China Needs U.S. Guarantees for Treasuries, Yu Says (Update2)

(Compiler's note: Must read -- could this Bloomberg article be behind what is all over the blogs but yet unverified in a meaningful way... at the moment? -- "Feds Grant Eminent Domain as Collateral to China for U.S. Debts!)

By Belinda Cao and Judy Chen

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- China should seek guarantees that its $682 billion holdings of U.S. government debt won’t be eroded by “reckless policies,” said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank.

The U.S. “should make the Chinese feel confident that the value of the assets at least will not be eroded in a significant way,” Yu, who now heads the World Economics and Politics Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in response to e-mailed questions yesterday from Beijing. He declined to elaborate on the assurances needed by China, the biggest foreign holder of U.S. government debt.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields climbed above 3 percent this week on speculation the government will increase borrowing as President Barack Obama pushes his $838 billion stimulus package through Congress. Premier Wen Jiabao said last month his government’s strategy for investing would focus on safeguarding the value of China’s $1.95 trillion foreign reserves.

China may voice its concerns over U.S. government finances and the potential for a weaker dollar when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits China on Feb. 20, according to He Zhicheng, an economist at Agricultural Bank of China, the nation’s third-largest lender by assets. A People’s Bank of China official, who didn’t wish to be identified, declined to comment on the telephone.

Clinton Talks

“In talks with Clinton, China will ask for a guarantee that the U.S. will support the dollar’s exchange rate and make sure China’s dollar-denominated assets are safe,” said He in Beijing. “That would be one of the prerequisites for more purchases.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said yesterday that talks with Clinton would cover bilateral relations, the financial crisis and international affairs, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The dollar fell 0.6 percent to 89.96 yen today on concern that the U.S. government’s bank-rescue plan will fail to revive lending. Treasuries declined as investors prepared to bid for a record $21 billion sale of 10-year notes today. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose three basis points to 2.83 percent.

Currency Reserves

“These comments are some sort of a threat but of course China can never get such a guarantee,” said Thomas Harr, a currency strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore. The U.S. may assure China that it will clean up the financial system and that it “won’t push for a weaker dollar but they can’t promise not to increase the fiscal deficit,” he said.

U.S. government bonds returned 14 percent last year including price gains and reinvested interest, the most since rallying 18.5 percent in 1995, according to indexes compiled by Merrill Lynch & Co. Concern that the flood of bonds would overwhelm demand caused Treasuries to lose 3.08 percent in January, the steepest drop in almost five years, Merrill data show.

China’s loss of more than $5 billion from investing $10.5 billion of its reserves in New York-based Blackstone Group LP, Morgan Stanley and TPG Inc. since mid-2007 may increase its demand for the relative safety of Treasuries.

“The government will be a net buyer of Treasuries in the short term because there’s no sign they have changed their strategy,” said Zhang Ming, secretary general of the international finance research center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “But personally, I don’t think we should increase holdings because the medium- and long-term risks are quite high.”

Fed Buying

Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., said on Feb. 5 the Federal Reserve will have to buy Treasuries to curb yields as debt sales increase. Fed officials said Jan. 28 they were “prepared” to buy longer-term Treasuries.

“The biggest concern for China to continue buying U.S. Treasuries is that if Obama’s stimulus doesn’t work out as expected, the Fed may have to print money to cover the deficit,” said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at China International Capital Corp., partly owned by Morgan Stanley. “That will cause a dollar slump.”

China’s foreign-exchange reserves grew about $40 billion in the fourth quarter, the least since mid-2004, as an end to yuan appreciation since July prompted investors to pull money out.

The world’s third-biggest economy grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the slowest pace in seven years. Policy makers announced a 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) economic stimulus plan in November to spur domestic demand.

Linking Disputes

Yu said China has no plans to channel its reserves toward stimulating its own economy because its trade surplus is sufficient to fund any import needs. China’s trade surplus was $39 billion in January.

China “should diversify its reserves away from U.S. Treasuries if the value of China’s foreign-exchange reserves is in danger of being inflated away by the U.S. government’s pump- priming,” he said.

China may try to link trade and currency policy disputes to its future investment in Treasuries, said Lu Zhengwei, an economist in Shanghai at Industrial Bank Co., a Chinese lender partly owned by a unit of HSBC Holdings Plc.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner accused China on Jan. 22 of “manipulating” the yuan to give an unfair advantage to its exporters. The currency has dropped 0.16 percent this year to 6.8342 per dollar, following a 21 percent gain since a peg against the dollar was abandoned in July 2005.

“China can also use this opportunity to get a promise from the U.S. not to make inappropriate requests on bilateral trade and the Chinese yuan,” Lu said. “We can’t afford more yuan appreciation as the economy is facing a serious slowdown.”

Mr. President, the Long War Won’t End in 2010

by Nicholas Guariglia

One suspects that Iran and al-Qaeda won't believe the stroke of midnight on August 31, 2010 will mark the end of their war on us.

At first glance, President Obama’s speech on Iraq was heartening. While he did not credit his predecessor or election opponent for implementing and championing the surge that saved the war effort, the strategy he vehemently opposed as a candidate, Obama praised the success of our soldiers and Marines in some of his most appreciative and admiring language yet — and that’s enough. He called Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Raymond Odierno “two of our finest generals,” and to be sure, they most certainly are. Though belatedly, he also recognized the bravery of everyday Iraqis who have fought against dictatorship and struggled to establish self-rule and consensual governance for years.

All this and more is good. It is high time for a deep national exhale on Iraq: through all the years of carnage and uncertainty, our military stuck it out and now might just end up leaving behind something once considered miraculous. But we should not get ahead of ourselves — and I fear some of President Obama’s statements point in that direction.

It is a good thing that the war, as we once knew it, is wrapping up. But Mr. Obama’s nomenclature is unsettling. “Today, I have come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end,” the new commander-in-chief told Marines soon to be deployed to Afghanistan. “Let me just say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” he concluded.

This smacks of President Bush’s similar mistake, declaring an end to “major combat operations” on May 1, 2003. In Bush’s case, an inaccurate assessment was made of what was happening at the time. In Obama’s case, he is predicting what will happen 18 months from now.

