Iran Doctor Who Blew Whistle on Torture Was Poisoned to Death
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Means Business!
Straight from Fox News: “A doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from an overdose of a blood pressure drug in a salad, prosecutors say. The findings fueled opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether his death was a suicide or murder, Tehran’s public prosecutor Abbas Dowlatabadi said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
The 26-year-old doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, died on Nov. 10 in mysterious circumstances — with authorities initially saying he was in a car accident, had a heart attack or committed suicide.
Pourandarjani was a doctor at Kahrizak, a prison on Tehran’s outskirts where hundreds of opposition protesters were taken after being arrested in the crackdown following June’s disputed presidential elections. The facility became so notorious that it was ordered shut down by Iran’s supreme leader as reports of abuse and torture became an embarassment to the clerical rulers and security forces.
Pourandarjani later testified to a parliamentary committee and reportedly told them that one young protester he treated died from heavy torture.
The young physician died from an overdose of propranolol in a delivery salad, Dowlatabadi said Tuesday. Propranolol is used to treat high blood pressure, rapid heart rate and tremors, and can be lethal in high doses.
Investigators questioned the restaurant delivery man but he is not under arrest, Dowlatabadi said. The delivery man said he gave the salad directly to Pourandarjani, describing how the doctor took it from him at the door of his room, then closed the door behind him. The report did not say where the doctor was at the time.
Forensic tests showed that the doctor died of “poisoning by drugs” that matched the propranolol found in the salad, Dowlatabadi said. “A large number of these pills must be used for a person to pass away from them,” he said.
Last week, Iran’s top police commander, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, insisted the death was a suicide, saying the doctor faced charges over failure to fulfil his duties to treat the detainees and killed himself in despair in a lounge at the courthouse. The police chief said a note was found with the body.
Moghaddam’s comments, more than a week after the death, were the first public word that Pourandarjani faced any charges — or of where he died.
One pro-reform lawmaker dismissed the claims and suggested a link to the torture at the prison.
“It is impossible to accuse him of suicide,” said Masood Pezeshkian, the pro-opposition Web site Roozonline reported Wednesday. “The idea of suicide by someone who had no problems and no serious disease — and was present during the events at Kahrizak — seems questionable to us.”
The doctor’s father, Reza-Qoli Pourandarjani, told The Associated Press last month that he didn’t believe any of the causes given so far by the government in his son’s death. But he didn’t go as far as accusing anyone of killing him.
“Just the night before his death, my child talked to me on the phone, it was around 8 or 9 p.m. He sounded great, very dignified, displaying no sign of someone about to commit suicide,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tabriz in northwestern Iran.
“He was even full of hope,” and making plans with friends, the father said.
The next day, the elder Pourandarjani received a call from the commander of Tehran’s security forces informing him that his son was in a car accident with a broken leg and needed his consent to have surgery. When he traveled to Tehran, “we found out that that wasn’t the case,” the father said.
Several opposition Web sites raised concerns that Pourandarjani was killed because he knew the conditions of a number of torture victims at Kahrizak, including 24-year-old Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a prominent conservative figure. Rouhalamini’s death in late July was the main factor raising anger among government supporters over the abuse.
Hundreds of protesters and opposition activists were arrested in the crackdown that suppressed protests following the disputed June 12 presidential election. The opposition says at least 69 people were killed while the government has confirmed around 30 deaths.
More than 100 protesters, activists and pro-reform opposition have been on trial, accused of fueling the protests and being part of a plot to overthrow the government.”
Ahmadinejad taunts Israel, says Iran will enrich uranium to 20 percent
Ahmadinejad Taunts
Straight from the Debka File: “Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, Dec. 2, that Iran will enrich uranium to 20 percent. His latest show of defiance, focusing on the US and Israel, follows Tehran’s announcement of plans to build another 10 enrichment plants capable of producing 300 tons of enriched uranium a year in response to the UN nuclear watchdog’s censure of its second enrichment plant near Qom.
The building of two new plants will begin in two months.
Deliberately taunting Israel, he said in a speech from Isfahan broadcast live by state television: “The Zionist regime is nothing. Even its masters cannot do a damn thing.” For Tehran the nuclear issue is “over.” The Islamic republic will “not back down from its rights.”
On his visit to Isfahan, site of a nuclear fuel plant, Ahmadinejad said: “The Iranian nation will by itself make the 20 percent (nuclear) fuel (enriched uranium) and whatever it needs,” after threatening: “Any finger which is about to pull the trigger will be cut off.”
The western powers would not be able to isolate Iran, he said, and dismissed the possibility of a military attack.
Tehran has turned down the international offer for Russia to convert 70 percent of Iran’s low-grade enriched uranium into fuel for medical research; France was to have neutralized its possible conversion into weapons-grade material. Now, Ahmadinejad accused the Western powers and Israel of using against Tehran what he called an Iranian proposal to trade its low-enriched uranium in return for 20 percent enriched material.
Tension between Tehran and the world powers has heightened over this controversy.
DEBKAfile adds: The centrifuge technology that increases the concentration of U-235 isotopes up to the 5-20 percent level can also be used to increase it to nuclear-weapons grade. It is a question of intent.”
Iran threatens to end cooperation with the IAEA, quit NPT
Straight from the Debka File: “Tehran may well break off cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA and withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors Friday, Nov. 27 approved a resolution voicing serious concern about its failure to comply with international obligations and referring the issue to the UN Security Council. The resolution carried by 25:3 called on Iran to halt the construction of its second enrichment site at Fordo near Qom and declare its other covert nuclear sites. All five UN Security Council permanent members supported the censure, including Russia and China.
The White House commented that time is running out for Iran. A US official spoke of a “package of consequences” if Iran’s non-compliance continues.
Capping his 12-year tenure, the retiring IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei was forced to admit Thursday, Nov. 26 that his efforts to work with Iran had reached “a dead end.” He told the agency’s board of governors: “There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Therefore, DEBKAfile’s sources report, by entering into negotiations with the big powers this summer – which led nowhere, then signaling its acceptance in principle of his proposal to send 70 pc of its enriched uranium overseas to be reprocessed for medical research – then backing off, Iran gained most of 2009 for developing its nuclear weapon program in peace and quiet.
