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5000 Bombs



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 22nd 04, 03:59 AM
Allen Thomson
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Default 5000 Bombs

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...0921-voa01.htm

Haaretz: Israel to Get 5000 US Smart Bombs, Bunker
Busters
VOA News
21 Sep 2004, 12:40 UTC

An Israeli newspaper says the United States plans to sell
Israel nearly 5,000 smart bombs, including 500 one-ton
"bunker buster" bombs that can penetrate two-meter thick
concrete walls.

The Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday that funding for the
$319 million weapons deal would come from the U.S. military
aid to Israel.

According to the report, the U.S. Defense department pushed
for deal to maintain, what the newspaper calls, Israel's
military advantages and ensure U.S. strategic and tactical
interests.

Citing a senior Israeli security source, Reuters news agency
said the type of weapons sought under the deal are not needed
for use in Palestinian territories, but "bunker busters"
could serve Israel against Iran or possibly Syria.

Some information for this report provided by AP, Reuters.
  #4  
Old September 23rd 04, 07:01 PM
ian maclure
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Default

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:01:42 -0600, Scott Ferrin wrote:

[snip]

But do you think Iran will be smart enough to take the hint? Nah.


Probably not.

IBM

__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Posted Via Uncensored-News.Com - Accounts Starting At $6.95 - http://www.uncensored-news.com
The Worlds Uncensored News Source

  #5  
Old September 23rd 04, 09:13 PM
Harry Andreas
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ISRAEL SEEKS U.S. BUNKER BUSTERS

HA'ARETZ, Sept. 21 -- The Israeli air force will purchase $319 million in
air-launched bombs from the United States, including 500 deep
earth-penetrating "bunker-buster" bombs, Ha'aretz reports, citing a senior
Israeli security source.

"This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker
busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria," said the
source.

The sale, which includes 4,500 other guided air-launched munitions, is not
expected to go through until after the U.S. presidential election in
November.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur
  #7  
Old September 26th 04, 09:07 PM
Thelasian
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(Dav1936531) wrote in message ...
From:
(Allen Thomson)
Date: 9/21/04 10:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:

Haaretz: Israel to Get 5000 US Smart Bombs, Bunker
Busters
VOA News
21 Sep 2004, 12:40 UTC


The powers that be have decided that Iran is NOT going to be enriching uranium
for a nuclear bomb. Too many terrorist connections in Iran to trust the mullahs
with a nuke.



Who has more "terrorist connections" the Iranians or the USA?

At the time that Saddam was using WMD on Iranians and Kurds, the US
was backing and supporting Saddam
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82
www.commondreams.org/views03/1223-11.htm

By the time of the US attack on Iraq, there were no WMD in Iraq, and
they had been destroyed.

THat's why none were found: David Kay said there were no
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the first place, and that if
the war was because of WMD, then it was "not worth it"

http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom...ay_March15.asp


======

Ashcroft SUPPORTED terrorists:

"When the White House released its Sept. 12 "white paper" detailing
Saddam Hussein's "support for international terrorism," it caused more
than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington...But it did
highlight Saddam's backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization
(MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising
support among members of Congress in past years. One of those
supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush's
war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft."
(SOURCE: Ashcroft's Baghdad Connection; Newsweek, September, 2002)

======

US SUPPORTED THE TALIBAN:

"Mr. ROHRABACHER: Afghanistan from the very beginning, when the Reagan
Administration was involved with helping the Afghans fight the
Russians, which were engaged in trying to put a totalitarian
government there; because of Pakistan's insistence, a lion's share of
our support went to a guy named Hek Makti Argulbadin, who had no
democratic tendencies whatsoever...Only the United States has
given-and I again make this charge-the United States has been part and
parcel to supporting the Taliban all along and still is, let me
add...And we have heard today that we are very proud that we are still
giving aid to Afghanistan. Let me note that aid has always gone to
Taliban areas. So what message does that send the people of
Afghanistan? We have been supporting the Taliban because all of our
aid goes to the Taliban areas, and when people from the outside try to
put aid into areas not controlled by the Taliban, they
are thwarted by our own State Department. Let me just note that that
same area, Bamiyan, where I tried to help those people who were
opposed to the Taliban, Bamiyan now is the headquarters of Mr. bin
Laden. Surprise, surprise. Everyone in this Committee has heard me
time and again over the years say unless we did something Afghanistan
was going to become a base for terrorism and drug dealing. Mr.
Chairman, how many times did you hear me say that? This Administration
either ignored that or are part of the problem rather than part of the
solution. Again, I am sorry Mr. Inderfurth is not here to defend
himself, but let me state for the record at a time when the Taliban
were vulnerable, the top person in this Administration, Mr.
Inderfurth, and Bill Richardson personally went to Afghanistan and
convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the offensive.
Furthermore, they convinced all of the anti-Taliban forces and their
supporters, to disarm and to cease their flow of support for the
anti-Taliban forces. Now, with a history like that, it is very hard,
Mr. Ambassador, for me to sit here and listen to someone say our main
goal is to
drain the swamp-and the swamp is Afghanistan-because the United States
created that swamp in Afghanistan, and the United States policies have
undercut those efforts to create a freer and more open society in
Afghanistan which was consistent with the beliefs of the Afghan
people."
(SOURCE: GLOBAL TERRORISM: SOUTH ASIA-THE NEW LOCUS; HEARING BEFORE
THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE
HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JULY 12, 2000)


=======
US GAVE ANTHRAX TO SADDAM:


Copyright 1996 Newsday, Inc.

