"Iran is on the verge of operating a 164-centrifuge cascade with UF6 (uranium hexafluoride gas)," a Western diplomat said, referring to machines arrayed in series, known as cascades, used to produce fuel for nuclear power reactors or material for the explosive core of an atom bomb.

A second diplomat - who, as others, asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue - said Iran was set to go ahead with the cascade work and was doing some last-minute "piping connections".

Iran in mid-February reversed its earlier suspension of enrichment work by putting the feedstock UF6 gas into single centrifuges at a facility in Natanz and has moved on to running a 10-centrifuge and now a 20-centrifuge cascade.

The next step would be a 164-centrifuge cascade, a research-level operation to learn about techniques used in running thousands of centrifuges.

The first diplomat said Iran's rapid progress in uranium enrichment might come up when the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany meet in New York today.

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The 15-member council is considering issuing a statement calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment over fears the Islamic Republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

The diplomat said Iran's move towards operating its 164-centrifuge cascade was "further evidence of the need for urgent UN Security Council action".

"Iran is making faster progress at Natanz than expected," the diplomat said.

Iran is seeking to run more than 50,000 centrifuges in Natanz, an operation that could potentially produce enough highly enriched uranium for up to a dozen atom bombs a year.

A third diplomat said Iran could run the 164-cascade "whenever they want", adding: "Don't underestimate the Iranians."

Looking back, we have an ever-clearer picture of what was going on behind the scenes. Since my leak, there have been more; all because civil servants are disgusted by the manipulation of truth, even outright lies.

Yet, here we are, three years on, with all the knowledge we have about the lack of WMD in Iraq, about the intent on regime change all along, about the lives destroyed, the untold misery of thousands, the renditions, torture, secret prisons and beatings-and still we remain silent about U.S. intentions toward Iran.

Do we believe that the Bush administration is too bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan to dare go anywhere near Iran? Or do we just not care about the mini-nukes, so called low-yield, ground-penetrating nuclear bombs that Bush and his advisers are ready to unleash on its next Middle East target? Even if Bush does not declare all-out war on Iran, the bombing of key installations, with or without a nuclear payload, is an act of aggression and threatens to plunge an already angered and turbulent Middle East into further chaos.

Iran may be saber-rattling, it may even have an extremist government, but so does North Korea, yet we choose the diplomatic route with them always. Of course, North Korea doesn't have that precious commodity, oil. Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers, no wonder she twitches nervously. Little mention is made of India, Pakistan, China or Israel; these countries can arm themselves to the hilt, but it is absolutely out of the question for Iran to possess sources of nuclear energy, let alone means to defend herself.

We must face facts; nuclear nonproliferation as a practical solution is defunct and useless. A blind eye is turned to those we call friends, whilst our foes face the threat of war. A true solution would be gradual decommissioning of all nuclear weapons globally-so why is that never advocated by the leaders of our "peace-loving" nations? How ironic is it that the solution to Iran's nuclear ambition is the threat of nuclear weapons? Since when did two wrongs make a right?

Truth telling and whistle blowing are crucial after a war as ill advised as Iraq-at least it allows us to piece together the facts-but it's too late to save lives. Where are the memos and emails about Iran now?

I urge those in a position to do so to disclose information which relates to this planned aggression; legal advice, meetings between the White House and other intelligence agencies, assessments of Iran's threat level (or better yet, evidence that assessments have been altered), troop deployments and army notifications. Don't let "the intelligence and the facts be fixed around the policy " this time.

Such government activities are not paper-free endeavors. It is not unreasonable speculation to assume that documents are being drafted now or already exist. As the political momentum builds towards a military "solution," it would be wrong to wait until bombs have fallen on Iran and families destroyed before finally informing the public.

I was asked recently about how I chose between the public interest and the national interest when I made my disclosure. I believe there was no choice, because in essence, the two are the same.

The Iraq war has cost the United States and Great Britain dearly, in both financial and human terms. It has cost us credibility around the world. Not only does the majority of world opinion believe the invasion of Iraq was illegal; it also sees us, through the medium of video footage, acting aggressively and cruelly during the occupation of Iraq.

Surely, avoiding all of the above would have been in the public and national interest. As Vietnam War whistleblower Dan Ellsberg said, "Like so many others, I put personal loyalty to the president above all else-above loyalty to the Constitution and above obligation to the law, to truth, to Americans, and to humankind. I was wrong." Don't put your loyalty above truth and the law; help us avoid this unnecessary evil.

Five years into the 21st century and there has been little but conflict and destruction. Is this how we envisaged the new millennium? Is this the future we want for our children, one of fear and conflict? It is time to turn the course of events and start building a new consensus, a consensus of peace and dialogue, of truth and understanding. We cannot and must not rely on others to speak truth to power.

There are many brave and honest individuals working for the U.S. and U.K. governments. This message is directed to you. Look at the enormous deficit your government has created, the billions of dollars used to dominate countries in the Middle East-would this money not have been better spent on education, health, communities and the environment? I urge you to contact the National Security Whistleblowers Association in the United States or other alternative media organizations such as TomPaine.com. Know that you are not alone.

Katharine Gun was a translator at the Britain's communications spy agency, General Communications Headquarters. In 2002, she leaked a top-secret memo to a British newspaper, revealing the U.S. was spying on U.N. Security Council members before their vote on the Iraq war.

Interior Ministry has given proper permission to FBI agents and it has been disclosed in some circles that a Finger Print department has been set up under the supervision of National Police Bureau at IG Office.

If one looks at emerging political scenarios US who wants to attack Iran under the guise of Tehran's uranium enrichment program, these FBI agents will be used against Iran and for the time being they have been given the task to keep an eye on all such organizations and people who are working for Iranian interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Sources have also confided to the said scribe that US authorities also think that people who want to travel to US on forged identity might be terrorists therefore FBI Immigration Wing thoroughly investigate all such people who want to travel to US whether legally or illegally.

The US intelligence agencies have also launched a Satellite system to transfer all gathered information from Pakistan to US in wink of an eye. Whereas these agents have also been assigned another task and that is to keep a vigil on the activities of Chinese embassy.

US, which used the incident of 9/11 for its advantage as it not only romped the Islamic states of Afghanistan and Iraq and killed hundreds and thousands of innocent people under the hollow and so called slogan of war against terrorism and to restore its imposed democracy in both states.

The establishment of FBI network by US at Pakistani soil for accomplishing its nefarious designs against China and Iran also helped Washington to label Pakistan as a "den of terrorists".

When Inspector General of Police Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry was contacted and asked about the FBI agents and their proper office, he said there are no FBI agents at his office and only a finger print wing has been established there, which is working under National Police Bureau.

We have no idea and knowledge about FBI activities, he concluded.

