German and Japanese intelligence sources Monday, March 5, confirmed – and qualified - to DEBKAfile reports in the German Der Spiegel and Welt am Sonntag that Western intelligence had known for 11 months that at least one of North Korea’s covert nuclear tests in 2010 was carried out on an Iranian radioactive bomb or nuclear warhead. 1. North Korea carried out two covert underground nuclear explosions in mid-April and around May 11 of 2010 equivalent to 50- 200 tonnes of TNT. 3. The presence of tritium in one of the tests led several intelligence agencies watching North Korea’s nuclear program and its longstanding links with Iran and Syria to examine the possibility that Pyongyang had tested the internal mechanism of a nuclear warhead on Iran’s behalf. This strongly indicated to German and Japanese intelligence that Iran had already developed the nuclear warhead’s outer shell and attained its weaponization. This was one of the conclusions of atmospheric scientist Larsk-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm, who spent a year studying the data collected by various CTBOTO stations tracking the North Korean explosions. 5. The Japanese and German sources found confirmation of their suspicions that North Korea had abetted Iran’s nuclear aspirations in three events: a) Shortly after the April explosion, a large group of Iranian nuclear scientists and technicians arrived in Pyongyang. They apparently came to take part in setting up the second test in May. It is not by chance that this incriminating disclosure about Iran’s nuclear achievements sees the light Monday, just hours before US Barack Obama receives Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the White house for an argument over an expeditious military action to stop Iran going all the way to a nuclear weapon. It now appears that Western intelligence has known about the North Korean tests for Iran for eleven months. Therefore, it is too late for him to try and persuade the Israeli prime minister that there is still time to spare for cutting short a nuclear Iran. It was announced in Washington Monday that no joint American-Israeli communiqué would be issued at the end of their talks, meaning they will have agreed to disagree: Obama, to stand by his opposition to military action against Iran; Netanyahu, to decide what Israel must do in the interests of its security.North Korea tested Iranian warhead or “dirty bomb” in 2010 for $55m
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 5, 2012, 1:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
Those sources report five facts are known for sure:
2. Two highly lethal heavy hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, typical of a nuclear fission explosion and producing long-term contamination of the atmosphere, were detected and analyzed by Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBOTO) monitoring stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia.
4. Another possibility examined was that North Korea had tested an Iranian “dirty bomb” – i.e. a conventionally detonated device containing nuclear substances. Tritium would boost its range, force and lethality.
On February 3, De Greer published some of his findings and conclusions in Nature Magazine. His paper will appear in the April/May issue of the Science and Global Security Journal.
b) In late April, Tehran shipped to Pyongyang a large quantity of uranium enriched to 20+ percent – apparently for use in the May test.
c) Straight after the May test, the Central Bank of Iran transferred $55 million to the account of the North Korean Atomic Energy Commission. The size of the sum suggests that it covered the fee to North Korea not just of one but the two tests – the first a pilot and the second, a full-stage test.
The disclosure invalidates the main point the US President made in his speech Sunday to the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC convention in Washington that there was still time for diplomatic pressure and sanctions to bring Iran’s leaders to a decision to halt their nuclear momentum before military action was called for, whether by the US or Israel.
There is no doubt he would have preferred an American initiative for - or partnership in - an operation for curtailing the Iranian nuclear threat. But that is not part of Obama’s policy. Monday, March 05, 2012
Western Intelligence Agencies Reportedly Confirm Iran-N. Korea Covert Nuclear Tests, Following Foreign Confidential™ Reports
Read the updated report here. It validates years of Foreign Confidential™ reporting on nuclear-armed North Korea and its partnership in proliferation with nuclear-arming Iran.Will N. Korea Attack S. Korea if US Attacks Iran?
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
On August 26, 2010, for example, Foreign Confidential™ reported:
Analysts believe Iran may already have several radiological--so-called dirty--bombs. Inspired, perhaps, by a plot by Nazi Germany to attack New York with a radioactive sand bomb, Iran has sought to acquire dirty bombs ahead of full-blown nuclear bombs and warheads (to place atop Iranian missiles and ICBMs).
