In 2006, the U.S. Navy claimed it had a defense against the Iranian C-802 cruise missiles. But Iran, once again, put U.S. credibility to the test. During the war between Hezbollah and Israel, on July 14, 2006, Iranian-trained Hezbollah elite forces, operating with undercover Iranian commandos in Lebanon, fired two radar-guided C-802 missiles at the Israeli warship INS Hanit stationed 10 miles off the coast of Lebanon. The attack was timed to coincide with a speech being aired in the region by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who promised to deliver a series of “surprises” to Israel at the time the rocket was fired. In that missile attack, launched from Iranian-manned launchers smuggled into Beirut, four Israeli sailors died, and the Hanit suffered severe damage. The ship’s cruise missile detection system was not turned on. According to Israeli navy sources, these defensive systems are only turned on if the ship’s captain feels his ship is threatened by a cruise missile attack. If there is a small boat attack, that would be handled by the ship’s guns, a different system.
The Israeli military claimed that elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards assisted Hezbollah in launching the C-802 missiles. Nasrallah denied it. Iran insisted the Israeli claim was an attempt "to escape reality with the aim of covering up [Israel's] inability to confront the Lebanese nation and resistance." I have my own sources inside Hezbollah, and they say Nasrallah is dissembling and the C-802 units remained under the full control of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who smuggled the launchers and missiles through Syria into Lebanon.
Scores are still being settled from the Iran Iraq War in the 1980s. It is no wonder. If anyone has any doubt about Iran’s ruthless use of all its human resources at the Mullahs’ disposal, let me describe for you what I witnessed on the marshes in the swamps along the Shatt Al Arab near Al Qurna, Iraq, in February 1984 when CNN sent me to cover the Iran Iraq War. As I approached the front on an old Soviet helicopter, I saw what I thought was a huge sandstorm. But, as I got closer, I realized I was witnessing a human wave attack from Iran. What unfolded was a huge and furious battle.
In a city known for the sometimes overwhelming presence of acronyms, two have been noticeably absent from the Senate floor for over a decade. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) both pertain to nuclear nonproliferation measures. Almost ten full years after the passage of the CTBT failed in the Senate, President Obama said in Prague in April 2009, “My administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” Little has been mentioned of the CTBT since.
to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 on Christmas Day has raised a lot of eyebrows in and out of government. Within days The New York Times was reporting that Abdulmutallab had been trained in Yemen by the one-time Guantanamo detainee Ali al-Shihri, that his wealthy father, the Nigerian businessman Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, had “urgently sought help from American and Nigerian security officials when cell phone text messages from his son revealed that he was in Yemen and had become a fervent radical,” and that the CIA “in November compiled biographical data about Mr. Abdulmutallab – including his plans to study Islamic law in Yemen – but did not share the information with the other security agencies,” most significantly the National Counterterrorism Center. The Center already had Abdulmutallab on a 550,000-person list of individuals with “possible ties to terrorism” but declined to include him on “more refined watch lists” or the worldwide no-fly list vital for airport security.
Had President Obama been aware of what the CIA did to the government of New Zealand in 2006 he might have been even more angry at his national security team. John Brennan, his counterterrorism advisor, conducted an investigation that failed to connect some old CIA dots that would have gone a long way in explaining why the CIA does not like to share information, even with the President of the United States.
Politicians have long made promises that if taxpayers spend enough money, they can be protected from evil forces. The Maginot Line was supposed to protect France from a German invasion. The Germans defeated it easily because it was poorly conceived and largely built as a boon to French contractors. America’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the hugely expensive — $50 billion and counting — and failed “Star Wars” missile defense system envisioned by President Reagan, has so far only protected the bottom line of defense contractors.


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in Iraq didn’t come from enemy fire. Maseth was electrocuted to death due to U.S. private military contractor KBR Inc.’s shoddy electrical work. Now, for the first time, KBR is losing millions of dollars as a consequence. The Army decided to deny KBR bonuses, which were routinely awarded to the firm for “excellent” work.













