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“I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries,” [Ahmadinejad] told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad. The crowd broke into cheers of “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great!” Some stood and thrust their fists in the air. |
Driving home the point the historically literate already understand – this isn’t “Bush’s war”. It’s Jimmy Carter’s.
ward
The Western nations won’t let Iran go ahead because all the other Arab nations in the region will start their own programs. These countries don’t have the stability to satisfy the West or the East and both need the oil from the region.
So either they convince Iran with economic blackmail or they are bombed. If they aren’t bombed by America, England and France,if for some reason these countries couldn’t pull the trigger Israel will. Israel can’t tolerate a hostile country with “the bomb” so close to its wheelhouse. They can’t let it happen. Just as America couldn’t let Russia put missiles in Cuba.
ET: here is the dope on EMP from the following web page:
So it would appear that EMP does indeed have global properties at high altitude. This stuff is hardly what one would describe as mathematically trivial.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm
Nuclear Weapon EMP Effects
A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 20 and 40 km. These electrons are then trapped in the Earth�s magnetic field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Because the electrons are trapped essentially simultaneously, a very large electromagnetic source radiates coherently.
The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400�500 km over Kansas would affect all of CONUS. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point.
The EMP produced by the Compton electrons typically lasts for about 1 microsecond, and this signal is called HEMP. In addition to the prompt EMP, scattered gammas and inelastic gammas produced by weapon neutrons produce an �intermediate time� signal from about 1 microsecond to 1 second. The energetic debris entering the ionosphere produces ionization and heating of the E-region. In turn, this causes the geomagnetic field to �heave,� producing a �late-time� magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) EMP generally called a heave signal.
Initially, the plasma from the weapon is slightly conducting; the geomagnetic field cannot penetrate this volume and is displaced as a result. This impulsive distortion of the geomagnetic field was observed worldwide in the case of the STARFISH test. To be sure, the size of the signal from this process is not large, but systems connected to long lines (e.g., power lines, telephone wires, and tracking wire antennas) are at risk because of the large size of the induced current. The additive effects of the MHD-EMP can cause damage to unprotected civilian and military systems that depend on or use long-line cables. Small, isolated, systems tend to be unaffected.
Military systems must survive all aspects of the EMP, from the rapid spike of the early time events to the longer duration heave signal. One of the principal problems in assuring such survival is the lack of test data from actual high-altitude nuclear explosions. Only a few such experiments were carried out before the LTBT took effect, and at that time the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of HEMP was relatively poor. No high-altitude tests have been conducted by the United States since 1963. In addition to the more familiar high-yield tests mentioned above, three small devices were exploded in the Van Allen belts as part of Project Argus. That experiment was intended to explore the methods by which electrons were trapped and traveled along magnetic field lines.
The �acid test� of the response of modern military systems to EMP is their performance in simulators, particularly where a large number of components are involved. So many cables, pins, connectors, and devices are to be found in real hardware that computation of the progress of the EMP signal cannot be predicted, even conceptually, after the field enters a real system. System failures or upsets will depend upon the most intricate details of current paths and interior electrical connections, and one cannot analyze these beforehand. Threat-level field illumination from simulators combined with pulsed-current injection are used to evaluate the survivability of a real system against an HEMP threat.
The technology to build simulators with risetimes on the order of 10 ns is well known. This risetime is, however, longer than that of a real HEMP signal. Since 1986 the United States has used a new EMP standard which requires waveforms at threat levels having risetimes under a few nanoseconds. Threat-level simulators provide the best technique for establishing the hardness of systems against early-time HEMP. They are, however, limited to finite volumes (aircraft, tanks, communications nodes) and cannot encompass an extended system. For these systems current injection must be used.
HEMP can pose a serious threat to military systems when even a single high-altitude nuclear explosion occurs. In principle, even a new nuclear proliferator could execute such a strike. In practice, however, it seems unlikely that such a state would use one of its scarce warheads to inflict damage which must be considered secondary to the primary effects of blast, shock, and thermal pulse. Furthermore, a HEMP attack must use a relatively large warhead to be effective (perhaps on the order of one mega-ton), and new proliferators are unlikely to be able to construct such a device, much less make it small enough to be lofted to high altitude by a ballistic missile or space launcher. Finally, in a tactical situation such as was encountered in the Gulf War, an attack by Iraq against Coalition forces would have also been an attack by Iraq against its own communications, radar, missile, and power systems. EMP cannot be confined to only one �side� of the burst.