If there is one lesson President Obama can learn from his predecessor, it is this: we do not have the final say on when this war will “end,” in the sense that we want it to end. If you recall, the earliest and most principled advocates of destroying Saddam’s regime — Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, etc. — all opposed a long-term occupation of Iraq, contrary to conventional wisdom and pop-culture caricature.

They felt, correctly I believe, that sending Paul Bremer to govern Iraq would be counterproductive. If it had been up to them alone, the transition to Iraqi sovereignty and self-policing would have happened much earlier. If it had been up to all of us, the war would have “ended” six years ago — sometime in the days or weeks following the toppling of Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. If we had our way, April 2003 would have been the last time an American fired his weapon in Iraq. We might have our preferences, but that does not always translate into concrete reality.

To put it more colloquially, Mr. Obama, the bad guys have a say in when the war will be over. They decided it would not be over in 2003 or ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, or ‘08, and thus compelled us to stay in Iraq to fight on. In a perfect world, our military would not have had to secure Iraqi real estate. We would not have had to undertake nation-building efforts of this magnitude. We could have “brought the boys home” in late 2003, as was initially planned (according to General Tommy Franks).

Alas, the Iranian mullahs, the Syrian Ba’athists, and the Salafi al-Qaedists might not think the stroke of midnight on August 31, 2010, is the end of their war on us, or the end of their war on a free and sovereign Iraq.

Six years ago, during the initial invasion of Iraq, Lt. Gen. Petraeus posed a challenge to a reporter traveling with his 101st Airborne Division, in what would become a famous quote: “Tell me how this ends.” Five years later, as the leading commander in Iraq, Petraeus seemed to answer his own question during an interview with NBC: “We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it.”

That is the correct, professional, and responsible view to hold, the most objectively accurate lens through which we must observe the war. The inherent nature of asymmetrical war is horizontal, not vertical. There will be no definitive date, no specific event, and no single declaration that will end this war. The simple nature of the enemy forces this unpleasant and unconventional reality on us.

Iraq is largely pacified today and the war on the wane, because the surge brigades and battalions secured Iraqi territory, the Anbari tribes flipped against al-Qaeda, cities and provinces were cleared of insurrectionists, Iranian proxies were targeted and defeated in the south, and political reconciliation amongst Iraqi constituencies picked up steam. The dual insurgency from al-Qaeda and Tehran has been quelled because of our counterinsurgency, because we crushed our adversaries and worked with our Iraqi allies — not because we merely wanted the war to end, even though we did; not because we declared the war over, because we didn’t; and certainly not because the jihadists wanted the war to end, because they did not, and currently do not want it to end.

Mr. Obama, certain people had to be defeated to get where we are today. As you acknowledge, many of these people will still be around 18 months from now. As with the ebb and flow of all wars, particularly insurgencies, these people — theocrats and fascists and neck-slicers of the worst kind — might not consider themselves defeated in 2010. The “Iraq War” might conclude, but the Long War with Islamist fanaticism — of which Iraq will be a central part — will not conclude in 2010 or even during your presidency (be it four or eight years).

President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki signed the Status of Forces Agreement, a binding treaty which ensures U.S. troops will remain in Iraq until January 1, 2012. President Obama has acknowledged this and foresees 30,000 to 50,000 U.S. forces remaining in Iraq after 2010 for “advisory” purposes, a South Korea-like alliance. This is healthy, so long as President Obama also acknowledges the following: Iraq is the new Israel, in that its tyrannical neighbors will periodically attempt to liquidate it.

The war against Iraq ended in 2003. The war within Iraq is nearly over. But the war for Iraq, Mr. Obama, will go on for many years.

A reality check on Iran and the 'bomb'

(Compiler's note: An interesting must read article.)

By Richard M Bennett

There now appears to be a growing consensus of expert opinion that Iran is but a few short months away from being capable of producing its first crude nuclear weapon.

Some may choose to see this event as "crossing the red line" and even as a trigger for military action as the threat of a nuclear capable Iran may well simply not be tolerated in some quarters.

However, before such an argument can be easily accepted, it would be wise to consider just what actually constitutes a threat.

So is Iran now or likely to be anytime soon a genuine "clear and present danger" to either Israel or the West?

To many within the Intelligence community, only a genuine capability and a clear intent equates to an actual threat.

Failing to learn the lesson of Iraq
Failure to stick to this essential truth sadly provided the backdrop to the gross mistake made over Iraq and Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.

British premier Tony Blair and president George W Bush in their head-long gallop towards war made much of the claim that there was a threat and it would seem, perverted such intelligence information that was available to support this otherwise unsubstantiated claim.

Their respective national intelligence services, the Central Intelligence Agency

and SIS (MI6) had significantly failed to provide incontrovertible proof of either a genuine Iraqi WMD capability or a clear intent to use such weapons.

This factor was deliberately ignored or perhaps even suppressed by the US and British governments and this deceit would only emerge much later in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

In the time-honored political blame avoidance game, both Bush and Blair moved quickly to ensure that the intelligence services themselves would carry the main responsibility for this failure, neatly sidestepping any serious chance of being held to account for their own incompetence and culpability by their respective electorates.

Indeed, the British government remains so worried about the exposure of these unpalatable facts that even in 2009 current Justice Minister Jack Straw will reportedly exercise veto powers to block publication of key cabinet minutes under freedom of information laws.

Straw added that he could not permit the release of records from 2003 discussions over the invasion of Iraq because it would cause too much "damage" to democracy.

Iran's nuclear progress
So does Iran instead provide a genuine threat or is it still more of a danger to itself?

There is now probably sufficient information available to world bodies such as the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency for many observers to finally accept that within a matter of months Iran may be capable of producing enough weapons-grade uranium to build its first crude nuclear weapon.

That said, Iran almost certainly remains five years or more away from having a genuine war-fighting nuclear capability.

It would though now appear likely that Iran has finally managed to overcome most of its outstanding technical difficulties in weaponizing uranium.

This is still not a newly discovered fact, despite the constant changes in position on the subject by the US intelligence community and the advice it offers to the White House.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies predicted in September 2005 that by feeding the uranium it produces back through a minimum of 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran may only take as little as three years to produce some 25 kilograms of weaponized uranium. This is assumed to be enough for a prototype nuclear weapon.