Newsday

November 27, 1996, Wednesday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: NEWS; Page A04

LENGTH: 2103 words

HEADLINE: UNDISCLOSED CONNECTION / SCIENTIST ON GULF WAR SYNDROME
LINKED TO SUPPLIER OF IRAQI ANTHRAX

BYLINE: By Patrick J. Sloyan. WASHINGTON BUREAU

DATELINE: Washington

BODY:



Washington - A Nobel laureate who headed a 1994 Pentagon study that
dismissed links between chemical and biological weapons and Persian
Gulf War illnesses was also a director of a U.S. firm that had earlier
exported anthrax and other lethal materials to Iraq before the 1991
conflict, according to federal records.

Renowned geneticist Joshua Lederberg of New York served as chairman
of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health
Effects. At the time of the 1994 study, Lederberg was also one of 10
directors on the board of American Type Culture Collection, or ATCC.

Newsday has found that the nonprofit Rockville, Md., firm made 70
government-approved shipments of anthrax and other disease-causing
pathogens to Iraqi scientists between 1985 and 1989, according to
congressional records. Lederberg became a director, an unpaid
position,
in 1990, a year after the shipments were halted by the Bush
administration. Lederberg resigned from ATCC last year.

During and after the 1991 gulf war, U.S. intelligence became
convinced that the ATCC shipments, along with supplies from other
countries, had been used by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's
scientists
for an expanded biological weapons program, according to U.S.
officials.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said ATCC's
products, designed for research, were ideal for growing tiny samples
into wartime stocks. "They ATCC were not the only source, but they
made
a contribution" to the Iraqi weapons program, the official said.

For the Bush administration, those Iraqi biological weapons were
the "nightmare scenario" of the 1991 gulf war - the potential of a
Scud
rocket warhead filled with anthrax attacking Tel Aviv, prompting an
Israeli nuclear counterattack on Baghdad. More than 150,000 frontline
U.S. combat troops got anthrax vaccine injections, according to Desert
Storm records.


Despite the wartime fears, UN Special Commission investigators in
Iraq have found no evidence that Baghdad used biological weapons or
even succeeded in developing the pathogens into usable battlefield
munitions. But laywers for veterans groups argue that some biological
weapons may have been included in nerve gas and other chemical poisons
encountered on the gulf war battlefield.

Dispersed as an aerosol, anthrax spores can produce high fever,
breathing difficulty, chest pain and eventually blood poisoning and
death. In addition, areas hit with anthrax spores can remain lethal to
humans for decades, according to the U.S. Army.

In 1993, after a growing number of gulf war veterans complained of
fatigue, sore joints, sleep problems, diarrhea, memory loss and other
problems, President Bill Clinton ordered the Pentagon study to
determine whether U.S. troops had been exposed to chemical or
biological weapons during the war. Most of the 75,000 ailing gulf war
veterans share the array of symptoms called gulf war syndrome,
according to the Pentagon health officials and the Department of
Veterans Affairs.

Lederberg, who shared the 1958 Nobel for medicine or physiology,
was
a director of ATCC when he was picked to head the study, which was
overseen by Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch, now director of
Central Intelligence.

As chairman of the seven-month Pentagon investigation, Lederberg
was
specific in his personal summary of the 1994 report.

"There is no scientific or medical evidence that either chemical or
biological warfare was deployed at any level against us, or that there
were any exposures of U.S. service members to chemical or biological
warfare agents in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia," Lederberg wrote in the
report.

Despite repeated requests for comment, Lederberg declined to be
interviewed or to answer Newsday's written questions. Deutch, through
a spokesman, said he was unaware of Lederberg's connection to ATCC or
that the firm had shipped anthrax to Iraq.

Some members of the 1994 Pentagon panel who served with Lederberg,
71, the former president of Rockefeller University in Manhattan, were
unaware of his ties to ATCC. But in recent interviews they defended
Lederberg's performance as chairman.

"He is a real humanitarian," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Phil
Russell of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Along with Russell, John Baldeschweiler of the California Institute
of Technology was unaware of Lederberg's connection with ATCC. "But I
do not view it as a conflict of interest," Baldeschweiler said.

But critics of that Pentagon report such as James Tuite III, head
of
the Gulf War Veterans Foundation, said Lederberg should have recused
himself from the Pentagon task force because of ATCC's
involvement. "It's an ethical issue," Tuite said.