Tehran will most likely make its response typically ambivalent. But by quitting the NPT, Iran would free itself of international obligations with regard to its nuclear activities. Our sources note that this will not change much. Anyway, while holding talks on its program with six world powers and throwing an occasional bone to IAEA inspectors, Tehran does as it pleases and conceals most of its nuclear activities heedless of world censure.
In his parting words to the IAEA governors, ElBaradei said that in his view, “the proposed agreement (for overseas enrichment) presented a unique opportunity after many years of animosity and hostility to… create a space for negotiation. This opportunity should be seized,” he said in a last appeal to Tehran, “and it would be highly regrettable if it was missed.”
This was his final admission that the agency had failed in all its efforts to open up the Iranian program to controls and inspection, just as it failed to prevent North Korea from building its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, the United States and most other world powers connived with Dr. ElBaradei to blind the world to the true state of Iran’s rogue program. They even gave up clamoring for a halt in uranium enrichment as a precondition for negotiations.
For weeks now, they played along with director’s obfuscation tactics and insisted Iran had accepted the enrichment proposal, the sole outcome of the latest rounds of talks with Iran in Geneva and Vienna – even after Tehran deliberately missed the Oct. 23 deadline for its acceptance.
The IAEA director’s “dead end” statement applies equally to the six powers’ bid to engage Iran in negotiations on its nuclear program and the wholesale concealment of its activities. Israeli leaders, including president Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak, presented an equally false face when they reiterated that Iran’s nuclear aspirations are the business of the international community rather than Israel. They knew all the time that world powers were spending more time fabricating a false picture of Iran’s nuclear attainments the facts than dealing with them. The IAEA director has finally come clean for them all.”
Iran ‘planning 10 new uranium enrichment sites’
"My miss-iles will be diss big!"
Straight from the BBC News: “Iran’s government has approved plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, according to state media.
The government told the Iranian nuclear agency to begin work on five sites, with five more to be located over the next two months.
It comes days after the UN nuclear watchdog rebuked Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant.
The White House said the move was “yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations”.
Meanwhile, Britain described the news as “a matter of serious concern” and potentially a “deliberate breach” of UN resolutions.
Western powers say Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.
ANALYSIS
Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent Iran says the purpose is to produce peaceful nuclear power. But the country’s first nuclear power station at Bushehr is still under construction and others remain on the drawing board. Under this plan, Iran would increase its production of enriched uranium from just under one metric tonne last year, to up to 300 metric tonnes a year. It’s hard to see how this quantity of enriched uranium would be needed any time soon, especially as the fuel for the Bushehr reactor is supplied by Russia. President Ahmadinejad is also calling for his cabinet to approve a move to increase the enrichment to 20%, up from 5%. The aim, presumably, would be to supply the Tehran research reactor, following the breakdown of an international deal to provide fuel for it. But some Western analysts say Iran does not possess the technical know-how to fabricate fuel rods for the reactor.
The country insists it is only doing what is allowed under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
But a UK Foreign Office spokesman said: “Reports that Iran is considering building more enrichment facilities are clearly a matter of serious concern.
“It would be a deliberate breach of five UN security council resolutions. We will need to consider our response.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement: “If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself.
“Time is running out for Iran to address the international community’s growing concerns about its nuclear programme.”
‘Hard line’
BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says Iran’s move is a massive act of defiance that is likely to bring forward a direct confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme.
The West will fear this move will speed up Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb, our correspondent adds.
President Ahmadinejad’s immediate purpose may be to up the stakes in the diplomatic standoff, and use the issue to try to consolidate his position at home.
By taking such a hard line, the president could outmanoeuvre critics trying to use the nuclear issue against him, our correspondent adds.
Iran says the new plants would be of a similar size to its main existing one at Natanz.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his cabinet that parliament had ordered that Iran should produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2020.
It therefore needed to make 250-300 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year, he said, which would require 500,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium.
Natanz has nearly 5,000 working centrifuges, with plans to build 54,000 in all.
Under the plan Mr Ahmadinejad presented to the cabinet, the level of enrichment would also be increased.
On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that was heavily critical of Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant near the town of Qom.
Earlier on Sunday it was reported that the Iranian parliament had urged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government to reduce co-operation with the IAEA.”
Iran hits back for IAEA censure by launching proxy military action against US, UK
Ahmadinejad is full of love
Straight from the Debka File: “Reduced Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency is the least of the troubles Tehran has in store for the West. The Iranians are incandescent over the nuclear watchdog’s rebuke Friday, Nov. 27 for its cover-up of the uranium enrichment plant at Fordo and demand to halt its construction.
Its latest gesture of defiance was the approval late Sunday, Nov. 29 of 10 new uranium enrichment installations, with construction on five starting immediately.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that earlier Sunday, Tehran moved toward a military confrontation with the United Sates and Britain when its parliament earmarked $20 million to support “progressive currents which resist US and UK illegal activities.” The motion also ordered an investigation of alleged “US and British plots against the Islamic Republic.”
Our Iranian and counter-terror sources report that Tehran is acting to broaden its support of terrorist movements by bringing additional armed Islamist and insurgent groups into its support cycle as a means of forcing Washington and London to ease the pressure on its uranium enrichment projects and nuclear bomb program. Tehran classifies the groups combating the West in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia as “progressive.” The West may therefore be faced with newly-empowered armed groups in those places including possibly Taliban and al Qaeda allies.
The US and UK are specifically targeted by the new measure, which is separate from Iran’s sponsorship of Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad Islam and their armed confrontation against Israel.
Until now, Washington acted on the assumption that Iran would resort to military action only in reprisal for an attack on its nuclear installations. The main argument against an Israeli strike centered on it exposing US interests to the danger of Iranian retaliation.
The Iranian parliamentary motion is therefore an eye-opener because it means that Tehran is not waiting idly to be attacked but is already on the move to pre-empt international pressure on its nuclear activities by setting in motion covert and subversion operations against its foremost adversaries.
The new law authorizes clandestine Iranian agents to funnel funds directly to “progressive” armed groups willing to directly confront the US and Britain.