Iran now has about 50,000 fast-spinning centrifuges; including increasing numbers of the much improved IR2 working round the clock and this in theory should be more than sufficient for a full-scale nuclear-weapons program.

However, simply having enough suitability modified material does not in itself produce a workable weapon and the problems still facing Tehran's reported nuclear weapons program remain immense.

The level of sophisticated engineering involved in producing a viable weapon takes years to evolve and would almost certainly require external scientific help from Iran's known allies, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia, which is building a nuclear plant for Iran that is near completion.

An effective trigger to detonate the weapon must still be manufactured and tested. Then the weapon must be tested, a major problem in itself. Keeping such a test secret would effectively be nigh on impossible, and despite claims that tremors recorded by the United States Geological Survey on October 21 and 25 last year were the result of Iranian underground nuclear explosions, it is highly unlikely that Iran has attempted such a test yet.

Any nuclear device would also need to be produced in a somewhat miniaturized form to create a weapon capable of being deployed in the warhead of the types of long-range missiles now available or carried under the wings of one of Iran's increasingly elderly fleet of jet strike aircraft.

Even then, further and lengthy testing would certainly be required to ensure that any WMD that might be fired at Israel or any of Iran's Arab neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia, would indeed explode or that the missiles used were accurate enough to actually hit their target areas.

Then there is the small matter of producing enough of these weapons to create a genuine and believable nuclear threat or indeed a putative deterrent. And this still assumes that the Iranian government has developed suicidal tendencies and that the nation as a whole has a death wish.

Consequences of using nuclear weapons
Any nuclear attack on Israel would probably see the prevailing winds carry much of the radioactive fallout back across the Palestinian-controlled West Bank; Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, the oil fields of northern Saudi Arabia and much of Iran itself.

However, the main consequences of any such nuclear strike on the cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa and such important strategic targets as the nuclear facilities at Dimona, would be Israel's own immediate nuclear response and the inevitable near total destruction of many strategically important targets in Iran.

Tehran's military, economic and civilian infrastructure would be devastated and this could involve the deaths of as many as 30-50% of its entire population within just a few short years after the nuclear attack.

Indeed, with an almost guaranteed and probably even more devastating US response to any such attack on Israel or indeed one of Washington's Arab allies, Iran may even effectively cease to exist altogether as a functioning country.

The immense fallout from such a devastating nuclear retaliation would also gravely endanger much of Pakistan and northern India, and pose a potentially catastrophic threat to many hundreds of millions of the citizens of those two countries alone.

Nuclear weapons – a false hope for Iran?
Simply put, the mere possession of the nuclear bomb will not automatically give Iran a greater usable military power or increase its overall influence in the region, as its leadership apparently anticipates.

While if Tehran's leadership were actually foolish enough to use nuclear weapons, it would undoubtedly ensure the near total destruction of the Islamic Republic of Iran, turning it into an uninhabitable wasteland.

A genuine nuclear capability could in all probability turn out to be a greater long-term threat to Iran's own survival than to any of its neighbors.

Nuclear weapons for deterrence?
It could be argued that the possession of a small number of nuclear-tipped missiles could provide Iran with a deterrent against attack.

Indeed, this belief may well have helped drive Iran's ally North Korea to produce such weapons in the face of continued international condemnation.

However, few rational observers could seriously argue that North Korea would risk actually using them against its southern neighbor as such an action would ensure its own destruction at the hands of South Korea's ally, the US.

This same rationale could be applied to Iran, unless an argument can be made for Tehran welcoming its own nuclear annihilation.

Taking Iran's security requirements seriously
Much attention is paid, and rightly so, to the security of Israel and to the interests of the United States, but little attention has been given to Iran's security needs - the regional problems facing Iran are indeed serious.

Not only does Iran have an ongoing Kurdish (Party For a Free Life in Kurdistan - PJAK) insurgency in its northwestern provinces and a growing Baloch insurgency in the southeastern border areas with Pakistan, the government in Tehran is also deeply concerned at being surrounded by countries that are in various states of collapse or conflict - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the former Soviet Central Asian countries and by potentially hostile forces such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and the massive US military presence in the Gulf.

However, it remains difficult to find an enemy likely to need deterring from an attack on Iran by its possession of nuclear weapons. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are unlikely foes, while the chances of Saudi Arabia or Israel attempting an invasion are quite laughable.

Only the US has the military power to attempt such an attack and Washington would probably only feel it necessary to do so to prevent Tehran achieving just such a nuclear capability.

It seems likely, though, that against this backdrop of perceived insecurity, Iran will still continue to pursue a nuclear insurance strategy at whatever cost to its international relations.

Iran as a future nuclear supermarket
Perhaps one of the greatest causes for Western and Israeli concern is the prospect of Iran's nuclear technology and weapons-grade material being passed to other states such as Syria or to even less scrupulous groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and worst of all, al-Qaeda.

The same counter-argument must, however, be deployed once again.

With modern forensic techniques allied to continual surveillance by Western intelligence, it remains highly unlikely that the technology and materials used in any terrorist attack would not be quickly traced to Tehran.

The same devastating response could be expected as it is almost inconceivable that Iran would be allowed to escape its punishment and ultimate destruction.

The last resort - the military option
Iran is well aware that its WMD facilities could be targets. Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 and laid waste another similar facility in Syria in 2007.

Tehran's nuclear program is therefore widely dispersed, well hidden and often buried up to 25 meters underground. It is also increasingly well defended by a sophisticated air defense system. The Israeli air force could seriously damage many of Iran's important facilities with conventional weapons, but not destroy it. Only the United States has the numbers and range of weapons needed to demolish the entire program, which is stretched across more than 100 sites, in a massive pre-emptive strike. However, such an all-out attack would create extensive collateral damage and large numbers of civilian casualties.

An alternative may be for constant relatively small-scale attacks on the main facilities at Bushehr, Natanz and other strategically important targets to cripple Iran's nuclear ambitions.

In other words, a campaign of attrition using a combination of closely targeted air and cruise missile attacks and sabotage operations on the ground to simply wear down Tehran's resistance.

This may be Israel's preferred method and one that Washington could be more prepared to buy into. Whatever action Israel and the US may eventually decide on, time is still running out and the military option could well have a sell-by-date of mid-2010 at the latest.

