The Thin Line Between Civilian and Military Nuclear Programs

For years, American intelligence agencies contended that Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program. But even as Tehran continues to enrich uranium, which could fuel a bomb, the agencies have reversed themselves, saying the Iranians halted their weapons program in 2003.

All of this raises the question: When is a nuclear program a nuclear weapons program?

The open secret of the nuclear age is that the line between civilian and military programs is extraordinarily thin. That is why the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna has teams of inspectors constantly sweeping through nuclear centers around the globe, looking for cheaters.

But thin as it may be, there is a line.

One threshold is enriched uranium. Enriched to low levels, uranium can fuel a reactor that produces electrical power — which is what Tehran says it wants to do. But if uranium is purified in spinning centrifuges long enough, and becomes highly enriched, it can fuel an atom bomb.

Another boundary between civilian and military programs is weapons design. Designing a nuclear weapon involves sophisticated mathematical and engineering work to figure out how to squeeze the bomb fuel in a way that creates the nuclear blast.

The new intelligence assessment released Monday, which is known as a National Intelligence Estimate, drew a distinction between Iran’s “declared civil work” on uranium enrichment and “nuclear weapon design and weaponization work.” The document states “with high confidence” that Iran is now hewing to the civilian side of the line.

The history of the atomic age, however, suggests that for a country with an advanced civil nuclear program, crossing the line into bomb work is relatively easy.

After the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain became the first three countries with atom bombs, all the rest hid their military programs to one extent or another behind the mask of peaceful nuclear power. That includes France, China, Israel, India, South Africa and Pakistan.

Indeed, the most difficult part of building a bomb is not doing the secret military design work but rather the part of the process that is also crucial to civilian nuclear power — producing the fuel.

History illustrates the point. During World War II, scientists working secretly at Los Alamos in the mountains of New Mexico were so sure of the reliability of their simple design that they gave it no explosive test before the bomb was made and dropped on Hiroshima. It worked to devastating effect.

But making the bomb’s highly enriched fuel required a vast industrial effort clouded by great uncertainty. In a race, three huge factories were built in the Tennessee wilds, each pursuing a different way of enriching uranium. One had literally millions of miles of pipes.

In the end, no technique worked well enough to be relied upon exclusively. So engineers blended the outputs. “All three methods contributed to Hiroshima,” said Robert S. Norris, author of “Racing for the Bomb” (Steerforth, 2002), a biography of the project’s military chief.

That history cast light on the question of whether Iran’s enrichment work today could represent a future military threat.

The new American intelligence assessment says Iran is “continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons,” including “its civilian uranium enrichment program.”

And the enrichment effort, the assessment says, could give Iran enough fuel for a weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015 — a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

The report also disclosed that American agencies have accumulated a “growing amount of intelligence” showing that Iran engaged in covert uranium enrichment, adding that it “probably” was halted after 2003 and “probably” has remained frozen through the middle of this year.

For some, that uncertainty undercuts the assessment’s “high confidence” that Iran ended its weapons program in 2003 and will continue to stay on the peaceful side of the line.

“The danger,” President Bush said at the White House on Tuesday, “is that they can enrich, play like they got a civilian program — or have a civilian program, or claim it’s a civilian program — and pass the knowledge to a covert military program.”

A senior federal specialist with long experience in nuclear proliferation said it was quite possible that Iran made so much progress in 18 years of secret work that the halt in 2003 might have little practical effect in restricting it from getting a weapon. That is, if Tehran wants one, and if it can keep working openly to produce fuel.

But the intelligence agencies steered clear of assessing Tehran’s intentions, saying, “We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

SOURCE: nytimes.com

The Book Of Cheating

The Book Of Cheating - Interestingly, the book became popular when the Bonnie & Clyde of ID fraud were arrested in Philadelphia last Friday and a copy of
“The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims” was found in their ritzy apartment.

Police found the book The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims (Paperback) (2007, from Basic Books) by Jessica Dorfman Jones, in the Bonnie & Clyde duo’s fancy condo.

