November 20, 2008
Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER New York Times
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”
Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.
While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the I.A.E.A. believe it will avoid the risk of attempting “nuclear breakout” until it possessed a larger uranium supply.
Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.
American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon. But enriching uranium, and obtaining enough material to build a weapon, is considered the most difficult part of the process.
Siegfried S. Hecker of Stanford University and a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory said the growing size of the Iranian stockpile “underscored that they are marching down the path to developing the nuclear weapons option.”
In the report to its board, the atomic agency said Iran’s main enrichment plant was now feeding uranium into about 3,800 centrifuges — machines that spin incredibly fast to enrich the element into nuclear fuel. That count is the same as in the agency’s last quarterly report, in September. Iran began installing the centrifuges in early 2007. But the new report’s total of 630 kilograms — an increase of about 150 — shows that Iran has been making progress in accumulating material to make nuclear fuel.
That uranium has been enriched to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. To further purify it to the highly enriched state needed to fuel a nuclear warhead, Iran would have to reconfigure its centrifuges and do a couple months of additional processing, nuclear experts said.
“They have a weapon’s worth,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.
He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.
“It’s a virtual milestone,” Dr. Cochran said of Iran’s stockpile. It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about “where they’re going.”
The agency’s report made no mention of the possible military implications of the size of Iran’s stockpile. And some experts said the milestone was still months away. In an analysis of the I.A.E.A. report, the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, estimated that Iran had not yet reached the mark but would “within a few months.” It added that other analysts estimated it might take as much as a year.
Whatever the exact date, it added, “Iran is progressing” toward the ability to quickly make enough weapon-grade uranium for a warhead.
Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist, cautioned that the Iranian stockpile fell slightly short of what international officials conservatively estimate as the minimum threatening amount of nuclear fuel. “They’re very close,” he said of the Iranians in an interview. “If it isn’t tomorrow, it’s soon,” probably a matter of months.
In its report, the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, said Iran was working hard to roughly double its number of operating centrifuges.
A senior European diplomat close to the agency said Iran might have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year. The report also said Iran had said it intended to start installing another group of 3,000 centrifuges early next year.
The atomic energy agency said Iran was continuing to evade questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads. In a separate report released Wednesday, the agency said, as expected, that it had found ambiguous traces of uranium at a suspected Syrian reactor site bombed by Israel last year.
“While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use,” the report said, the building’s features “along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site.” Syria has said the uranium came from Israeli bombs.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Hopefully a fatal blow to Holocaust Denial, once and for all.
Report: Plans for Auschwitz -- including a gas chamber and crematorium -- found in Berlin apartment
Head of Germany's federal archives calls copies of some of 28 plans for construction of Nazi extermination camp 'authentic proof of systematically planned genocide of Jews of Europe'
AFP
Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany's federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called "authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe."
Bild gave no indication of where, when or by whom the plans were found.
It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943 and stamped, "Waffen-SS and Police Construction Directorate." Some were signed by senior SS officials and one initialed by the head of the Nazi ideological corps, Heinrich Himmler.
Kreikamp told the newspaper the documents were "extraordinarily important."
One plan, drawn by a detainee as early as November 1941, when experiments in eliminating prisoners were already under way, had a gas chamber clearly labeled, Bild said.
Another showed a crematorium with places for ovens marked, and storage space for bodies.
The "final solution to the Jewish question", namely the extermination of Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe in what became known as the Holocaust, was decided by officials of Adolf Hitler's regime in January 1942 at a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
More than one million Jews, gypsies and others deemed "subhumans" by the Nazis were killed at Auschwitz, near the Polish city of Kracow, out of a total six million slaughtered up to the fall of the regime in 1945.
Advancing Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, but camp authorities had blown up the gas chambers, and Holocaust deniers have claimed there was no proof of the camp's purpose.
Report: Plans for Auschwitz -- including a gas chamber and crematorium -- found in Berlin apartment
Head of Germany's federal archives calls copies of some of 28 plans for construction of Nazi extermination camp 'authentic proof of systematically planned genocide of Jews of Europe'
AFP
Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany's federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called "authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe."
Bild gave no indication of where, when or by whom the plans were found.
It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943 and stamped, "Waffen-SS and Police Construction Directorate." Some were signed by senior SS officials and one initialed by the head of the Nazi ideological corps, Heinrich Himmler.
Kreikamp told the newspaper the documents were "extraordinarily important."
One plan, drawn by a detainee as early as November 1941, when experiments in eliminating prisoners were already under way, had a gas chamber clearly labeled, Bild said.
Another showed a crematorium with places for ovens marked, and storage space for bodies.
The "final solution to the Jewish question", namely the extermination of Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe in what became known as the Holocaust, was decided by officials of Adolf Hitler's regime in January 1942 at a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
More than one million Jews, gypsies and others deemed "subhumans" by the Nazis were killed at Auschwitz, near the Polish city of Kracow, out of a total six million slaughtered up to the fall of the regime in 1945.