The Iran problem
Except in the highly unlikely circumstance that it has already managed to produce a significant number of nuclear weapons in complete secrecy, then Iran is not yet a clear and present danger to its neighbors or to Western interests.

There can be little doubt that Iran is a potentially major destabilizing factor in the Middle East, it has a more than irrational foreign policy and quite openly supports groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine, and it may indeed eventually become a nuclear threat.

But in the long run possession of nuclear weapons is unlikely to be of any tangible benefit to the mullahs, while their actual use would bring the quick and completely justified destruction of the state of Iran.

Whatever the Western powers or Israel finally decide is the appropriate diplomatic, economic or military action to take in response, it must be hoped that it will be made only on the basis of sound intelligence, after careful evaluation has been made of all the proven information available and in the absence of any truly viable alternative.

To repeat the mistakes of 2003 would be to invite disaster not only for Iran, but for the remaining creditability and long-term security of the Western democracies themselves.

Richard M Bennett, intelligence and security analyst, AFI Research.

Intelligence for the President--and Everyone Else

(Compiler's note: Well now -- this thought piece must certainly be in the must read column.)

By ROBERT DAVID STEELE VIVAS

Today’s secret intelligence community costs the U.S. taxpayer over $65 billion a year, and yet, according to General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret), provides less than 4% of the decision support needed by a major government executive. This is the same community that has violated the Constitution at least three times, with warrantless wiretapping, rendition for torture, and more recently, a homeland surveillance grid that is a hair away from effecting a police state. This is the same community that is completely useless as a source of objective information able to help the President and those purporting to represent the public in connecting means (revenue) with ways (spending) and ends (outcomes).

The U.S. taxpayer is being screwed by the Obama Administration with “Empire as Usual.” As I wrote in my latest book ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig, and as others have documented, this election was a fraud. Seventeen percent of the eligible voters elected Obama, triumphing over the fifteen percent that voted for McCain. Upon entering office, instead of reaching out to Cynthia McKinny, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, and others representing the two thirds of America that did not vote, the Voices Not Heard, Obama immediately abandoned his transpartisan campaign rhetoric and adopted the prevailing Washington paradigm of bi-partisanship. As Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform likes to point out, bipartisanship is what you get when the two parties that exclude all others from power get together to screw the American taxpayer. ENOUGH!

Obama’s appointments to the top three positions of the totally fragmented and out-of-control U.S. Intelligence Community are mixed.

The new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Admiral Dennis Blair, USN (Ret), is a good man badly suited to the job, and he committed intellectual suicide on day one by declaring the economic crisis to be “the” threat to national security—evidently he has not read the report from LtGen Brent Scowcroft, USAF(Ret) and other members of the Panel on High-Level Threats and Challenges. Leon Panetta, the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could be a wild card, with his extraordinary knowledge, as a former Chief of Staff to the President, and as a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, of what Presidents actually need to know. However, as of this writing, he has allowed himself to be sucked into the secret world, where he is surrounded by sycophants, liars, and bureaucrats out of touch with reality. Finally, we have Chas Freeman, selected to chair the National Intelligence Council—this is a man with so little integrity and so little intelligence that he is world-famous for prostituting himself to the Saudis and serving as their shill for the global distribution of a Saudi history “textbook” replete with fabrications, incitements to violence, and libel against Israel in particular, the West in general. Among those remaining in power are LtGen Keith Alexander, USA, who covered up and destroyed the ABLE DANGER discovery of two of the 9-11 terrorists prior to 9-11, rather than share them with the FBI. This is the same person who wants $12 billion dollars to achieve cyber-security, but who will actually use that money to assure digital nakedness for every single person, thing, and datum. I do not trust him.

ENOUGH. It is time for We the People to demand public intelligence in the public interest, to free Obama from the clutches of the closed circle of power that is totally out of touch with both reality and the public interest, and to restore the Constitution, a balanced budget, and a foreign policy committed to creating a prosperous world at peace. Obama can listen and lead, or not listen and lose it all.

Right now $65 billion a year, 70% of which is spent on contractors rather than government employees, buys a vast range of largely failed technical systems for collecting everything it is possible to steal, while ignoring the 80% that is openly available in 183 languages we do not comprehend. The secret world has no knowledge of history, of culture, of family and tribal networks, of values. The secret world is not capable of bringing all that it knows together in any one place because it has never invested in processing what it collects. The secret world is not capable of making sense of what it collects, despite a massive hiring binge, because its security and payroll habits demand the hiring of children rather than mid-career accomplished authorities, and its cult of secrecy precludes its consulting world-class experts who lack US citizenship and the kind of boring sedentary life that is easy for thick-necked security officers to “validate” as being free from foreign influence.

Perhaps even more importantly, because secrets not known to the public can be ignored by both the Executive and Congress, our Cabinet departments continue to focus on maximizing budget share (plundering the individual taxpayer) and protecting special interests (the recipients of the tax dollar). There is nothing “intelligent” about how we are governed, for ideology and pork displace substance.

To illustrate the insanity of what now passes for “intelligence” at our expense, let me simply describe how each of the secret disciplines would approach the simple question of reporting on the outcome of a baseball game.

+ Clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT) would strive to recruit at least one player on each team, and they would be given complex covert communications arrangements for reporting, arrangements not likely to work while they are still playing. At the same time, using pre-arranged signals from the stands, the bribed players would be “tasked” to drop or catch any given ball depending on orders from Washington.

+ Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) would combine a dedicated satellite in outer-space seeking to listen to every conversations taking place on every cell phone being using during the game, with the installation of listening devices (“bugs”) in each dug-out, hoping to hear the coaches and players, and from all of that, figure out how the game is going.

+ Imagery intelligence (IMINT), would in the past have taken a picture of the ball field every three days. Today we can have a Predator circling the ball field 24/7, and if we don’t like one of the umpire’s calls, the secret world simply takes him out with a missile, never mind the collateral damage.

+ Measurements and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT), the most expensive and least productive of the secret disciplines, would install extremely complex equipment around the ball field and seek to “sniff” the ball each time it leaves the bat, and when that does not work, ask for billions more.

