All Posts Tagged With: "North Korea"
U. S. Drops Idea of Diplomatic Outpost in Iran in Face of Increased Belligerence
Israel has decided on a policy of strategic independence wherein it will rely only on itself.
Today it was announced that the Bush administration quietly but, indefinitely shelved its plans to set up a diplomatic outpost in Iran. Tehran appears to have taken advantage of America’s financial crisis and weak moment to ditch informal understandings, step up its nuclear arms program and go back to pumping Shiite combatants into Iraq. Iran is heartened by North Korea thumbing its nose at the international community that remains impotent. There is speculation Iran desires to increase American deaths in Iraq on the eve of the U. S. presidential election to help elect what it sees as a naïve, and weak Barack Obama (D) Illinois and further isolate Israel. Joe Biden (D) Delaware, Obama’s VP pick, told Israel to get used to a nuclear armed Iran.
 Iranian Republican Guard and Hezbollah trainers are reported to be training hundreds of Shiite fighters who have recently been infiltrated into Baghdad precincts.
Israel news sources say it has lost out all the way around: First by heeding the Bush administration’s demands to refrain from military action against Iran and rely on international diplomacy and sanctions. Now that this option is bankrupt, Israel is left alone with the prospect of an unstoppable nuclear-armed Iran absent a reliable U. S. ally in the face of increasing Russia presence.
Israel has decided on a policy of strategic independence wherein it will rely on itself.
North Korean Partners with Syria and Iran in New Mideast Mischief
Syria’s Assad Shakesup Officer Corp And Licks Iran and North Korea Boots.
North Korean nuclear technicians, likely paid by Iran, have recently returned to Syria this time working at installations scattered in different parts of the country. A year ago Israeli warplanes and agents destroyed Syrian’s North Korean built and Iranian funded plutonium making reactor. A month before General Mohammad Solieman believed to be the highest ranking Syrian officer in its nuclear weapons program was shot dead by a sniper.
Last weekend a powerful car bomb exploded outside of a Syrian security facility near Damascus killing 17 and injuring 14 others. The names of the casualties have not been released. Syria is said to suspect Israel but has been careful not to publicly say so. It is suspected that the bomb’s target was a high ranking Syrian officer involved in its covert nuclear bomb program.
The largest single purge in the annals of Syria’s armed forces was carried out on the orders of President Bashar Assad early in th summer. Forty percent of the staff officers with the general command in Damascus were dismissed or forced into retirement; half the Syrian divisional commanders in Syria and Lebanon relieved of their duties - laid off or assigned to minor staff positions in Damascus and elsewhere.
It has been Assad’s policy to rotate officers every couple of years but this was far more sweeping and really shook up Syria’s military. It is unclear how much of this was Assad’s paranoia; because of the apparent ease with which Israel has penetrated Syrian defenses or both.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il “Recovering” Says South’s Spy Chief
Kim Jong Il is said to favor his youngest son, Kim Jong-woong, 33 - who would reign as god-king with regent.
Kim Jong-Il, like his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, is the object of an all-pervasive personality cult. But, unlike his father, however, he has not designated a chosen successor. Kim Jong-Il is reportedly ill and may have had a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage. South Korea’s spy chief, Kim Sung-ho, says North Korean leader Kim Jung Il is on the mend from an apparent stroke, and is recovering quickly.
At the age of 52 Kim Jong became president and chairman of the National Defense Commission with command and control of the armed forces in April 1993, culminating 22-years of preparation by his father, Kim Il Sung died on 08 July 1994.
Any organized succession process will almost certainly involve one of Kim Jong-il’s own sons. Kim Jong Il is said to favor his youngest son, Kim Jong-woong, 33 who was born around 1985 who might reign as a semi-divine god-king, but this reign would be at the sufferance of a regent, who would actually rule.
If he does recover it is more likely he will pay more attention to a successor. But, nothing is certain now including Kim Jong Il’s nor North Korea’s future except it will continue to be among the most secretive socieities.
