Iran starts building a nuclear weapon: US and Israel tighten cooperation

The evidence is building that the US and Israel will stop Iran. Aside from the revelations in this article and others, a consensus seems to be growing.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 22, 2011,

Iran has embarked on “activities related to possible weaponization,” said American sources Wednesday, Dec. 22, thereby accounting for the dramatic reversal of the Obama administration’s wait-and-see attitude on attacking Iran. The change was articulated this week by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.

debkafile’s Washington sources report that the Islamic Republic crossed the red line President Barack Obama had set for the United States, i.e., when Tehran begins using the technologies and fissile materials (enriched uranium) it has amassed for assembling a bomb or missile warheads. This marks the moment that Iran goes nuclear and only a short time remains before it has an operational nuclear weapon.
Washington has always claimed that when the order to build a weapon was given in Tehran, the United States would know about it within a short time.

The US stealth drone RQ-170 was sent into Iranian airspace for the first time to find evidence to support this suspicion. On Dec. 4 the Iranians downed the unmanned reconnaissance craft by intelligence or cyber means not yet fully clarified. The US – and most probably Israel too – then turned to other intelligence resources to find out what Iran was up to. According to debkafile’s military and intelligence sources, they found evidence that Iran has in fact begun putting together components of a nuclear bomb or warhead.

This discovery prompted the latest statements by Mr. Panetta and Gen. Dempsey.

The defense secretary put it into words when he said Tuesday, Dec.: “Despite the efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, the Iranians have reached a point where they can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less.”

The next day, Gen. Dempsey said, “My biggest worry is they will miscalculate our resolve. Any miscalculation could mean that we are drawn into conflict, and that would be a tragedy for the region and the world.”

Dennis Ross, until last month President Obama’s senior Middle East adviser, and key architect of White House policies on the Iranian nuclear program and understandings with Israel on this issue, said Israel has four causes for concern about uranium enrichment in the underground nuclear facility at Fordo near Qom and other developments:

    1. Iran’s accumulation of low-enriched uranium, its decision to enrich to nearly 20 percent “when there is no justification for it.”

    2. The “hardening” of Iranian nuclear sites, largely by moving facilities underground.

    3. Other activities related to possible weaponization.

    4. Israel suspects that Fordo is not Iran’s only buried facility and that nuclear “weaponization” is ongoing surreptitiously at additional underground locations. “I would not isolate Qom and say this alone is the Israeli red line to spur a military response.”

Our military sources report that all these developments were covered in the short and epic conversation between President Barack Obama and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland on Dec. 16. It ended with accord on the US and Israeli responses to the new situation arising in Iran.

The White House has since accepted the Israeli assessment of Iran’s nuclear bomb time table and endorses the conviction that unless Iran retreats from its decision to build a nuclear bomb and steps back from the process it set in train this month, the only option remaining will be a military strike to disable its nuclear program.
Following the Maryland encounter, debkafile’s sources report a procession of prominent US officials visiting Israel to tighten coordination between the US and Israel on their next moves. Lt. Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third air Force, was one of those visitors. He came to organize the biggest joint military exercise ever held by the US and Israel, as part of the shared response to Iran’s steps.

Tuesday, Dec. 20, saw the arrival of Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s right-hand, together with Robert Einhorn, a State Department special adviser on nonproliferation. The two came to tie up the diplomatic ends of the decisions reached by President Obama and Defense Minister Barak at their meeting in Washington.

December 22, 2011 | 12 Comments »

Leave a Reply

12 Comments / 12 Comments

  1. Briefly here is my take on this US, Israeli, Iranian, and Turkish foursome saber dance, for centuries the Jewish people were the world’s sacrificial Lambs and it is no different today, in the name of world domination and oil, the powers that-be will let the circumstance come to a boil, then once more the Jewish people will be sacrificed on their own soil. It looks to me, do to the fact that there are three devoted Muslims in Obama’s administration the President is leaning in the direction of the Arab league’s cause, namely the destruction of the state of Israel, President Obama is superficially showing to the world that he is helping Israel, but behind the scenes he is putting pressure on Israel to give up more land and shrink the country down to indefensible borders, I don’t see President Obama putting any pressure on the Palestinian Arabs to except what they have now, after all the Palestinians demand the creation of a new country that never existed, one gets what one can get, beggar can’t be choosers.