The bill also taps funds to “confront plots and unjust restrictions” by the Washington and London against Tehran and to disclose “human rights abuses by the two countries.”
DEBKAfile’s sources quote Iranian sources as claiming they have evidence that the American CIA and British MI6 are secretly backing the subversive operations carried out against the regime in Tehran by Iranian opposition and ethnic movements, including the Baluchistani Gundallah, the Arabic Khuzestan Liberation movement and the Iranian Kurdish PAJK separatists.
The new legislation and allocations are therefore a signal from Tehran to Washington and London that as long as they conduct covert subversive operations against the Islamic Republic, Iran will retaliate in kind in their arenas.
Our intelligence sources report that the Revolutionary Guards terrorist arm, the al Qods Brigades, is well prepared for this covert campaign having in the past year established Arab, Baluchi, Kurdish, Turkmen and Azeri fighting units for infiltrating those arenas and joining forces with indigenous anti-West militias.”
Ahmadinejad Says U.S., Israel Lack ‘Courage’ to Attack
Iran President Ahmadinejad
Straight from Fox News: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that the threat of a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran was no longer an issue because “they don’t have the courage” to attack Iran.
“The age of military attacks is over, now we’ve reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past,” the Iranian president said at a joint press conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.
Iran’s leader got a welcoming bear hug from the Brazilian president, who urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.
Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the U.S., Ahmadinejad said a military strike was no longer a possibility.
That’s clear “even for mentally challenged people,” he said with a smile, AFP reported.
Besides, he added, “those you mention [Israel and the U.S.] don’t have the courage to attack Iran. They’re not even thinking about it.”
The Iranian and Brazilian presidents didn’t say whether they discussed Iranian military exercises that started Sunday, adding to Mideast tensions and driving oil prices higher as an Iranian air force commander boasted Iran could deter any military strike by Israel.
Ahmadinejad didn’t utter the word Israel during his comments, but said Iran wants a Middle East with “prosperity, progress and security for all nations.” In the past, he has called for the destruction of Israel, which has voiced concern about Iran’s push in Latin America.
Silva, who also called for diplomacy to push for peace in the Middle East and ease tensions between Iran, the U.S. and other nations, again defended Iran’s right to have a peaceful nuclear program.
Commenting after talking privately for three hours Monday with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the first Iranian leader to visit Brazil since pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came in 1965 — Silva also said Iran should negotiate with the West to find a “just and balanced” solution to concerns over its nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad made no promises and defiantly said Iran would try to improve its uranium-enrichment technology if it can’t buy enriched uranium abroad.
“If the people ask us to produce ourselves, we should do it, and the opportunity we tried to create for the other side will be lost,” said Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly denied allegations by Washington and its European allies that Iran is trying to build atomic weapons. Iran insists its program is aimed only at generating electricity with nuclear reactors.
Last week, Iran said it would not send its enriched uranium for further processing in other nations, effectively rejecting a proposal by U.N. officials to allay worries the Iranians are developing atomic weapons. The fuel rods that would have been produced abroad under the plan can power reactors, but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.
Ahmadinejad’s visit with Silva was condemned by U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He said Silva made a “serious error” in meeting with the Iranian leader.
The session was significant because Silva is a center-leftist viewed by Washington as a counterweight to more strident leftists in South America, such as the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela who have been firm supporters of Iran.
Ahmadinejad planned to head to Bolivia on Tuesday. In addition to having a private lunch with Bolivian President Evo Morales, he was scheduled to inaugurate a hospital and, via video conference, open two milk-processing plants that Iran donated to the poor country.
Iran has also donated equipment for a state-run TV station, sold Bolivia 700 tractors made in Venezuela and provided financing for two state-run cement plants. In addition, Iran approved a $280 million low-interest loan for Bolivia that Morales can use as he sees fit, Iran’s diplomatic representative, Masoud Edrisi, told The Associated Press in July.
Commenting on the fate of three American hikers detained in Iran, Ahmadinejad said it is up to the judicial system to determine whether they will be released or punished, although he said he hoped any punishment would not be severe.
The Americans were detained after they crossed an unmarked border into Iran while hiking in northern Iraq in July. The U.S. says the three were innocent tourists on an adventure hike and accidentally crossed into Iran.
“We are not happy with them making this big mistake. They are now in the hands of our judiciary,” Ahmadinejad told reporters. “A judge will decide about their situation. We hope the sanction will not be too heavy.”
Relatives of the hikers appealed to Iranian authorities to show compassion.
“We don’t understand why this case remains unresolved with no sign of progress,” said the statement from the families of Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd. “We very much hope the authorities will show compassion, as the president said, and release our loved ones. It’s been too long.”"
Denied Russian S-300 missiles, Iran cannot protect nuclear sites
Russian S-300 Missile System - Not yours Iran!
Straight from the Debka File: “Iran launches its huge Modafean-e (Defenders) Aseman-e-Velayat air defense exercise Sunday, Nov. 22, to protect its nuclear sites, after failing to persuade Russia to deliver the linchpin of its air defenses, S-300 missiles. For two weeks, high-ranking Iranian politicians and generals bombarded Moscow to make good on its contract to supply the key weapon, to no avail. Saturday, Nov. 21, Iran’s air force commander Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani spoke at length about the highly sophisticated S-300, without which, DEBKAfile’s military sources say, Iran has no real defense against US and Israeli aerial or missile strikes against its nuclear installations.
Iran will hold its war games in the western and southern regions, which Iran estimates will be selected by the Americans and Israelis for attack, and cover an area of 600,000 sq. km. Iranian warplanes will simulate enemy jets zooming in to strike.
Our sources report that, aside from the Russian-made Tor-M 1 short-range interceptor, Iran’s air defense systems are outdated and pretty useless against US stealth bombers or the Israeli air force’s electronic jamming instruments. Syria likewise lacked the weapons for stopping Israel attack its North-Korean-made nuclear reactor two years ago. The Iranian air force has nowhere near the capacity to take on US or Israeli air might.
Lacking the crucial S-300, a senior Revolutionary Guards officer was reduced to threatening: “If Israel attacks Iran, Iranian missiles will explode in the heart of Tel Aviv!”
