Years · 2005

January 2005

51 posts

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Wanted: Sweet Iran Skills

I was initially unimpressed a few days ago when Cheney said: Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear…

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Beauty Queen's Guide to World Peace

Dan Plesch has an iconic logo (left) for his new book, The Beauty Queen’s Guide to World Peace, that makes Arms Control Wonk feel strangely inadequate. I’ve only read Chapter 8, not surprisingly on disarmament. But I like what I…

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Paris Negotiations Update 19: Iran's Nuclear Programme

The Sunday Times (London) reports that UK Foreign Secretary “Jack Straw has drawn up a dossier [right] putting the case against a military attack on Iran amid fears that President George W Bush’s administration may seek Britain’s backing for a…

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The Cambone Operation: Covert Ops Redux

Wow, tonight’s Nelson Report is chilling stuff. Chris warns that further investigative reporting will reveal… … covert operations sounding very much like the Phoenix Program of kidnappings (and perhaps also murder) of terrorist suspects in one country, and the transport…

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Avian Flu

Worse than Saddam. The New England Journal of Medicine will report the findings of a group of Thai epidemiologists who conclude that H5N1 strain of influenza that killed an 11-year-old girl also killed her mother. Documentation of person-to-person spread suggests…

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Covert Operations

Barton Gellman of the Washington Post reports that: The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA’s historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad,…

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UN Clears Iran on Beryllium

Beryllium (Be) from Element Displays US intelligence reports that Iran imported large quantities of beryllium, which can be combined with polonium-210 (Po-210) to initiate a nuclear chain reaction, appear to be false. The revelation undermines a key claim used by…

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DF-31 is NOT deployed, got that?

Bill Gertz, reporting with Rowan Scarborough in his latest Inside the Ring column, states: China has deployed a brigade of up to eight new road-mobile DF-31 long-range missiles. That’s the latest assessment from the authoritative International Institute for Strategic Studies…

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Saving Space Based Interceptors?

Zapping Space-Based Interceptors? Not so fast. MDA Director Henry “Trey” Obering wants to keep as many missile defense programs alive as possible, including programs for space-based missile defense interceptors, despite looming budget cuts. With the Missile Defense Agency facing a…

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How Many Chinese Nuclear Weapons Redux 3

The Chinese government has now made a little noticed step toward nuclear transparency. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, in April 2004, released a fact sheet entitled China: Nuclear Disarmament and Reduction … that states: Among the nuclear-weapon states, China has performed…