Iran plans to knock out U.S. with one nuclear bomb. Tests missiles for electro-magnetic pulse weapon that could destroy America's technical infrastructure.
WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is
already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's
technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower,
say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry
experts.
The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests to determine if its
Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be
detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight.
Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R.
Graham, say there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation
for the deployment of Electromagnetic Pulse weapons -- even one of which could
knock out America's critical e lectrical and technological infrastructure,
effectively sending the
continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or
years.
Iran will have that capability -- at least theoretically -- as soon as it has
one nuclear bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic ally of
Iran, already boasts such capability.
The stunning report was first published over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2
Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's
founder.
Just last month, Congress heard testimony about the use of such weapons and the
threat they pose from rogue regimes.
Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight
detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as
"successful" tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for
this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials remin ed members of Congress
that there is a glut of these missiles on the world market. They are currently
being bought and sold for about $100,000 apiece.
"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on
target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate
in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., in the Washington Post a
week ago. "No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a
nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap
missile from a freighter in international waters -- al-Qaeda is believed to own
about 80 such vessels -- and make sure to get it a few iles in the
air."
The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated and capable of detonation at
higher elevations -- making them more dangerous.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one
nuclear warhead could cripple the country -- knocking out electrical power and
circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
While Iran still insists officially in talks currently underway with the
European Union that it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian
purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade U.S. military
planners and intelligence agenci es that Tehran can only be planning such an
attack, which depends on the availability of at least one nuclear
warhead.
Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian missile developments suggests
Iranian scientists will move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear
material shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.
Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new
findings about Iran's Electromagnetic Pulse experiments significantly raise the
stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.
"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was
limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security
to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat
should continue to be a grave concern fo r every American, these tests by Iran
demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing
a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its
knees."
Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear official said Europe must heed an Iranian
proposal on uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.
The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council,
came as diplomats from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their
Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level meeting in London
set for April 29. Enrichm ent produces fuel for nuclear reactors, which can
also be used in the explosive core of nuclear bombs.
"The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis
for continued negotiations or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian
proposal put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment.
"If yes, fine. If not, then the neg otiations cannot continue," he
said.
Some analysts believe Iran is using the negotiations merely to buy time for further development of the nuclear program.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow
the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations
sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and
Homeland Security chaired by Kyl, held a hearing on the Electromagnetic Pulse,
or EMP, threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one
of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a
few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies -- terrorist
or otherwise," wrote Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single
Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate
altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an
electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light.
Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock
out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or
even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a nuclear attack on land, is not to kill
people, but "to kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as
chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was director of the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to the president during the
Reagan administration.
Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think of no other reason for Iran to be
experimenting with mid-air detonation of missiles than for the planning of an
EMP-style attack.
"EMP offers a bigger bang for the buck," he said. He also suggested
such an attack makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy less
likely than the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city.
A 2004 report by the commission found "several potential adversaries have
or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude
nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary
can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of
sophistication."
"EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk
of catastrophic consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover the
wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the
capability to produce significant d amage to critical infrastructures and thus
to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States
and Western nations to project influence and military power."
The major impact of EMP weapons is on electronics, "so pervasive in all
aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical
infrastructures," explained the report.
"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and
electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the
nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of
Congress.
The commission report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that
an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military
forces."
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the
United States will interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and
magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the
Earth and additionally create elect rical currents in the Earth," said the
report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to
electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked' --
upset, damaged and destroyed -- electronics controls then inflict on the
systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more
severe than the direct effects."
The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet
Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the
U.S.
"What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are
difficult to deter -- they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity,
have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without
regard for their own safety ," explains the commission report. "Rogue
states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to
pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and
difficult to deter."
Graham describes the potential "cascading effect" of an EMP attack.
If electrical power is knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications
are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial system breaks down,
food, water and gasoline bec ome scarce.
As Kyl put it: "Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of
power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication
would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in
warehouses, exacerbate by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still
working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability
to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to
mention the safety of anyone in the path of t he inevitable fires, which would
rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters,
such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social
order."
"American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical
systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability,
ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations," the
senator wrote. "When deprived of power , we are in many ways helpless, as
the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly
because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by
a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situatio n. Not only
would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed
equipment."
The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital
backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and -- compared with the
threat -- relatively inexpensive.
"But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the
Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from
Congress, all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl, so far the
only elected official blowing the whistl e this alarming development.
Kyl concluded in his report: "The Sept. 11 commission report stated that
our biggest failure was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists
would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the
possibility that terrorists c ould bring our society to its knees by destroying
everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned,
and we'd better be prepared to respond."
* * *
EMP: ELECTRO-MAGNETIC PULSE
by Emanuel A. Winston
Middle East Analyst & Commentator
Since Edward Teller and J. Robert Oppenheimer tested the first atomic bomb,
they discovered that there were other, perhaps unexpected side effects. When an
atomic bomb explodes it gives off various frequencies like X-Rays.
These bursts of energies were called EMP: Electo-Magnetic Pulse. Physicists
understood the complex explanation of why and what this pulse does so I will
dispense with a scientific explanation. (By the way, you can see the realistic
effect of EMP via Hollyw ood special effects in the movie based on the Tom
Clancy book "Sum of All Fears".)
What I can tell you is that this nuclear burst somehow fries almost everything
electronic. There are exceptions such as military communication systems that
are supposed to be shielded but, that may be just wishful thinking. A recent
concern that Iran may ire a nuclear-tipped missile at America, with the
intention of having it explode in the air.
The objective is (it is speculated) that such an air-burst would fry the circuitry of all computers - for example, on Wall Street and thereby shut-down the nation's banking and investment systems.
Granted, it would also take down your car radio, stop the brain in your refrigerator BUT it could also blank out military radios, electronic guidance systems in missiles, stop planes in the sky with disastrous results as they plunge to earth and, in brief shut down much of a nation that is slaved to electronics.