After Obama in Hiroshima: Israel’s Gigantic Nuclear Elephant

By contributors | May. 29, 2016 |

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The criminalization of truth when it comes to Israel’s nuclear capabilities means that its arsenal has been converted into a gigantic elephant in the room.

The online version of a recent Economist magazine article comes equipped with the tantalizing headline “Israel’s atomic angst: A textile factory with a difference.” The summary reads: “One of the world’s oldest nuclear plants helped build the Jewish state’s secret nuclear arsenal.”

The textile reference is to a spontaneous alibi deployed in 1960 by an Israeli official accompanying then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ogden Reid on a flyover of the Negev Desert. An intensive construction operation near the town of Dimona, site of the now-aging nuclear plant, caught the inquisitive ambassador’s eye — and “textile factory” was apparently the first thing that came to the official’s mind.

The magazine offers a photograph of the Dimona reactor and cupola, complete with the caption: “Tough times in the garment trade.”

And you thought The Economist couldn’t do sarcasm.

The article notes that at a conference in April, representatives of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission reported “1,537 small defects and cracks” in the reactor’s aluminum core. While the typical lifespan of such reactors is said to be 40 years, Dimona has kept on ticking for 53.

Despite having ostensibly done its time on earth, however, there doesn’t seem to be a funeral in sight for Dimona. The Israeli newspaper Haaretzexplains that, “for political, scientific and economic reasons, Israel has no capability or desire to replace the core, an operation that would mean building a new reactor.”

As for related items that might also be conceived of in terms of ticking,The Economist cites the common estimate that Israel possesses between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads. Of course, self-imposed immunity from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has not prevented the Jewish state from throwing a permanent hissy fit over Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.

Meanwhile, the essential criminalization of truth when it comes to discussing Israel’s own nuclear capabilities means that its arsenal has been converted into a gigantic elephant in the room—and a very dangerous one at that.

For what happens to insiders who dare draw attention to the beast, one need look no further than the case of former Israeli nuclear technicianMordechai Vanunu, kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986 and imprisoned for 18 years, 11 of them in solitary confinement.

Blocked from leaving the country (and recently hit with new charges), Vanunu is still seen by the state as a “security threat”—a far greater threat, no doubt, than stockpiles of weapons capable of eliminating vast swathes of humanity, or nuclear reactor cores containing 1,537 flaws.

The United States, for its part, never really bought into the whole “textile” factory scenario, and the American intelligence community suspected almost from the start what the Israelis were up to. But aside from some pressure from John F. Kennedy — who, as Avner Cohen and William Burr detail at the National Security Archive, pushed for international inspections of Israeli nuclear facilities — the U.S. has pretty much been wholeheartedly strung along by ambiguous Israeli explanations of its supposedly peaceful activities at Dimona.

In their book “Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars,” American journalist Dan Raviv and Israeli journalist Yossi Melman document a political convergence in 1969 that proved most auspicious for Israel’s nuclear industry: the respective ascents to power of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, U.S. President Richard Nixon, and Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

“The trio,” Raviv and Melman write, “agreed that no more inspections of Dimona would be required …  Moreover, the new White House team had apparently concluded that an unquestionably strong Israel would be good for American interests: pushing the Arab countries to negotiate peace by dispelling their dreams that they could, with Soviet assistance, wipe out the Jewish state.”

The special relationship has proved enduring, with American weaponslending a hand as Israel regularly wipes out portions of area Arab populations. American companies were also among the entities that previously supplied Israel with key materials for nuclear weapons. Never mind that nukes are a pretty good way to increase one’s own chances of self-destruction.

Meanwhile, should The Economist be seeking to augment its arsenal of sarcasm, “Spies Against Armageddon” provides plenty of robust material. Consider the section on how, while shopping for their nuclear program in the 1960s, the Israelis relied on none other than former Nazis in West Germany.

One character, a Luftwaffe officer-turned-businessman who Raviv and Melman note was “still convalescing from his wartime injuries,” paid a personal visit to Israel to make the acquaintance of Israeli defense officials: “The Israelis referred to him as ‘the Nazi pilot,’ and they went out drinking together in Tel Aviv.”

Shipments destined for Dimona were also procured from Degussa, a German company that “had profiteered during the war from gold teeth and other metal items stolen from murdered Jews.”

Half a century later, as the old reactor plugs away into eternity, one can think of at least 1,537 reasons it shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Belén Fernández is the author of “The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work,” published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.

Via TeleSur

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

RT: “‘Israel may have one of biggest nuclear stockpiles in the world’ – whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg”

Posted in Israel/ Palestine,Nuclear weapons,War | 2 Responses | Print |

The real reason Israel wants to take out Iran's nuclear capability

U.S. intelligence sources have told WMR that the actual reason why Israel is gearing up for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites is because Israel fears that while its own nuclear weapons are degrading, Iran stands a chance of acquiring more potent weapons.

