OK. People. Please, Iran is NOT GOING TO NUKE US in 16 days.

[tjwash]

Stop. Step back. Take a nice deep breath, and exhale slowly. We are in no danger of getting nuked by Iran. this whole "Iran is 16 days days away from a nuke" , and "they can now enrich uranium" stuff is getting WAY spun out of control by both sides of the isle.

First---164 centrifuges, will not enrich enough uranium to light up a porta-potty.

Second--- this mass "OH NO!! Iran has the bomb!!" crap, was started by an article that Bloomberg, that seems to be rapidly proliferating itself, and spontaneously mutating in the blogosphere, and around the internet. In it, they attempt to claim that Iran Could Produce a Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days. Dig a little deeper into the article, and you will find that Stephen Rademaker is the White House contact, and person who is "releasing" the (mis)information. Once you see Rademaker's name, you can pretty much safely dismiss the entire thing as more lies, and white house spin, designed to send ma-and-pa nascar into a "we got nuke them A-RABS" frenzy.

Why? Stephen Rademaker works for Robert Joseph, who was charged with muscling the CIA into letting President Bush use the "yellow cake uranium", "Saddam's gonna nuke us in 45 minutes" garbage, in the 2003 State of the Union address. I almost felt insulted after reading the article, because it is plain to see, that the White House does not even give us, the American people, enough credit to even refine their scare tactics any.

Third--You will notice above, in regards to Rademaker, that I said "mis" information. Because it is partially true. It is true that Iran has 164 centrifuges, and that they have learned to enrich uranium. They need 54000 centrifuges, all working in tandem, to do what the article actually CLAIMS to do, which is produce a working nuke, in 16 days. So yes--if you have 54000 centrifuges all working in tandem at a nuclear plant, you would be capable of producing a nuclear bomb in 16 days.

What the article is conveniently omitting, however, is the fact that the process of getting the centrifuges built, getting them there, assembling the centrifuges on site, and arraying them into a working system that could actually be capable of having them work in unison, to enrich enough uranium to create a working nuke, would, at the minimum, take 10 years to accomplish. And, that's with an experienced team of engineers, scientists, and physicists that already know how to do it, and that's if they don't blow themselves up in the process.

Then of course, they could produce a nuke in 16 days.

So please, just take that into account when you hear this from someone in the future, and please explain to them, that Iran is not going to bomb us in 2 weeks.

Thank you, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

[libnnc]

1. But will we nuke them?

And what will happen after that?

That's what I'm scared about.

[benburch]

4. My sources say yes. On June 7th. nt

[bananas]

13. How reliable is that?

Any more details?

[benburch]

26. Three sources, essentally the same information.

All have the information from friends who have friends in High Places. No direct knowledge.

So... You decide. I'm not sure.

But given everything else that has been disclosed, I believe that it is not unlikely.

[bananas]

31. I just realized that's one day after 6-6-6 (June 6 2006)

maybe in a different time zone it is 6-6-6?

[David in Canada]

39. Good catch!

It could indeed be 6-6-06! Could be deliberate? Maybe an unconscience Freudian slip???

This is serious. BushCo, IF they want this, they WILL do this, public opinion, humanity and logic notwithstanding.

[The Witch]

49. If we nuke them, we will be nuked back.

Ben. What the hell can we do? I am too young to die and I haven't gotten married yet.

[LittleClarkie]

15. Could that be a "mad dog" gambit ala Nixon?

Did I ask you that yesterday?

Maybe he just wants them to think he will.

But then, his father didn't understand either that a man from an Arab culture will only grow more resolute when you threaten him.

[benburch]

27. Could be.

I hope so.

Sorry if I missed your earlier question.

[LittleClarkie]

28. Nah, I just checked. I made the same suggestion to someone else

not you.

I hope so too.

[David in Canada]

38. You're assuming logic!

Hi, LittleClarkie! :hi:

You're making a fatal error in judgement of Shrubbie. Never assume anything logical or deep from the empty void that passes for his mind.

Shrubbie thinks force, submission and sadism. If he wants to do it and can do it, he WILL do it. :cry:

[carolinalady]

48. I'd just LOVE to know why that date. I can see it now....

Shrub: "You know Dick, those islamists they are pretty good at using symbols."
Dick: "Yeah....so?"
Shrub: "Well, did we ever figer out what they meant?"
Dick: "I'm sure we got a report on that somewhere. Didn't Karl already leak that one?"
Shrub: "I dunno,I try not to pay attention to that stuff. In other words, keep myself above the fray."

