Real Time Discussion thread - Many things

[American Patriot]

'Syria was preparing for Israeli attack'
Jerusalem Post ^

Syria was preparing for a large-scale Israeli attack some two weeks ago, the Al-Khaleej newspaper, published in the United Arab Emirates, reported Wednesday.

Al-Khaleej quoted "senior sources" in Damascus as saying that Syria had received intelligence that Israel was seriously considering launching an offensive during the Id al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

Therefore, the article said, Syria began taking "defensive steps."

The Syrian sources, who were unnamed, told Al-Khaleej that Russia and China, when apprised of Syria's concerns, sent "stern warnings" to both Jerusalem and Washington that an Israeli attack would destroy the balance of the Middle East. According to the report, China and Russia asked the United States to intervene and "rein in" what Syria perceived as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's threats of war.

"Despite Israel's calming messages, sent through mediators, there is still a possibility of a military confrontation," the sources told the UAE paper.

The sources added that Syrian President Bashar Assad had raised the issue during his visit with Turkey's leaders last week, and said that Turkey's deputy military chief had given Assad his word that Turkey would not allow Israel to use its air space to attack Syria.

Meanwhile, US experts said they have identified the Euphrates River nuclear site in Syria that was allegedly bombed by IAF planes last month, as well as satellite imagery of the facility showing buildings under construction, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. According to the report, the facility was similar in design to a North Korean nuclear reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year.

Photographs of the area taken before the September 6 raid show an isolated compound which included a boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply cooling water for the reactor, expert David Albright of the US Institute for Science and International Security was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.

The newspaper also reported that International and American experts familiar with the site, who were shown the photos on Tuesday, said there was a strong possibility that they show the remote compound which was allegedly attacked by Israel. Israeli officials and the White House declined to comment.

The facility depicted was located approximately 10 kilometers north of At Tibnah in the Dayr az Zawr region, according to an ISIS report to be released Wednesday. Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, said the size of the structures suggested that Syria might have been building a gas-graphite reactor of about 20 to 25 megawatts of heat, which is similar to the reactor North Korea built at Yongbyon.

[American Patriot]

Report: Syria expected wide scale Israeli attack two weeks ago
ynet ^ | 10/24/70 | ynet

Sources in Damascus say Syria expected Israel to launch a wide scale attack two weeks ago near the time of Eid el-Fitr, leading to a series of preventatives Syrian steps, the UAE al-Halij newspaper said

(Excerpt) Read more at ynetnews.com ...

[American Patriot]

Satellite Photos Show Cleansing of Syrian Site


Satellite images from Aug. 10 and Oct. 24 by DigitalGlobe
Satellite imagery of a facility in Syria collected on August 10, 2007, left, and October 24.



By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 26, 2007


New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.
Skip to next paragraph Multimedia

Graphic Satellite Photos of Syrian Site





Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.


The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse.


But the images, federal and private analysts say, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, calling it a tacit admission of guilt.


“It’s a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow,” said a senior intelligence official. “It doesn’t lower suspicions, it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It’s incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.”


Any attempt by Syrian authorities to clean up the site would make it difficult, if not impossible, for international weapons inspectors to determine that exact nature of the activity there. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said they hoped to analyze the satellite images and ultimately inspect the site in person. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that released a report on the Syrian site earlier this week, said the expurgation of the building was inherently suspicious.


“It looks like Syria is trying to hide something and destroy the evidence of some activity,” Mr. Albright said in an interview. “But it won’t work. Syria has got to answer questions about what it was doing.”


The striking difference in the satellite photos surprised even some outside experts who were skeptical that Syria might be developing a nuclear program.


“It’s clearly very suspicious,” said Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Center for American Progress in Washington. “The Syrians were up to something that they clearly didn’t want the world to know about.”


Mr. Cirincione said the photographic evidence “tilts toward a nuclear program,” but does not prove that Syria was building a reactor. Besides, he said, even if it was developing a nuclear program, Syria would be l years away from being operational, and thus not an imminent threat.


Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the satellite pictures.


The satellite images of the Syrian site were taken by DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colo., and SPOT Image Corporation, in Chantilly, Va. They show just a smooth, unfurrowed area where the large building once stood.


The desolate Syrian site is located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River some 90 miles north of the Iraqi border and seven miles north of the desert village of At Tibnah. An airfield lies nearby. The new images reveal that the tall building is gone but still show a secondary structure and a pumping station on the Euphrates. Reactors need water for cooling.