Source Region Electro-magnetic Pulse [SREMP] is produced by low-altitude nuclear bursts. An effective net vertical electron current is formed by the asymmetric deposition of electrons in the atmosphere and the ground, and the formation and decay of this current emits a pulse of electromagnetic radiation in directions perpendicular to the current. The asymmetry from a low-altitude explosion occurs because some electrons emitted downward are trapped in the upper millimeter of the Earth�s surface while others, moving upward and outward, can travel long distances in the atmosphere, producing ionization and charge separation. A weaker asymmetry can exist for higher altitude explosions due to the density gradient of the atmosphere.
Within the source region, peak electric fields greater than 10 5 V/m and peak magnetic fields greater than 4,000 A/m can exist. These are much larger than those from HEMP and pose a considerable threat to military or civilian systems in the affected region. The ground is also a conductor of electricity and provides a return path for electrons at the outer part of the deposition region toward the burst point. Positive ions, which travel shorter distances than electrons and at lower velocities, remain behind and recombine with the electrons returning through the ground. Thus, strong magnetic fields are produced in the region of ground zero. When the nuclear detonation occurs near to the ground, the SREMP target may not be located in the electromagnetic far field but may instead lie within the electro-magnetic induction region. In this regime the electric and magnetic fields of the radiation are no longer perpendicular to one another, and many of the analytic tools with which we understand EM coupling in the simple plane-wave case no longer apply. The radiated EM field falls off rapidly with increasing distance from the deposition region (near to the currents the EMP does not appear to come from a point source).
As a result, the region where the greatest damage can be produced is from about 3 to 8 km from ground zero. In this same region structures housing electrical equipment are also likely to be severely damaged by blast and shock. According to the third edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, by S. Glasstone and P. Dolan, �the threat to electrical and electronic systems from a surface-burst EMP may extend as far as the distance at which the peak overpressure from a 1-megaton burst is 2 pounds per square inch.�
One of the unique features of SREMP is the high late-time voltage which can be produced on long lines in the first 0.1 second. This stress can produce large late-time currents on the exterior shields of systems, and shielding against the stress is very difficult. Components sensitive to magnetic fields may have to be specially hardened. SREMP effects are uniquely nuclear weapons effects.
During the Cold War, SREMP was conceived primarily as a threat to the electronic and electrical systems within hardened targets such as missile launch facilities. Clearly, SREMP effects are only important if the targeted systems are expected to survive the primary damage-causing mechanisms of blast, shock, and thermal pulse. Because SREMP is uniquely associated with nuclear strikes, technology associated with SREMP generation has no commercial applications. However, technologies associated with SREMP measurement and mitigation are commercially interesting for lightning protection and electromagnetic compatibility applications. Basic physics models of SREMP generation and coupling to generic systems, as well as numerical calculation, use unclassified and generic weapon and target parameters. However, codes and coupling models which reveal the response and vulnerability of current or future military systems are militarily critical.
Sources and Methods
Adapted from – Nuclear Weapons Effects Technology Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL) Part II: Weapons of Mass Destruction Technologies
Engineering and Design – Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and Tempest Protection for Facilities
NATO HANDBOOK ON THE MEDICAL ASPECTS OF NBC DEFENSIVE OPERATIONS PART I – NUCLEAR
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http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm
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Updated Wednesday, October 21, 1998 4:35:26 PM
Only the historically illiterate would buy into the notion that the genesis of the current situation is in the Carter administration. Khomeini was just a C.I.A chicken come home to roost. There is a direct line of cause and effect from the overthrow of democracy in Iran and the installation of the Shah in 1953 to the Ayatollah to the Iran/Iraq war to Reagan’s aid and logistical support for Saddam to Saddam’s belief he had carte blanche to invade Kuwait to the first Gulf war to restore oil billionaires to their gilded thrones to the big mess George W. has gotten us into today.
So Steve:
Steve:
You have not provided an arguement on how to stop Iran from developing nukes without using a first strike option.
Remember Iran has done nothing but imply that they have WMD and super torpedoes that would disrupt the world economy. A similar sabre rattling strategy that Saddam employed. Response to that was to attack, and the left has been opposed to that strategy. Your posts indicate to me that you are from the left side of the spectrum.
If first strike based on threat assesment is good for Iran, why was it not good for Iraq?
Steve D., its funny how you think there’s more than one response available to Iran. Nothing short of an invasion is going to sort these people out, and the current situation in Iraq is all the evidence anyone needs. There wouldn’t be much trouble in Iraq by now without the Iranians injecting arms and fighters into the soup. They are determined and commited enemies of the West.