Israel and Poland Join Anti-Missile Shield Network
An unintended consequence of Russian aggression in Georgia is 
solidarity on missile defense network.
Israel announced that its early warning radar system, part of its anti-missile-missile array has already detected Syrian missile tests. “It was the kind of test that Iran conducted earlier this year and meant to show that Syria could fire missiles simultaneously from a range of batteries in the southern and central parts of the country,” an official said. The Syrian tests were detected by Israel’s Arrow-2 missile defense system. The Arrow’s Green Pine early-warning radar was said to have a range of more than 800 kilometers, which covers most of Syria. Sources say that the U. S. is rushing to install and a more advanced system in Israel that could monitor Iran and deeper into Russian space.
Sources say North Korea has helped Syria develop a two-stage Scud D meant to frustrate Israel’s missile defense system. They said the launches appeared to test Syria’s command and control network required to sustain a missile attack on Israel and that justifies a more sophisticated early warning system and anti-missile missiles. Syria was also said to have fired the Soviet-origin SS-21 rocket with a 70 kilometer range during the exercise.
Russia objects to Israeli getting the more capable radar and anti-missile systems and is very angry at the U. S. - Polish agreement for anti-missile radars and anti-missile missiles that was announced Tuesday night.
North Korea Admits It Built 3 - 8 Nuke Bombs
“Missing” Plutonium Causes Angst
North Korea’s nuclear declaration, turned over to China on June 26, revealed that North Korea has used 26 kilograms (KG) of plutonium to manufacture nuclear weapons, according to a Japanese newspaper report. That amount is enough to make three to eight nuclear bombs given that one weapon could be made with roughly 4 to 8 kgs of weapons-grade plutonium.
The U. S. Bush administration accused North Korea of have 50 kgs which it at first denied and now says it did indeed have about 40 kilograms and used about six for its October 2006 nuclear bomb test. The amount actually refined by North Korea has never been confirmed, and there are grave concerns about the disputed 10 kg, where it is, who has it and what is it being used for.- the only practical use for Plutonium is nuclear weapons and very limited research.
North Korea’s technique and technology is what had been transferred to Syria before the facility -financed by Iran - was destroyed by a Israeli lightening raid in 2007. The same techniques and technologies are being used by Iran.
North Korea went full speed ahead in the 1990s developing the facilities to refine and refining plutonium. The Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium fusion bomb. Fusion bombs are geometrically more difficult to built compared to the AQ Khan techniques which are based on a U-235 (enriched uranium), Little Boy type (like the bomb dropped at Hiroshima) fission weapon, which requires more fissionable material, but is much easier to make. Since 2000 a six party coalition has worked to contain and finally dismantle North Korea’s nuke program.
North Korea-Iran-Syria Axis
Iran Will Have Nuke Weapon in Mid-2009
The United States is more vulnerable to attack in the period between now and the inauguration of a new president in January, Adm. Mike Mullen said last week. “There is certainly the full range of possibilities that our policies change on January 20th or they don’t,” he said.
Sources in London, England have revealed that Iranian scientists were stationed at the Syrian plutonium production plant in Al Kibar, destroyed in an Israeli air strike in September 2007. The Iranians as well as Syrian personnel were trained by North Korea to operate Al Kibar, designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Iran paid North Korea to build the plant tom produce plutonium (P239) for nuclear weapons and to build those weapons in Syria closer to Israel. In addition Iran has been jointly developing its long range 
ballistic missile with North Korea and Syria. Wednesday Iran tested nine offensive missile - one that could deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel and other capable of attacking U. S. and allied ships in the Persian Gulf.
Teheran has also financed joint missile production with Syria. The sources said Iran’s remaining obstacle to nuclear weapons was the ability to install a nuclear warhead on a missile delivery system. The Iranian delivery system selected for a nuclear warhead has been the Shihab-3B intermediate-range missile, the sources said. They said Iran, with assistance from North Korea, was expected to complete weaponization by mid-2009.