When Pulse Contacted Mr Shoaib Suddhal, Chairman National Police Bureau to get his view on the FBI office in IG Office, he said in 2003 Pakistan signed an agreement with US to set up a state of the art finger prints department in the country. Initially US provided Rs 10 million and latest equipment and we have received all these things. The wing is working efficiently and has helped a lot in investigations, he added.

Mr Suddhal said that the department will be made digital from next year.

He also said that digital finger prints departments will be established throughout the country initially these centers will be set up at provincial headquarters and later these will be established at district headquarter level.

He also said that entire network will be made Online and the entire finger print record will be available Online at federal level. The entire system will be established with an estimated cost of 1.5 billion rupees. The new system, he said has improved the surveillance and investigation from suspects.

In 1514, Ottoman Turks invaded Azerbaijan (northwest provinces of Iran) and by the treaty of Chaldran occupying some of the area until Nadir Shah expelled them in 18th century. In 1801, Rus-sians annexed Georgia. By the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkomanchai (1828), Russia deprived Iran of its Caucasian provinces, including the territory north of the Aras River, together with a strip of land along the Caspian Sea that is now part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Russian expansion into Central Asia continued, and finally, by the conquest of Transcaspia in 1884, Iran lost Bukhara, Khiva, and Merv.

In 1920, the Soviet Union invaded Gilan, the coastal province on the west of the Caspian Sea, and set up an independent pro Russian state. During the World War II, (1941) although Iran had stayed neutral, allied forces led by the British and the former Soviet Union) attacked Iran occupying the southern and northern provinces respectively. Subsequently, British removed Reza Shah, the foun-der of the Pahlavi dynasty from power and replaced him with his son, Mohammed Reza Shah.

In 1953, the U.S.'s CIA and UK's MI-6 staged the military coup and toppled Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mossadegh's government, which by any Western standards was much more democratic than that of Americans under the Bush -Cheney administration. In fact, the anti-American revolution of 1979 was the direct consequences of US's policy of regime change in Iran in which US brought down the democratic government and restored the absolute monarchy.

In spite of that, Bush-Cheney administration frantically pursuing the policy of regime change advocated by Israel, who has been exerting intense pressure through its U.S. supporters to launch war of aggression against Iran under the false justification of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In 1980, the US and England in conjunction with their supinely obedient rulers, kings, emirs, and sheiks in the Persian Gulf encouraged Saddam to invade Iran, financed Iraq's war machine, and supplied Saddam with technical, logistics, intelligence, chemical and biological weapons.

To safeguard the great nation's territorial integrity and its sovereignty, Iran had no choice but to rebuild and modernize its defense forces. Despite its military might in the region and the geostrate-gic importance of Iran in the world, which stretches from Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, Iran has always played by the rule and abided by the international law and has never attempted to exploit or impose its will on the neighboring countries or any other sovereign nations for two centuries.

Iran even stayed away from reclaiming its lost territories, which was historically and legally part of the Persian Empire. For example, Bahrain Island is an archipelago consisting of about thirty-three islands situated midway in the Persian Gulf with historical connections to Iran. In the year 1521, the Portuguese colonial forces swept into the island ferociously beheading its king, and ruled the island up until 1602.

During the Safavids dynasty, in 1603, the Portuguese were expelled from the Persian Gulf, including Bahrain by the Iranians naval forces. As a part of Persian Empire, since then the island adminis-tered and governed by the Iranians until 1783, and subsequently, the island occupied and run by the British until 1971. Before the British's withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, Iranian parlia-ment in November 1957 unanimously passed a legislation decreeing Bahrain, as the 14th Province of Iran. However, because of the peaceful and non-confrontational manners of Iranians in nature, the issue was referred to the UN for peaceful solution.

The UN held a referendum in the island for independence or reunification with Iran. Since the out-come of the referendum favored independence, Iran accepted the outcome immediately. As a result, the UN decided to allow the Bahrainis to form an independent state. Based on the UN decision and backed by Iran, Bahrain, with 70% of Shiite population declared its independence on August 15, 1971.

Ironically, the same very island is now turned out to be a launching pad for the US Fifth Fleet Head-quarters. From whence they break into the neighboring countries terrorizing and attacking the sov-ereign nations based on the fabrication of lies and deceptions in order to steal their natural re-sources, which is the reminiscent of Hulagu Khan's Mongol forces in Baghada and Kublai Khan's armada in the Mediterranean Sea.

Even though British ended its physical presence in the Persian Gulf's sheikhdoms, its influence re-mained strong in the region. Nonetheless, right after the former protector's withdrawals, US took over the region and became the new protector of the states. In 1981, six Persian Gulf Arab states, which are comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emir-ates, created the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf (CCG), formerly named Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC).

Qatar is the largest staging post for the U.S. imperial forces in the region, and became the Central Command Headquarters for the US military aggressions against the entire Middle East, and from whence they have already invaded two sovereign nations namely Afghanistan and Iraq based on the hit list, that Israeli mentor had handed Bush even before 9/11. It appears that, the hit list also in-cludes Iran and Syria for Bush-Blair future adventures.

In the recent meeting, the GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Bin Hamad Al Attiyah hypocriti-cally expressed his concern over Iran's civilian nuclear program and declaring that it posed what he called a threat to member countries of the GCC, U.S., and NATO. This statement emanating from a council that has provided the colonial powers and foreign aggressors with the launching pad in their soils to destroy and occupy their Arab brothers homeland in Iraq in the past three years, and now, allowing foreign invaders to do the same to Iran.

UAE, which is another member of the GCC, who obtained the rights to self-governance from England just in 1971 (35 years ago), misleadingly, repeated his claims over the three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf. Since they have never been masters of their own destinies in the past, therefore, it fol-lows that their foreign protectors need new bases in the region for possible unprovoked confrontation with Iran or as a part of their psychological warfare against Iran designed to destabilize the region. Moreover, in order to create tension in the region, US and England encouraging the states of the GCC to use a bogus name for the "Persian Gulf", which is the only common and internationally recognized term that accepted by the UN.

Election Process in Iran and the US & a tale of the two presidents
Had not been for the Supreme Court (his daddy's old friends') decision in Florida 2000 campaign, Bush would not be able to assume his dictatorial powers by rigging the 2004 election in Ohio in which, thousands of black voters were disfranchised, and foreign observers were barred from over-seeing the election process.

Ahmadinejad and Bush speak for the two different constituencies. While the neocons' cabal has backed Bush's rise to power to represent the corporations like Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, and Halliburton, on the contrary, working class, unemployed, the rural, urban, and religious poor voted for Dr. Ahmadinejad.

During the eight-year imposed war of Iraq against Iran, Ahmadinejad, the new president of Iran served voluntarily deep inside the enemy's territory. On the other hand, during the patriotic Viet-nam War, George W. Bush, joined the near home Champaign division of National Guards in Texas architected by his daddy and went AWOL for an entire year to escape the war. Furthermore, at the defining moment and at the time of needs, the self declared war president, along with his VP, Che-ney, who is the real president did not raise up from their nuclear proof bunkers for couple of days. 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina events were the examples.