Recent reductions in Allied casualties in Iraq may indicate the Iranians may have pulled back on their efforts, in preperation for… something. Like the immanent deployment of nuclear weapons maybe. Or a WMD strike on someone’s home country.
Its also funny how you think we have all this time available to screw around with before we have to do something decisive. Do you think Iran will do a test shot of their shiny new bomb out in the boondocks, or will they stick it on a SCUD and test it over Israel? Or maybe in New York harbor? The first “proof” you have that Iran has joined the nuclear club could be a lot of dead people.
I mean, don’t you think its barely possible this president guy might mean what he says? And that when he says he’s going to destroy Israel and the Great Satan, he might really have a go at it?
Tell you what Steve, a guy like that says he’s got nukes, I’m inclined to take him at his word. I think you might too if Bush Hate wasn’t clouding your mind.
Hey Zoomy
Do you have a link,that could back up your opinion?
Read this
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004952#top
and then this
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_iran.html
Not the actual http thingys – but click on them, and then read them.
Just what the world needs…another foamy mouthed medieval nutsack with nukes…it was bad enough when the mad Korean Peon destabilized the balance of nuclear power now we have some sociopathic suicide cult with a nuke.
Anyone want to make a pool on the time it will take the US to turn this desert carbuncle into radioactive glass?
richfisher…..
Try http://www.fff.org/comment/com0501i.asp
richfisher….read ’em. But history remains history.
Zoom , Thanks.
Knowing this, how does it affect what Carter should have done or explain away his lack of action?
Phantom
This has nothing to do with Bush.
Iran doesn’t have a bomb. They only have the first, and most important element. They still have to construct it and make it deliverable.
There is still lots of time for diplomacy.
A strike would be a last resort. Except that is what Bush said before he invaded Iraq.(i guess this is about Bush). Bush is the wild card. Everyone else would try diplomacy until the 11th hour. The Israelis also, because they see themselves as a primary target. They may run out of patience before some others.
Rmember, the Iranian leader is playing to two audiences. The home and the foreign. The Iranians are looking to be respected and protected from foreign(US)intervention and bullying. The Iranian leader has to play to that. Through diplomacy there has to be found a middle way. If there is more middle east violence I don’t want to think about where the oil prices will end up. They are already moving up just at the speculation there may be trouble.
If there is a bombing and war we are looking at a doubling of current prices.
steve d – No, Bush is not ‘the wild card’. You make it appear as if Bush’s agenda is pure randomness. It is instead a deliberate and basic agenda – enable the ME to move from tribalism into democracy.
Iran is, I suggest, not speaking to two audiences, but to ONE. Only one. It is speaking to Muslims. In Iran and in the world. And..in the ME.
Iran is trying to retain tribalism in the ME and prevent democracy. That is why it, along with Syria, SA and Lebanon, are the ‘insurgent forces’ in Iraq. The agenda – to prevent the Iraqi people from developing democracy. This democracy will spill over into the other ME countries – and Iran has no intention of its elite losing their tribal power. Sending their insurgents into Iraq is one tactic.
Another tactic is also distinctly tribal – it is to Hate The Other Tribes. Iran’s rhetoric about The Bomb, is meant to provoke the West. They actually want the West to either attack in words or actions. That will mobilize their population in a heightened emotional state. A state of emotion, not in favour of democracy. But against the West;against democracy.
Notice their recent rhetoric against the West, by denying the Holocaust, and having a ‘cartoon contest’ on teh Holocaust. It was meant to provoke. It didn’t work; the West laughed, and sent in cartoons.
Another tactic is also tribal, and also emotional. Islam is a religion that rejects analysis and thought; you won’t find treatises on metaphysics and ethics in its history. It is, more than it is a religion, it is a sociopolitical mode of life. Suited to the desert and a tribal peasant economy but unsuited to an industrial economy.
Iran (and SA) is attempting to maintain Muslims all over the world, in an allegiance to fundamentalist Islam. Therefore, they are politicizing Islam to such an extent that for a Muslim to critique it, is impossible. All you can do, is ‘be Muslim’ within an emotional state.
Iran’s attempt to get the West to ‘hate Iran’ maintains Muslims in a heightened state of emotion. For Islam. Against the West.
The ‘bomb’ is all about an attempt to reject democracy and maintain tribal power in Iran.
richfisher…”Knowing this, how does it affect what Carter should have done…?”
It doesn’t, really, but if your going to play the disingenuous game of “If only Carter had acted in ’79”, ala Steyn and small dead kate, as if history began in 1979, then it’s equally fair to point out that if the good old USA were not so busy crushing democracy and propping up despots and dictators to make the world safe for BP and Chiquita Banana in the 50’s, a lot of foul shit wouldn’t have hit the fan.
