt certain it would immediately leak to the press. As much as I disliked the idea, I decided to declassify the key findings so that we could shape the news stories with the facts. The backlash was immediate. Ahmadinejad hailed the NIE as “a great victory.”  Momentum for new sanctions faded among the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese. As New York Times journalist David Sanger rightly put it, “The new intelligence estimate relieved the international pressure on Iran – the same pressure that the document itself claimed had successfully forced the country to suspend its weapons ambitions.”   In January 2008, I took a trip to the Middle East, where I tried to reassure leaders that we remained committed to dealing with Iran. Israel and our Arab allies found themselves in a rare moment of unity. Both were deeply concerned about Iran and furious with the United States about the NIE. In Saudi Arabia, I met with King Abdullah and members of the Sudairi Seven, the influential full brothers of the late King Fahd.   “Your Majesty, may I begin the meeting?” I said. “I’m confident that every one of you believes that I wrote the NIE as a way of avoiding taking action against Iran.”
  • No one said a word. The Saudis were too polite to confirm their suspicion aloud.   “You have to understand our system,” I said. “The NIE was produced independently by our intelligence community. I am as angry about it as you are.”   The NIE didn’t just undermine diplomacy.  It also tied my hands on the military side. There were many reasons I was concerned about undertaking a military strike on Iran, including its uncertain effectiveness and the serious problems it would create for Iraq’s fragile young democracy. But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?   I don’t know why the NIE was written the way it was. I wondered if the intelligence community was trying so hard to avoid repeating its mistake on Iraq, that it had underestimated the threat from Iran.  I certainly hoped that intelligence analysts weren’t trying to influence policy. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a good one.
Paul Merrell

Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/ssian-nuke-plant-space-station

war & peace cyberwar war-crimes U.S. Israel Iran Russia space-station

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Russian nuclear power plant was reportedly “badly infected” by the rogue Stuxnet virus, the same malware that reportedly disrupted Iran’s nuclear program several years ago. The virus then spread to the International Space Station via a Stuxnet-infected USB stick transported by Russian cosmonauts
  • Speaking to journalists in Canberra, Australia, last week, Eugene Kaspersky, head of the anti-virus and cyber protection firm that bears his name, said he had been tipped off about the damage by a friend who works at the Russian plant. Kaspersky did not say when the attacks took place, but implied that they occurred around the same time the Iranian infection was reported. He also did not comment on the impact of the infections on either the nuclear plant or the space station, but did say that the latter facility had been attacked several times. The revelation came during a question-and-answer period after a presentation on cyber-security. The point, Kaspersky told reporters at Australia’s National Press Club last week, was that not being connected to the Internet — the public web cannot be accessed at either the nuclear plant or on the ISS — is a guarantee that systems will remain safe. The identity of the entity that released Stuxnet into the “wild” is still unknown (although media speculation insists it was developed by Israel and the United States), but those who think they can control a released virus are mistaken, Kaspersky warned. “What goes around comes around,” Kaspersky said. “Everything you do will boomerang.”
  • The Stuxnet virus came to light in 2010, having attacked Iranian nuclear facilities by hitting the programmable logic control automation systems that control them. The PLC system, manufactured by German conglomerate Siemens, runs the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at Iran’s Natanz facility. Variants of Stuxnet have affected the facility’s centrifuges in various ways, mostly by changing the activity of valves controlled by the PLC software that feed the uranium to centrifuges at a specific rate required for enrichment, Kaspersky said in several presentations last year. It’s not known when Stuxnet began its activities, but researchers at anti-virus company Symantec said that they had gathered evidence that earlier versions of the code were already seen “in the wild” in 2005, although it wasn’t yet operational as a virus. Stuxnet, said Symantec, was the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects, and according to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already seeking to compromise Iran’s nuclear program in 2007 — the year Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, where much of the country’s uranium enrichment is taking place, went online. Now that the plague has been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is immune — and that includes its originators, who are no longer in control of it. “There are no borders” in cyberspace, and no one should be surprised at any reports of a virus attack, no matter how ostensibly secure the facility, he said.
Paul Merrell

Iran hails 'turning point' as world powers make key nuclear concessions - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...e-key-nuclear-concessions.html

war & peace Iranian nukes myth Israel U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany ended on Wednesday with rare words of guarded optimism from both sides. "In this round of talks we have witnessed that, despite all the attitudes during the last eight months, they tried to get closer to our viewpoints," said Saeed Jalili, the lead Iranian negotiator. Praising the "positive" approach of his interlocutors, he said: "We believe this is a turning point."
  • Yesterday the US and the other countries diluted two of the three stipulations. They still insisted that Iran must stop enriching to 20 per cent, but they have relaxed their demands for the outright closure of Fordow and the export of Tehran's medium-enriched uranium. Instead, a Western diplomat said that Iran was asked to "reduce the readiness" of Fordow. This would mean "standing down" some of the cascades of centrifuges. Iran would also be able to keep enough 20 per cent uranium to fuel a civilian research reactor in Tehran.
  • Iran has taken conciliatory steps of its own, making it easier for the six countries to modify their demands. Tehran has converted 40 per cent of its medium-enriched uranium into harmless fuel rods, while only a quarter of the 2,710 centrifuges inside Fordow are operational – the same number as a year ago. But Israel fears that America and its allies will give too much away. Yesterday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said that only a threat of "military sanctions" would make Iran back down. "I don't think there are any other means that will make Iran heed the international community's demands," he said.
Gary Edwards