Bush's media trying to portray Ahmadinejad as an absolute dictator, while in fact, he does not enjoy the same power as George W. Bush does. Ahmadinejad is not even the commander-in-chief. Meaning that he cannot declare war, and unlike the US weak Congress who made Bush an emperor by giving him carte blanche, the real power in Iran rests with the parliament (Majlis), the parliament that in the past, impeached one president and many cabinet ministers of governments.

Even Senator, Hillary Clinton, who has backed Iraqi invasion and now supporting Bush policy of confrontation with Iran, recently, said that Bush treated the Senate like a plantation. The strange thing is that the failure in Iraq is now apparent to a large majority of American people, yet the Con-gress is acquiescing to Bush's call for a needless and dangerous confrontation with Iran.

Ahmadinejad was struggling to have his cabinet ministers approved by the parliament. For example, his nominees for the ministry of oil were rejected twice by the parliament, and the process has al-ready begun to impeach his transportation minister over the crash of airplane. On the contrary, Bush has the absolute power to appoint anyone for any posts or offices he wants. He openly, by-passes the congress and the court. For example, John Bolton was appointed by Bush as the US Am-bassador to the UN without even the Congress approval. Simply he exercised his executive power.

John Bolton the one who once said that the UN did not exist without the US. Another way of describ-ing Bolton's comment is that the UN is nothing but the US rubber stamp. In fact, the UN and its subsidiaries like IAEA is a tool used by the US to advance its policy. He is now sitting in the UN and coercing the Security Council to issue a strongly worded "presidential statement against Iran provid-ing the US with a pretext for intervention if Iran continues to enrich uranium.

During the initial confirmation debate of John Bolton in the Senate in 2004, senior Sen. Joseph Bi-den said that sending Bolton to the UN was like sending a bull to the china market.

Bush's Patriot Act, which is now almost the law of the land is in fact, reversed the concept of pre-sumption of innocence into presumption of guilt in the US making Bush an absolute king empower-ing his modern inquisitors to invade the citizens' privacy arresting them even without search war-rants. The reason for this gross erosion of civil liberties is the security of state, which is a term that has been used by all dictators including Hitler. US needs an enemy, if does not exist, the ruling party can create even an imaginary one. During the Cold War, bogyman was the Soviet Union then Sad-dam, now Iran has become Bush's new bogyman.

Exercising his executive power, Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans without warrants, ignoring the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Consequently, Civil rights leaders are now monitored. Antiwar groups are under surveil-lance. Domestic phones are tapped. Mails are opened and emails are monitored. The FBI is conduct-ing warrantless "black bag" break-ins of private residences and offices, while US government agen-cies have been barred from using persistent cookies since 2000 because of privacy concerns. Police are to be given sweeping powers to arrest people for every offence, including the minor traffic infrac-tions and misdemeanors.

In the first round of Iranian presidential elections in which 62 percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots for seven candidates with diverse political inclinations. The electoral process in Iran was much more democratic than that of the U.S. two-party system of presidential election of 2004 in which each candidate from either party won about 25% of the popular votes (the turn out was about 50% and that in the US, there is no run-off election). This means that about 75% of population did not vote for Bush's reelection. Yet, Bush and his neocons cabal call it democracy.

Therefore, Bush is in no position at this point in time, to question even the outcome of elections in banana republic however, on the eve of the election in Iran, he hypocritically said that the electoral process in Iran ignores the basic requirements of democracy.

Some pundits believe that the intellectually challenged president was cherry- picked and indoctri-nated into the doctrine of Hegelian Dialectic by the illuminati to establish the world new order. They led him to believe that Bush has a heavenly mandate to meddle in the business of every sovereign nation. And therefore, should any of the sovereign states dare not to acquiesces supinely to the US unilateralist and imperial global hegemony, Bush has the divine rights to invade and occupy them by force under the pretext of what he calls WMD, Human Rights abuse, and supporting terrorism.

Despite the fact that there is no a real and visible enemy armed with conventional or non-conventional weapons who wants to attack US and that according to their own investigations, no single state or country directly or indirectly involved in the 9/11 tragedy except, a dozen or few more stateless terrorists, who used the civilian aircrafts as the weapons. However, paranoid war president and the commander-in- chief, George. W. Bush, gripped with hysteria, like Don Quixote de la Man-cha, the hero character of Cervantes, imagines himself as a gallant warrior who is at war with ghosts and giants. Yet, the GOP calls him wartime president.

Bush and his war party keep comparing their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the World War II, in which Stalin defeated the army of the Third Reich. On the contrary, neither, Iraq nor Afghanistan had the real combat armies. The Iranians had almost destroyed the Iraqi army during the eight- years war, and the remnants of its military forces were decimated during the first Persian Gulf War. As for Afghanistan, its army was made of almost militia type forces with antiquated weapons lacking air force and mechanized ground forces. Yet, the occupation forces are bogged-down in both coun-tries. However, it is noteworthy that without Iran, the US could never have occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. They know that launching war of aggression against Iran would mean they would be driven out of those two countries."

Unlike the parliamentary democracy, the US president is not directly elected by the popular votes, rather based on the America's 18th century constitution; the powerful Electoral College elects the president. This flawed method of voting system opens the entire election process to all sorts of ir-regularities. When voters cast their ballots, they are actually electing the 538 members of the Elec-toral College, the ones who will really cast votes for the president.

States get one electoral vote for each of 100 senators and one electoral vote per US representative, which are 435, plus three electoral votes for the District of Columbia. It is noteworthy that the larg-est state like California with the population of about 36 million has two senators (the same number of senators for the smaller states), i.e., the state of Wyoming with a population of about half a million has two senators also.

Holy Warriors in the US & Secular Europe
In his first term, during an interview, Bush said that Iran had a history of brutality. Since he doesn't know the history and according to Michael Moore, he does not read the newspapers, or the books rather than the religious ones and so much so, he does not know even the difference between the myth and the recorded history, it follows that Bush's statement must come from the Book of Daniel. 9: 6, which says that Darius, the King of Persia arrested Daniel the Prophet and threw him into the pit of lions. Lumping Iran into the "axis of evil", he has also repeatedly marked Iran as a real threat to the Middle East. It seems that these statements emanating from the Book of Ezekiel 38:5-6, prophesizing that Iran and Armenia from far off lands in the north, are going to gather their forces to attack Israel.

According to the Guardian, a former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath recalled that Bush confessed, God, apparently addressing the president each time as "George", had told him, "Go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. Go and end the tyranny in Iraq.