The purported reactor at the site is believed to be modeled on a North Korean model, which uses buildings a few feet longer on each side than the Syrian building that vanished.


Mr. Albright called the Syrian site “consistent with being a North Korean reactor design.” Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, said in an interview last week with The Dallas Morning News denied that his country was trying to build a reactor.


“There is no Syrian nuclear program whatsoever,” he said. “It’s an absolutely blatant lie.”


Later in the interview, he said, “ We understand that if Syria even contemplated nuclear technology, then the gates of hell would open on us.”

[American Patriot]

U.S. Watched Syrian Site Long Before Israeli Bombing


http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues....html#06F7FE7D


U.S. intelligence services had watched a possible nuclear reactor construction site in Syria for years before Israel bombed it last month, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 26).

A satellite image taken in 2003 shows the main building to be in roughly the same condition as photographs taken earlier this year before the Israeli strike. Other buildings, including a possible pumping station, were not yet built, according to the Times.

Site construction might have begun in 2001, the Times reported, and the activity at the remote desert site drew U.S. attention. Private experts have suggested that the facility resembles a North Korean nuclear reactor used to produce plutonium.

“It was noticed, without knowing what it was,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official. “You revisit every so often, but it was not a high priority. You see things that raise the flag and you know you have to keep looking. It was a case of watching it evolve.”

The question of Syria’s nuclear ambitions was debated within the Bush administration at the time, said former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

“There was disagreement about what Syria was interested in and how much we should be monitoring it,” he said. “There was activity in Syria that I felt was evidence that they were trying to develop a nuclear program.”

Other officials disagreed, however, and a dispute arose in 2003 over testimony Bolton, then at the State Department, planned to give that included a hard-line assessment of Syrian aims (see GSN, July 16, 2003).

Today, State Department leaders seeking a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis might prefer a tougher assessment of Syria’s past nuclear activity to demonstrate that Pyongyang was proliferating nuclear technology before the latest diplomatic successes, according to the Times (see related GSN story, today; Broad/Mazzetti, New York Times, Oct. 27).

The evidence of activity from at least four years ago could suggest that the Syrian project began under the direction of former President Hafez Assad, who died in 2000. The program might then have been withheld for some time from Assad’s son and successor Bashar al-Assad, Newsweek reported (Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, Oct. 27).

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday criticized the United States and Israel for withholding information about potential nuclear activity in Syria.

“We have a system: If countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate,” he said in a CNN interview. “But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community.”

“I would hope if anybody has information, before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 28).

[American Patriot]

Radiation Detectors Deployed in Slovakia


http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues....html#59683193


U.S.-supplied radiation detectors are “fully operational” at three Slovakian border points with Ukraine, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced today (see GSN, Oct. 24).

The United States under the Second Line of Defense program agreed last year to supply radiation sensors, associated communications technology and training to five Slovak border crossings. Bratislava is expected to pay for the equipment and its installation. Installation at the final two border spots is expected to be finished next spring.

“Slovakia and the United States are working closely together to stop nuclear smuggling. This partnership plays a critical role in the global fight against the illicit trafficking of nuclear material and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said NNSA deputy chief William Tobey in a press release.

The agency’s Second Line of Defense program provides foreign nations with support in installing radiation detection equipment at border crossings, airports, seaports and other points of entry. More than 160 locations across the globe have received equipment to date (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, Oct. 29).

[American Patriot]

U.S. Slow to Improve Nuclear Security, GAO Finds





Fewer than half of U.S. Energy Department sites that store nuclear weapon materials are likely to meet a 2008 deadline to improve their security standards, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis delivered to a Senate committee in July (see GSN, Sept. 26).

The study finds that just five of the 11 sites are on track to complete the improvements by the time department officials originally planned.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Energy Department has frequently reviewed the level of threat its facilities must protect against. Officials are now working to implement measures to defend against a security threat — known as the Design Basis Threat — established in 2005.

The department “has struggled to determine ‘how much is enough’ security and, as a result, its DBT policy has undergone substantial changes in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007,” says a presentation slide from a July 27 briefing that GAO officials delivered to the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

The briefing papers were acquired by the Project on Government Oversight, a group that has raised frequent alarms over security conditions at U.S. nuclear facilities (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Oct. 29).

POGO analysts have urged the department to consolidate its nuclear weapon materials into fewer storage facilities as both a cost-saving and security-improvement measure.