    I don’t believe that after the Iraqi war and the ongoing war in Afghanistan at this time America is prepared to go to war in the defense of Israel, I think that the American administration is a bad judge of character and History, they my stall till it is too late and if Iran will succeed to blow Israel off the map, the response from the American administration will be, oops sorry unfortunately we miss judged our Intelligents and timing, but now that Israel is no more there is nothing we can or need to do about it and as far as the Jonathan Pollard case is concerned, it happened because the American administration failed to keep its commitment to share pertinent information with its ally the State of Israel on the other hand the US is always demanding that Israel Should share its Intelligents with the US?

    I say Bi Bi go for it, if as jews and Israelis we are to go down in flame at least we’ll go down with honor, dignity, and valor and if we succeed against all odds we’ll send enemy to hell.

    Bill Vidor

  2. An alliance of Greece, Armenia, the Kurds and Israel, all of them having major issues with Turkey, could end Turkey’s dreams of conquest.

  3. All the pieces of the board moving in place; the diplomats have met–the IDM here, Sec State there, the SecDef and CJCS statements, the intelligence activities, it all sounds and looks like they have before over the years. Playing out the exhaustion of the ‘diplo’ process before action happens. As well as recent acquisitions of new ordinance and the airways clearing up, US-Israeli air ‘excercises’ in Saudi Arabia in October–all the pieces fit. No one blocking their way anymore. Sanctions are meaningless, no more talking. Obama is not a player here, he’s just going along so he won’t be left out of a done deal so he can take the credit when it succeeds or point fingers if it doesn’t. Either way he’ll be lying. No reason it won’t succeed, they did it Operation Opera 1981 and Operation Orchid 2007. IAF is going to do it whether we are in or not, and we don’t want to be left out either. Israel does not need our permission or our help, and it has made it pretty clear to all and good on Israel for it. Including the ayatollahs. This is all on them. They must not have a nuclear weapon. If anyone does not understand this yet, it’s time to wake up.

  4. DEBKA, which you have described so well, Vinnie, now reports the following:

    debkafile’s military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the strip dividing Israel’s Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ, where a large gas field was recently discovered.
    Neither Israel nor Cyprus reported the Turkish attacks which are staged in international waters, but both reinforced their naval units around the gas fields.

    Turkey is supposed to be generally allied with Obama against Assad, the PKK, etc. If D-file is correct, they are trying to provoke a war with Israel, Cyprus and Greece. Their timing is, to say the least, curious. I suspect that Obama and Erdogan are conspiring with Iran, to trade Israel for Syria: If the Iranians withold help from Damascus, then Turkey will start a rear action against Israel on behalf of Turkey. Whether they’ve conspired this or not, that is the way it seems to be working out.

    Of course, the US is consulting with Israel all along — just as the Japanese were discussing peace with FDR at the time they attacked Pearl Harbor. This is a treacherous world; and leaders like Obama and Sarkozy, etc. are absolutely untrustworthy.

  5. First, I don’t trust D-file.

    I used to correspond with someone in Israel who said she knew the founder of the same personally. She said half the time, he “..just made stuff up”.

    He’s made a lot of outlandish claims in the past that turned out not to be true. Even on this issue, he’s been predicting action against Iran for a long time. Kinda like the boy who cried “wolf”. Hard for me to believe him, even if it is in fact true this time.

    I don’t completely rule out action, though, for this reason.

    I strongly suspect that given Iran’s progress, Israel has made it known among relevant parties that they are going to act alone for sure even if no one helps them out. I thought a critical point may have been reached a few weeks ago, when Panetta went to Israel asking for Bibi to “consult” with the U.S. before a strike, and Bibi said “NO”. This set off alarm bells in D.C.

    So, Obama then knew that Bibi was serious…and understood what a serious disaster it could be if Israel acted alone, without warning, precipitating a crisis. So, it is possible that Obama & Co. figured that it would be better to have a hand in events in advance, in order to “contain” the conflagration, if nothing else.

    Still, even with the above in mind, I find it hard to believe that Obama really will act. As pointed out above, he just leaned on Congress to water down a bipartisan sanctions bill. So, how does this square with “resolve” against Iran? All of Obama’s policies towards Iran up to now have spelled nothing but appeasement.

    Carter was an appeaser, too, however. Then, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and the Iranians seized our embassy in Tehran, he belatedly got “tough”, with disastrous results in the case of Iran.