Dick: "Why are you asking about this anyway?"
Shrub: "Well here's the thing. I've been thinkin about those symbols and they sent a message."
Dick: "To who? We never got it."
Shrub: "That don't matter Dick. They sent a message to the Amurikan people. That's what's important here."
Dick: "Well what does that have to do with anything right now?"
Shrub: "Well I'm thinkin that those Saddamists don't respect our military superiority because they don't get our message."
Dick: "So how do you want to fix that?"
Shrub: "Well since we are plannin on hittin Iran, I think we should, you know, pick a special date and send them a message. Something really tough soundin that expresses our Christian, I mean military might."
Dick: "Well the only date I can think of that is evil would be 6/6/06."
Shrub: (his eyes light up)"Say that's pretty good Dick. Let's go with that."
Dick: "Do you think Fallwell and Robertson might get pissed?"
Shrub: (long pause, wheels turning) "Well you might be right about that. (another long pause-smoke rising from ears) Lightbulb! "I know lets do it on 6/7/06. That way we won't piss off the base. I've had my belly full of that lately."
Dick: "Great idea, George. No one will ever figure out why we are doing it on that date. The terrorists will be just as much in the dark about our symbols as we are theirs! Hahaha, I like it...Dastardly and Mysterious.
Shrub: (pats dick on the back) "That's why I'm the President, Dick."

End scene. If you are like me, his accent is burned in your brain so make sure you read it as he would say it for full effect.

[GliderGuider]

20. "16 Days" sounds like a signal to me.

Everyone knows you can't build a bomb from scratch in 16 days. Given the specific date and the context in which it was used, I think the Pentagon is telegraphing their timetable. April 28th is D-cision Day, ladies and gentlemen.

[David in Canada]

40. A Game of Mercy?

Could the Pentagon be playing Mercy? You know, the children's "game" where they twist and twist our hand until you shout "Mercy!"

By that, they are ratcheting up the pressure hoping to get Iran to capitulate? If that's the case, I think it might be sooner than that.

Of course, there's no guarantee that if Iran DOES cooperate, they'll be spared. They could acquiesce to American demands, do what they say and then BushCo says "suckers!" and bombs a defenceless Iran.

Oh... Isn't that more-or-less what happened to Iraq? I think ANY national leader would have to be naive to negotiate with BushCo.

[GliderGuider]

44. Here's my dark suspicion about what's really going on...

And it's couched in a poker metaphor.

Ahmedinajad is bluffing for all he's worth, and we all know he's holding a king high at most - he won't have his homegrown nuclear royal flush for years yet. Despite that, he acts totally unconcerned, acts as if he's holding a full house, and seems eager to "see you and raise you" at every turn. This gives rise to the usual thought, expressed with great regularity, "That man is one card short of a deck." Of course Ahmedinajad has two examples to look at - Iraq and North Korea, his named partners in the "Axis of Eeeeevil". Iraq cooperated (inspectors, mammoth disclosure report) and didn't avoid their fate. NK let everyone know they had nukes, and did. Of course, Ahmedinajad doesn't have nukes, and won't have any for years yet, so his behavior is simple evidence of his own brand of apocalyptic insanity. Right?

Well, while reading the back-and-forth chain of escalation and saber-rattling yesterday a horrifying thought occurred to me. What if he's not totally insane? What if the reason he's bluffing so hard is that he knows if his bluff is called he's actually covered? To torture the poker metaphor further, he's acting like he has a pair of aces up his sleeve. Wondering what those aces might be led me to think back back to the news article that appeared briefly last week about Ukrainian nukes:

The Ukrainian defense ministry denied media reports Monday that Ukraine had sold 250 nuclear warheads to Iran, RIA Novosty reported.

The newspaper said that Ukraine had failed to return 250 warheads to Russia in the 1990s when the former Soviet republic declared itself a nuclear-free zone. The paper suggested the warheads could have been sold to a third country, including Iran.

And I suddenly realized, the aces Ahmedinajad is hiding could actually be Ukrainian warheads, already in place in a selection of American cities. If that were true, he could twist the American tiger's tail pretty much as hard as he wanted. When the US eventually calls his bluff, he tips his hand and reveals one of the warheads without detonating it, and tells them to back the f#ck off. MAD is then officially on the table: touch us and you're toast. It's Dr. Strangelove's Doomsday Machine updated in the context of asymmetric nuclear warfare.

Then we get to see who the crazy ones really are. Does Bush still bet against a hand like that? Would Ahmidinajad transmit the codes if he felt Bush was going to go anyway? Would one or the other of these two lunatics fold? Is this just an apocalyptic fantasy of mine, brought on by drinking too much absinthe for breakfast? I think we'll know within 16 days.