There is no shortage of modern Nostradamus, prophecy gurus, and end time specialists in and around the White House. Among the most flamboyant Armageddon experts and wizards are Hal Lindsey and Pat Robertson. The former claims that he has been in communication with God since he was a child. The latter declared that during the election times God spoke to him pledging that George W. Bush would win the election. Both neocons, are extremely far right fanatics and very in-fluential figures, who are umbilically connected to the White House, and usually, what they preach reflecting the Bush's administration viewpoints.

Pat Robertson, who lives like a king, has invested millions of dollars in stock markets; and according to the ABC News, some believe that he is running a questionable charity organization called Opera-tion Blessing. A super rich Social Darwinist who believes that under-privileged Americans have the liberty to live under the bridge. He also accepts as true that all Muslims are Arabs, including the Iranians. Advocating hatred against the other faiths and philosophies, Robertson, on his private TV show, issued a fatwa (religious edict) ordering CIA to assassinate the Venezuelan democratically elected and popular socialist President, Hugo Chavez who is a critic of Bush's foreign policy.

Recently, he also suggested that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for pulling Israel out of Gaza. God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV program The 700 Club. "You read the Bible and he says 'This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine.'" He also said, however, that in the Bible, the prophet Joel "makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.'"

Bush's former grand inquisitor, John Ashcroft once claimed, "In America, there was no king but Je-sus"? And that the Pentagon's new special ops units' commanding officer, Lt. Gen. William Boykin claimed that "the US Army was the house of God and Muslims the agent of Satan".

According to the Independent, Tony Blair proclaimed that God would judge whether he was right to send British troops to Iraq, echoing statements from his ally, George W. Bush. Contradicting warn-ings from advisers not to mix politics and religion, the Prime Minister said that his interest in poli-tics sprang from his Christianity and its "values and philosophy" had guided him in public life.

The irony here is that Bush and his like-minded advisers and groupthink, which are entirely fanatic extremists, have launched the medieval times style crusade against the other religions' extremists.

It is not coincidence that the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is one of the Bush few exponents in Europe and his troops have already joined the Iraqi crusade, defended the far right- neo-conservative Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, who originally published 12 satirical and racist cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The cultural editor of the Danish newspaper is Flemming Rose who has a close ties with far right neocons circle in US, including Daniel Pipes, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. The same paper that is now defending the freedom of press, refused to publish satirical cartoon of Christ in 2003.

The EU countries keep claiming that they are secular; however, their claim has proved to be other-wise as their national flags echoing the religious symbolism. Furthermore, the foundation of the EU is based on the Christian values. On November 1, 1993, which falls on All Saints Day, at Maastricht, the Netherlands, the 12 members of the formerly named EEC officially ratified and changed it to EC, and subsequently transformed into EU. The festival of All Saints, also sometimes known as "All Hallows," or "Hallowmas," is a feast celebrated in their honour. All Saints is also a Christian formula invoking all the faithful saints and martyrs, known or unknown. The Roman Catholic holiday (Festum omnium sanctorum) falls on November 1.

Crusaders in Iraq
As the Venezuelan writer, Fernando Baez eloquently articulates, what is happening in Iraq today is the largest cultural catastrophe since the Mongols forced entry into Baghdad in 13 century.

According to wikipedia.org, in 1258, the Mongols laid siege to the city and constructed a palisade and a ditch. Siege equipment was erected as well. The bombardment began on January, 1258 and by February 4, a breach was made. By february 5, the Mongols controlled a stretch of the wall. Al-Musta'sim tried to negotiate, but was refused.

On February 10, Baghdad surrendered, after the Caliph Al-Musta'sim came out of the city and gave himself up, at which point he was executed, by wrapping him in a rug and having him either "beaten to a pulp" or trampled by horses. The Mongols swept into the city on February 19, 1258, which began a week of massacre, looting, and fire.

Paradoxically, the brutal assault against the cradle of civilization this time around, planned and executed - not by the Mongols rather by the forces of American modern King George II who shame-lessly portrays himself as the great leader of the civilized world. The brutal invasion of Iraq took place on March 19, 2003, with indiscriminate carpet bombings. The occupation forces used bunker busters and "MOAB" bombs, which apparently, stands for "The Mother of All Bombs, aka the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb."

However, the real hidden meaning of the "MOAB" goes far deeper than what the US military appar-ently illustrates it as "the mother of all bombs". MOAB is a symbolism and a biblical name repre-senting the Crusade. According to Genesis: 30-38, Moab was the son of Abraham's nephew Lot and the name of a place named after him (the land of "MOAB") in Jerusalem. When the Crudaders occupied the area, the castle they built to defend the eastern part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was called Krak des Moabites. The name also signifying the covenant, and appears in the Scriptures many times (Genesis: 30-38; Deuteronomy 29:1; Ruth1:1, 22; 2 Kings 1:1; 2 Chronicles 20:22; Daniel 11:41).

The salvo of shock and awe inflicting bombs that went down in Baghdad resulted in mass destruc-tion and devastation of cultural and religious artifacts, which belong to the ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon where according to recorded history, is the birthplace of civilization.

According to Baez over one million books, 10 million documents, and 14,000 archaeological artifacts have been lost in the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Among the world precious books that were burnt in the Baghdad National Library included the early editions of Arabian Nights, the treatises of the two Iran's great mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyam and philosopher, scientist, and medical writer, Avicena, aka Abu Ali Sina, and the dissertation of distin-guished Arab- Spanish philosopher, Averroes, aka Ibn Rushdi.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Rice said that before mushroom of cloud appeared on Washington DC, the US had to stop Iraq. At the same time, on the other side of Atlantic, notorious Tony "B.Liar" of England claimed that Saddam had capacity to nuke London within 48 hours.

England has the history of brutal colonial tactics of the "divide and rule", and its prime minister, Tony Blair who pursuing the same old dirty trick, claimed that if the occupation forces leave Iraq, there would be civil war, which is nothing but a shell game because the root cause of violence and insurgency in Iraq is the foreign occupation. It is noteworthy that in the 1920s when the British had installed her puppet king and prime minister like Faisal and Noori Said in Iraq whose regime would not last a day without the imperial forces bayonets, then British prime minister at the House of Commons was saying the same things as Blair does today.

American style liberty & freedom of press
Bush also considers himself as the flag bearer of democracy on the face of the planet who supports and disseminates freedom, and liberty. Therefore, any independent nation who disagrees with the Bush's foreign policy is subject to liberation and regime change. Just the way US liberated Guan-tanamo from Cuba and turned it into the concentration camps, which Amnesty International calls it Gulag of modern time. Just the way US liberated Iraqi oil pipelines. Just the way, the Bush – Che-ney's administration liberated the undemocratic Abu-Ghraib Prison from Saddam Hussein, the dic-tator, and turned it into a democratic torturing chamber, where, the insurgents are systematically tortured and abused democratically by the US occupation forces.