Remarkably absent from the secret world’s repertoire is Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), something I and 7,500 others have sought to advance these past 20 years. At almost no cost, this discipline listens and watches using publicly-available and generally free open sources, and if we wish to alter the outcome of the game, we change the rules of the game: any catch by anyone in the audience is an out. That’s called Collective Intelligence, something the secret world cannot fathom because Collective Intelligence not only knows everyone has something to contribute, but it shines so much sunlight on all information in all languages all the time that the lies protected by secrecy are quickly exposed.

Congress and the Executive are no longer representative of We the People, and can no longer be trusted as stewards of our Commonwealth. Our tax dollars are being spent in ways that reduce our prosperity and decrease our security, because Congress and the Executive are making decisions based on a mix of corruption, ideology, partisanship, and ignorance. As I wrote in the late 1990’s, the gap between people with power and people with knowledge has grown cataclysmic. Obama, for all of his talk of change and hope, has not demonstrated in a single appointment, a single speech, a single decision, any break what-so-ever from “Empire as Usual.”

In the balance of this commentary I will outline the one thing that President Obama can do now, at virtually no cost, to honor his campaign promises, restore the Constitution, and create a prosperous world at peace. This is not rocket science. It requires only one little word, a word that Buckminster Fuller selected to represent all that is essential about feedback loops within and among complex systems. The word: INTEGRITY.

Everything about how we elect our government at local, state, and federal levels lacks integrity. Everything about how they inform themselves and make decisions lacks integrity. Everything about how the public dollar is spent lacks integrity. Worst of all, everything being done “in our name” both at home and abroad lacks integrity. The time has come to either abolish the government, or restore its integrity.

We do that by demanding of President Obama the transparency of which he is the purported champion. Instead of focusing $65 billion a year on “secrets for the President,” as is now the case, the President should accept the recommendation of the 9-11 Commission (on page 413 of their report), and create the Open Source Agency (OSA) as an independent agency co-equal to the CIA but under diplomatic auspices.

The OSA, which I and others have defined in collaboration with senior civil servants in OMB as well as within the Department of Defense (DoD) would initially cost only $125 million a year, ramping up over six years to a final annual cost of $3 billion a year. Once fully operational, it would allow the reduction of the secret intelligence budget by at least 50%; it would illuminate the benefits of redirecting at least a third of what we spend on war toward waging peace; and it would expose all corruption in all government spending at all levels—we can cut so much fraud, waste, and abuse as to eliminate individual income taxes along with all the corporate loopholes while generating ample revenue from a tiny tax on all financial transactions among banks and corporations. With an OSA I can wipe out the deficit in three years and cut future unfunded Medicare costs by 90%. INTEGRITY is priceless, and it favors the public over special interests.

The OSA would consist of the following “pieces,” each of which would rapidly restore INTEGRITY to the public policy and spending process, not only in the USA, but around the world in every government, every corporation, and every non-profit or civil society organization.

• A diplomatic Office of Information Sharing Treaties and Agreements, led by a senior Ambassador, would rapidly accelerate the aggregate sharing of information within the digital cloud, with full provision for all necessary aspects of privacy, accountability, and the protection of intellectual property. The Information Commons does not exist, and it must exist if we are to save the Global Commons.

• A diplomatic Office of the Assistant Secretary General for Decision Support within the Department of Safety and Security at the United Nations. This office would be responsible for identifying the intelligence (decision support) needs of all elements of the UN System, while also striving to meet the decision support needs of all those engaged in stabilization and reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations. It would also be the sponsor for a Global Range of Needs Table, an online matrix of needs down to the household level, able to connect the one billion rich individuals with the five billion poor, at an item by item level of giving. This is how we harmonize close to $1 trillion a year in planned giving along with social and corporate investments, while enticing the 80% of the rich who do not give to the poor, to do so on a peer-to-peer basis.

• A Multinational Decision Support Center (MDSC) and Network, a global grid implementing the Swedish concept of Multinational, Mutliagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2). Built around the militaries of the world, this would be a hub within each country for both harvesting knowledge from and providing knowledge to each of the other seven tribes of intelligence (government, law enforcement, academia, business, media, non-profit, and civil society including labor unions and religions). It would deal exclusively with open source information, eschewing all secrets, while enabling global real-time translations in 183 languages.

• Community Decision Support Networks (CDSN) would be funded within each of the 50 states and commonwealths, with a special network for the Tribal Nations. As with the MDSC, these would deal exclusively with open source information, and serve—with National Guard personnel manning each state’s “center”—as a means for receiving and making sense of bottom up early warning of threats to the community; and as a means of providing every community with direct free access to useful information from all global sources in all languages (with all necessary translation as needed).

This is what we have now in the way of very TIRED 20th Century Intelligence: secrets for the President; obsession with seven “Hard Target” countries; administered on basis of inputs or budget share; reliance on centralized secret analysis by children; priority of support to military aggression; Ignore OMB and the General Accountability Office (GAO); ineffective in support to Cabinet Secretaries and individual action officers; Ineffective in support to state & local governments; and excessive expenditures on secret technical collection.

This is what we could have in the way of very WIRED 21st Century Intelligence, with immediate benefits: decision-support for ALL officials and citizens; “Global Coverage” of all threats and issues in all languages; management on basis of public interest outcomes; reliance on distributed public knowledge and wisdom; respect and meet needs of OMB and GAO; provide constant comprehensive decision support and raw global information feeds to every schoolhouse and chamber of commerce; balanced expenditures on processing and sense-making that can be shared, instead of just “secrets for the President.

President Obama can bring to life the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison:

A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.-- Thomas Jefferson

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. -- James Madison

National Intelligence in this era cannot be about “secrets for the President.” It must be about empowering the President—and everyone else—with the extraordinary personal and organizational power that comes from information that has been discovered, discriminated, distilled, and converted into actionable intelligence—decision-support.

Operating under this new paradigm, the DNI would be the President’s chief aide in harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, and in creating a “Smart Nation” that will be secure as well as competitive in what is clearly the age of applied intelligence—applied Collective Intelligence.

A truly inspired DNI would ask that the OSA, while funded by the DNI and totally responsive to the DNI’s severely deficient access to global multilingual open sources of information, be a completely independent agency, a virtual “fourth estate” willing and able to ensure that every citizen has access to real-world, real-time intelligence, arming America with the power unique to an informed citizenry.

