Nuclear HYPOCRISY is alive & well…

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Mattis says he is now convinced that the Pentagon must
keep three ways of launching a nuclear attack

The comments came amid an ongoing review of the U.S. nuclear weapons program,
and as tensions with North Korea remain high.

By DAN LAMOTHE | 6:31PM EDT - Wednesday, September 13, 2017


Defense Secretary Jim Mattis listens on Capitol Hill in June while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee
about the Pentagon's budget. — Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press.

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, NORTH DAKOTA — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that he is now “convinced” that the Pentagon must maintain three ways to launch a nuclear attack, but that he could make cuts to specific kinds of weapons in the future.

The comments came amid an ongoing review of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and as tensions with North Korea remain high as it works toward developing a nuclear missile of its own. For decades, the U.S. military has been able to deliver nuclear weapons by Navy submarine, Air Force bombers and Air Force intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), a system known as the triad and due for hundreds of billions of dollars in upgrades in coming years.

“If I want to send the most compelling message, I have been persuaded that is the triad, and its framework is the right way to go,” Mattis said, speaking on a military aircraft traveling from Washington.

Before becoming Trump's defense secretary, Mattis questioned the need to keep all three “legs” of the triad. As a retired general, he testified as a national security expert before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2015 that the United States must clearly establish the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. policy, and that it was time to look at whether “to reduce the triad to a dyad”. Doing so, he said then, could reduce “false alarm danger” in which a nuclear war is set off by mistake.

But Mattis said he has concluded that the country must keep all three methods for delivering nuclear weapons, saying it poses the best chance of stopping an enemy from destroying the U.S. nuclear arsenal without facing a devastating counterattack. That framework, known as strategic deterrence, has existed for years as a cornerstone of U.S. national security policy.

That does not mean that all existing weapons programs are safe. Mattis cited as one example a proposed new cruise missile that would be delivered by air. The Air Force last month signed a contract worth up to $900 million with Lockheed Martin to begin developing the weapon, but Mattis said that was just to keep it for now as an option.

“It is not a decision yet,” Mattis said. “That will come out of the nuclear posture review.”

Mattis said that within each leg of the nuclear triad, there are types of weapons that he is reviewing.

“Does each need to be there? Are they stabilizing weapons? Are they necessary?” he asked, explaining his methodology. “You know, just because we had them 30 years ago, do we still need them?”

Mattis arrived on this remote Midwestern base as part of a three-day tour that also includes stops at the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha and Mexico City. The visit to Minot and a similar stop at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington last month will help Mattis as he gathers information and makes judgment calls about what is needed in the future, he said.

After arriving, Mattis and his staff quickly embarked in Vietnam-era Huey helicopters that the Air Force uses to travel from Minot Air Force Base to surrounding missile sites. The secretary spoke privately with missile launch officers, visiting some of them in an underground capsule from which nuclear weapons can be launched, before meeting separately with airmen who perform maintenance on B-52 bombers and ICBMs.

On Wednesday evening, Mattis arrived at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, where U.S. Strategic Command oversees U.S. nuclear weapons and monitors potential nuclear threats. He is expected to receive several classified briefings just a few days after North Korea's most recent nuclear test, in which Washington assessed that the North Koreans detonated a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb in an underground facility.

Mattis declined to say whether the North Korean device used was a hydrogen bomb, or whether the Pentagon is open to responding by putting its nuclear weapons in South Korea, which officials there have discussed. But Mattis added that the United States “has a pretty good idea” of what happened in the reclusive regime's most recent nuclear test.

• Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/13/mattis-says-he-is-now-convinced-that-the-pentagon-must-keep-three-ways-of-launching-a-nuclear-attack

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Fix or nix the Iran nuclear deal, Netanyahu
demands ahead of Trump meeting

The Israeli prime minister is expected to push for changes
to the deal at the U.N. General Assembly.

By LOVEDAY MORRIS and RUTH EGLASH | 6:32PM EDT - Wednesday, September 13, 2017


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to Argentine and Israeli business executives during a visit to Buenos Aires
on September 12th, 2017. — Photograph: Javier Caamano/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia EFE.

JERUSALEM — The Iranian nuclear deal is “bad” and needs to be fixed or canceled, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ahead of a visit to the United States, where he is expected to meet President Trump and push for changes.

An Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the discussions, said the Israeli government's main concern is the “sunset clause”, which sets expiration dates on limits imposed on Iran's nuclear program.