Melanie Phillips: Saddam’s Secrets
Melanie Phillips speaks with former Air Vice Marshal in Saddam�s Iraq, Georges Sada, about his claim that Saddam shipped biological and chemical weapons to Syria; much of it will be familiar to lizardoids who�ve been keeping up with this story, but Sada�s reaction to prevailing Western opinion is interesting:
In April 2004, a group of al Qaeda terrorists was caught in Jordan with 20 tons of Sarin gas. When Sada heard of this, he says, his blood ran cold. There was only one place which was capable of producing 20 tons of Sarin: Saddam�s Iraq. To his horror, he says, he realised at that moment that Saddam�s WMD had got into the hands of al Qaeda.
Earlier this year, Sada was interrogated about his claims by the American House Intelligence committee, to whom he gave the names of the Iraqi pilots. Subsequently, he says, the Committee went to Iraq and spoke to the pilots. The result, he says, is that a major American investigative and diplomatic effort is now under way to finally locate the missing WMD.
But in Britain, I say, people now firmly believe that there were no WMD and that we were taken to war on a lie. Sada looks utterly flabbergasted. �How can they possibly think that?� he asks in bewilderment and anger, and puts his head in his hands. + more
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001665.html
via LGF
“Subject: Destruction” +
Summer 2002 Document: Destruction And Hiding of WMD Documents and Archives (Translation)
Pentagon/FMSO Iraq Pre-war documents ^ | April 12 2006 | jveritas
Posted on 04/12/2006 5:53:51 PM PDT by jveritas
Memos in document CMPC-2003-002284 that are dated in June and August 2002 present another great evidence of Saddam Regime deceptions to hide his WMD programs and this time by destroying the WMD files or hiding them in a secure location. Saddam knew that summer that the UN inspectors are coming back to Iraq so he ordered these actions hoping that he will fool them, and he did fool Hans Blix and company.
Translation of Page 3
In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate
Subject: Destruction
On Friday that coincides on 23/8/2002 were destroyed the primary archives for the Atomic Energy Commission according to the instructions issued regarding this and it was destroyed (burned) in the outside warehouses and it was carried on Compact Discs and the destruction operation was achieved by the presence of:
1. Mr. Director of Energy Security- Mr. Saher Nassif Jasem
2. The Representative of the National Monitoring Department; General Kamal Abed Mohamad
3. Mr. The Director of the Disarmament Section- Mr. Maatook Abed Al Satar
4. Mr. Director of Monitoring Section in the Organization- Mr. Hani Hassan Ahmad
And according to this the document was signed (Remark: The remaining of the documents that are related to the purchasing of the Nuclear Program and that is 22 steel boxes will be received from the Monitoring Department to be dealt with)
Signatures�
Mr. Hani Hassan Ahmad, General Kamal Abed Mohamad, Mr. Maatook Abed Al Satar; Mr. Saher Nassif Jasem 23/8/2002
23/8/2002.
End of Translation of Page 3
Now on 4 you see a memo about the transfer of Top Secret and Very Important WMD documents from the Iraqi National Monitoring Agency (the agency that is supposed to discuss and report Iraq WMD issues with the UN) to more secure locations where it will be harder for the UN inspectors to find it.
Translation of page 4
Subject: Receiving documents
The documents preserved by the National Monitoring Department were accounted for and received by Mr. Ayad Kihtan Talab, the representative of The Military Industrial Security Agency and its details are shown in the attached tables and its numbers (12) are twelve pages and in (9) nine cardboard boxes
The Representative of the National Monitoring Department.. Signature� General Kamal Abed Mohamad 17/6/2002
The Representative of the Intelligence Apparatus.. Signature� Hamood Awde Salem 17/6/2002
The Representative of the Industrial Military Security.. Signature.. Ayad Kihtan Talab 17/6/2002+
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1614115/posts
http://70.169.163.24/released/04-10-06/CMPC-2003-002284.pdf
Zuma,
As opposed to what the USSR was doing?
Countering the soviets was important. They were not subverting “democracy” as there wasn’t a hell of a lot of it going on. There was a lot of communist gorrillas though. And the US propped up anyone who would whack them. I have no problem with that.
Chevez is destabilizing the region right now. I would applaud if someone whacked him. He stole the election through blatent fraud then re-arranged the laws and constitution to crush resistance. Now he’s funding bloodshead in Bolivia, Columbia, Suraname, and anywhere else the psycho bastard can get away with it.
Whacking that prick would do everyone a favour.