Iran already has nuclear weapons
Reader comment on article: Symposium: The Showdown [with Iran]

Submitted by Norm Grant (United States), Aug 11, 2005 at 21:46

In "The High Cost of Peace" (2002), page 77, famed terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky writes that in December 1991 "Iran made its first purchase of nuclear weapons. The deal included two 40-kiloton warheads for a SCUD-type surface-to-surface ballistic missile; one aerial bomb of the type carried by a MiG-27; and one 152-mm nuclear artillery shell.

These weapons reached initial operational status in late January 1992 and full operational status a few months later." See http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Iraq/Dec1202.htm for more detail. Arnaud de Borchgrave writes in an August 12, 2005 column that in June, 2002, Yuri Baluyevsky, then Russian Deputy Chief of Staff, stated that "Iran does have nuclear weapons. But these are non-strategic." By non-strategic, according to de Borchgrave, Baluyevsky is indicating that Iran has not yet developed nuclear warheads small enough to fit on the 1200-mile range Shahab-3 missiles that Tehran says it has.

De Borchgrave writes that Israeli intelligence believes that Iran is only "a year or two away from pulling it off." For those unfamiliar with Yossef Bodansky, consider the following: In 1993 he wrote in his book 'Terrorism Today' that Islamists were planning to attack buildings in The West with airplanes. In 1994, he wrote that, since 1993, North Korea already had a dozen nuclear weapons.

In 1995, 47 days before the OKC bombing, Bodansky wrote that Islamists, perhaps using "lily whites" (persons with no criminal record who could not be connected to Islamists), were going to attack a Federal Building in the American heartland. Oklahoma City was number five on his list of fifteen likely targets (US News & World Report in 2001 indicated that Iraqi phone numbers were found in McVeigh's car). On October 28, 2002, over four months before the Iraq War began, Bodansky wrote that in late August and early September of 2002 Iraq had moved WMDs into Syria. In November, 2002, he described Saddam's plans for a guerilla war. The lists of intelligence firsts for Bodansky (and de Borchgrave) goes on and on. Space does not permit a more comprehensive listing. See www.strategicstudies.org for Bodansky reports. De Borchgrave archives are at Newsmax, the Washington Times, or Benador Associates.

Norm Grant.

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