Did IAEA hide evidence of Iranian bomb?

Russia lambastes reports ship had missiles for Iran
Tue Sep 8, 2009 10:17am EDT
By Amie Ferris-Rotman

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow on Tuesday denied reports a cargo ship that went missing in the Atlantic for almost a month had been carrying a Russian air-defense system to Iran that was detected by Israel.

Russia’s foreign minister said the circumstances of the ship’s disappearance would become clear in due course.

The Maltese-registered Arctic Sea was officially carrying timber from Finland to Algeria when it was boarded on July 24 by a group of 8 men. They were charged with kidnapping and piracy after it was intercepted by Russian warships off Cape Verde.

Since then there has been speculation that the ship, manned by a crew of Russians, Estonians and Latvians, was carrying a secret cargo.

Media reports over the weekend, citing military sources in Israel and Russia, said the Arctic Sea had been loaded with S-300 missiles at the naval port of Kaliningrad without the Kremlin’s knowledge. Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, had been monitoring and tipped off Moscow.

Speaking to reporters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the reports: “This is absolutely not true.”

The truck-mounted S-300PMU1, known in the West as the SA-20, can shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft. It can fire at targets up to 150 km (90 miles) away and can travel at more than 2 km per second, according to Russian media.

The advanced anti-aircraft system have been a sore point in relations between Moscow and the Jewish state, which has lobbied Russia to pull away from selling them to Iran, saying they could protect Iranian nuclear facilities against air strikes.

ALL WILL BECOME TRANSPARENT

Russia has repeatedly denied claims arms were on the 97-meter (318 ft), 4,000 dwt ship. Media reports claimed the Kremlin had ordered a rescue mission aboard the ship to avoid an international embarrassment surrounding a secret cargo.

“All will become transparent, and I hope that everyone will be convinced that the rumors you refer to are absolutely groundless,” Lavrov said.

Russian investigators on Tuesday later said they had so far found nothing aboard the Arctic Sea apart from materials that should be on board, Interfax news agency reported.

Russian maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko caused an international storm when he said the ship could be carrying illegal weapons. The editor of Russia’s respected Sovfracht maritime journal, Voitenko fled to Istanbul last week after he received anonymous threats and the magazine later sacked him.

Charges of kidnapping and piracy were brought against eight crew members two weeks ago in Moscow. Their lawyers called them “peaceful ecologists”

Russian prosecutors maintained the ship was carrying timber.

Assumed to have the region’s only atomic arsenal, Israel supports U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to deny Iran the means of making a nuclear bomb. But Israel has hinted it could use force in a standoff that has often pitted Western powers against Russia.

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman)

fourdeucer on September 8, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Column One: Time’s up on Iran

Sep. 3, 2009
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST

For all its failures, the latest IAEA report puts the lie to this State Department assessment.

Moreover, as a recent study by Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin shows, Iran already has several delivery options for its burgeoning nuclear arsenal. In a report published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rubin, who has been awarded the Israel Defense Prize and oversaw the development of Israel’s Arrow missile defense system, concludes that Iran today has the capacity to develop solid-fuel-based intermediate ballistic missiles with a range of 3,600 kilometers. That is, today, Iran has the capacity to attack not only Israel and other states in the Middle East. Since its successful test of its solid-fuel based Sejil missile in May, it has the demonstrated capacity to attack Europe as well.

Furthermore, Teheran’s successful upgrade of its ballistic missiles to satellite launchers has given it the capacity to launch nuclear weapons into the atmosphere. This renders Iran capable of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack from sea against just about any country. An EMP attack can destroy a state’s electromagnetic grid and thus take a 21st-century economy back to the pre-industrial era. Such an attack on the US, for instance, would cripple the American economy, and render the US government at all levels incapable of restoring order or preventing mass starvation.

THESE LATEST disclosures should focus the attention of Israel’s leaders on a singular question: What can Israel do to prevent Iran from further expanding its nuclear capacity and block it from emerging as a nuclear power?

The answer to this question is the same as it has been for the past six years, since the scale of Teheran’s nuclear program was first revealed. Israel can order the Israel Air Force to bomb Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities with the aim of denying Iran the ability to attack the Jewish state.

The necessity for Israel to exercise its one option grows daily in light of what the rest of the world is doing in regards to Iran. Following the release of the IAEA report and ahead of the UN General Assembly’s opening meeting later this month, this week US, German, British, French, Russian and Chinese diplomats met in Germany to discuss the possibility of ratcheting up Security Council sanctions against Iran. Ahead of the meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both announced that they support stronger sanctions.

fourdeucer on September 8, 2009 at 12:27 PM