Like the Stalin's purges, the Republican presidents in the past, used the doctrine of McCarthyism to remove their critics or opposition groups from the offices, restricting the freedom of speech and erod-ing the civil liberties. During the WW II, American citizens of German and Japanese origins were rounded up and lucked up in the camps until the end of the war.

Despite its glamorous PR campaign and empty slogans designed targeting the international audi-ences, not only the US has never been interested in democracy, but also, it has used all its political and military might to bring down the democratic states and backing the brutal tyrants especially, in the Middle East and Latin America.

According to Robert Fisk, who is a distinguished journalist and an author, during the US invasion both in Iraq and Afghanistan, journalists were the prime targets, including the Western and Arab journalists i.e., Aljazeera offices were bombed twice in Baghdad. British newspaper The Daily Mirror reported that Bush told UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at a White House summit on 16 April 2004 that he wanted to bomb Aljazeera's headquarters in Qatar.

In response to the bribery scandal of Iraqis media by the US to write the favourable stories about the war in Iraq, War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who speaks and acts like Joseph Goebbels, recently admitted that they were doing just the PR campaigns and claiming that they had every right to do so. Rumsfeld has also admitted that he "ghosted" a detainee, meaning that he made the decision to hold a prisoner without keeping any records of the fact.

According to Doug Thomson, the Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue, Pentagon orders soldiers to promote Iraq war while home on leave and hundreds of American military men and women returned to the
United States on holiday leave with orders to sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public. The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed "Operation Home front", ordered military person-nel to give interviews to their hometown newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and praise the American war effort in Iraq.

During the election campaign in Lebanon, Bush proudly said, "Freedom is on the march in the Mid-dle East." On the contrary, some voters in northern Lebanon were reportedly bribed to cast their bal-lots for the U.S.-backed anti-Syrian faction.

Foreign nationals are being kidnapped and flown from country to country by the CIA planes under the false suspicion of so-called renditions. Recently, the head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe reported that there was evidence pointing to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the United States, and that European governments were aware of it.

History of the US policy of regime change & snubbing international law
In 1953, the U.S.'s CIA staged the military coup and toppled Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mossadegh's government and restored pro-American system of absolute monarchy.

In 1954, CIA ousted Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala. In 1961, the US-backed invasion of Bay of Pigs of Cuba but failed. The same year, CIA assassinated Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo, and eliminated Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, their former ally in the Dominican Republic, and subsequently, the CIA ousted Juan Bosch, the democratically elected leader of the Dominican Repub-lic. In 1963, CIA eliminated general Abdul Karim Qassim, president of Iraq, and toppled Jose Maria Velasco of Ibarra of Ecuador, and U.S. backed coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1964, the CIA backed the overthrow of João Goulart in Brazil, and covertly supported the election of Eduardo Frei Montalva of Chile. In 1965, the US staged a bloody military coup toppling the democratically elected President, Sukarno in Indonesia, installing a brutal dictator, Suharto who killed over a million people in Indonesia during his reign of terror. Subsequently, the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia supplied their newly installed military tyrant with a list of 5,000 suspected communists given to them by the CIA to be executed. In addition, the CIA supported a military coup that brought Joseph Mobutu to power in the Congo in 1965. In 1967, the CIA supported Regime of the Colonels in Greece through a military coup. In the 1967, U.S. supported Israel Six-Day War, and CIA launched the military "Operation Condor" assassinating Che Guevara, the legendary hero and the icon of the socialist revolution in Bolivia.

On September 11,1973, which was the first 9/11, the US staged a bloody coup d'état in Chile in which Salvador Allende, who had come to power in 1970 by the democratic election campaign process was killed instantly. Subsequently, the notorious General Pinochet, who had the full US backing, seized the power and became an absolute military dictator. Consequently, thousands of Chileans were slaughtered, tortured, or sent to the detention centers, many more disappeared, and some of them are still missing.

Not to mention Granada, Panama, former Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, in 1992, U.S.- and French staged a military coup against the most honest and democratic election campaign process in the his-tory of entire Arab world ever and annulled the election. The Arab's only democratic election was held in Algeria in 1992 in which the Islamic parties won the landslide victory. Now, the US and Is-rael are reportedly planning to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called. The goal is to starve the Palestinian Authority of cash and international connections forcing its President to call a new election, bringing back the corrupt Fatah groups in power again ignoring the fact that Hamas won the landslide victory in the democ-ratic election campaign. If the outcome of elections suits the US corporate interest, Bush calls it free and fair, if not, declares it bunk.

While 25% of the world pollution comes from US, Bush-Cheney administration yet, does not recog-nize the Kyoto protocols. US not only refuse to join the International Court of Criminal (ICC), but also have attempted to undermine it. The Hague Invasion Act, which was introduced and passed in August 2002 by the Congress, allows the US government to save US citizens from extradition to the ICC, and also authorizes any necessary action, including the miltary invasion to free U.S. soldiers and officials handed over to that Court. The stated purpose of the Act was to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party.

Although the United States is a signatory to the 1983 Convention that prohibits the use of White Phosphorus "against military targets within concentrations of civilians," it has not ratified Protocol III, which involves restrictions against the incendiary weapons.

The cultural devastation committed by the US and the coalition of idiots is the gross violation of the Hague Convention of 1954, which states that in times of war, cultural heritage must be protected by the occupation forces. As a pattern of behavior, this convention like many other internationally es-tablished protocols, are not yet recognized by Washington.

Iran's nuclear program
Initiated and backed by the US, the idea of Iran's nuclear program goes back to four decades. It kicked off in the 1960s, under auspices of the U.S. within the framework of bilateral agreements be-tween the two countries. In 1967, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) was built and run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The TNRC was equipped with a US supplied 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor. Iran signed and ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968.

Westinghouse Corporation lobbied very hard to convince both Iran and the US governments to con-struct at least 23 nuclear reactors in Iran. In 1975 the U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, had signed National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled "U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation," for the sale of nuclear reactors to Iran projected to bring U.S. corporations more than $6 billion in revenue. That time the population of Iran was about 30 millions, however, was pumping as much as 6 million barrels of oil a day, with a domestic oil consummation of about ½ millions barrels a day. Today, Iran with a population of about 70 millions, consumes about two millions barrels a day domestically, whereas produces about 4 million barrels a day. Not to mention currently, Iran's refinery capacities are far shorter than those of the growing demands for domestic refined products i.e., gasoline, which are imported from abroad.

President Gerald R. Ford even signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and op-erate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete "nuclear fuel cycle. The notion behind Ford strategy was introduction of nuclear power would both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.