“They wouldn’t be having these problems now” if the sites had been consolidated, POGO head Danielle Brian told the New York Times.

While the department agrees that consolidation would be beneficial, implementing that goal has been difficult, said Robert Alvarez, another POGO official.

“There’s a lot of pushback about moving fissile materials from a site, because then you lose a portion of your budget and prestige,” said Alvarez, who served as an adviser to the energy secretary during the Clinton administration (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Oct. 28).

[American Patriot]

Clear Evidence Implicates Assad Personally in North Korean Nuclear Deal
Debka ^ | 10-27-07

President Bashar Assad was personally involved in Damascus’ nuclear deal with Pyongyang. Documentary proofs of this, obtained from the presidential bureau and signed by Assad in person, are now in the hands of the US and Israeli intelligence services, DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report. In one, Assad hands down a specific order in his own handwriting that North Korea not be charged for Syrian goods, including an annual shipment of 100,000 tons of Durham wheat for five years worth a total of $120 million. This is the equivalent of the value of the reactor for producing plutonium up to its most radioactive stage, which North Korea promised Syria.

A high-ranking Western intelligence source speaking to DEBKAfile described the evidence against Assad in US and Israeli hands as solid and much closer to a smoking gun than the West has turned up against Iran’s nuclear program. The following sequence of events unfolds from the garnered documents: Damascus and Pyongyang settled between them that the nuclear transaction would be masked as a joint venture to build a cement factory in northern Syria; meanwhile, North Korea would sell Syria cement for its development projects. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, North Korean freighters, which began putting in at Syria’s Latakia and Tartus ports in January 2007, unloaded cargoes of cement in which nuclear reactor components and materials were concealed. The North Korean traffic at these ports and the Durham wheat transaction attracted the attention of US and Israeli secret services. During the next eight months – up until the Israeli attack on Syria’s North Korean installation - wheat prices shot up on international markets. Indeed the price of Durham wheat doubled. Had this been a normal commercial transaction, Syria would have claimed additional North Korean goods in compensation. In fact, when import-export officials in Damascus, who knew nothing of the nuclear reactor tradeoff, pointed Assad’s office to the price fluctuations on the wheat market, they were told that the contracts signed by the president in person must go through without changes. When later, the Syrian wheat crop fell short of expectations, Syrian officials were again told to fill the North Korean orders in full.

On Sept. 3, the North Korean “cement ship” Al Hamed docked at Tartus. The freight it unloaded was trucked directly to the “cement factory” at Al Tibnah in the Syrian Desert, east of the Euphrates River. The Israeli attack took place three days later.

Last Tuesday, Oct. 23, the Syrian ambassador to Washington Imad Mustapha was invited to address the prestigious Institute on Religion and Public Policy. In answer to a question, he acknowledged, “Syria gives North Korea wheat, oil and other products.”

He declined to disclose what Syria got in return. When pressed on this point, Mustapha said in exasperation: “Stuff. We get stuff.”

Thursday, Oct. 25, a number of leading American media simultaneously ran satellite images of a nuclear installation standing at Al Tibnah in August 2007 and the same site in the second half of September, after it had been cleared of the debris left by the Israeli attack.

This time, Damascus found nothing to say – although Syrian officials had commented on former leaks related to the episode. DEBKAfile’s Syrian sources report that this and other symptoms indicate that Assad finds himself in a tight corner. He is at a loss to explain to the Syrian public and, worse, to most of his colleagues in the political and military leadership who were kept ignorant of the nuclear transaction with North Korea, how he came to entangle the country in this ill-fated adventure.

In the view of DEBKAfile’s Western intelligence source, the Syrian president’s internal and international plight is more acute than that of the Iranian regime or Saddam Hussein in the days leading up to the 2003 US invasion. No incontrovertible proof has so far been shown to demonstrate that Iran has attained the capacity to produce nuclear or radioactive weapons, any more than the Iraqi ruler was positively shown to have weapons of mass destruction. Assad’s case is more unfortunate; it is now supported by solid evidence in American and Israeli hands.

[American Patriot]

Bush Budget Plans for Iran Attack
Newsmax.com ^ | October 29, 2007 8:29 AM | Newsmax Staff

An item buried in President Bush’s latest request for $190 billion in emergency war funding offers telling evidence that the U.S. could be preparing an attack on Iran.