Saul Alinsky Leaves the White House | The American Spectator - 0 views

spectator.org/alinsky-leaves-the-white-house

Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17
     
    "When Barack Obama leaves the White House tomorrow, he leaves with his worst dreams unrealized. Still, what he leaves behind is awful. Thank goodness he'll be gone. The very day after Obama was elected in 2008, I predicted in this space that his team would steal the Senate by hook and crook (see: Al Franken); nuke the filibuster at least for judicial nominees; liberalize voting laws (or enforcement thereof) to make fraud easier while charging opponents with "vote suppression"; drum up spurious allegations of civil rights violations; punish anti-abortion protesters; enact "copious new regulations, especially environmental, to be used selectively to ensnare other conservative malcontents"; invasively use the IRS to harass conservative organizations; and tacitly encourage civil unrest in furtherance of Obamite goals. All those predictions of course came true. Obama and company also waged bureaucratic war against independent inspectors general; tried their hardest (even illegally) to hobble fossil fuels industries; evaded Congress's intent by sending cash and uranium to a near-nuclear-ready Iran; fumbled and stumbled while veterans suffered virtually criminal neglect; wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on projects that were not "shovel-ready" and did not create many jobs; oversaw an economy in which the workforce participation rate dropped to historically low levels while real median household income also fell and personal debt rose, and in which food stamp rolls grew to a number larger than the population of Spain; horrendously politicized the Justice Department; and saw race relations worsen for the first time in decades. In what should have been treated by the media as major scandals (or more major than the media represented them), the Obama administration encouraged illegal gun-running to Mexican cartels, with untold numbers of resultant deaths; failed to provide adequate security before or rescue during the Benghazi tragedy; provide
Paul Merrell

IPS - Lavrov Reveals Amended Draft Circulated at "Last Moment" | Inter Press Service - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...raft-circulated-at-last-moment

war & peace arms-control-law Iran Iranian nukes myth Kerry Obama Israel France Saudis whodunnit

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Nov 15 2013 (IPS) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a crucial detail Thursday about last week’s nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva that explains much more clearly than previous reports why the meeting broke up without agreement. Lavrov said the United States circulated a draft that had been amended in response to French demands to other members of the six-power P5+1 for approval “literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov’s revelation, which has thus far been ignored by major news outlets, came in a news conference in Cairo Thursday that was largely devoted to Egypt and Syria. Lavrov provided the first real details about the circumstances under which Iran left Geneva without agreeing to the draft presented by the P5+1.
  • The full quote from Lavrov’s press conference is available thanks to the report from Voice of Russia correspondent Ksenya Melnikova. Lavrov noted that unlike previous meetings involving the P5+1 and Iran, “This time, the P5+1 group did not formulate any joint document.” Instead, he said, “There was an American-proposed draft, which eventually received Iran’s consent.” Lavrov thus confirmed the fact that the United States and Iran had reached informal agreement on a negotiating text. He further confirmed that Russia had been consulted, along with the four other powers in the negotiations with Iran (China, France, Germany and the UK), about that draft earlier in the talks –- apparently Thursday night, from other published information. “We vigorously supported this draft,” Lavrov said. “If this document had been supported by all [members of the P5+1], it would have already been adopted. We would probably already be in the initial stages of implementing the agreements that were offered by it.”
  • Then Lavrov revealed for the first time that the U.S. delegation had made changes in the negotiating text that had already been worked out with Iran at the insistence of France without having consulted Russia. “But amendments to [the negotiating draft] suddenly surfaced,” Lavrov said. “We did not see them. And the amended version was circulated literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov implies that the Russian delegation, forced to make a quick up or down decision on the amended draft, did not realise the degree to which it was likely to cause the talks to fail. “At first sight, the Russian delegation did not notice any significant problems in the proposed amendments,” Lavrov said. He made it clear, however, that he now considers the U.S. maneuvre in getting the six powers on board a draft that had been amended with tougher language – even if softened by U.S. drafters — without any prior consultation with Iran to have been a diplomatic blunder.
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  • “[N]aturally, the language of these ideas should be acceptable for all the participants in this process – both the P5+1 group and Iran,” Lavrov said. The crucial details provided by Lavrov on the timing of the amended draft shed new light on Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim in a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday of unity among the six powers on the that draft. “We were unified on Saturday when we presented a proposal to the Iranians.” Kerry said, adding that “everybody agreed it was a fair proposal.” Kerry gave no indication of when on Saturday that proposal had been approved by the other five powers, nor did he acknowledge explicitly that it was a draft that departed from the earlier draft agreed upon with Iran. Lavrov’s remarks make it clear that the other members of the group had little or no time to study or discuss the changes before deciding whether to go along with it.
  • Although the nature of the changes in the amended draft remain a secret, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has charged that they were quite far-reaching and that they affected far more of the draft agreement that had been worked out between the United States and Iran than had been acknowledged by any of the participants. In tweets on Tuesday, Zarif, responding to Kerry’s remarks in Abu Dhabi, wrote, “Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night?” Zarif’s comments indicated that changes of wording had nullified the previous understanding that had been reached between the United States and Iran on multiple issues.
  • Zarif’s tweet, combined with remarks by President Hassan Rouhani to the national assembly Sunday warning that Iran’s rights to enrichment are “red lines” that could not be crossed, suggests further that the language of the original draft agreement dealing with the “end game” of the negotiating process was also changed on Saturday. Kerry himself alluded to the issue in his remarks in Abu Dhabi, using the curious formulation that no nation has an “existing right to enrich.” One of the language changes in the agreement evidently related to that issue, and it was aimed at satisfying a demand of Israeli origin at the expense of Iran’s support for the draft. Now the Obama administration will face a decision whether to press Iran to go along with those changes or to go back to the original compromise when political directors of the six powers and Iran reconvene Nov. 20. That choice will provide the key indicator of how strongly committed Obama is to reaching an agreement with Iran.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13
     