Changes to those provisions are among several demands Netanyahu will present to Trump during their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, according to a report on Wednesday on Israel Army Radio.

Israel's opposition to the Iranian nuclear deal is not new, but analysts say Netanyahu probably sees a new window of opportunity to change it. Global concern over North Korea's nuclear program is mounting, and Trump has repeatedly signaled a desire to kill the Iran deal.

The new impetus comes as Israel nervously watches Iran and its proxy force Hezbollah build a presence in neighboring Syria, where they are fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu has accused Iran of building sites in Syria and Lebanon to produce missiles.

“Our position is straightforward. This is a bad deal. Either fix it — or cancel it. This is Israel's position,” Netanyahu said in Argentina on Tuesday night as he toured South America before traveling to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

According to the agreement's sunset clause, after 10 years, Iran will be able to increase the number of centrifuges it operates beyond the current limit of 5,060. The centrifuges are used to enrich uranium. Israel would like to see this time frame extended or made indefinite.

Other restrictions, including a 300-kilogram cap on Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium, last 15 years.

Netanyahu has said often that as the agreement runs in its current form, it shortens the breakout time for any Iranian development of nuclear weapons. After 10 years, he has said, this breakout time will have shrunk to zero.

However, the agreement stipulates in its opening paragraph: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” So if Iran waited 10 or 15 years for sunset provisions to expire before building a nuclear bomb, it would still be breaking the accord.

According to the Army Radio report, Netanyahu will also ask Trump to prevent Iran from conducting research in the nuclear field and developing advanced-stage centrifuges, with much higher power.

In addition, the report said, Israel will demand that Iran cease developing long-range missiles and that a clause be added to the agreement to limit Iran's support of organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which Israel and the United States consider terrorist groups.

Spokesmen for the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the prime minister's office declined to confirm whether Netanyahu would raise these issues with Trump. But Yaakov Nagel, former director of Israel's National Security Council, said in a radio interview that these demands are nothing new and are in keeping with Israel's position from the beginning of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

“Israel has not changed its position,” Nagel said. “Even when the agreement was signed, we said there were three or four clauses that were really bad. The deal that exists basically gives Iran the right to develop uranium.”

The president must inform Congress every 90 days about whether Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement. The next report is scheduled for October 15th.

Earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the president has grounds to declare Iran noncompliant, raising speculation about whether he intends to keep the United States in the pact.

Trump has also slammed the agreement, which was reached two years ago between Iran on one side and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on the other. It gave Iran relief from nuclear-related economic sanctions in return for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program.

In July, however, following a meeting between Trump and his senior national security advisers, his administration told Congress that Iran has been complying with the nuclear deal.

Haley pointed to breaches in the amount of heavy water — which is used in certain kinds of nuclear reactors — that Iran was allowed to have and its refusal to open up all its sites for inspection as grounds for declaring Iran to be noncompliant.

With deep concern over North Korea's nuclear tests, there is currently an “opportunity” to send a message over the Iranian threat, said Yossi Kuperwasser, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former director of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

“It's clear that if we don't do anything, Iran will become a new North Korea, except more dangerous,” Kuperwasser said.

Speaking at a counterterrorism conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett called on the United States to throw its full economic weight behind sanctioning Iran.

Meanwhile, Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said the prime minister must demand that Trump freeze, change or cancel the agreement.

“The lesson to be learned from the Korean case is that dialogue and compromise with dictatorships seeking nuclear capability, rather than decisive action, ultimately leads to crossing the threshold and changing the rules of the game,” he said.

• Ruth Eglash is a reporter for The Washington Post based in Jerusalem. She was formerly a reporter and senior editor at The Jerusalem Post and freelanced for international media.

• Loveday Morris is The Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau chief. She was previously based in Baghdad and Beirut for The Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/fix-or-nix-the-iran-nuclear-deal-netanyahu-demands-ahead-of-trump-meeting/2017/09/13/f26829ee-9888-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

I wonder when the USA and Israel are going to cease being nuclear HYPOCRITES and agree to allow United Nations organisations to inspect their nuclear weapons facilities, as well as accept restrictions on their own nuclear weapons arsenals?

And....until another country uses nuclear weapons to carry out mass-extermination of human beings, then no other country has sunk as low as America has done.

[Donald]

...think you may have come down with a particularly bad case of broken record syndrome 🙄.......again