Iranian strategists are trying to make do with four devices:
1. As many nuclear installations as possible are being moved to secret subterranean sites – among them most of the research laboratories working on the development of nuclear weapons and missiles.
2. Bogus installations have been planted not far from genuine plants to mislead assailants.
3. Tehran’s most powerful defense is the deterrent strength of its ballistic missiles and the missiles distributed to its Middle East allies, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas. Therefore, Iran’s first response to attack will not be to attack Israeli population centers as the Revolutionary Guards officer threatened, but to strike the home bases of its air force, missile and radar as well as the Israel-based US military facilities, so that Israeli warplanes will have no facilities to come back to and its missiles are knocked off their launch pads.
4. Iran’s means its air defense war game as a rejoinder for the joint US-Israel Juniper Cobra 10 anti-ballistic exercise which took place for two weeks earlier this month. Iran’s leaders had to make good on their vow not to leave any American or Israeli military step in the region unanswered, although the anti-air exercise will expose the big hole in their defenses. Even if every last anti-air measure and device they possess is deployed, Iran’s nuclear facilities will still be susceptible to attack, be they the uranium enrichment center at Natanz, the Isfahan fuel plants in Isfahan, the facilities in northern Tehran, or the reactors going up in Arak opposite the Straits of Hormuz.”
Iran tests nuclear site defenses: Stage One a washout
The Iranian Air Force
Straight from the Debka File: “From the word go on Sunday, Nov. 22, Iran’s five-day drill demonstrated that its air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft, DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources report.
This was quickly borne in on Gen. Ahmad Mighani, air force chief and commander of five-day air defense exercise and the officers at the Khatam ol-Anbia air force base, headquarters of the exercise in the southern province of Khuzestan.
The first stage of the three-part war game Sunday and Monday was devoted to preventing hostile bombers from reaching nuclear installations. Iranian Mirage F-1 fighters acted as strike craft while F-5 fighters – old American models and local products – were assigned defensive roles. However, the Mirages broke through Iranian radar systems, overwhelmed the defending craft in dogfights and seized command of the air space over the nuclear sites. In conditions of real war, therefore, Iran’s atomic installations would be destroyed in the first hours of an attack.
To raise the morale of the Iranian units who witnessed the debacle, Gen. Moghani gave them a pep talk before Monday’s drills began. He assured them that even if enemy aircraft were able to knock out the installations, while they were bombing Iran, their own bases would be destroyed.
His words confirmed DEBKAfile’s report Saturday, Nov. 20, that in the early stages of a war Tehran would focus on destroying Israeli air force, missile and radar facilities at home as well as the US military bases in Israel, rather than its cities.”
Iran is advancing on dual nuclear bomb track: uranium plus plutonium
Straight from the Debka File: “DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the UN inspectors’ October visit to Iran turned up dual-track progress in support of its nuclear weapons program: Feverish activity was registered in the production of plutonium at Isfahan as an alternative to the Fordo enriched uranium plant near Qom which starts up in 2011.
The IAEA experts discovered 30 metric tons-IS of heavy water hidden in 600 tanks, each holding 13 gallons, according to the report they handed in last week to agency headquarters in Vienna.
From the shape of the tanks and other indications, the experts concluded that this stock had not come from the heavy water plant at Arak but was imported.
Metric tons-IS measure the amount of energy a given quantity can release. The force and types of nuclear bombs are gauged in kilotons or megatons. The American nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was equal to 20 kilotons of TNT. By this standard, the amount of heavy water discovered at Isfahan would be enough to make at least one plutonium bomb when the plutonium reactor under construction near the Arak heavy water facility is finished.
Other than its civilian uses, heavy water may be used to produce tritium, which intensifies the explosive force of nuclear warheads. The discovery of quantities of heavy water at Isfahan confirms the suspicions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program in three respects.
1. The long concealment of the Fordo site suggested to the UN inspectors that Iran has more hole-in the-corner nuclear facilities in the country. The discovery of a stock of heavy water further confirmed that Tehran is working hard to attain a nuclear weapon capacity on more than one track and at additional covert sites.
2. The IAEA wants to know who is selling Iran heavy water in violation of Security Council resolutions banning the sale or export of nuclear materials to Iran.
The very fact that some government or outside entity is willing to flout UN resolutions demonstrates that any further international sanctions would be ineffective for halting Iran’s nuclear drive, even assuming that President Barack Obama gained Russian and Chinese backing for such penalties. This backing has so far been withheld.
DEBKAfile’s sources report from Vienna that on November 10, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei sent a request to the Iranian Nuclear Energy Committee asking it to confirm the presence of the heavy water and document its origin with a full explanation. Tehran has yet to reply.
3. The presence of the heavy water tanks at Isfahan is additional proof that the reactor at Arak is designed for military purposes, not a peaceful installation as Tehran claims.”
Egypt’s abrupt shutdown of operations against tunnels revives missile flow to Gaza
Straight from the Debka File: “Tuesday, Nov. 18, Egypt’s special forces and engineering units suddenly shut down operation against the smuggling tunnels to Gaza without warning to Washington or Jerusalem, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. US and Israeli requests for clarifications from Cairo, which must have ordered the stoppage, were not answered. So the Obama administration signaled Egypt that if it continues to violate the international accords governing the status of the Egyptian-Gazan border, there will be consequences.
Washington is put out particularly because Cairo did not bother to notify the American engineering corps officers and men working with Egyptian troops in Sinai since early 2009 in a concerted effort to eradicate the tunnels that their mission was cut short.
DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that the congressional subcommittees responsible for approving US economic and military aid appropriations to Egypt have been informed of the Egyptian violation.
Our military sources report that the stoppage is pretty comprehensive:
1. Egyptian forces have been pulled out of northern Sinai and Rafah, the town split down the middle between Egyptian Sinai and the Gaza Strip and under which most of the smuggling tunnels run. The trucks carrying heavy weapons for the Palestinians in Gaza can now unload directly into the tunnel openings without interference.
2. The network of sensors and security cameras installed with the help of American military engineers in northern Sinai and along the Philadelphi border corridor were all deactivated as of last Tuesday.
3. The Egyptians discontinued a major project for driving huge iron beams 16 meters deep into the tunnels as an obstruction to traffic. Some of the shafts caved in.