The book of cheating itself, if you look it up on Amazon, is more about telling practical white lies and not about becoming a master criminal.

Here’s an excerpt from the book of cheating:

Even though you’re cheating a little bit every day, chances are you could be doing it better. Why settle for a minor promotion when you could have the corner office? Why bother taking the loose change out of your friend’s couch when you could be making the big bucks forging checks? If your answer is that you just don’t know how, look no further. This is the book for you.In the pages of this little tome, you’ll find a guide to grifting, a sourcebook of sophistry, and a bible of bunco. Everything the modern mountebank needs to know to pull off the most essential cheats can be found in these pages. Every cheat has been numbered for your easy reference and reading pleasure. You will, however, notice that they are in no easily discernible order.

This is much like life, as the ways in which we cheat and the reasons we decide to do so don’t follow any particular patterns either. As you leaf through this book, let the myriad ways in which you can get one over on the other guy surprise and entertain you as you stumble on them, just as you will stumble on opportunities to exercise your new shady talents after reading this book.

You’ll also find that the information in each chapter has been neatly laid out in an easy step-by-step format so you can be up and running in no time with your new and improved life of chicanery.

Feel free to mix and match your cheats at will. A life without artful cheating isn’t a life worth living.

The book “The Art of Cheating” makes for very interesting reading indeed...

Will Clinton's Obama Attacks Backfire?

It started in earnest a couple of weeks ago when Hillary Clinton questioned how much Barack Obama's time spent living in Indonesia as a child could actually help him make foreign policy decisions as a commander-in-chief. "Voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face," Clinton said November 20 in Shenandoah, Iowa. "I think we need a President with more experience than that."

Then Clinton announced in an interview with CBS that she was sick of being a punching bag for Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and that she intended to fight back. "After you have been attacked as often as I have from several of my opponents, you cannot just absorb it. You have to respond," she said.

Since that declaration Clinton has done just that, attacking Obama's plans for health care, Social Security reform and diplomacy with Iran. She even went so far as to dig up a kindergarten essay of Obama's entitled "I Want to Be President" to accuse him of lying about not having a lifelong lust for the Oval Office. "So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one ... or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate," Clinton said in Iowa Monday. But at a time when two new Iowa polls show Obama actually pulling into the lead and Clinton losing support among women, some political observers are wondering if Clinton will come to regret her newly assertive strategy. She already has the highest negative ratings in the race, and the shift in tactics comes only a month before the Iowa caucus — where voters are famous for their distaste of negative campaigning. Launching the attacks herself, rather than with via surrogates, only makes the move even riskier.

"The attack will backfire in two ways: it will reinforce the negative stereotype of Mrs. Clinton as a cold and calculating person who will do whatever it takes to win," said Stephen J. Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House. "And two, it will make Mr. Obama seem to be the less shrill and more emotionally mature candidate."

John Norris, who ran Senator John Kerry's Iowa campaign in 2004 and now serves as an adviser to Obama's campaign, said that's what they were banking on. "Barack positioned himself as drawing distinctions with Hillary," Norris said in an interview. "You don't want to get too negative — he's come close to the line but I don't think he's gone over it with Iowa voters." Clinton is "the one who made it personal by calling him na�ve — that was the first personal attack in the campaign," Norris said. "It's not a good position to be in — being forced to go negative in the last month."

The Obama campaign has started a website which almost gleefully tracks all of Clinton's attacks. And in an e-mail sent to supporters Monday asking for donations, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe cited the Des Moines Register poll that also showed Clinton with the highest negatives of any candidate. "And sure enough, less than 12 hours after the poll results were released, the Clinton campaign launched multiple frantic, baseless attacks against Barack Obama," Plouffe wrote, calling for 10,000 people to donate over the next 48 hours in response. "The emerging pattern is disturbing: as Senator Clinton's poll numbers slide, the campaign of 'inevitability' becomes more desperate and negative by the day. Barack will always respond swiftly and forcefully with the truth when attacked."