According to Houston attorney Gary Pitts, Lederberg should have
disclosed his tie to ATCC. "It doesn't pass the smell test," said
Pitts, who noted that the task force pre-emptively ruled out
biological
weapons as a cause of gulf war syndrome.



Pitts is one of the lawyers representing more than 2,000 gulf
veterans participating in a class-action suit in state court in Texas
seeking damages from ATCC and other firms that exported products that
could have been used in Iraq's chemical and biological warfare
program.

ATCC officials say the firm did nothing improper or illegal in
shipping the products to Iraq.

Some veterans suspect that biological weapons caused their
illnesses. Pitts said the Soviet-trained Iraqi army may have mixed
biological and chemical weapons to create a lethal
battlefield "cocktail" discussed in Russian military doctrine.

Kay Sloan-Breen, an ATCC spokeswoman, said Lederberg received no
money during his five-year stint as a director and trustee. She
described ATCC as a distinguished, 70-year-old nonprofit repository of
bacteria, fungi and other products used by the global scientific
community as a standard of reference for research.

Shipping ATCC's products to Iraq required approval by the U.S.
Commerce Department during the Reagan administration, Sloan-Breen
said. "These shipments were up to the Commerce Department," she said.

At the time Robert Stevenson, then chief executive of ATCC, was a
member of the Commerce Department's Technical Advisory Committee. But
Sloan-Breen said Stevenson and the panel did not advise the department
on specific exports. Instead, she said, the committee was seeking
rules
to restrict exports of potentially dangerous products. "But that
committee's efforts went nowhere," she said.

"We are a collection of scientists wearing white hats," Sloan-Breen
said.

ATCC's role as a supplier of anthrax to Iraq became public on Feb.
9, 1994, when Sen. Donald Riegle (D-Mich.) delivered a Senate speech
outlining ATCC's shipments and criticizing Commerce Department export
controls.

"I think the U.S. government approving export of these materials to
a government like that and to someone like Saddam Hussein violates
every standard of logic and common sense," Riegle said. By then it had
been widely reported that Iraq had inflicted heavy casualties on
Iranian troops with chemical weapons since 1981.

The senator noted that ATCC shipped "bacillus anthracis," twice -
in
May, 1986, and September, 1988. There were also two shipments of
clostridium botulinum - a bacteria used to make botulinum toxin - on
the same dates. The batches, frozen in tiny vials, were shipped to
Baghdad's Ministry of Education.

According to CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and UN Special
Committee reports, Iraq had expanded its biological warfare program in
1986 at facilities in Salman Pak. Workers in gas masks and
polyethylene
suits were spotted at the "strictly controlled" plant, according to a
recently declassified CIA document.


Eight days after the senator's floor speech, Lederberg wrote Riegle
on stationery headed "Office of the Secretary of Defense." Lederberg
noted that he had been assigned to examine all available information
regarding gulf war syndrome.

"I was intrigued by your recent suggestion that the medical
problems
being exhibited by some gulf war veterans might be related to
biological warfare, specifically, to the list of biological materials
sent to Iraq from the American Type Culture Collection," Lederberg
wrote in the letter.

He requested a briefing by a member of Riegle's staff. "I am sure
that you understand the necessity for us to examine all the scientific
facts that may bear on this matter," Lederberg wrote.

Riegle sent Tuite, the director of a Senate Banking Committee
investigation of gulf war illnesses, to testify before Lederberg's
panel on Feb. 25, 1994. None of Tuite's testimony or details about
ATCC's shipments were contained in Lederberg's report.

Lederberg's task force devoted only a half-page to biological
weapons in the 1994 Pentagon report. "Biological agents are easily
recognized through their effects on a target population," the report
said. "The effects of the two most likely Iraqi agents - botulinum
toxin and anthrax - are very well understood.

"There were no reported cases of botulinum toxicity or of infection
by anthrax," the report said in concluding that Iraq did not deploy or
use biological weapons in the gulf war.

All evidence indicates that that conclusion is still valid. UN
inspectors in Iraq after the war found facilities to grow a tiny vial
of infection-causing pathogens into weapons, but they are still
searching for actual biological weapons.

One possible source of a low-level exposure to biological weapons
may have been the destruction of Iraqi biological facilities by U.S.
warplanes, according to military leaders.

The main production facility, Salman Pak, was bombed from the
outset
of the war after an extensive debate between President George Bush and
his military commanders. They feared fallout from the air strikes
could
pollute the battlefield.

After the war, Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf recounted in his
memoirs the decision to bomb. He quoted Bush as saying "that if we do
not attack these plants, we cannot guarantee that these agents won't
be
used on U.S. troops. This would be unforgivable."

Widespread criticism by members of Congress, veterans groups and
the
media of the Pentagon's investigation of gulf illnesses resulted in
Clinton's creating an advisory committee on the issue almost a year
ago.

The White House committee was instrumental in forcing disclosures
this year that at least 20,800 soldiers may have been exposed to sarin
nerve gas after 14 tons of the poison were destroyed in March, 1991.
The panel's final report is due next month and may recommend yet
another investigation outside of the control of the Defense
Department.
 




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