In 1975, Kraftwerk-Union A.G. of Germany, a joint venture of Siemens AG and A.E.G Telefunken, signed a contract worth $4-$6 billions to build the nuclear power plant. Construction of the two nu-clear generating units was subcontracted to Thyssen Krupp AG, and was to have been completed in 1981. However, during the imposed war on Iran, the reactors were then damaged by Iraqi air strikes.
In 1995, Iran signed a contract with Russia to resume work on the half complete Bushehr plant. The construction is being done by the state-controlled company Atomstroyexport (Russian for Atomic Construction Export), which an arm of Russia's atomic energy ministry, Minatom.

As an industrializing nation, Iran's civilian nuclear power plant is crucial for rising demand for power supply and its growing population. In fact, Iran's population has more than doubled in 20 years, the country regularly imports gasoline and electricity, and that burning fossil fuel in large amounts harms Iran's environment drastically. Additionally, Iran questions why it should not be allowed to diversify its sources of energy, especially when there are fears of its oil fields eventually being depleted. Therefore, it is not sustainable for Iran to use its valuable non-renewable resources simply for electricity. Moreover, developing the excess capacity in oil industry would cost Iran about $40 billion, whereas, nuclear power costs a fraction of this, in view of the fact that Iran has abundant supplies of accessible uranium ore.

Furthermore, the nuclear situation in Iran is about more than the production of nuclear fuel. It is a national issue - it is about a country's independence, sovereignty, and national identity- it is about a country that have emerged from about two centuries of Western bullying and regime change (1953) - it is about a country that wants to master its own destiny. It is about a country that wants to be treated equally and with respect on the world stage. In a nutshell, it is about national pride.

When the sovereignty and independence of Iran is at stake, the nation has the final say. On Febru-ary 11, 2006, millions of Iranians poured into the streets and expressed their support for Iran's peaceful nuclear programs achieved by its indigenous young scientists. Their message was loud and clear. All speaking in one voice, they demanded that they would never forsake their inalienable legal right to the nuclear technology. People from all walks of life, including the religious, secular, poor, rich, reformist, conservative, young, old male, female, and intellectual were aligned behind their president honoring their scientific achievements and securing the nation's independence. Conse-quently, it is not for Bush, Blair, or Jacques Chirac to decide whether Iran needs the civilian nuclear plants or what type of reactors it should have. i.e. light water or heavy water.

While President Jacques Chirac trying to portray himself as a civilized and liberal democrat, on the other hand, talking like war lord and openly threatening to use its nuclear weapons against Iran, and subsequently, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy bluntly accuses Iran of secretly making nuclear weapons without showing a shred of evidence. Why EU in general, France, and Eng-land in particular pursuing Bush's policy towards Iran?

The answer is, they all have one thing in common that is the economic interest that glues them to-gether. As the exclusive fuel, suppliers France and England are profiting millions of dollars annually from recycling the fuels for the other countries nuclear reactors, especially the German and Japanese plants. For both countries, recycling nuclear fuel is an uncontested business bonanza and economic windfall. To them, allowing Iran, which is an emerging and potential low-cost supplier of nuclear fuels to share their profits, is unacceptable. Therefore, they view Iran as a threat to their lucrative businesses. They cannot say this openly, but deceitfully and unfairly launched a smear campaign and making it look like Iran is building nuclear bombs.

While on the one hand, Western powers formally declare that Iran has the rights to nuclear energy, building image that they are logical and rational in order to fool the world. On the other hand, trying to force Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program used for nuclear energy, however if, Iran outsources its nuclear fuels to Russia or Western suppliers, that will be okay with them. What kind of logic is that? That is nothing but the logic of neocolonialism.

The fact is, Western powers in general and US in particular view nuclear technology as their intel-lectual property. Legally speaking, they cannot patent the nuclear technology as their intellectual property simply because if they do, then the matter must be resolved by the World Trade Organiza-tion (WTO) meaning that the UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA will be irrelevant. However, they use eve-rything in their power, including the backroom dealings, or bribing and intimidating others to mo-nopolize it. Profiteering is the capitalists Achilles heel. They do everything they can at any cost in order to make the money. No matter how civilized or liberal democrat they are, money always comes first.

As for Bush administration, Iran's threat is not for its nuclear program, but their perceived threat is coming from Iran's mercantile exchange market, which is called oil bourse. Iran is planning to open its own oil bourse, a mercantile exchange, and potentially a futures market, where traders can buy and sell oil and gas in Euros, not dollars. If everything goes as planned it is scheduled to kick off in March 19 otherwise will take place sometimes later this year. However, even before the realization of the idea, Iran is being accused of making nuclear bombs and is being threatened with illegal sanc-tions or war of aggression.

In 2001, Venezuela wanted to switch to the Euro for all its oil sales. The following year, there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from the CIA. However, the military coup failed and Chavez who was democratically elected president escaped the assassination plot against his life unharmed. In November 2002, Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil, in 2003; Iraq was invaded and occupied by the US.

Shifting from dollars to Euros is not good news for America's system of dollar hegemony, which its nominal value is backed by the world daily sales of oil . Some countries are already replacing their dollar reserves with Euro in silence. If the oil bourse does not trigger a blow to the US already trou-bled economy straight away, but it will take out the steam in the long- run. The economy that its to-tal federal debts is $8.2 trillion (60% owned by foreigners, i.e., EU, China, Japan, and S. Korea), with a current account deficit of $700 billion, and $500 billion of budget deficit, with zero savings and re-cord business and personal debts, cannot sustain further setback in the long haul.

The US Senate just approved to raise the government debt limit to nearly $9 trillion, with the new ceiling expected next year, the debt will represent $30 thousand for every US citizen. Bush's gov-ernment has already spent $350 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, and asking for another $120 billion for the current year. US allocated $450 billion for its military budget, which is almost half of the entire world military spending, and trying to resolve its economic issues by the military forces.

The US's GDP which was always ranked first in the world, slid into second in 2004 after the EU. During the same period, its total exports ranked third after the EU and Germany respectively. EU's GDP was $12,865 trillion compared to US GDP of $11,734 trillion, Germany's total exports was $950 billion compared to the US total exports of $750 billion, and Germany's net exports exceeded $200 billion (source: IMF, Germany's Bundesbank, US Census Bureau). Thanks to Bush-Cheney inept and ham-fisted leadership.

Bush orchestrated media campaign against Iran, deliberately distorting Ahmadinejad's speeches, and fictitiously considering him a threat, whereas the truth of the matter is that he was quoting di-rectly from the founder of Iran's Islamic Revolution, which is a slogan that has been there since 1979, and surprisingly, never captured the US media attention up until now.

However, Ahmadinejad has also, said, "A nation which has culture, logic and civilization does not need nuclear weapons. The countries, which seek nuclear weapons, are those, which want to solve all problems by the use of force. Our nation does not need such weapons," which surprisingly, Bush & Co. media never reflected that.