The Defense Department has asked for $88 million to retrofit B-2 Stealth bombers so they can carry a 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator (MOP), which has the capacity to destroy deep underground targets.

The Administration says the request is in response to an “urgent operational need from theater commanders.”

Some observers might conclude that the Pentagon is seeking weaponry to strike Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in their caves in Afghanistan.

But as Gerard Baker, U.S. editor of the Times of London, points out in the New York Post, that would not require Stealth bombers.

“The Americans own the skies over Afghanistan and Iraq and could, if they wished, blanket the two countries with all manner of bombardment from a few thousand feet in broad daylight,” Baker notes.

Instead, the more likely targets are the subterranean nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran, according to Baker, who writes:

“The debate in Washington about what to do with the increasingly recalcitrant and self-confident Iranian regime has taken a significant turn in the past few weeks. And the decision to upgrade the bombing capacity of the military is perhaps the most powerful indication yet that the debate is reaching a climax.”

The Pentagon request confirms an earlier report that first ran on Newsmax.com in July, which disclosed that the Pentagon was planning to modify the B-2 Stealth bombers so they could carry the bunker buster bombs – “a move that could be a prelude to an attack on Iran and its nuclear facilities.”

The Newsmax report revealed that Northrop Grumman, the Air Force’s prime contractor on the B-2, would retrofit the bomber to carry the new 30,000-pound MOP.

“The U.S. Air Force’s B-2 Stealth bomber would be able to attack and destroy an expanded set of hardened, deeply buried military targets” using the MOP, the company said at the time.

Regarding the likelihood of an American attack on Iran, Baker observes that the U.S. now “thinks it has the intelligence and the military capacity to undermine the Iranian threat seriously…

“The only real question about the next phase in this war is whether an escalation by the U.S., in a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, would further American – and Western – objectives, or impede them. The evidence is increasingly suggesting that the costs of not acting are equal to or larger than the costs of acting.”

[American Patriot]

US Air Force struck Syrian nuclear site
The Jerusalem Post ^ | Nov 2, 2007 13:54 | JPOST.COM STAFF

"The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction."

Read more at jpost.com ...

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.

The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

At the beginning of October, Israel's military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.

On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.

In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: "In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect."

The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.

According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.

On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.

However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.

[Brykovian]

Rick ... If you're allowed to comment on such things ... how viable is it that tactical nukes could have been used without any other country mentioning it? I assume that there are methods for determining if even a small explosion was nuclear-based (perhaps I am making a bad assumption).

I wouldn't be overly surprised if US aircraft were involved ... even if they carried out the primary mission ... but the tactical nuke part seems unlikely, or even necessary.

Also, after a tac-nuke hit ... could the Syrians be at the site within days doing their quick clean-up?

Thanks,
-Bryk

[American Patriot]

Senators warn Bush has no authority on Iran
AFP via Briebart ^ | 11/1/07 | Too Ashamed To Say

Thirty US senators wrote to President George W. Bush Thursday, warning he had no authority to launch military action against Iran, and expressing concern about the administration's "provocative" rhetoric.

The senators, 29 Democrats and one independent, urged the resolution of disputes with the Islamic Republic through diplomacy.

"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," the letter signed by senators including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden said.

The letter warned that a resolution passed by the Senate in September, calling for the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, should not be used as a pretext for war.

It hit out at "provocative statements and actions" by the administration on Iran, after Bush last month warned Tehran must be barred from nuclear weapons to avoid the prospect of "World War III."

"These comments are counterproductive and undermine efforts to resolve tensions with Iran through diplomacy," the letter, coordinated by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, said.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

[American Patriot]

Rick ... If you're allowed to comment on such things ... how viable is it that tactical nukes could have been used without any other country mentioning it? I assume that there are methods for determining if even a small explosion was nuclear-based (perhaps I am making a bad assumption).

I wouldn't be overly surprised if US aircraft were involved ... even if they carried out the primary mission ... but the tactical nuke part seems unlikely, or even necessary.

Also, after a tac-nuke hit ... could the Syrians be at the site within days doing their quick clean-up?

Thanks,
-Bryk

Not practical at all. The Russians, France and several other countries would have immediately started raising hell if we (or anyone else) uses nukes.

I doubt seriously that we used them at all. IF we used something big, it would have probably been one of those BIG bunker buster bombs.

I saw the satellite photos of that site, and it was "cleaned up" after the strike. If you look carefully at the site using the satellite photos that were put out publically, you can see there used to be buildings there. Now they are gone.

