With All Eyes on Obama, Port of Los Angeles Security Under Control of Chinese President’s Son

(Compiler's note: Must read)

by Judi McLeod

With all eyes on the Big O’s Office of the President-elect, very few know that the Port of Los Angeles – the nation’s largest – is now effectively under the control of the Peoples Republic of China.

The Port has purchased with $1.7 million American tax dollars via a “port security grant” awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland security, a mobile X-ray scanning system, mounted on a Mack Truck chassis. The scanning system is owned by Nuctech Company Limited, owned outright by Hu Haifeng, the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Sated with their Obama victory, the mainstream media is asleep at the switch, but eagle eye Lou Dobbs is flagging the America public’s attention. See Dobbs on YouTube.

Communist China couldn’t be any closer to America aside from moving its Army right in. Touted as “sophisticated” and “high-energy”, the X-ray scanning machine was manufactured by Nuctech, headquartered in Beijing.

“The bid that included the Nuctech scanner, which was cheaper than rival bids submitted by Smiths Detection, a British company with offices in New Jersey, and Rapiscan Systems, of Torrance, CA, was formally submitted to the port by a small U.S.-based business headquartered in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, known as DULY Research Inc.” (gsnmagazine.com, Oct. 16, 2008).

“We were cognizant of the fact that we were the first port to acquire this Chinese system,” said George Cummings, the port’s director of homeland security. “They were the low bidder and they complied with all the technical requirements.”

If Dobbs is worried, this latest potential breach in security doesn’t bother Cummings: “We don’t have any heartburn about this. We did all the due diligence we had to do. We took it to our board. We’re comfortable with this decision.”

Critics of the transaction, swallowed up by mainstream media focus on the recent presidential election, raise the specter of sensitive X-ray images and cargo manifests being archived on the X-ray scanning system and, perhaps, transmitted via the Internet back to Nuctech in China, or to the Chinese government. Indeed, the mobile system was required to offer that technical capability from the get-go.

The Nuctech set up makes for a more comfortable environment than the ongoing transfer of information passed on to China by industrial spies active in other areas on U.S. and Canadian soil.

Nuctech also conducts business in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Setting itself apart from the mainstream media, HDMK, Strategy Communications, Media Public Affairs, an organization that has been engaged in hundreds of high profile public policy battles, is posing some hard-line questions:

Will Nuctech X-ray machines have any direct connection to the U.S. Department of Homeland security computer systems and are there any firewalls in place?

Has Nuctech retained Washington lobbyists to help ease the approval for this unprecedented expenditure of U.S. security funds, and if so, who are they?

Have United States Customs and Border Patrol officials visited Nutech in China to approve or to explore the prospect of purchasing equipment for other port security operations?

If so, who went to China, when?

“If there’s nothing to hide, why won’t Nuctech or DULY Research in Los Angeles (the winner of the contact for the Port of Los Angeles) talk to the media,” asks HDMK’s Trent D. Duffy.

Most significantly, will images taken by Nuctech X-ray machines be portable?

What are the personnel requirements needed to support the Nuctech X-ray machines in terms of operations, maintenance, performance checks, etc., in the Port of Los Angeles?

Have any of these individuals even undergone routine security screening?

Who paid for Port of Los Angeles officials to travel to China to visit Nuctech facilities?

It’s been two years since the Dubai Ports fiasco was last on the public radar screen. During the high profile Dubai Ports debacle, those who opposed the sale of American ports to Dubai, vowed that no foreign government would be permitted to acquire such strategic targets in future.

The Port of Los Angeles is not only one of them, it’s the biggest of the lot.

Got your earplugs turned on, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff?

Iran said to have enough nuclear fuel for one weapon

By William J. Broad and David E. Sanger

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 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 IAEA 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 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 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," 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 IAEA 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 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 IAEA, 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.

Supremes to review Barack's citizenship

(Compiler's note: Must read)

By Bob Unruh

A case that challenges President-elect Barack Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot citing questions over his citizenship has been scheduled for a "conference" at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Conferences are private meetings of the justices at which they review cases and decide which ones to accept for formal review. This case is set for a conference Dec. 5, just 10 days before the Electoral College is scheduled to meet to make formal the election of Obama as the nation's next president.

The Supreme Court's website listed the date for the case brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state in New Jersey, over not only Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot but those of two others, Sen. John McCain and Roger Calero.

The case, unsuccessful at the state level, had been submitted to Justice David Souter, who rejected it. The case then was resubmitted to Justice Clarence Thomas. The next line on the court's docket says: "DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 5, 2008."

If four of the nine justices vote to hear the case in full, oral argument may be scheduled.

The action questions whether any of the three candidates is qualified under the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen."

According to America's Right blogger Jeff Schreiber, there also was a development in a second case presented to the Supreme Court on the same issue.

His report said the Federal Election Commission now has waived its right to respond to a complaint brought by attorney Philip Berg.

"There are a number of reasons why the respondents here would choose not to respond. First, because the court only grants between 70 and 120 of the 8,000 or so petitions it receives every year, perhaps they just liked their odds of Berg's petition getting denied. Second, because they have made arguments as to Berg's lack of standing several times at the district court level and beyond, perhaps they felt as though any arguments had already been made and were available on the record. Or, perhaps the waiver shows that the FEC and other respondents do not take seriously the allegations put forth by Berg, and did not wish to legitimize the claims with a response," the blogger speculated.

"Another thing which is not completely clear is whether the FEC is filing for itself or on behalf of all respondents," he added.

"If it were just the FEC filing the waiver, I must say that I'm surprised," Berg told America's Right. "I'm surprised because I think they should take the position that the Supreme Court should grant standing to us. I think they have a responsibility not only to Phil Berg, but to all citizens of this country, to put forth a sense of balance which otherwise doesn't seem to exist.

"However, if this was filed by the FEC on behalf of the DNC and Barack Obama too, it reeks of collusion," he said, noting that the attorney from the Solicitor General's office should be representing federal respondents and not the DNC or Obama.

But he noted that "questions surrounding this aspect of Obama's candidacy are seemingly beginning to see the light of day."

Just last week, WND reported on worries over a "constitutional crisis" that could be looming over the issue of Obama's citizenship.

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others filed a court petition in California asking the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office.

Alan Keyes

The disputes all cite "natural-born citizen" requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject.

The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

An Obama spokesman interviewed by WND described such lawsuits as "garbage."

The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote, when it is held in December, by a 2-to-1 margin.

The California case states, "There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office

must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.

"Since [the secretary of state] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States of America is received by her," the document said.

"This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.

The "certificate of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.

"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."

The case also raises the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.

Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."

WND has reported other challenges that have been raised in Ohio, Connecticut, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Hawaii.