4. Those beams were effective for disabling the 200-250 tunnels used to smuggle mostly civilian merchandise into the Gaza Strip because they are no more than 10-15 meters deep.
However, the roughly 50-60 “strategic tunnels” for the transportation of military hardware including heavy guns and missiles run 50-60 meters underground and are outside the range of the iron beams. They are moreover strong structures with reinforced concrete walls and ceilings, electric wiring, ventilation and safety hatches. Since the Egyptian troops’ unexplained pullback from their border positions, hardware has been passing through those conduits freely and straight into the hands of Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”
Obama Warns Iran of Punishment Over Nukes
Obama Means Business!
Straight from Fox News: “The president’s tough talk came as Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium to Russia so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons.
SEOUL, South Korea — Showing impatience with Iranian foot-dragging, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are discussing possible new penalties to bring fresh pressure on Iran for defying international attempts to halt its contested nuclear program.
Obama’s warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons. Talk of fresh sanctions also showed that Obama is preparing for the next phase should Iran fail to meet his year-end deadline for progress in negotiations.
“They have been unable to get to `yes’, and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences,” Obama said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
“Our expectation is, is that over the next several weeks we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran.”
The tough talk came as Obama wrapped an eight-day, four-nation tour of Asia in which global issues — nuclear disarmament, climate change, economic recovery — dominated and goodwill abounded. There also were few new agreements on pending issues.
South Korea, Obama’s final stop, was a case in point.
Obama and Lee showed unity on disarming nuclear-armed North Korea and differences over concluding a free-trade agreement stalled by Congress. Obama announced that Stephen Bosworth, his special envoy to North Korea, would make his first trip to Pyongyang on Dec. 8 to test the waters for resuming nuclear disarmament talks.
Lee said Obama endorsed his “grand bargain” for North Korea — a package of economic assistance and investment in exchange for full nuclear disarmament in a single step rather than the piecemeal approaches that have twice failed over the past two decades. “I think President Lee is exactly right and my administration is taking the same approach,” Obama said.
The White House said the trip was largely about showing U.S. re-engagement with a region whose fast-growing economies are reordering global politics but that often felt neglected during the Bush administration and its focus on fighting terrorism. To that end, Obama spoke often of reinvigorating alliances with Japan, his first stop, South Korea and in Southeast Asia, and welcoming a prosperous, confident China as a partner.
“We didn’t come halfway across the world for ticker-tape parades,” senior Obama adviser David Axelrod told reporters Thursday. “We came here to lay a foundation for progress. We’ve done that.”
Obama vested political capital in salvaging next month’s climate change conference in Copenhagen. He urged leaders of Asia-Pacific nations gathered in Singapore to rally around a political agreement that would contain emissions reductions goals for countries to meet that would fall short of a full treaty on global warming. China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases ahead of the U.S., signed on to the idea too.
Obama addressed cheering U.S. troops stationed at Osan Air Base outside Seoul on Thursday before the return flight to Washington, and gave this assessment of the trip: a renewed U.S.-Japan alliance, commitments to work on freer trade with Asia-Pacific nations to aid the global economic recovery and a more positive partnership with China “because cooperation between the United States and China will mean a safer, more prosperous world for all of us.”
Asked how the trip went, Obama said: “We got a lot of work done.” He then boarded the plane headed for home, where he faces continued lobbying to pass a health care bill and more deliberations on how many more troops to send to Afghanistan.
In talking tough about possible sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program, Obama left open the option that diplomacy could still work. “I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door” and accept the proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium out of the country, Obama said.
A senior administration official later said Obama was purposely vague on more diplomacy so as not to undermine the search for international consensus that remains in an embryonic phase. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.
Possible sanctions are likely to take months to enact, if the difficulties in crafting this year’s U.N. sanctions on North Korea are any indication. China, always reluctant to support sanctions, offered no public assurances that it would agree to punish Iran. As for Russia, whose support also would be vital, White House official Mike McFaul said days ago that the U.S. is “exactly on the same page with the Russians” in exploring diplomacy and consequences.
South Korea gave Obama one of the warmest welcomes during the trip. Crowds lined the motorcade route; some shouted “Obama.” After the news conference, Obama and Lee hugged, an unusual gesture in a region noted for its formality.
The only off-note was on the pending free trade agreement, stuck in part because U.S. lawmakers worry it could hurt the struggling American auto industry. Obama said he was committed to completing a deal and that teams from both countries were trying to resolve sticking points.
Lee said the pact was not only economic but strategic — suggesting an agreement would further cement the U.S.-South Korean alliance. He urged political will to complete it.”
Obama’s Iran sanctions strategy is routed by Chinese, Russian rebuffs
It's time... to get rebuked!
Straight from the Debka File: “Chinese president Hu Jintao said clearly after meeting US president Barack Obama in Beijing Tuesday, Nov. 17, that their governments disagree on tougher sanctions for Iran – or any other issue relating to the Islamic republic. DEBKAfile’s sources report that this rebuff has led Washington’s efforts to round up big power endorsement of harsh penalties for Iran’s continued intransigence on its nuclear program, such as an embargo on refined petrol products and gasoline, have come to a dead end. The efficacy of unilateral American sanctions, the only non-military option still left to Washington, is questionable.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton made a last-ditch bid Wednesday, Nov. 18, to scale China’s negative wall, before the US president left for South Korea. She tried to talk the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo into at least issuing a Beijing statement on Iran. He refused outright.
The Chinese rejection followed a rebuff from Moscow in the form of a comment by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that it was premature to say that diplomatic efforts for defusing tensions over Iran’s nuclear program had failed. He said it was too soon to talk about stepping up sanctions on Iran, if at all, so contradicting the supportive message Obama received from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when they met in Singapore last week and agreed that time was running out for Iran to respond to international efforts to meet it halfway.
Tuesday, before Beijing and Moscow knocked sanctions on the head, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu said optimistically that the Iranian nuclear issue should be left for the world powers and international community to deal with. In a few short hours, that option had melted away.
In the last 24 hours, Israelis have been too busy discussing the expansion of the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem to notice that their former and current governments, headed respectively by Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu, have just suffered one of their biggest foreign policy defeats. They are now confronted with a most unwelcome dilemma.”
