The Threat Of A Nuclear Iran

During the course of my twenty year stint in the United States Navy I was in the Navy’s Reliability Program for most of that time. People in the Navy’s Reliability program have security clearances that allow access to nuclear weapons as part of their daily routine aboard ship. They have been scrutinized and found sound of mind and exhibit no outward indications that they would under any circumstances conspire to sabotage a nuclear device. They are reliable! In fact, in the early days before they realized that it was not the prudent thing to do, I attended a curriculum that taught me how to make, maintenance, and repair nuclear weapons.

For the pass three or four years the United States’ best intelligence has professed that the Iranians are as smart as I am, in that they are yelling at the top of their lungs that the Iranians have the capacity to make and will deploy a nuclear weapon any day now. Hmmm… didn’t we hear something similar to this just prior to the invasion of Iraq? If I am not mistaken, elements of this same highly technically proficient intelligence group produced evidence that contradicted the final report of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) that there were no WMDs within the borders of Iraq. In fact, the IAEA had conducted two hundred fifty inspections at the behest of the Bush-Cheney Intelligence group into areas of Iraq that were singled out as sites positively accessed to have been used by the Iraqis to manufacture WMDS.

All of the factors that would have indicated the mass production of nuclear weapons by Iraq are now being deployed by this administration to support the case that the Iranians are doing the same thing. I should point out here that the detonation of a nuclear device by the North Koreans has yet to be decisively proven as an event that ‘did’ occur. Japan, windward of North Korea, never detected any of the elements that would normally be associated with the detonation of a nuclear device. In addition, analysis of debris at the Syrian site has yet to indicate the present of a nuclear reactor as claimed by the Israelis in justification of their attack within the borders of Syria. The only thing that can be positively indentified is residue from the denotation of a nuclear device – namely the Israeli bombs used to destroy the buildings at that site.

Is it a good thing for the Iranians to possess the capability to produce a nuclear bomb, or a nuclear bomb itself – NO! Given the irrational behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current President of Iran, and the history of Iran under the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, I would not want Iran to possess a nuclear capability. As to whether the United States or Israel should be the one that has to make the decision to attack Iran, if it can be proven beyond a shadow of doubt to be in possession of a nuclear weapon, is another question that I would not want to answer at this time.

War is ugly and we should prevent the possibility of war by practicing diplomacy to its fullest extent. It is this writer’s belief that the Iranians are definitely in pursuit of the knowledge to fabricate a nuclear weapon, however; I don’t see them ever getting to the point that they will have a weapon and the capability to deliver it accurately. There are reliable equipments that will detect the detonation of a nuclear device. Iran will not be able to hide that test on the day that they attempt to join a unique club. On that day the free world, and all others who would be concerned, will have to make a terrible decision that will affect the way we live thereafter.

Iraq - How We Got Ourselves Into This Mess

You can listen to a thousand people and each will give you his biased opinion of how we are at ‘war’ with Islam and the Islamic Fundamentalist, and there are two separate entities, only one of which we are confronting in a hostile manner.

Before we went into Iraq the second time there were no al Qaeda, Islamic Fundamentalist, or any other groups hell-bent on destroying the United States embedded in Iraq. Saddam’s iron-clad rule for thirty-five years saw to that.

Before 9/11, the Twin Towers withstood an attack by a group of Islamic Fundamentalist who failed in their attempt to destroy that noble building. The date was February 26, 1993 when four Fundamentalist, led by Mohammed Salameh, drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into the basement of that site and detonated those explosives. Those individuals had no affiliation with what we know today as al Qaeda, in fact, al Qaeda did not exist until much later.