Negative campaigning has not had a history of success in Iowa. In 2004 Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean committed what some described as "murder-suicide" with their attacks on each other, opening the door for Kerry. In 1988 John Glenn's attacks on Walter Mondale helped to hand Gary Hart a surprise victory in the caucuses. The person who could stand to gain the most this time from the negative attacks is John Edwards. His campaign, which hasn't been shy about attacking Clinton in recent months, has remained remarkably silent in recent days. "Edwards has been a pretty harsh critic of the Clinton campaign himself, so one could argue that when everybody goes negative no one gains from it," said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who is remaining neutral this cycle.

Clinton has insisted that her attacks against Obama are substantive, not personal. "There's a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we're willing to fight for," Clinton told reporters traveling this past weekend with her in Iowa aboard the first press plane of Clinton's campaign. That difference, she said, is "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama's character, she replied: "It's beginning to look a lot like that. You know, it really is." (When asked if former President Bill Clinton would also be stepping up the heat on Obama or Edwards, Clinton spokesman Mo Eilleithee would say only, "I think you'll see him out there talking about his knowledge of her, because no one knows her better.")

Clinton's harsh new rhetoric has not won much support, either from pundits or other Democrats. "I could see the desire to raise the salience of personal traits — because her strengths are experience and strength of character," said Stephen Ansolabehere, a political science professor at MIT and author of the book Going Negative. "But her choice surprised me — she might be emphasizing the wrong thing. Given how close this is in the polls, especially a month out, this might be a very risky strategy for her."

"This series of slurs doesn't serve HRC well," said Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, in a blog post. "It will turn off voters in Iowa, as in the rest of the country. If she's worried her polls are dropping, this is not the way to build them back up."

Perhaps the biggest downside to Clinton's negative attacks is that the press seems to be focusing on nothing else, at least for the moment. "What's tough about the stories from this weekend is that they're telegraphing — they're more about going negative than the substance of the attacks," Simmons said. "It underlines the case that Edwards and Obama have been making that she's practicing politics as usual." And for Clinton, that kind of an association could be the costliest negative of all.

SOURCE: time.com

Rapper Pimp C Found Dead in Hollywood Hotel

Pimp C, real name Chad Butler -- and one half of the rap duo UGK, was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He was 33.

L.A. County Fire responded to a 911 call at the Mondrian Hotel, located on trendy Sunset Strip in Hollywood. They arrived to his sixth floor hotel room to find him dead in bed.

UGK is best known for appearing on the Jay-Z track "Big Pimpin'" in 2000, and more recently with Outkast on the song "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)." Pimp C had just performed with fellow rapper Too Short at the "House of Blues" in L.A. on Saturday night. Jive Records has issued the following statement regarding Pimp C's death:

"It is with great sadness that Jive Records announces the passing of Chad "Pimp C" Butler, a member of the celebrated rap duo UGK (Underground Kingz). Jive Records' President and CEO Barry Weiss states: "We mourn the unexpected loss of Chad. He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person. He will be remembered for his talent and profound influence as a pioneer in bringing southern rap to the forefront. He will be missed and our prayers remain with his family and Bun B. I've known Chad since he was 18, and we loved him dearly and he was a cherished member of the Jive family."

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Butler's father was a trumpet player who played professionally with Solomon Burke. Outside of his father, the 33-year old rapper's influences varied, ranging from Bobby Bland, Jimmy McGriff, the 1960's Motown artists to Run DMC. Butler met his inseparable partner Bernard "Bun B" Freeman in high school where they formed UGK. In 1992, the duo signed to Jive Records and went on release a total of eight albums for the label. They earned their highest achievement earlier this year when their most recent album, UGK (Underground Kingz), debuted in the number one position on the album pop chart. According to the New York Times, UGK "helped inspire a generation of Southern hip-hop stars, from OutKast to Lil Wayne."

Source: TMZ