Intelligence sources report that since Israel's nuclear reactor at Dimona in the Negev Desert was damaged in a fuel rod explosion during a refueling operation, its ability to reprocess plutonium for its nuclear weapons stockpile has been severely diminished. The accident occurred because the Israelis overstressed their Fast Breeder Reactor unit, causing it to become unstable. In 1997, a judge in Tel Aviv ordered the government to pay the family of Haim Itah, a worker at Dimona, NIS 2.5 million, because of cancer he contracted due to radiation leaks at the facility. The leaks were reported to have involved at least one accident at Dimona. The court decision also cited the "negligent safety" policies of Dimona's top management.

Israel has also been forced to quietly re-establish its global nuclear smuggling operations, rampant during the 1960s when it was working to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor capabilities have always been clouded in maximum secrecy. However, the claim that Dimona was upgraded to a 75-megawatt reactor from its original 25-megawatt design came from Seymour Hersh's book "The Samson Option." In actuality, Israel's 25-megawatt power reactor produces up to 75-megawatts of thermal heat or steam due to inefficiencies in heat exchangers and turbine losses. A reactor of this size can only produce about one to two 30-kiloton size bombs per year with a maximum core/pit life, before reprocessing, of six to fourteen years. If the reactor has been operating for about 40 years, then the maximum number of weapons produced would be no greater than sixty 30-kiloton sized weapons. The maximum number of times that a nuclear core/pit can be reprocessed is about two to three times, due to plutonium losses when the core is re-manufactured. This is determined by the purity of the metal, its alloy content, and its designed detonation size. One single 25-megawatt nuclear reactor, during its lifetime, can only maintain approximately thirty to sixty 30-kiloton sized plutonium warheads per reactor.

WMR has learned that the diminished capabilities of the Negev Nuclear Research Center prompted Israel, in the 1990s, to actively smuggle nuclear materials, including enriched plutonium, to Israel. The smuggling operations immediately became known to the CIA's Counterproliferation Division and its non-official cover (NOC) Brewster Jennings & Associates operation headed up by Valerie Plame.

U.S. intelligence has learned that the Israelis are worried about a nuclear weapons gap with both Pakistan and Iran. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has re-started its nuclear weapons development program since ceasing it in 2003, as reported by CIA, if Iran were to re-establish its program, the math has Israel concerned.

The Iranian reactor was originally an American designed 100-megawatt power/300 megawatt thermal reactor provided to the Shah's regime in 1975. The reactor at Bushehr on the Gulf was built by the Germans and completed by the Russians. If it were re-engineered for weapons development, the reactor has the ability to produce up to eight 30-kiloton plutonium weapons per year or about a total of 96 nuclear weapons in a fourteen year cycle before plutonium reprocessing would be necessary. As the Israeli weapons age, their total stockpile will be reduced to less than 30 weapons within fourteen years, while the Iranian stockpile would grow to 96 weapons of equal explosive size. Thus, a nuclear weapons gap would exist between Israel and Iran. The Israelis are in a panic because they are losing the nuclear race with Iran and Pakistan. Therefore, through its influence with the United States, Great Britain, and France, Israel is seeking to destabilize both Iran and Pakistan. In the case of Pakistan, Israel also has the assistance of India. The security and future of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is reportedly, and ironically, on the agenda of talks in Washington between President Obama and Prime Minister Indian Manmohan Singh, even as the United States cements a nuclear cooperation pact with New Delhi, which, like Pakistan and Israel, has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran is a signatory of the NPT.

Israel's search for replacement enriched plutonium hit pay-dirt when its intelligence service discovered that the Pantex nuclear facility near Amarillo, Texas, stores enriched plutonium fuel that is 99 percent pure plutonium that does not require reprocessing for another 60 to 90 years. However, the Department of Energy has plans to store much of the nuclear fuel now at Pantex at the very secure Yucca Mountain storage complex within the Nevada Test Site. WMR previously reported that Mossad agents are extremely active at military and nuclear sites in Nevada, including the Nevada Test Site. However, Israeli scientists may have already penetrated the security at the Nevada Test Site through a joint operation with the United States. WMR has learned that U.S. and Israeli scientists are co-testing newer electromagnetic core/pit compression techniques that does not use conventional explosives as the weapon detonator. Instead, the fuel is magnetically compressed. The technique overcomes the plutonium aging issue while allowing for the development of micro-nuclear weaponry.For example, 650 grams of force per square centimeter is all that is required to compress a plutonium core into a critical state. 750 grams is the minimum amount of plutonium that is needed in order to produce a nuclear explosion. One kilogram of plutonium produces an explosive yield equal to one kiloton of TNT.

The Israelis discovered that only U.S. nuclear cores composed of plutonium alloys were ripe for theft at Pantex. The 99 percent plutonium fuel was more well-guarded. Because the older plutonium cores required refrigeration to keep them cooler than 150 degrees, the Israelis used refrigeration trucks to move the cores through the port of Houston and into refrigeration containers loaded on board ships belonging to Zim-American Israeli Shipping Company, a firm with close links to the Mossad. From Houston, the plutonium alloy cores were shipped to Israel and Dimona.