I can state, with strong conviction, the following:

1. If we had not invaded Iraq, we would have routed the Taliban in Afghanistan (al Qaeda) by now and our soldiers would be home.
2. There were no WMDs in Iraq and I can safely tell you why – enriched Uranium leaves a very distinct by-product – gamma rays, which have a half-life of fifty thousand years.
a. Gamma Rays - Gamma rays from spontaneous nuclear decay are emitted with a rate and energy
b. (color) spectrum that is unique to the nuclear species that is decaying. This uniqueness
c. provides the basis for most gamma-ray assay techniques: by counting the number of
d. gamma rays emitted with a specific energy, it is possible to determine the number of
e. nuclei that emit that characteristic radiation.
3. The Bush Administration, in conjunction with an Intelligence group headed by Vice-President Cheney, directed IAEA inspectors to 250 separate sites within Iraq that were supposed to be areas where Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical weapons were being manufactured – those inspectors found no signs to substantiate the claim of the production of WMDs.
4. Secretary of State Powell lied when he claimed, with manufactured evidence, that mobile trailer labs were producing biological weapons. One day, before he dies, he will tell you that in his memoirs.
5. Saddam was routed in the first war under Bush’s father. The forces placed against him taught him a lesson that he would never willing want to see repeated on Iraq soil.

North Korea claims to have detonated a nuclear device beneath surface somewhere inside of North Korea. That is a lie and before long you will know the reason why. I can tell you this… no emissions commonly associated with the detonation of a nuclear device were ever detected after that explosion.

You all remember Chernobyl… On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:44 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the Soviet Union near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Nearly thirty to forty times more fallout was released than Hiroshima. The plume drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data,[1] about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.

The radiation from that ‘one’ reactor plant was detected far and wide outside of Ukraine. Why didn’t we detect the radiation from a ‘nuclear’ device that was detonated below the surface of the Earth that should have sent up plumes of radioactive dust? There is a simple reason – it never was nuclear!

I, too, served under Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush senior. I can remember the good and bad times of each President. I remember Clinton for placing us in the position to do all that we have been able to do in these latest conflicts. Were it not for the update Armed Forces that Clinton preserved, Bush junior would not have been able to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq simultaneously!

The problem, as I see it, is that we have forgotten the basic principles that have governed our use of armed force… prior to Reagan (excluding Viet Nam), we had never used armed force unless we had been attacked! Granada changed all of that and it has been the makings of our undoing.

This country possesses the ability to destroy any country on the globe and do with authority. Each time that we have ever gone to ‘war’ in retaliation for having been attacked, we have demonstrated a superior capability to destroy our enemies. That is the only deterrent we need to others attacking us. When we went into Kuwait to push Saddam’s out of that country, Russia predicted that we would not win against the forces that she, Russia, had trained. When we routed the Iraqis in a little over a week everyone that had doubts about our ability to conduct a ground forces war came away impressed. Kaddafi was so impressed, he immediately gave up any notion of pursuing nuclear weapons.

President Bush destroyed the image by his zealous wish to go to war with ‘somebody’, he didn’t care who or where. Our greatest feats of war were reduced to ‘paper tiger’ status by his actions.

The biggest mistake President Bush has ever made has been to use force when diplomacy would, after Gulf War I, have brought all to the bargaining table. Afghanistan does not, in my opinion, come under the same umbrella. Had we captured Bin Laden when we had him trapped at Tora Bora, the back of al Qaeda would have been broken. Instead, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and the CIA, who were in charge of the operation that had Bin Laden trapped, argued as to who would be able to bring back Bin Laden’s head. While they argued, Bin Laden slid through the mountains past other ‘Muslims’ into the safety of Pakistan.

At a billion dollars every other day for a war that is based on lies, do you really want four more years of Republican shenanigans? A Democratic majority in Congress with a Democratic President is needed. The Republicans had it and wasted a golden opportunity to do the right thing – they didn’t. The Republicans gave away 1.3 trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich – money that could have buoyed this country and probably prevented a recession. Drunk with power, they did the equivalent of using all the credit that was available to them, spend all the money that they had coming to them (taxes), and then gave all of the cash away! It is no wonder that the United States is broke and about to go under.

Finally, war is not the answer to every situation. People die when a war ensues, many of them innocent. It should be used only as a last result. Diplomacy built upon trust can reach amicable solutions far more easily. The world is too small, and with enough countries forming a blockade against a rogue nation, we can effectively isolate those who go against the grain of being a good and productive neighbor. We should not be afraid to try diplomacy first and we should not let others use the ‘fear’ card to create an atmosphere of confusion as to what is the right direction to take in forming a safe and pollution-free Earth!

Thank you for your time…


Rod Davis
Cozumel, MX 77601