Gore’s presentation on climate change draws 800 as 200 protestors gather outside
I invented Global Warming!
Straight from the Palm Beach Post: “Confused Palm Beach County voters helped thwart Al Gore’s 2000 bid to become president of the United States, but he was introduced as “president of the planet” when he returned here Saturday night to deliver an environmental lecture.
The former vice president spoke on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.
Gore lost Florida, and the White House, by 537 votes to George W. Bush in a 2000 as many Palm Beach County Democrats said they mistakenly voted for conservative Pat Buchanan because they were confused by the county’s “butterfly ballot” design.
After losing the presidential race, Gore became arguably the world’s most famous advocate for curbing carbon emissions, gaining eco-celebrity status with the film An Inconvenient Truth and winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
“It’s an interesting twist of fate here in our own backyard that former Vice President Al Gore has taken on a new platform and is now a catalyst for world change,” said Marci Zaroff, an “eco-entrepeneur” who introduced Gore.
“So, in essence, he’s president of the people. He’s president of the planet. And the work that he’s doing is more important than any other work that could possibly be done.”
Tickets for the event sold for $44 to $339, with proceeds going to the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection that Gore chairs.
Gore began his remarks by calling climate change “the most dangerous problem we’ve ever faced. But it is also a tremendous opportunity for us to solve problems that have been neglected for a long time.”
Organizers allowed the media to cover only the first few minutes of Gore’s presentation.
In addition to his nonprofit advocacy, Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm that finances “sustainable” and alternative energy businesses, prompting some critics to accuse Gore of promoting environmental policies that will fatten his bank account.
“Cap & Tax — Don’t Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions,” read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday’s protest.
“Gore’s Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket,” said another sign.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said Gore’s investments are consistent with positions he has held for decades.
“Former Vice President Gore has made long-term investments in ’sustainable’ companies, the vast majority of which are not directly involved with efforts to solve the climate crisis. He has also invested in some companies that have attempted and will continue to help solve the climate crisis. These are a reflection of his values,” Kreider said in an e-mail.
“If he did not invest in technologies that he supported, these very same people would accuse him of being a hypocrite,” Kreider said.”
The Fake Jobs of Obama’s Failed Stimulus
Obama's Hope & Change
Straight from Dvorak Uncensored: “Forget everything bad you’ve ever heard about President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus. Combing through the data on the $18 million Recovery.gov website, you’ll find tons of Obama stimulus success stories from across the country. In Minnesota’s 57th Congressional District, 35 jobs have been saved or created using $404,340 in stimulus funds. In New Mexico’s 22nd Congressional District, 25 jobs have been saved or created using $61,000 in stimulus cash. And in Arizona’s fighting 15th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending.
The it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-our-tax-dollars-at-stake punch line here is that none of the above Congressional Districts actually exist. Yet those jobs “created or saved” claims still sit on the Obama administration’s official “transparency and accountability” website Recovery.gov. As the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso points out, it would have been nearly costless for the Recovery.gov site designers to limit the input fields so that non-existent Congressional Districts never made it into the public domain, but for whatever reason the Obama administration chose otherwise. Defending the fake data on his website, Recovery.gov Communications Director Ed Pound told ABC News: “We report what the recipients submit to us.”
U.N. report: Iran nuke site apt for bombs, not power
Straight from the USA Today: “The United Nations says Iran is preparing to start up a uranium-enrichment site that was revealed only recently and which scientists suggest is too small for nuclear power purposes but suitable for making nuclear bombs.
In a report Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the site hidden in a mountainside in Qom appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year.
A senior international official familiar with the IAEA’s work in Iran said that amount would be too little to fuel a nuclear power plant. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information he was citing was confidential.
Others agreed.
“It won’t (even) be able to produce a reactor’s worth of fuel in 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year,” said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientists.
Iranian construction of the secret site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 start-up, according to the IAEA report.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the report “underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations.”
The IAEA has accused Iran of possibly violating an international treaty it signed regarding nuclear programs by not telling the U.N. of the site in Qom.
Iran has another nuclear program in Natanz, where it has been enriching uranium with centrifuges under IAEA monitoring. Centrifuge machines can convert uranium gas into fuel for reactors for electricity or into fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The report stated that enrichment at Natanz had stagnated. The official suggested that experts previously working at Natanz could be preoccupied with putting the finishing touches on the Qom site, known as Fordo.
The restricted document, which was obtained by the Associated Press, also noted that “for well over a year,” Iran had stonewalled IAEA efforts to investigate allegations that it actively worked on a nuclear weapons program.
Unless Tehran has a change of heart, the agency “will not be in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities,” the report said.”
Obama Rejects All Afghan War Options
More Troops? Barack is takin' this shit into his own hands!
Straight from Fox News: “President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.
But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama’s thinking.
Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama’s resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.
The president was considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government’s small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table Wednesday were ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.
The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.
Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.
Eikenberry, the top U.S. envoy to Kabul, is a prominent voice among those advising Obama, and his sharp dissent is sure to affect the equation. He retired from the Army this year to become one of the few generals in American history to switch directly from soldier to diplomat, and he himself is a recent, former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Eikenberry’s cables raise deep concern about the viability of the Karzai government, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with them who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified documents. Other administration officials raised the same misgivings in describing Obama’s hesitancy to accept any of the options before him in their current form.
The options presented to Obama by his war council will now be amended.
Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more U.S. forces atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as “half and half,” meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.
The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.
Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal’s full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.
The White House has chafed under criticism from Republicans and some outside critics that Obama is dragging his feet to make a decision.
Obama’s top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that the president still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.
Under the scenario featuring about 30,000 more troops, that number most likely would be assembled from three Army brigades and a Marine Corps contingent, plus a new headquarters operation that would be staffed by 7,000 or more troops, a senior military official said. There would be a heavy emphasis on the training of Afghan forces, and the reinforcements Obama sends could include thousands of U.S. military trainers.