[SupplyConcerns]

47. That's a bit too Tom Clancy

But I have to say, if I was Iran, I would consider precisely such an asymmetical move, all morality aside (and it always is in geopolitics). Iran knows we're going to invade or topple their government at some point, for one simple reason: oil scarcity.

[David in Canada]

37. Rules of BushCo

#1 Rule of BushCo: Never, ever assume sanity as a factor in a BushCo decision.
#2 Rule of BushCo: The most cruel & inhumane choice will be the BushCo choice.

[mac56]

2. K & R

Thanks for the voice of reason.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. And it's not just the uranium - they need shitloads time to make the bomb

or missile or whatever delivery system they're thinking of sending it with.

[cynatnite]

12. They only enriched enough for research

I've also read that at the very least Iran could make a very crude bomb and that would still take a while. NBC did a report and it said a bomb is at least 3 years away.

Geez, these people have no fucking morals. Fear-mongering assholes :grr:

Not you, Rabrrrrr. You know I :loveya:

[pa28]

30. Right on.

Plus the time to weaponize and test whatever device they do develop. That's measured in years . . . not days.

This is just knee-jerk panic mongering spread by those who want to sell another war without a plan or a reason. We've seen it before.

[dogday]

5. And Iraq had WMD's that would

reach America right? The rhetoric is high, I have heard this song before....

[JuniperLea]

6. It is not and has never been about Iran nuking us

It's about us nuking them and then all their buddies who already have bombs bombing us.

I couldn't give an airborne rodent's derriere how long it will take them to make a bomb. They have friends in high, dark places that have already taken up sides. To ignore that fact is dangerous.

[tjwash]

7. I know, but dammit, ever since that fucking article was released...

...I must have received 25 emails from people that are scared shitless, that Iran is going to nuke us tommorow.

I got sick of telling them to turn off Fox News, and step slowly away from the TV (relatives, what are you gonna do?) so I sat down and explained to them WHY Iran is not going to nuke us in 16 days, and this is what I came up with.

[cali]

9. It would have been helpful

if you'd explained just that in your OP.

[Trevelyan]

22. Keep screaming this all over the internets so those in the Pentagon will

know the majority of Americans support their refusing to sign off on this insane plan and....taking steps to stop this terrorizing bush cabal.

[JuniperLea]

45. And it's still all about the oil

Several weeks ago, Iran said they were opening their own oil trade... in Euros... Bush surely doesn't like this idea. But instead of facing the issue head-on, he dons cowboy hat and six shooter.

[cali]

8. If you believe that anyone here at DU

is concerned about Iran nuking us, you've got it all wrong. I think what people are concerned about is the cranking up of the rhetoric- like the State Department making this absurd assertion. We're worried about bushco bombing them, not them bombing us. Do you really think your fellow DUers are so gullible as to fall for this shit?

[tjwash]

11. Yes. I do.

Sorry, but there are quite a few people here that are gullible in that way. As a matter of fact, that's why I posted this, because there was a thread that someone started that quoted word for word the entire Bloomberg article.

I didn't just join DU yesterday you know...

[bananas]

18. I saw a couple of posts like that earlier

Here's an example.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=914998&mesg_id=915054

[FSogol]

10. 16 days? Try 16 years. Still a little time to try diplomacy. n/t

[libnnc]

16. Presnit chuckle-nuts and the gang don't "do" diplomacy...

remember?

[ghostsofgiants]

14. 16 days?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4606356.stm

"The CIA says 10 years to a bomb using highly enriched uranium and that is a reasonable and realistic figure in my opinion," he said.

[LittleClarkie]

17. I gotta get outta here for a while

all I can here in my head is that lady from "Total Recall" saying "Two weeks"

[robertpaulsen]

19. Thanks for highlighting Robert Joseph. Did you know about the Bolton link?

Robert Joseph, as everyone should know, is a total neo-con Leo Strauss grad:

Most Americans have probably never heard of Robert Joseph. He is the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense and a member of the National Security Council. Before joining the National Security Council, according to his brief biographical sketch furnished by the State Department, Joseph served as U.S. Commissioner to the Standing Consultative Commission (ABM Treaty) and Ambassador to the U.S.-Russian Consultative Commission on Nuclear Testing. He previously worked in the Reagan Administratino, holding a number of positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Joseph holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago, where he may well have studied under the famous political science professor Leo Strauss, considered the founder of the neoconservative movement. Joseph is widely considered a strong neoconservative, even earning mention in the Washington Post.