As the Rasmussen poll just documented, 73% of the public trusts public judgment over that of politicians. There is absolutely nothing wrong with America, or the world, that cannot be rapidly and constructively addressed by re-engaging the Collective Intelligence of the Whole Earth. This is how we do it.

Robert David Steele Vivas, a recovering spy and senior civilian founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, is a 30-year veteran of government service across intelligence, information technology, military, and policy support functionalities. He is the founding CEO of OSS.Net, and of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity devoted to creating public intelligence in the public interest. As a hobby, he is the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction. All of his books are free online at www.oss.net, as well as available in hard-copy from Amazon.

Culture of corruption?

by Sean Davis

After sweeping back into power in 2006 by accusing Republicans of fostering a "culture of corruption" in the nation's capital, congressional Democrats now find themselves in an ethical quagmire of their own. A.B.C. News recently reported that PMA Group, a defense lobbying firm with significant ties to several top Democrats, was raided last November by the F.B.I. in connection with an investigation into whether the firm traded campaign cash for federal favors. The federal raid has already prompted demands from at least one lawmaker to convene a full-scale congressional ethics inquiry into the connection between campaign donations and the special-interest pork projects known as earmarks. CTC

Founded two decades ago by Paul Magliocchetti, a former top aide to Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Penn.), PMA quickly grew from a regional boutique to a lobbying powerhouse (the firm's initials stand for Paul Magliocchetti Associates). Between 1998 and 2008, the firm ranked in the top ten of all U.S. lobbying firms, with $113.7 million in total revenue according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

PMA specialized in getting earmarks, projects funded at the recommendation of a single lawmaker, often without debate or oversight, for small defense contractors. As the firm grew, it became famous for establishing small, unproven companies in the districts of powerful lawmakers in the hopes of winning federal cash to promote "economic development."

An analysis of last year's spending bills shows that PMA was remarkably successful; it secured 154 separate projects for 68 different clients, totaling nearly $300 million in taxpayer funding. Even more striking, however, is the fact that more than one-third of the funding was provided by only five lawmakers, four of whom are senior Democrats with significant power on the House appropriations committee.

Mr. Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense spending subcommittee, handed out $38.1 million to PMA clients via the 2008 spending bills. Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) sponsored 16 projects worth $23.8 million, while Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) sponsored five earmarks worth $12.1 million. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who promised in 2006 to "earmark the sh*t" out of the appropriations committee if given the opportunity, kept his word and funneled nearly $11 million to PMA clients through eight separate line-items.

Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young (R-Fla.), the only Republican found in the top five sponsors of PMA pork, recommended nine separate earmarks totaling $20.4 million.

The firm's lobbyists were every bit as generous to their pork patrons. PMA lobbyists provided nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions to the five lawmakers since 2001 according to a joint analysis by Congressional Quarterly, a D.C.-based newspaper, and Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan government watchdog. In the 2008 election cycle, five of Mr. Murtha's top six donors were PMA clients. The seventh largest campaign donor was the lobbying firm itself. All told, PMA and its clients donated a whopping $775,000 to Mr. Murtha's 2008 election campaign.

The embattled firm was apparently so thankful for the federal largesse sent its way that it may have even created fake donors to help funnel more money to its friends in Congress, a clear violation of federal campaign finance laws. An investigation by the Washington Post found several campaign donors who had never worked for the company listed as PMA employees on federal election filings. Federal authorities are focused on whether Mr. Magliocchetti, the former Murtha staffer who founded PMA, may have illegally reimbursed his employees for campaign contributions made in their names.

Combined with the Countrywide mortgage scandal surrounding Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), news reports that Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) may have lied about his fundraising activities for Rod Blagojevich, and an ongoing House ethics investigation into whether Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) evaded taxes and filed false financial disclosure forms, the emerging PMA scandal has the potential to wreak havoc on the Democratic party's electoral prospects in 2010. The G.O.P was routed in 2006 due in part to various scandals surrounding the party. If Beltway Democrats wish to maintain their hold on power two years from now, they need to give taxpayers a little more change we can believe in and a lot less corruption we can count on.

Pelosi's List: Who's On Her Bad Side?

(Compiler's note: Here is a small insight into politics at its best.)

By Glenn Thrush

Politico: House Speaker Keeps Politics Personal By Keeping Mental "Disfavor File"

Nancy Pelosi likes to keep lists.

As a young political protégé of her father, Baltimore Mayor Tommy D’Alesandro, the preteen speaker-to-be would spend hours leafing through the list of voters her father had helped in some way - fixing a pothole, finding them a job, even getting them a hot meal.

It was known as the "favor file."

Those around Pelosi say she has always kept her own favor file. But, like her father, she has also maintained a "disfavor file" in her head - a roster of those whom she believes have screwed up, betrayed her, challenged her or merely annoyed her.

In some cases, Pelosi has mended fences with people on the list, most notably House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), a former party rival who has become an indispensable lieutenant.

But she has also moved to strip power from longtime adversaries - and she has a propensity for remembering slights and grievances for years.

Hawkish Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who clashed with Pelosi on Iraq and intelligence policy, assumed she was in line to become chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats seized control of the House in 2006. But Pelosi refused to appoint Harman to even a seat on the committee, and she handed the chairmanship to Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas).

As speaker, she did nothing to stop her ally Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) from ousting Rep. John Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee after clashing with the octogenarian Michigan Democrat on energy policy and global warming.

The list, Pelosi allies say, is real - even as they warn that overstating her vindictiveness feeds into the right-wing caricatures of Pelosi and perpetuates ethnic and gender stereotypes.

Moreover, they argue that portraying her as payback-obsessed misses a fundamental political point: Despite her commanding majority, Pelosi is painfully aware that powerful speakers, including Republican Joe Cannon, have been toppled for using their power heavy-handedly.

"She’s not a vengeful person, per se, and she thinks that people who do bad things eventually get their due without her intervention," a longtime associate said on condition of anonymity.

"But that doesn’t mean she forgets."

So who’s on Pelosi’s list now?

1. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.). No Democrat has done quite so much in so short a time to arouse Pelosi’s disdain as the failed-Redskins-quarterback-turned-ambitious-North-Carolina-congressman.