FURTHERMORE, the area is FLAT, leveled by what LOOKS like graders or something. All I can say is that the are was sanitized. To me, this speaks volumes.

The LOCALS cleaned it up, because if they had not the building's rubble would be there.

[Brykovian]

Okay ... good to have that confirmed.

I did see those photos ... looks like they did quite the landscaping job in very short order. Wonder if the prior structure's rubble is under that nicely graded dirt, or if it was removed to another location.

-Bryk

[American Patriot]

Ok folks....

Think Tank time.

Opinions, comments and suggestions.

What is everyone's take on what we're going through.

I'll go first.


I see the Middle East becoming a flash point in this situation because if I am reading some of the stuff I'm seeing from Israel for instance this morning, Israel is pretty severely worried about what the Koreans did in an attempt to pit the "Kook" states against the "moderate" states.

So, we might be looking at some kind of blow up with Iran against Israel - and countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt siding with, or standing down from attacking Israel.

At the same time North Korea as Wallis so aptly pointed out in the other thread has probably "stepped on it" by nullifying the armistice.... in so doing, they have opened themselves up to pretty much anything.

Fox news is currently reporting that a very high level of alert status for US and South Korean troops and SK is concerned about "accidental skirmishes" pushing everyone over the edge and into nuclear war.

At this point - this is very similar to me, for the old "Cold War" Scenarios minus Russia from the equation.

What I'm saying is, this is a strong trigger point and it will only take one side or the other to cause a skirmish. If that happens, DPRK has already stated they will "respond strongly" (words to that effect) and they have the ability and capability to nuke Seoul.

We're standing on the brink, this time, in my opinion - BECAUSE of the defiance of North Korea to do the test, launch 6 missiles in the past few days and then for throwing out and ignoring the 1953 armistice - we are looking at a very, very volatile situation which can go either way.

In most cases we all believe that "cooler heads will prevail" - and yet, I don't think that is the case here. There really aren't "cooler heads" in North Korea.

I can't say this from anything other than my own experience and study of the region - and because we don't know enough about North Korea to say this, but, with all the secrecy and hiding we just can't take the CHANCE they are "sane".

Other opinions?

[Ryan Ruck]

What you say is pretty much what I've thought is a strong possibility for as long as I've been involved in the subject of the TAA. I've believed that we could see the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East go up either at the same time or relatively close together. We would, of course, have to be involved in each theater. Both events have a strong possibility of leading to wider conflict which could involve Russia and China seeking to take advantage of us being tied down.

In the nearer term, I would not be surprised if we happened to see a sudden successful nuclear weapon test by Iran. After all, it is fairly transparent that the transfer of nuclear weapons and related equipment is the sole reason that North Korea has stated that inspections of their ships will be a declaration of war. They don't want to get caught transferring such items to Iran. In fact, if I were a betting person, I would venture to say that the test on Monday was a joint North Korean/Iranian nuclear weapon test.

[American Patriot]

South Korean estimates have said it would cost $1 trillion or more to absorb the North in the event of reunification.

Caught this in an article posted in the other thread.

THIS is why I said that South Korea has NO interest in reunification, while the North has NOTHING to lose in trying.

[vector7]

Is North Korea the international crisis foretold by Joe Biden?

[American Patriot]

No... don't put in news articles. DISCUSS

Thanks

Fox News JUST reported an alert. US satellites have picked up information that the North Koreans are moving some kind of equipment to a site. It is suspected to be some sort of warhead and the site is a missile launch site.

At this point I have no more information on this - but, that's kinda scary, huh?

[MinutemanCO]

If I had the ability, I'd keep my KH-12s and 13s pointed at China and Iran searching for military activity. If DPRK guns for SK, it's my belief China would gear up as well. They would probably mass their troops along the border or execute some spontaneous war games nearby. I also believe that North Korea/Asia is linked to the geopolitical condition of the Middle East. Iran may be moving parallel to DPRK in a two pronged nuclear offensive against our forces. Iraq/Afghanistan and South Korea represent two major focus points of our military resources. Deal us a blow in either or both of these regions and we'd be a hurtin' unit for sure.

[vector7]

Very...if we had some idea of what's happening inside NK politically, we might have some understanding where this military activity is generating from.

Is it just more saber rattling or maybe a distraction.

Could it be for something coordinated and much larger around the corner.