Advancing Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, but camp authorities had blown up the gas chambers, and Holocaust deniers have claimed there was no proof of the camp's purpose.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Fmr US diplomat, later a paid lobbyist for Palestinian Authority, testifies for the defense.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Iran-backed Terrorists Fire 35 Rockets at Southern Israel
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Holy Land Foundation defense begins rebutting prosecution
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Iran tests ways of recovering weapons-grade uranium from spent nuclear fuel
October 31, 2008 Debka File.
Nuclear research reactor in Tehran
This intelligence assessment, disclosed to AP by a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicates that the Iranians are testing ways of using nuclear waste from the Bushehr reactor, which the Russians have pledged to finish by the end of the year or March, 2009, at latest.
Moscow has provided the necessary fuel. Both Moscow and Iran claim the Bushehr reactor is purely for peaceful purposes.
The spent fuel at issue as the source of the enriched uranium is not enough to yield the 30 kilos of weapons grade (90 percent enriched) material for a bomb, but is another step in that direction. DEBKAfile adds that Bushehr could provide enough nuclear waste for rapid production of several bombs or warheads.
In a Kol Israel radio interview this week, Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel and member of Barack Obama’s Middle East team, disclosed that US intelligence now reckons Iran will have between one and three nuclear bombs by the end of 2009.
The tests, which loosely replicate Saddam Hussein’s attempt to build a bomb 20 years ago, were described by the source as “evaluating procedures for recycling fuel by dissolving fuel rods for irradiated waste, then reprocessing it for uranium metal,” which is used for nuclear warheads.
The source material, says the intelligence report, would be highly enriched, some at above 90 percent and the rest at 20 percent. “
“Sufficient data was collected for planning production lines for recovering the fuel,” according the assessment, which discloses the location of the experiments as Jaber ibn Hayan Laboratories in Tehran run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. They will soon submit a report to the Iranian leadership for a decision on whether to go ahead with the project.
October 31, 2008 Debka File.
Nuclear research reactor in Tehran
This intelligence assessment, disclosed to AP by a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicates that the Iranians are testing ways of using nuclear waste from the Bushehr reactor, which the Russians have pledged to finish by the end of the year or March, 2009, at latest.
Moscow has provided the necessary fuel. Both Moscow and Iran claim the Bushehr reactor is purely for peaceful purposes.
The spent fuel at issue as the source of the enriched uranium is not enough to yield the 30 kilos of weapons grade (90 percent enriched) material for a bomb, but is another step in that direction. DEBKAfile adds that Bushehr could provide enough nuclear waste for rapid production of several bombs or warheads.
In a Kol Israel radio interview this week, Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel and member of Barack Obama’s Middle East team, disclosed that US intelligence now reckons Iran will have between one and three nuclear bombs by the end of 2009.
The tests, which loosely replicate Saddam Hussein’s attempt to build a bomb 20 years ago, were described by the source as “evaluating procedures for recycling fuel by dissolving fuel rods for irradiated waste, then reprocessing it for uranium metal,” which is used for nuclear warheads.
The source material, says the intelligence report, would be highly enriched, some at above 90 percent and the rest at 20 percent. “
“Sufficient data was collected for planning production lines for recovering the fuel,” according the assessment, which discloses the location of the experiments as Jaber ibn Hayan Laboratories in Tehran run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. They will soon submit a report to the Iranian leadership for a decision on whether to go ahead with the project.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Holy Land jurors get a sample of Hamas martyr propaganda
Thu, Oct 30, 2008 By Jason Trahan Dallas Morning News
Jurors in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial on Thursday saw some disturbing examples of Hamas propaganda glorifying young suicide bombers.
The poster shown here
is one of several that the Israeli military confiscated from the offices of the Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron, one of several groups in the Palestinian territories that received millions of dollars from Holy Land.
"Avi," one of two anonymous Israeli government witnesses, continued his testimony Thursday that these charity groups were fronts for Hamas, not only because of Hamas propaganda found there, but also because they were led by known Hamas operatives.
This particular poster features 18-year-old Abdel Mu'ti Muhammad Salih Shabanah. According to the FBI's translation, he is a "high school student who preferred the martyrdom certificate over the life's certificate."
It says he was preparing to finish up his school language testing when he "received the signal" to respond to the assassination attempt on Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi.
"So he headed to Jerusalem to attain martyrdom," the poster says.
Here's a news report on the teen's suicide mission. It was part of a wave of back-and-forth strikes between the Israelis and Hamas in 2003.
According to the BBC story, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar "predicted that Palestinian attacks on Israelis were imminent 'to show them that an eye is for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"
According to the FBI, Holy Land sent the Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron, where this poster was found, about $1.6 million from 1991 to 2001.
Here are more posters found at the society:
ICS Hebron 10.pdf
In all, Holy Land is accused of sending more than $12 million to groups such as this and an assortment of charity groups called zakat committees from 1995 -- when Hamas was outlawed in the U.S. -- through Holy Land's closing in December 2001.
Defense attorneys have strongly criticized the Justice Department for relying on evidence supplied by the Israelis to prove a key point in this case -- that Hamas was in control of the groups Holy Land funded. They point out that none of them are individually listed on U.S. government roster of banned terrorist entities even today.
The government finished with Avi just before noon. Joshua Dratel, attorney for Mohammad El-Mezain, then began cross examination. Avi is thought to be the government's final witness.
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