In May of 2002 the Post's reporter Dana Milbank reported on Richard Perle, a famous neoconservative and founding member of the Project For a New American Century. Perle previously served as chairman of the civilian Defense Policy Board, but was forced to resign when conflicts of interest were uncovered by the New Yorker magazine. The first mention of Perle on Warblogging is from February, when he famously declared that France is "no longer an ally" of the United States.

snip

Perle's lineup of like-minded thinkers is impressive, starting with Vice President Cheney. The vice president sometimes stays neutral, but his sympathies undoubtedly are with the Perle crowd. Cheney deputies Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Eric Edelman relay neoconservative views to Rice at the National Security Council. At the NSC, they have a sympathetic audience in Elliott Abrams, Robert Joseph, Wayne Downing and Zalmay Khalilzad.

http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000687.php


But then there's his ties to Bolton, which are really sickening:

"On a recent, quite incredible Fox News special, Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney said we are already moving aircraft carriers into positions from which we could strike. He was then asked: 'If you had to put a percentage on it, the chances that the U.S. will eventually have to take military actions against Iran, what would you put it at?' to which McInerney replied casually: 'Well, I would put 1 percent of using ground forces, boots on the ground in Iran, I would put up 50 percent on a blockade, and I would put up 50 to 60 percent on precision air strikes on their nuclear development sites.' He also observed casually that Iran wouldn't dare take on the United States. Perhaps the 60 million Iranians would greet our bombers with garlands and sweets. Do you see what I mean? Fox News, as you may know, is commonly known as 'The War Channel,' for similar work it did in promoting the war against Iraq.

"Is Iran this kind of threat to anyone? As far as I can tell, ladies and gentlemen..., the answer is 'absolutely not,' at least as long as they remain members in good standing of the NPT, which means they will permit the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect intrusively and constantly, as they have been doing. It has been the mission of John Bolton and his underling Stephen Rademaker to 'reform' the United Nations in a way that dissolves the NPT and the need for the IAEA, not only to pave the way for the bombing of Bushehr, but also to get out from under the NPT provisions that require all the nuclear weapon powers to make progress toward making the world a nuclear-free zone...

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/05/linkage.php


Rademaker's wife also used to work with Bolton at AEI:


Bolton was Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute, the institution where both Pletka and Rodman work. Veronique Rodman is married to Peter Rodman, who is now Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs at the Pentagon -- and someone who was an ally of John Bolton's in the administration.

Danielle Pletka is married to Stephen Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control. Rademaker reports directly to John Bolton and is cut from the same ideological cloth as Bolton. I spoke on a panel at the annual Sandia National Laboratories' International Security Conference with Rademaker and Gerard Baker, then at the Financial Times, and was stunned by the number of references in his speech to "evil".

Most strategists and negotiators need to be able to deal with players commanding forces that threaten American interests, but the amount of hyperbole in Rademaker's talk seemed to me to be something that would not lend itself to negotiations with the world's most dangerous thugs on how to tie down weapons and proliferation problems.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000545.html


Finally, if you can stomach this, read the interview of Rademaker speaking about Bolton. To say he worships Bolton is an understatement. He actually refers to him as "superhuman":

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Rademacher%20Interview.pdf

[Trevelyan]

21. Petition by physicists on nuclear weapons policy

You can sign under non-physicists and under institution many people wrote "Student" or "Self"

Petition by physicists on nuclear weapons policy, September 2005

As physicists we feel a special responsibility with respect to nuclear weapons; our profession brought them into existence 60 years ago. We wish to express our opposition to a shocking new US policy currently under consideration regarding the use of nuclear weapons. We ask our professional organizations to take a stand on this issue, the Congress of the United States to conduct full public hearings on this subject, and the media and public at large to discuss this new policy and make their voices heard.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition /

Will The U.S. Nuke Iran?

Professor of Physics Highlights The Dangers....

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. Fishing for a Pretext in Iran -- the White House lies have already begun

Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

In fact, the Iranian regime has gone further, calling for the Middle East to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. On Feb. 26, Ahmadinejad said:
“We too demand that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons; not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons.”
Only Israel among the states of the Middle East has the bomb, and its stockpile provoked the arms race with Iraq that in some ways led to the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. has also moved nukes into the Middle East at some points, either on bases in Turkey or on submarines.

Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect and monitor its nuclear energy research program, as required by the treaty. It raised profound suspicions, however, with its one infraction against the treaty--which was to conduct some secret civilian research that it should have reported and did not, and which was discovered by inspectors. Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program."

snip:"it is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state"

snip"Bush’s allegations about the Iranians providing improvised explosive devices to the Iraqi guerrilla insurgency are bizarre. The British military looked into charges of improvised explosive devices coming from Iran, and actually came out this past January and apologized to Tehran when no evidence pointed to Iranian government involvement. The guerrillas in Iraq are militant Sunnis who hate Shiites, and it is wholly implausible that the Iranian regime would supply bombs to the enemies of its Iraqi allies."

link to full article: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929
_______________

And be sure to watch/listen/or read transcipt of Sy Hersh's interview on Democracy Now. He pretty much says that baring unforeseen events a major attack on Iran is almost certainly going to happen in the not too distant future:

link to listen/watch/or read transcript:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/12/1359254

snip: "Everybody I talk to, the hawks I talk to, the neoconservatives, the people who are very tough absolutely say there's no way the U.N. is going to work, and we're just going to have to assume it doesn’t in any way. Iran, by going along with the U.N., what they're really doing is rushing their nuclear program. And so, the skepticism -- there's no belief, faith here, ultimately, in this White House, in the extent of the talk, so you've got a parallel situation. The President could then say, ‘We've explored all options. We've done it.’ I could add, if you want to get even more scared, some of our closest allies in this process -- we deal with the Germans, the French and the Brits -- they're secretly very worried, not only what Bush wants to do, but they're also worried that -- for example, the British Foreign Officer, Jack Straw, is vehemently against any military action, of course also nuclear action, and so is the Foreign Office, as I said, but nobody knows what will happen if Bush calls Blair. Blair's the wild card in this. He and Bush both have this sense, this messianic sense, I believe, about what they've done and what's needed to be done in the Middle East. I think Bush is every bit as committed into this world of rapture, as is the president.

[magellan]

24. Who thinks Iran is going to nuke us in 16 days?

And why aren't they reading past the headline?

[porphyrian]

25. The only thing getting nuked is cold coffee and frozen burritos.

The administration is falling apart from the inside out. We aren't the only people in the world with sabres to rattle, and just because we're being given the stage today doesn't mean they'll remain silent tomorrow. I don't deny that they would, I'm saying they're getting close to "can't."

[Cell Whitman]

29. Democracy was on the march in Iran before Bush took office

and started acting like a spoiled child. Seriously, before Bush all you read about Iran was that their younger more liberal voices were being heard. Then the kid came in and invaded their neighbor and that lead to a real religious freak gaining power there. No Bush No freak running Iran.

Yep, you CAN blame America first for that. We have a fool and a national security risk for a president.

hey speaking of Edward R. Murrow, here's a post from over at Kos which features a lot of audio from Murrow.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/11/20347/6147

[tyedyeto]

32. Weren't we told in 2002-03 ...

that Saddam could strike us with a nuclear bomb within hours?

Same propaganda happening today.

[kittenpants]

33. What kind of journalist writes such an irresponsible article?

Sebastian Alison - a quick google didn't reaveal much. Maybe I should add Gannon into the search :tinfoilhat:

[Disturbed]

34. "we got nuke them A-RABS" frenzy.

Not that it would matter to Bush Bots but Iranians are Persian, not Arabian.

[YouthInAsia]

35. My question is who's dumb enough to think that a country

with ONE whole Nuke with choose to launch it on a country with FIFTEEN HUNDRED NUKES? These fucking reich wing ppl are idiots. I swear.

[sojourner]

46. b-b-b-b-but how about the so-called moderates who bought Iraq-nuke-lie

hook,line, and sinker?

[YouthInAsia]

50. they're dumb enough.

[David in Canada]

36. 16 days = Bare Minimum...

The 16 days is the bare minimum just to make a uranium component that is bomb-grade!

Then they have to produce an actual bomb. Then fit it into a MIRV cone. Then create a missile that can handle the weight and design of said MIRV cone. THen mount MIRV cone to missile. Then put on a launching device (silo, launch pad, etc). Then put on a guidance system. Finally, a launch system and command control protocol has to be created.

How long for all that? 2 years MINIMUM! The compatability issues will take most of that time.

The article is TECHNICALLY correct on the surface. However, it is practically speaking, pure fantasy.

[David in Canada]

41. Another thing....

The "16 days" figure is based on 50,000 centrifuges. Iran claims to have 164 centrifuges.

Therefore, article = BS.

[radwriter0555]

42. No... but... THE MEXICANS ARE COMING THE MEXICANS ARE COMING!

EVERYONE, run in circles WAVING your arms, shrieking in hysteria... once again, falling prey to the lies of the bush regime.

Whatta GREAT IDEA! Sound, efficient, provoking... gosh, I feel like I just been to Walmart!

[sandnsea]

43. Who said that??

I haven't seen anybody say Iran was going to nuke us in 16 days.

Your post is probably doing more to spread the stupid story, what with a link and all, than squash it.