More recently, Foreign Confidential™ noted on January 9 that "Iran has nuclear materials, money, missiles and warheads, scientific and technical expertise, conventional explosives, and political will and determination, etc. So why shouldn't we assume that Iran, while working on nuclear weapons, has already produced an arsenal of advanced radiological dirty bombs--and various means of delivering them?"
That comment followed a Jan. 3 assertion that Iran probably has "one or more dirty bombs."
Foreign Confidential™ Predictions
Foreign Confidential™ (formerly China Confidential) is the only media outlet that accurately predicted both North Korean nuclear tests, including predicting the exact dates on which the explosions would occur.
In July of 2009, two months after the North's last known nuclear test, Foreign Confidential™ wrote that Pyongyang was planning additional tests.
On April 23, 2010, Foreign Confidential™ wrote that the North would probably stage its third nuclear test before the end of May of that year.
"New North Korean nuclear tests are increasingly likely," Foreign Confidential repeated on May 23, 2010.
About three months later, North Korea's ambassador to Cuba warned the United States that his country would use its nuclear arsenal to launch a "holy war" against the U.S. and South Korea if either country attacked the North.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
A so-called unthinkable question: Will North Korea attack South Korea--and U.S. troops in the South--if the United States attacks Iran over its nuclear program? (Really, this is a matter of when, not if, as decades of Western appeasement of Iran seem to have made war inevitable.)
The answer is probably not. But the possibility of North Korea seeking to exploit an opportunity to defeat the South should be addressed given the following: North Korea's intense hatred of South Korea; the North's dire economic straits, long history of engaging in criminal activities for money, and unique partnership in nuclear and missile crimes with oil-rich Iran, which is believed to have subsidized the North's nuclear and missile tests, and is also believed to be prepared to pay handsomely for strategic North Korean assistance in the event of an Iranian showdown with the West; a conviction on the part of the North Korean military that it could actually win a new Korean war; a related perception on the part of both North Korea and Iran that the U.S., which is still bogged down in Afghanistan, clearly lacks the resources and the political will to fight three wars, or two wars with heavy losses, even for a short period of time, or, perhaps, even, one protracted conflict involving large-scale casualties, following the Vietnam and Iraq debacles; and, last but not least, the North's lips-and-teeth relationship with China, which is strongly opposed to U.S. military action against Iran and infuriated by the Obama administration's declared new geo-strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific region--a U.S. policy shift that Beijing regards as inherently menacing.
That doesn't mean that China would-- or could--order North Korea to come to Iran's aid by attacking South Korea and the approximately 28,000 U.S. troops stationed there. However, there may be hardline elements in Beijing who would very much like to see the U.S. dealt a severe blow--some of these figures actually applauded the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC--and, with that aim in mind, might be willing to back North Korea up militarily if it plunges into an all-out conflict with Seoul and its superpower ally, provided the North refrains from attacking the South and its (sitting duck?) defenders with chemical and nuclear weapons, the use of which could trigger a U.S. nuclear response with consequences too terrible for even the hardest line and most nationalistic and anti-American--but presumably still sane--Chinese generals to contemplate.
Considering all of the above and the fact that Russia has warned Washington in no uncertain terms against attacking Iran, making clear that Moscow would view an armed intervention in its neighbor as a threat to Russian interests, and that U.S.-Russia relations are at an all-time, post-Cold War low point; that Iran has vowed to destroy Israel if it attacks Iran, and to attack the U.S. if it or Israel attacks or appears to be close to attacking Iran; that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, are bristling with ballistic missiles capable of leveling Israel's civilian population centers--and that Israel is believed to possess one of the world's most formidable nuclear arsenals--the potential for war in the Greater Middle East widening into a global conflict, though thankfully still remote, cannot be dismissed as mere fantasy or pointless speculation.
Time and again, history has shown that the unthinkable can happen.
Endnote: Foreign Confidential™ analysts believe the period from April 15, when North Korea will mark the centennial birthday of the country's founder and "Eternal President," Kim Il Sung, to July 27, the day the Korean War armistice was signed in 1953--called a "Commemorative Day of War Victory" in the North--is particularly dangerous in light of a possible U.S. or Israeli conflict with Iran this spring.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
Posts
