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WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly
developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic
missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical
infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone
superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists
and western missile industry experts.
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| Iranian Shahab-3 Ballistic Missile |
The radical Shiite regime has conducted
successful tests to determine if its Shahab-3 ballistic
missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be
detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude
flight.
Scientists, including President Reagan's
top science adviser, William R. Graham, say there is no
other explanation for such tests than preparation for
the deployment of Electromagnetic Pulse weapons –
even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical
and technological infrastructure, effectively sending
the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery
time of months or years.
Iran will have that capability –
at least theoretically – as soon as it has one nuclear
bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic
ally of Iran, already boasts such capability.
The stunning report was first published
over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium,
online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.
Just last month, Congress heard testimony
about the use of such weapons and the threat they pose
from rogue regimes.
Iran has surprised intelligence analysts
by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired
from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful"
tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for
this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials reminded
members of Congress that there is a glut of these missiles
on the world market. They are currently being bought and
sold for about $100,000 apiece.
"A terrorist organization might have
trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on target' with a Scud,
but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate
in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz.,
in the Washington Post a week ago. "No need for the
risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon
over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch
a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters
– al-Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels
– and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."
The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated
and capable of detonation at higher elevations –
making them more dangerous.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers
above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could
cripple the country – knocking out electrical power
and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications
impotent.
While Iran still insists officially in
talks currently underway with the European Union that
it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian
purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade
U.S. military planners and intelligence agencies that
Tehran can only be planning such an attack, which depends
on the availability of at least one nuclear warhead.
Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian
missile developments suggests Iranian scientists will
move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear material
shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.
Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran,"
told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's Electromagnetic
Pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the
mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.
"Up until now, I believed the nuclear
threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability
of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security
to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While
that threat should continue to be a grave concern for
every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how
devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing
a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could
bring America to its knees."
Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear
official said Europe must heed an Iranian proposal on
uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.
The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of
the Supreme National Security Council, came as diplomats
from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their
Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level
meeting in London set for April 29. Enrichment produces
fuel for nuclear reactors, which can also be used in the
explosive core of nuclear bombs.
"The Europeans should tell us whether
these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations
or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian proposal
put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment.
"If yes, fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot
continue," he said.
Some analysts believe Iran is using the
negotiations merely to buy time for further development
of the nuclear program.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue
before deciding this summer to push for United Nations
sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee
on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired
by Kyl, held a hearing on the Electromagnetic Pulse, or
EMP, threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack
on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished
scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only
a few ways that the United States could be defeated by
its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote
Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud
missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at
the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's
atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating
down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on
the location and size of the blast, the effect would be
to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical
systems across much or even all of the continental United
States, for months if not years."
The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a
nuclear attack on land, is not to kill people, but "to
kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as
chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the
United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was
director of the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy and science adviser to the president during the
Reagan administration.
Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think
of no other reason for Iran to be experimenting with mid-air
detonation of missiles than for the planning of an EMP-style
attack.
"EMP offers a bigger bang for the
buck," he said. He also suggested such an attack
makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy
less likely than the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a
major U.S. city.
A 2004 report by the commission found
"several potential adversaries have or can acquire
the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude
nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability
without having a high level of sophistication."
"EMP is one of a small number of
threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic
consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover
the wide geographic region within line of sight to the
nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant
damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very
fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the
United States and Western nations to project influence
and military power."
The major impact of EMP weapons is on
electronics, "so pervasive in all aspects of our
society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures,"
explained the report.
"Their effects on systems and infrastructures
dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently
ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation,"
Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members
of Congress.
The commission report went so far as to
suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might
result in the defeat of our military forces."
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon
exploded at high altitude above the United States will
interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic
field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation
down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents
in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects
are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical
systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked'
– upset, damaged and destroyed – electronics
controls then inflict on the systems in which they are
embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe
than the direct effects."
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| A high-altitude photo of the Starfish Prime U.S.
nuclear test in 1962 from Johnston Island. It was
a 1.45 Megaton warhead. |
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| Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test as seen
from Honolulu around midnight. |
The EMP threat is not a new one considered
by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented
with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.,
and the U.S. conducted its own high-altitude testing in
with the Starfish Prime (right) and Bluegill Triple Prime
tests in 1962.
"What is different now is that some
potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter
– they can be terrorist groups that have no state
identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated
to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety,"
explains the commission report. "Rogue states, such
as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability
to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also
be unpredictable and difficult to deter."
Graham describes the potential "cascading
effect" of an EMP attack. If electrical power is
knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications
are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial
system breaks down, food, water and gasoline become scarce.
As Kyl put it: "Few if any people
would die right away. But the loss of power would have
a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication
would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would
leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack
of transportation as those vehicles still working simply
ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The
inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly
threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone
in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage
unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and
other disasters, such circumstances often result in a
fairly rapid breakdown of social order."
"American society has grown so dependent
on computer and other electrical systems that we have
created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically
much greater than those of other, less developed nations,"
the senator wrote. "When deprived of power, we are
in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made
clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because
adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout
caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more
difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby
to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment."
The commission said hardening key infrastructure
systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers
is both feasible and – compared with the threat –
relatively inexpensive.
"But it will take leadership by the
Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department,
and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress,
all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl,
so far the only elected official blowing the whistle this
alarming development.
Kyl concluded in his report: "The
Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure
was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists
would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans
can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could
bring our society to its knees by destroying everything
we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've
been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond."
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