    The article adds more detail than quoted. The picture that emerges is that John Kerry and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius carried water for the Israelis and Saudis to blow up the negotiation at the last moment, after all sides had preliminarily agreed to a text, by substituting a new and very substantially different text without consulting the other P-5+1 members or Iran. That is a down and dirty negotiation tactic; no wonder the negotiation failed. It should be kept in mind that the Israeli and Saudi governments' real goal is not halting Iran's development of a nuclear industry but is instead to persuade or trick the U.S. into bombing Iran back into the Stone Age, as the U.S. did to Iraq in the early 1990s under Emperor Bush 1 with a repeat performance by Emperor Bush II a decade later.  As to Kerry's preposterous claim that no nation has a right to enrich uranium, in reality every nation has that right jus cogens, with the only limitations being on nations that are members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nations still retain the right to enrich up to 20 percent as Iran has been doing. Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or mere false propaganda. See http://armscontrollaw.com/2013/11/07/scope-meaning-and-juridical-implication-of-the-npt-article-iv1-inalienable-right/
Paul Merrell

'Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius' | The Times of Is... - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/the-deal-french-mp-told-fabius

war & peace Israel Iran Iranian-nukes-myth P5+1 U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday
  • “I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.” France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20. Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium. Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.
  • The TV report on Sunday said Jerusalem believed that Netanyahu’s angry public criticism of the emerging deal, and his phone conversations with world leaders — including Presidents Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Francois Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister David Cameron — had played a crucial role in stalling the deal, but that Israel was well aware that an agreement would be reached very soon. Netanyahu himself said Sunday that he was aware of the “strong desire” for a deal on the part of the P5+1 negotiators, and had asked the various leaders in his calls, “What’s the hurry?” The report, quoting sources in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu and ministers close to him were castigating the United States for its “radical eagerness” in seeking a deal, and saying that Washington appeared fearful of confrontation with Iran. “This is no way to run a negotiation,” the sources were quoted as saying. The Americans “are giving up all of their pressure points, and the Iranians recognize the Americans’ weakness.”
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  • At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu expressed outrage that under the terms of the emerging deal, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled, not one.” Israel believes the imminent deal will leave Iran with uranium enrichment capabilities, and thus enable it to become a nuclear breakout state at a time of its choosing. Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Netanyahu on Sunday, declaring, “I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be because we haven’t arrived at them all yet. That’s what we’re negotiating.”
  • After the talks broke up in Geneva after midnight Saturday, Kerry complained about critics who were “jumping to conclusions” about the terms of the accord on the basis of “rumors or other parcels of information that somebody pretends to know.” Netanyahu on Friday publicly pleaded with Kerry not to rush to sign what he called a “very, very bad deal.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13
     
    Let's remember that Netanyahu made identical go-it-alone threats to attack Iran during the run-up to the U.S. 2012 presidential election to bring pressure on Obama to send U.S. military forces in to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. All the while, the Israeli Defense Force top brass were telling the press that Israel doesn't have the military power to go it alone against Iran. I doubt that Netanyahu's message mattered much to the French. Netanyahu has a credibility problem on that issue. So Netanyahu tried to play the stick role while the House of Saud offered the carrot of weapons purchases from the French and the like. Some stick. 
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