Another official stressed that Obama is considering a range of possibilities for the military expansion and that his eventual decision will cover changes in U.S. approach beyond the addition of troops. The stepped-up training and partnership operation with Afghan forces would be part of that effort, the official said, although expansion of a better-trained Afghan force long has been part of the U.S objective and the key to an eventual U.S. and allied exit from the country.
With the Taliban-led insurgency expanding in size and ability, U.S. military strategy already has shifted to focus on heading off the fighters and protecting Afghan civilians. The evolving U.S. policy, already remapped early in Obama’s tenure, increasingly acknowledges that the insurgency can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.”
D.C. Sniper Muhammad Executed in Virginia
Official Seal of Awesomeness
Straight from Fox News: “John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks in October 2002.
The 48-year-old Muhammad looked calm and stoic, but was twitching and blinking, tapping his left foot as the injections began and refusing to utter any final words.
Victims’ families sat behind glass while watching, separated from the rest of the 27 witnesses, who were quiet, looking straight forward, intent on what was happening.
“He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims,” said Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert, who witnessed Muhammad die by injection at 9:11 p.m. Tuesday at Greensville Correctional Center, south of Richmond.
Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during the three-week spree across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
The shootings terrorized the Washington region, as victim after victim was shot down while doing everyday chores: shopping, pumping gas, mowing the lawn. One child was shot while walking into his middle school.
People stayed indoors. Those who had to go outside weaved as they walked or bobbed their heads to make themselves a less easy target.
The terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, while they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected.
Malvo, who was 17 when carrying out the attacks, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia.
The men also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.
Nelson Rivera, whose wife, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, was gunned down as she vacuumed her van at a Maryland gas station, said that when he watched Muhammad’s chest moving for the last time, he was glad.
“I feel better. I think I can breathe better,” he said. “I’m glad he’s gone because he’s not going to hurt anyone else.”
Unfortunately he wasn't forced to ride the lightning in Old Sparky instead of lethal injection...
Muhammad never testified or explained why he directed the shootings, and his secrets died with him.
Meyers’ brother, Bob Meyers, said watching the execution was sobering and “surreal.”
“I would have liked him at some point in the process to take responsibility, to show remorse,” Meyers said. “We didn’t get any of that tonight.”
J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad’s attorneys, described his client in his final hours as fearless and still insisting he was innocent.
“He will die with dignity — dignity to the point of defiance,” Gordon said.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad’s final appeal Monday, and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine denied clemency Tuesday.
Muhammad’s attorneys had asked Kaine to commute his sentence to life in prison because they said Muhammad had brain damage and neurological problems, as well as psychotic and delusional behavior, exacerbated by the Gulf War Syndrome he suffered as a sergeant in the first Iraq war.
“I think crimes that are this horrible, you just can’t understand them, you can’t explain them,” said Kaine, a Democrat known for carefully considering death penalty cases. “They completely dwarf your ability to look into the life of a person who would do something like this and understand why.”
A small group of death penalty opponents gathered on a grassy area near the prison and had a sign reading, “We remember the victims, but not with more killing.”
Muhammad was born John Allen Williams and changed his name after converting to Islam. He had been in and out of the military since he graduated from high school in Louisiana and entered the National Guard. He joined the Army in 1985.
He did not take special sniper training but earned an expert rating in the M-16 rifle — the military cousin of the .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle used in the D.C. shootings.
The motive for the attacks remains murky. Malvo said Muhammad wanted to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp in Canada where homeless children would be trained as terrorists.
Muhammad’s ex-wife said she believes the killings were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children.
Sonia Hollingsworth-Wills, the mother of Conrad Johnson, the last man slain that October, sat in the back seat of a car outside the prison before the execution, which she chose not to witness. But she said she wanted to be there and was counting the minutes until Muhammad’s death.
“It was the most horrifying day of my life,” she said. “I’ll never get complete closure but at least I can put this behind me.”"
Navies of 2 Koreas exchange fire near border
South Korean Navy patrol boats
Straight from Yahoo News: “SEOUL, South Korea – A badly damaged North Korean patrol ship retreated in flames Tuesday after a skirmish with a South Korean naval vessel along their disputed western coast, South Korean officials said.
The first naval clash between the two sides in seven years broke out just a week before President Barack Obama is due to visit Seoul, raising suspicions the North’s communist regime is trying to rachet up tensions to gain a negotiating advantage.
There were no South Korean casualties, the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. South Korea’s YTN television reported that one North Korean officer was killed and three other sailors were wounded, citing an unidentified government source. The JCS said it could not confirm the YTN report.
Each side blamed the other for violating the sea border.
The exchange of fire occurred as U.S. officials said Obama has decided to send a special envoy to Pyongyang for rare direct talks on the communist country’s nuclear weapons program. No date has been set, but the talks would be the first one-on-one negotiations since Obama took office in January.
“It was an intentional provocation by North Korea to draw attention ahead of Obama’s trip,” said Shin Yul, a political science professor at Seoul’s Myongji University.
He also said the North was sending a message to Obama that it wants to replace the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953 with a permanent peace treaty while keeping its nuclear weapons.
Washington has consistently said that Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear arsenal for any peace treaty to be concluded. North Korea has conducted two underground nuclear tests since 2006 and is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for half a dozen atomic weapons.
“We are sternly protesting to North Korea and urging it to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents,” South Korean Rear Adm. Lee Ki-sik told reporters in Seoul.
North Korea’s military issued a statement blaming South Korea for the “grave armed provocation,” saying its ships had crossed into North Korean territory.
The North claimed that a group of South Korean warships opened fire but fled after the North Korean patrol boat dealt “a prompt retaliatory blow.” The statement, carried on the official Korean Central News Agency, said the South should apologize.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting, ordered the South’s defense minister to strengthen military readiness.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that a North Korean patrol boat crossed the disputed western sea border about 11:27 a.m. (0227 GMT), drawing warning shots from a South Korean navy vessel. The North Korean boat then opened fire and the South’s ship returned fire before the North’s vessel sailed back toward its waters, the statement said.
The clash occurred near the South Korean-held island of Daecheong, about 120 nautical miles (220 kilometers) off the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, the statement said.
The North Korean ship was seriously damaged in the skirmish, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy. Prime Minister Chung Un-chan told lawmakers the ship was on fire when it fled north.