    Even if the scenario described above by D-file is accurate, I think there is very good reason for concern that Israel has been restrained for too long, Iran has had too long to harden her defenses and collect allies (e.g., Russia), and now action will come at a far greater cost than would have been the case say, three years ago.

    ..Shades of the Iran hostage rescue mission…..

    At a certain level, I even suspect that Obama would prefer to launch an attack that failed, in order to put the finishing touches on destroying American credibility on the world stage (and also making Israel appear that much more vulnerable in the process…two for the price fo one!). I’m just sooo cynical these days.

    At the end of the day, though, I think the most likely explanation for all of the activity described above is simply to “huddle” with Israel so as to give the appearance of being an ally, while in fact restraining her all the more (“…OK, we’re with you on this. Let’s have some joint exercises. We’ll tell the world we’re serious. We’ll do this TOGETHER….so DON’T YOU DO ANYTHING ON YOUR OWN, OK????. Just wait for the right moment, we’ll let you know when the time is right, when we can pounce on them together….we’re RIGHT behind you now…JUST WAIT FOR OUR SIGNAL…Let’s have ANOTHER joint exercise…Practice makes perfect!…Don’t do anything rash….etc., etc., etc., [the “go” signal NEVER COMES, of course]….OOPSIE! Iran just tested a bomb in the desert! They were farther ahead than we thought! Oh, drat…we waited tooo loooong! We’re soooo sorry, Israel!!!).

    That’s what I think is going on.

    After all, Obama surely knows that a war with Iran can mean disaster for the stock market, and with that, our fragile economy. Can’t have that in an election year. And, how can Obama give up what he and his cretin advisors consider to be the BIGGEST piece of leverage they have to coerce Israel into capitulating to the PA? The threat of a nuclear Iran, of course. Action against Iran was supposed to be the “reward” for capitulating to Abbas. Hasn’t happened yet. Heck, Obama hasn’t even visited Israel as president, and I just don’t see him doing this, either. And he’s going to help Israel put down Iran???

    Very hard for me to believe.

  6. Frankly I don’t believe Ovomit nor Pizza Boy Panetta have either the guts nor the desire to deal with force against Iran. If they did, those cruise missiles that blasted Gaddafi into oblivion would have been directed against the child molesters and girl rapists in Tehran a long time ago. And remember – it was only 2 weeks ago when that despicable pos Panetta warned Israel not to take military action against Iran and to get back to the “damn” table.

    This administration is too anti-Semitic, i.e., anti-Israel – even if the cowards, pacifists, liars and criminals in it from Ovomit down had guts. They’ll say things because its an election year – then wait for the mushroom clouds over what is left of Tel-Aviv if they would even respond then.

  7. Neither the US administration nor the political generals in Israel will attack Iran for lasting effect, for different reasons.
    The administration’s true objectives are aligned with islam.
    For election purposes only, the administration would develop a plan to perform photo op pyrotechnics over Iran. No real assets of Iran will be harmed.
    The Israeli political generals want Iran to have nuclear weapons because they will use the “threat” to force the population to keep them siphoning cash and power while pretending to to “protect” us fron Iran.
    Meanwhile those generals and associted elements will continue to try to dismantle Jewish centers and Heritage. In that fashion again favoring the hegemony of the “kibbutz”, Stalinist unJews.
    It is up to the people to confront the later and remove them from command and replace them with dedicated soldiers.

  8. It is hard to take this report at face value because Obama has a long record of appeasement of militant Islam and duplicity towards Israel. One question that needs answering is why did Obama move so slowly for the past three years on sanctions? Even a few weeks ago he was still trying to soften sanctions on Iran that both parties in congress were solidly supporting. If he finally realized that military action is imperative and unavoidable I must also believe that he thinks this will also assure his re-election. Perhaps Israel’s nearing unilateral actions forced his hand. I would trust the U.S, military but never trust Obama.

  9. More election year “devotion to Israel”, if you ask me. It’s sickening. Look for mushroom clouds to appear in the sky. Wait thirty days. THEN the Obama Administration will announce that it is creating a committee to study whether Iran has achieved nuclear weapons.

    “Cooperation”????? If the US wants to prove its willingness to “cooperate” with Israel, let them free Jonathan Pollard. Otherwise, I smell B. S. and call it B. S.