Nevertheless, during the 26 years life of the revolution, Iran has never made any effort to wipe any country off the map. It is noteworthy that the Iranians indeed, are the liberators of Israelites. That was Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia, who liberated Israelites from slavery in Babylon 25 centu-ries ago. Additionally, the great king provided them with a free of charge means of transportation all the way to Jerusalem. Furthermore, the Iranians are not Arabs and consequently, there is no strate-gic ground for any animosity between Iran and Israel.

Bush illegal covert operations in Iran under the pretext of democracy
While US and England have destroyed and torn apart Iraq with their illegal occupation, on the other hand, ludicrously, accusing Iran of interfering in Iraq, and blaming it for their failure. In fact, the US media frenzy against Iran for what they claim, as "threat" is a smokescreen used to distract the world attention from Bush's miserable failure in Iraq.

According to the Financial Times, the US military has been studying ethnic and religious tensions in Iran as part of its preparations for war. The military wants to determine attitudes towards the cen-tral government and examine if Iran is prone to the same tensions that are tearing Iraq apart. As with the planning for the war in Iraq, the Pentagon has recruited exiles to help with its survey. A similar group of Iraqi exiles told the Bush administration that US soldiers would be welcome when they invaded, and fed them false information about weapons of mass destruction. Among the exile groups that surveyed by the military are the Kurdish Democratic Party, who support the occupation in Iraq; the followers of the deposed Iranian royal family, who hope a US invasion will restore the monarchy; and the former pro-Saddam militant opposition group.

Now the White House has asked the US Congress to make available $75 million to fund a round-the-clock radio and television from UAE broadcasting false news and propaganda campaign into Iran aimed at brainwashing for regime change.

There are also reports that the US has already funded and mobilized a number of the Iranian Chal-abies residing Beverly Hills, London, and Paris in order to cook the intelligence and fix the case against Iran to justify Bush's preemptive war. Among the groups are: the monarchists mainly oper-ating from the US; the leftist elements of exile groups, including the remnants and new militants of the old pro-Moscow Communist Party of Iran, aka the Tudeh Party, along with the other communist factions operating from England; and the militant opposition group operating from Iraq. Some of the exile groups who are on the payrolls of the CIA and the British MI6 and acting like the Trojan Horses, are now operating in the Persian Gulf states and carrying out the acts of sabotage and ter-rorism in order to destabilize Iran.

Iranian's security forces have already arrested the terrorists who planted bombs in the City of Ahvaz killing a number of innocent people. According to the Iranian officials, they have the concrete evi-dence that the Bush and Tony Blair's administrations had equipped and dispatched these terrorists from their launching pad in Basra.

Iran has become the new focal point of distorted and Goebbels style Western media's propaganda, despite the fact that it is evident that Iraq has become a mission impossible rather than the "mission accomplished" for Bush-Cheney, their controlled media deliberately ignoring the reality on the ground and dire situation in Iraq. The timing of this kind of cries of outrages that are coming from the Western media against Iran raises more questions than answers as it coincides with the Bush-Blair preparations for possible sanctions at the Security Council, and like Iraq's prewar WMD sce-nario, they are fixing the case against Iran.

Bush media also keep claiming that Iran has broken the seals, and trying to trick the world into be-lieve that Iran is violating the NPT, and therefore, is in non-compliance in order to justify the American corporate war against Iran who is in fact, neither a threat nor a strategic adversary to the US. The US corporate media knowingly ignoring the fact that Iran's Parliament had passed a law last year that required – in the event the IAEA Board reported Iran to the Security Council – the cessation of all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA above and beyond that required by Iran's Safe-guards Agreement. That includes the resumption of all Iranian Safeguarded nuclear programs that had been voluntarily suspended.

Since US will never be satisfied with partial submission and she wants the total capitulation. There-fore, There is security risk involved, if Iran agrees with the non binding terms in the presidential statement (UN Security Council), which contains a demand that Iran accept an additional protocol that gives IAEA inspectors exceptional access to plants and research laboratories as this was the case in Iraq before the war. For instance, Germany who apparently was against the Iraqi invasion, now reportedly confirmed that its foreign intelligence agency (BND) who worked in Iraq before the war, supplied U.S. occupation forces with Saddam defense information and helping them select bombing targets at the start of the Iraq war.

The US, England, and Israel who possess sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the world, are the very countries that deceitfully cooked the case against Iraq, are now trying to do the same to Iran by demonizing it simply for having a civilian nuclear plants used for generating the electricity.

The US is the only country on the face of the planet that has used nuclear bombs against innocent civilians in Japan in 1945, and mustard and Agent Orange gases in Vietnam (WMD) after the WWII.
On the 60th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Na-gasaki, new questions are being asked about whether it was really necessary to use the atomic weapons?

About 80,000 people were killed in a split second in Hiroshima. Five months later, more than 70,000 others died from radiation and injuries. Three days after Hiroshima's attack, the U.S. dropped an-other nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people before the year-end. Since 1945, tens of thousands more citizens of both cities continue to suffer and die from radiation-induced can-cers, birth defects and stillbirths.

Couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair said that Britain needed to improve its nuclear capabilities, and ac-cording to the special report by The Guardian on Argentina dated Nov. 22,2005, Margaret Thatcher forced François Mitt errand to give her the codes to disable Argentina's deadly French-made missiles during the Falklands war by threatening to launch a nuclear warhead against Buenos Aires. Eng-land who is a world away from the Islas Malvinas (Falklands Islands) threatening to use its nuclear warheads killing millions of innocent people just to keep its colony there.

Recently, the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, a former High Court judge who fled Uganda for Brit-ain after it became clear that standing up to the dictator had placed his own life in jeopardy, is now, accusing Tony Blair of helping the US to run Idi Amin-style tactics in the war on terrorism.

Israel, who possesses illegally about 200-300 nuclear bombs in its arsenal, with technical assistance of US and England, openly disregards the international law and IAEA rules. It has constantly ig-nored almost all the UN resolutions, with the American veto in the Security Council and whose hu-man rights records is clearly questionable and has attacked all its neighbours plus Iraq's nuclear plant, and has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran with American bunker buster bombs and the German Dolphin type submarines, which acquired them almost free of charge.

Nuclear negotiations of the EU-3 with Iran
EU-3, including England, France, and Germany, who entered into the negotiations with Iran, played good cops to Bush's bad cop during the talks with Iran over the nuclear issues. However, in order for confidence building, Iran in good faith agreed to suspend its nuclear activities voluntarily allowing the IAEA to seal off its equipment until the negotiations end. Now that the negotiations ended with no results, and consequently, Iran is not deemed in non-compliance and has not violated its agree-ment with the EU-3 because the terms of the accord were based on non-binding and temporary con-ditions not permanent.

Iran, as a signatory to the NPT, plus the additional protocols has the legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. However, Israel, India, Pakistan, and N. Korea who developed nuclear weapons refused even to ratify the NPT. Despite the fact that there is no law or treaty banning peaceful nuclear research; to do uranium enrichment is legal and it simply violates the good will of Germany, France, and Britain, with which Iran negotiated a volun-tary deal about three years ago to abandon its uranium enrichment program.