The conservative, anti-abortion Shuler would have made the list for voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package, but the way he went about it didn’t help; Shuler told an audience back home that “House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed” on the $787 billion package.

The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler’s motives are as much political as they are ideological - and that he’s picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year.

Unless Shuler is planning a long House career, picking a fight with Pelosi may indeed have its advantages: His 2006 opponent, incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, scored points by portraying Shuler as a Pelosi acolyte.

"I don’t know if Shuler is talking without thinking or if he’s just making the calculation that distancing himself from Pelosi is never a bad thing to do," said a senior House leadership aide.

2. Rush Limbaugh. He’s Pelosi’s sworn enemy - and she views him as beneath contempt and unworthy of her comment.

Asked about the right-wing talk-radio king the other day, Pelosi said: "I don’t speak to that. I’m the speaker of the House. I don’t get into the popular culture."

3. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.. Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made an all-out effort to help the veteran Scranton congressman win a tight race against longtime nemesis Lou Barletta last fall.

So aides say the speaker was taken aback when the western Pennsylvania representative bucked leadership by voting “no” on the original version of the stimulus bill.

He voted for the conference report later, but hard feelings persist.

4. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). It’s no surprise that Pelosi isn’t crazy about the young, aggressive minority whip, who has marshaled an anti-Pelosi GOP insurgency in the House.

Pelosi has good personal relationship with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). But members of her leadership cadre are starting to really dislike Cantor, despite their public pose of studied indifference. Part of the reason: Cantor is employing many of the same techniques Pelosi used so successfully to torture former House Speaker Dennis Hastert when she was the Democratic whip in 2002 and 2003.

It remains to be seen if Cantor’s power-of-"no" philosophy will work - congressional approval ratings have actually spiked on the stimulus - but he’s gotten traction by nitpicking Pelosi’s proposals and magnifying the majority’s blunders.

5. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). The fiscally conservative gadfly would have topped the list had he not reversed his first stimulus “no” by voting in favor of the final package.

Even so, the most outspoken of the Blue Dog Democrats is still on thin ice with leadership, thanks to his comment that he “actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks” for initially bucking Pelosi on the stimulus. That required a hasty Obama-Pelosi cleanup effort that resulted in a Cooper clarification - although he continues to express dissatisfaction with what he sees as Pelosi’s top-down leadership style.

Counterintuitively, Cooper enjoys a good relationship with many in Pelosi’s inner circle, including Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Waxman - with whom Cooper shared a long lunch at the Democrats’ recent retreat in Williamsburg, Va.

6. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). The squeakiest liberal wheel in the House has always been more than willing to articulate his differences with leadership.

But his role as the lone Democrat to switch from "yes" on the original stimulus bill to a "no" on the House-Senate compromise was viewed as grandstanding in the speaker’s suite.

DeFazio, who chairs a subcommittee on highways and transit, makes a compelling counterargument, saying he was betrayed by Pelosi’s acceptance of lower-than-promised allocations for infrastructure representing 8 percent of the total package.

7. The House Appropriations Committee staff. Pelosi’s relationship with Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) remains strong. But she was reportedly infuriated that Obey’s staff failed to scrub the first draft of the stimulus bill of politically damaging proposals such as billions for resodding the National Mall, funding anti-STD programs and providing free contraceptives.

8. CIA Director Leon Panetta. Pelosi supported Panetta’s appointment at the CIA and has said nary a negative public word about her fellow Californian and former colleague.

Nonetheless, people with ties to both say the speaker was more than a little annoyed that Panetta backed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to create an independent panel to redraw the state’s legislative districts, a proposal that might have endangered Pelosi’s Democratic allies in the state Legislature.

"If you asked her, she’d say she loves Leon, but there is a strain" in their relationship, said a person with knowledge of the situation.

Dishonorable mentions: Pelosi allies Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and John P. Murtha (D-a.) aren’t in the speaker’s doghouse, but many people around her think they should be.

Murtha, whom Pelosi disastrously backed over Hoyer in the 2006 majority leader’s contest, is embroiled in a billowing scandal involving the lobbying firm PMA. And Rangel, the powerful House Ways & Means chairman, has been bogged down for months in an ethics investigation.

"Nancy is standing by them, to her detriment," said a senior Democratic aide in the House.

Backdoor Dealing Threaten Free Speech

(Compiler's note: A must read letter.)

MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER
MARCH 2, 2009

According to the MRC’s own CNSNews.com, the Senate last week passed a Broadcaster Freedom Amendment by a vote of 87-11. And while the liberal media rushed to declare the Fairness Doctrine dead, they all but ignored the “Durbin Amendment” that essentially primes the pump for silencing conservative speech through backdoor FCC regulations!

Robert, the liberal media would have you believe that the gag order against conservative talk has been once and for all lifted.

Nothing could be further from the truth!


++ A Stealth Attack on Your Free Speech Rights!

Robert, the Durbin amendment requires the FCC to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership.”

Upon closer look, this “stealth” attack on Free Speech Rights is far more insidious because it empowers the government to censor and control the airwaves through backdoor policies that would almost certainly be expanded to include television, newspapers and the Internet!

In other words, the Durbin amendment actually expands the threat beyond Talk Radio to include other stages of free speech!


++ Your Efforts More Important Than Ever

There is little doubt in my mind that we are headed for a showdown over our Free Speech Rights.

Robert, over the next 36 hours, I am urging EVERY member of our MRC Action Team to take fast action—first by signing our Free Speech Alliance Petition, and then by alerting friends and family to the real truth about our Free Speech Rights coming under assault.

As we boldly move forward to protect and preserve our First Amendment Rights, it’s imperative that EVERY member of the MRC Action team stand in support with us during this critical time. If you aren’t sure whether or not you’ve signed our petition, do so again. Our exclusive system will only count you once regardless of how many times you sign.

After adding your name, alert your friends and urge them to join with you in defending your First Amendment Rights by going to the petition here

Time is short. Through this Durbin Amendment, liberal members of Congress now have a way to muzzle conservative voices in the media, and we believe will waste little time moving forward.

Robert, we cannot allow this backdoor assault to go unchallenged!