Lee, the rear admiral, said the shooting lasted for about two minutes, during which the North Korean ship fired about 50 rounds at the South Korean vessel, about two miles (3.2 kilometers) away. He said the South Korean ship was lightly damaged.
He said several Chinese fishing boats were operating in the area at the time of clash, but they were undamaged. Chung, the prime minister, described the clash as “accidental,” telling lawmakers that two North Korean ships had crossed into South Korean waters in an attempt to clamp down on Chinese fishing.
Lee, however, said the South Korean military was investigating if the North’s alleged violation was deliberate.
The Koreas regularly accuse each other of straying into their respective territories. South Korea’s military said that North Korean ships have already violated the sea border 22 times this year.
The two sides fought deadly skirmishes along the western sea border in 1999 and 2002.
No South Koreans were killed in 1999, but six South Korean sailors died in 2002, according to the South Korean navy. It said exact North Korean causalities remain unclear.
Baek Seung-joo, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Tuesday’s clash would not have a big impact on inter-Korean relations.
He said the Koreas held a landmark summit in 2000 and the North sent a cheering squad to the South for the Asian Games in 2002. Both events took place after the separate clashes in 1999 and 2002.
Baek, like fellow analyst Shin, said that North Korea caused the incident but that Pyongyang appears to want to create tensions and use them for domestic political consumption.
The two Koreas have yet to agree on their sea border more than 50 years after the end of their 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty. Instead, they rely on a line that the then-commander of U.N. forces, which fought for the South, drew unilaterally at the end of the conflict.
North Korea last month accused South Korean warships of broaching its territory in waters off the west coast and warned of a clash in the zone, which is a rich crab fishing area.
The latest conflict comes after North Korea has reached out to Seoul and Washington following months of tension over its nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and carried out its second underground nuclear test in May. But it subsequently released South Korean and U.S. detainees, agreed to resume joint projects with South Korea and offered direct talks with Washington.
Two administration officials said Monday in Washington that Obama has decided, after months of deliberation, to send a special envoy to Pyongyang for direct talks on nuclear issues.
Obama will send envoy Stephen Bosworth, although no date for his trip has been set, the officials said. The officials discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because the decision has not been publicly announced.
Hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops on both sides face across the 155-mile-long (248-kilometers-long) land border that is also strewn with land mines and tank traps and laced with barbed wire. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to deter a potential North Korean aggression.”
Health Care Reform Assumes Millions Would Pay Fine Rather Than Get Coverage
Obama wants you to be healthy!
Straight from Fox News: “The health care reform bill awaiting debate in the House assumes millions of workers and employers would rather pay $167 billion in fines than purchase or provide adequate coverage, according to a recent analysis, raising questions about whether the plan does enough to make insurance affordable.
Though the bill is estimated to expand coverage from the current 83 percent to 96 percent of legal U.S. residents, the windfall of projected penalty payments also exposes a potential contradiction in reform. A significant part of the plan to expand coverage relies financially on fines from the uninsured.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in its study last week that the House bill would bring in $167 billion over 10 years — $33 billion from fines paid by individuals who decline to buy insurance, and the rest from employers who don’t offer insurance to workers or contribute enough toward premiums.
Ernest Istook, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma who is now a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, calculated that anywhere between 8 million and 14 million people would end up paying the fines.
This raises a few problems, he said. First, if those millions somehow get covered and don’t pay the fine, then the health program is faced with a budget hole.
Second, he said, it speaks to a flaw with the insurance packages that are being offered. “If you say people would rather pay $167 billion in penalties rather than buy insurance under your new plan, what’s wrong with your new plan?” he asked.
The answer, Istook said: “It’s expensive.”
The House plan would create a government-run insurance program intended to help extend coverage. But the plan would allow the government to negotiate rates with providers rather than set artificially low Medicare-style rates — as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberal Democrats were hoping to do.
While the negotiated rate structure somewhat assuages the concerns of moderate Democrats and others who projected that a system based on Medicare rates would create an irresistibly cheap public plan that would draw millions away from private coverage and hurt doctors, it also does much less to address cost concerns.
In fact, the CBO report said such a public plan “would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums” for private plans in the newly created insurance marketplace. This is partly because the public plan would likely attract less healthy, and more expensive, enrollees.
In addition, many analysts and lawmakers have warned that private premiums will go up as well as a result of new requirements.
Though the government is offering a bevy of subsidies to make coverage more affordable under the plan, it apparently would not be enough to lure everyone into the system.
Suggestions for reducing the number of people who are insurance-averse are wide-ranging.
Some don’t want any fines, emphasizing incentives over penalties. But political momentum in Washington has long since shifted in favor of a requirement to get coverage. President Obama, who opposed such a mandate during the presidential campaign, reversed and supported it during his September address on health care reform to Congress.
Others, especially the health insurance industry, want the fines to be increased.
“If you don’t get everybody in, the market reforms don’t work and premiums skyrocket for everybody,” said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman with America’s Health Insurance Plans, which opposes the House Democratic plan.
Zirkelbach warned that those who choose to pay the penalty will just wait until they get sick to get covered, driving up premiums across the board. “More needs to be done to make coverage affordable.”
Zirkelbach dismissed the claim that less penalty revenue would leave the federal government with a budget hole. He said getting more people covered would help bring down health care costs overall and balance out in the end for the government’s books.
He doubted, though, that the government plan would have higher premiums. He said the so called public-option would ultimately negotiate rates down to Medicare levels.
Third Way, a think tank that describes itself as part of the “moderate wing of the progressive movement,” also released a study saying the mandate cannot be weakened. But it said several changes can be made to expand coverage. The group suggested, among other things, allowing young people to pay lower premiums and allowing people to meet the coverage requirement with even leaner insurance plans.
Democrats are standing by the mandate provisions, though, arguing that some relatively small group of uninsured people is inevitable.
“There’s just going to be some people who choose rather to pay (the fine) than to pay for health care,” said Stephanie Lundberg, spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “There’s going to be some people that just philosophically don’t want to buy health care.”
She said individual responsibility has to be a part of the plan, but that 96 percent coverage is still pretty admirable.
“It expands coverage substantially,” Lundberg said.”