Negotiations collapsed because no matter what concessions Iran made to the EU, at the end of the day, Iran would have nothing to gain. Iran has credible argument for refusing to rely on foreign countries for its energy because, in fact, Russia is not a reliable partner. Russia's game of natural gas roulette with Ukraine and Georgia is a perfect example. Moreover, the repeated delays by Russia to launch the Bushehr nuclear power plant shows that Moscow cannot be trusted as honest and de-pendable business partner.

Furthermore, Russia has the history of betrayals of its friends and allies. In 1915, during the Arme-nians and Turks conflict, Russia simply walked away. In 1938, Stalin pandered to Hitler in return for DM 200 millions of Germany's loan and let Poland to be divided between Germany and Russia. During the 1962 Cuban crisis, Nikita Khrushchev backed off. In the first Persian Gulf War, Gor-bachof approved the US orchestrated UN Security Council sanctions against Iraq. During the bom-bardments of the former Yugoslavia, the Russians did nothing and let their Slav brothers down. So much so, they simply let their former partner, Iraq to be occupied. Therefore, double-crossing Iran by Russia, which is Russia's one of a few partners and close friends left in the world, should not come as a surprise.

Contracting out Iran's nuclear fuel to Russia is bad for Iran and serendipity for Russia because the Russians want to build at least 20 nuclear plants for Iran in the near future each requiring enriched uranium fuel that will cost Iran about $40-50 millions for startup. Subsequently every two or three years, the nuclear plans need recycling again that will cost almost the same amount for each.

Iran cannot count on Russia's undertaking because after 12 years, they have not even been able to finish the Bushehr plant, which was half complete by the time they undertook in 1995 to complete it by 2001 or so. How they will be able to deliver the fuels to Iran on time for the future plants. While the Iranians are quite capable of recycling their own nuclear fuels domestically, then why should Iran outsource them to unreliable and unpredictable foreign suppliers in the first place?

The Bush administration initially did not want Mohamed ElBaradei to be the director of the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for another term, and when faced strong opposition from the other member states then rewarded him with the Noble Peace prize in order to get him on board. As for Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the UN, the US did other way around. First, they rewarded him with Noble Peace Prize when he declared that occupation of Iraq was illegal, right after that Bush and Blair produced evidence that allegedly Kofi Annan and his son had been involved in brib-ery scandal in the Food for Oil program in Iraq during Saddam regime. By contrast, both Blair and Bush administrations were to blame because they new exactly what was going on in the program from the very beginning.

It seems that the US's stick and carrot tactics is working for the UN and the IAEA as ElBaradei has now agreed to send Iran's dossier to the UN Security Council and its report sent to the 35 member states, ElBaradei said Iran has failed to answer crucial questions about its nuclear program after three years of an agency investigation.

Quite the opposite, Iran has not violated the NPT, does not have a nuclear weapons program, and poses no threat to its neighbors or the United States. ElBaradei hypocritically praised the US recent nuclear deal with pariah state like India, who ignores the IAEA's rules, on the contrary, denounced Iran, who plays by the rule, meaning they are pandering to the lawbreakers, and chastising those who obey the law. This conspicuous double standard makes a mockery of the IAEA and US long-standing advocacy of the NPT. Why should Iran be treated differently from Israel, India, and Paki-stan, all of which have their own nuclear fuel recycling production?

Despite the US and EU's propaganda machine that accusing Iran of enriching uranium to make nu-clear bombs, Iran is now operating only a 10-15-centrifuge cascade putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into centrifuges, which distill out enriched uranium at its pilot enrichment plant in Natanz. Iran had not yet even fired up the whole 164-centrifuge cascade at the plant. The US and the IAEA recognize that it is nowhere near getting a bomb with 164- centrifuge cascades, as it re-quires industrial-scale enrichment facilities with thousands of centrifuges, which could produce enough highly enriched uranium for atomic bombs.

Bush administration has abandoned Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by helping India to boost its nuclear weapons. Unlike nuclear- armed India, Pakistan, and Israel, who did not sign up the NPT, Iran is the signatory to the NPT, plus the Additional Protocols. Mockingly, the IAEA, EU, and US while are penalizing Iran for playing by the rules, on the other hand, rewarding the coun-tries that illegally possess nuclear weapons and refused to sign the Non-proliferation Treaty.

It seems like some countries have sovereignty while others are subject to the US political whim. Unlike the US who has broken the international laws and protocols, Iran is not guilty of abdicating or reneging on its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the terms of that treaty, Iran has an inalienable right to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination. Nuclear technology is neither a patent nor the patented property nor the intellectual property of the US or EU or anybody else to monopo-lize it, and whether they like it or not, they have to live with nuclear-powered Iran.


Asghar Bishbareh can be reached at: abish61@hotmail.com

Although U.S. officials often dismiss his claims as outlandish, Chavez insists his country must be on guard to face any potential U.S. military attack. Washington also has said repeatedly it has no plans to attack Cuba.

The Venezuelan leader said the U.S. "should know that if it wants or someday decides ... to invade any of our countries - be it Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, today, tomorrow or the next day - we would be there gathering together the revolutionaries to do battle with weapons in hand against U.S. imperialism."

The U.S. has accused Chavez of trying to export his socialist "revolution" to neighboring countries, saying he is a destabilizing force in the region.

Chavez has responded furiously that he poses no threat, saying the U.S. is the one with a history of invading countries from Iraq to Panama.

He also lashed out Monday against Washington's efforts to promote free trade deals with Latin American countries. "They're making deals with the devil," he said.

Chavez argues the U.S.-proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas would help transnational companies grow wealthier at the expense of Latin America's poor. He has joined Cuban President Fidel Castro in proposing a "Bolivarian Alternative" trade pact based on socialist principles rather than free-market competition.

"I am convinced that in this century we will bury U.S. imperialism, sooner rather than later," Chavez said.

Chavez addressed an audience at the presidential palace after officials signed a deal for Venezuela to sell fuel under preferential terms to El Salvador cities governed by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front - a political party that in the 1980s was a rebel group fighting U.S.-backed troops.

Despite political tensions between Chavez's government and Washington, Venezuela still sells the largest share of its oil to the United States.

© 2006 The Associated Press.

"As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike," the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States."

Last week, the communist country warned that it had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it would strengthen its war footing before joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this weekend.

The spokesman also said it would be a "wise" step for the United States to cooperate on nuclear issues with North Korea in the same way it does with India.

Earlier this month, President Bush signed an accord in India that would open some of its atomic reactors to international inspections in exchange for U.S. nuclear know-how and atomic fuel.

The accord was reached even though New Delhi has not signed the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. North Korea has withdrawn from the treaty.