That’s why I am counting on you to help me rally an additional 20,000 citizen signers of our Free Speech Alliance petition this week alone!

As always, thank you for standing with the MRC.

David Martin

P.S: After signing our petition, forward this message to 30-35 friends today. Urge them to join with you by going to the petition here.

Illegals targeted sheriff as gang initiation

by Jerry Seper

The attempted assassination of a South Carolina deputy sheriff was a gang initiation carried out by three illegal immigrants including a 15-year-old boy who was supposed to "kill a cop" in order to be admitted as a member, according to a confidential Department of Homeland Security advisory.

Lexington County, S.C., Deputy Sheriff Ted Xanthakis and his K-9 police dog, Arcos, were attacked by the three illegals armed with a 12-gauge shotgun during a Feb. 8 incident in West Columbia, S.C., shortly after 3 a.m. The deputy and his dog survived.

Two of the men were identified in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report as members of the Surenos gang, or SUR-13, a collection of Mexican-American street gangs with origins in the oldest barrios of Southern California.

Hundreds of SUR-13 gangs operate in California and have spread to many other parts of the country. The paramilitary organization has been described by federal law enforcement agencies as actively involved in illegal-immigrant and drug smuggling.

According to the ICE report, the attack occurred as the deputy responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle.

The 15-year-old and two others, Carlos Alfredo Diaz De Leon, 17, and Lucino Guzman Guttierrez, 20, were later arrested by sheriff's deputies and members of the U.S. Marshals Service. Diaz De Leon and Guzman Guttierrez were charged with assault and battery with intent to kill.

Deputy Xanthakis and his dog were in a marked patrol car at the time of the shooting.

The 15-year-old was taken to a pre-trial detention facility, where he was awaiting a hearing in family court. Prosecutors said they would recommend that the boy be prosecuted in family court on a charge of assault and battery with intent to kill.

Under state law, law enforcement officials cannot identify the boy because he is a juvenile.

Lexington County Sheriff James R. Metts told reporters that Diaz De Leon, Guzman Guttierrez and the 15-year-old illegally entered the United States from Mexico. He said Diaz De Leon and Guzman Guttierrez were living in West Columbia and a search of their house netted items thought to have been stolen in vehicle break-ins in Lexington County, including a Global Positioning System devices and car stereo systems.

The sheriff also said that deputies recovered the shotgun that was used to shoot at Deputy Sheriff Xanthakis.

ICE detainers have been lodged against the adults.

The ICE report, made public Wednesday by the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), said interviews determined that the 15-year-old was the shooter and the incident was a gang initiation. It said gangs "have long posed a threat to public safety and law enforcement but the threat is now increasing in scope. ... Never before have the street gangs in South Carolina actively targeted law enforcement officers for gang initiation."

ICE agents, as part of a nationwide crackdown on gangs, have arrested members of SUR-13 in Tennessee and Georgia on charges ranging from felony theft and illegal re-entry after deportation to murder, attempted murder, carjacking, armed robbery and drug dealing.

William Gheen, president of ALIPAC, described the attack as the "beginning of America's nightmarish future as we descend into the type of anarchy found in Mexico.

"In Mexico, things have deteriorated so much that police are demoralized and are being killed by these gangs of a weekly basis," he said. "That's what happens when your nation loses respect for the rule of law as we see with the effect of millions of illegal aliens in America."

He said the U.S. needs to secure its border and enforce its immigration laws "or we will begin to lose more officers and as we loose officers, gang rule will replace the rule of law."

Q+A: Is Iran nearing nuclear "breakout" ability?

(Compiler's note: Would someone please rephrase the question? Read the answers closely and draw your own conclusion.)

Admiral Mike Mullen, head of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believed Iran has enough material to make a nuclear bomb, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tehran was not close to having such a weapon.

.... IS IRAN ON THE VERGE OF BOMB STATUS?

No, unless it has secret enrichment facilities and there are no known indications of that. Otherwise Iran would have to overcome a succession of technical challenges, though none as hard as producing quality nuclear fuel in industrial quantities.

These include:

* reconfiguring its existing centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz to reprocess LEU into weapons-grade HEU, or building clandestine facilities without the knowledge of U.N. inspectors

* converting HEU into metal and compressing it small enough to fit into the cone of a missile or other delivery vehicle

* designing a nuclear trigger mechanism

* mastering how to create a sustained nuclear chain reaction with an extra source of neutrons

* assembling the actual warhead, and a reliable means of delivery -- probably a missile

All this could take 2-5 years, depending on Iran's technical prowess, but probably much less time than the 20 years it took Iran to acquire enrichment equipment and knowledge from the nuclear black market and make it work.

ARE THERE OTHER RESTRAINING FACTORS?

Yes. It would be virtually impossible for Iran to "weaponize" the enrichment process at Natanz without the IAEA noticing and sounding the alarm, since the plant is under regular surveillance by inspectors.

Iran has pledged to stick to enrichment for civilian energy only, under routine IAEA monitoring. It has said nuclear weapons are against its Islamic values although its record of nuclear secrecy and limiting IAEA access has raised suspicions.

Assuming Iran had a bomb agenda, which it denies, military diversions would more likely be carried out at a covert plant. That would be almost inconceivable for the IAEA to ferret out since Iran does not observe the agency's Additional Protocol allowing snap inspections beyond declared nuclear sites.

If Iran chose to weaponize enrichment at Natanz, it would probably kick out the IAEA and quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty, drastic steps that would almost certainly provoke Israeli or U.S. attacks to destroy its nuclear facilities.

ARE ENRICHMENT AND A BOMB AGENDA THE SAME THING?

No, but it's not so simple. Iran says it will not refine uranium for anything else but electricity. Being able to enrich at industrial scale is not tantamount to seeking a nuclear weapon and is the sovereign right of NPT members as long as the work remains strictly for peaceful applications.

But the dilemma is that mastering enrichment technology provides a latent ability to build bombs in the near future. That may be all that Iran is seeking, as the ultimate deterrent against attack and a means to assert its regional power, and there is nothing illegal about having such capability.

Dozens of countries have such "breakout" capability, but do not exercise it as NPT members. The distinction between latent capacity and deionization can be virtually invisible in a vast country that limits the scope for U.N. non-proliferation inspections.