One individual who had the port of Houston under close scrutiny was CIA contractor/informant/source Roland "Tony" Carnaby. Carnaby had set up a number of video surveillance cameras at the port of Houston and routinely uploaded the stored videos from the camera units to his Macintosh computer. In April 2008, Carnaby was shot to death by two Houston police officers after what was reported to have been a high-speed chase by police. After he was killed, the Houston police took possession of Carnaby's Macintosh computer. WMR previously reported that Carnaby kept Israeli intelligence assets and agents under close scrutiny in Houston and that he had a strange encounter with an Israeli Consulate General official the evening before he was shot. WMR also previously reported on Mossad's penetration of the Houston Police Department and the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Harris County Sheriff Adrien Garcia has visited Israel and is considered close to the Israeli intelligence operation in Houston. Garcia's overall agenda was also never trusted by Carnaby, according to our sources in Houston. Conveniently, security for the port of Houston comes under Harris County and Garcia. Radiation detectors routinely scan containers at Houston for the presence of nuclear materials, hence, it is important for the Mossad to counteract security at the port.

On August 13, 2008, WMR reported: "WMR previously reported that slain retired CIA station chief in Houston, Roland 'Tony' Carnaby, gunned down gangland-style on April 29 by Houston police after his vehicle ran out of gas, not after a 'high-speed chase' as alleged by Houston police, had a tepid and wary relationship with Israeli intelligence operatives in Houston. Carnaby was contracted to the Port of Houston, as well as the two Houston area international airports, to provide security consultative services. An Israeli firm, Orsus, is currently installing an integrated security monitoring system that will link video surveillance, visitor control, and police dispatch systems to a 24-hour Port Coordination Center. It is known that Carnaby used a number of cell phones to dial into port video cameras to turn them on, stop them, and download captured video data. The Israeli firm was scheduled to begin installation of its system this month.The financial backers of Orsus include ComSor Venture Fund LDC, a joint operation of Comverse Technology, which includes its subsidiary Verint Systems, and Soros Fund Management's Quantum Industrial Holdings Ltd. Other investors in Orsus include Israel's Koor Industries, the leading shareholder of Tadiran, the Israeli defense electronics firm; Cial Industries and Investment, an Israeli holding company; the Cedar Fund, an 'Israeli-related' venture capital firm; Israel Infinity Venture Capital Fund; and Poalim Capital Markets, a subsidiary of Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest bank."

Carnaby was, reportedly, working with the FBI on the Israeli nuclear smuggling issue and the FBI office in Houston requested that the Houston police call off their chase of Carnaby. WMR has also learned that one of the Israeli agents involved in the Pantex smuggling is the agent known as "Stinky" by FBI surveillance teams. He is called "Stinky" because of his obeseness and sloppy eating habits. "Stinky" was linked to the clubbing death of CIA missile expert William Bennett in Landsdowne, Virginia, near Leesburg, in March of this year and the assassination of weapons developer Gerald Bull in 1990 in Brusssels. Bennett had uncovered evidence that Israel had shared with or sold to China and Russia classified U.S. Patriot missile and stealth technology.

Stinky has been seen in the Amarillo area with a crew from New Jersey and he is believed to have re-entered the United States, after the hit on Bennett, on a false Canadian passport.

Muammar Qaddafi says Israeli Mossad was behind JFK assassination

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, in his extemporaneous remarks before the General Assembly on September 23 said that Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby (aka Jacob Rubinstein) was an Israeli intelligence agent who was involved on the behalf of Israel to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Qaddafi claimed that Kennedy was prepared to expose Israel's nuclear weapons development facility at Dimona in the Negev Desert and Israel ordered Kennedy's assassination.

Qaddafi's remarks in a one and a half our-long speech are the talk of the hallways, cafeterias, and smoking areas at UN headquarters. Qaddafi's speech has outweighed President Obama's maiden speech on the delegates' interest meters.

Those who were hoping for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to engage in polemics over "Holocaust denial" were sorely disappointed. In his remarks, punctuated with Islamic religious references, Ahmadinejad had a message for the United States and its allies vis a vis the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan: "It is no longer possible to bring a country under military occupation in the name of fight against terrorism and drug trafficking while the production of illicit drugs has multiplied, terrorism has widened its dimensions and has tightened its grips, thousands of innocent people have been killed, injured or displaced, infrastructures have been destroyed and regional security has been seriously jeopardized; and those who have created the current disastrous situation continue to blame others. How you can talk about friendship and solidarity with other nations while you expand your military bases in different parts of the world including in Latin America. This situation cannot continue. It is all the more impossible to advance expansionistic and inhuman policies on the basis of militaristic logic."

Ahmadinejad added, "By the grace of God, Marxism is gone. It is now history. The expansionist Capitalism will certainly have the same fate." Ahmadinejad's remarks came just before the G20 industrial countries' leaders meet in Pittsburgh.

To repeat from UN headquarters, while Obama's speech was received well by most of the delegates and media, it is Qaddafi who is the star of this show. As one Iraqi reporter told this editor, "it's the first time the UN heard a speech from a leader who didn't feed them bullshit but the unvarnished truth."