Iran: A Nuclear Reality

Major General Vladimir Dvorkin

20 February 2009: Happy fifth anniversary, almost. It has been virtually five years since my March 2005 article entitled “Smoking Gun: Iran Already Nuclear Armed” was published on this Northeast Intelligence Network website. One year and five months later in August 2006 “Nuclear Iran” was published and five months later in January 2007 “Sooner Rather Than Later: Iranian Shahab-6 ICBM” went online. Then in June 2008 I wrote an article entitled “Terrorist Nuclear Weaponry: A Digitized Nuclear Nightmare” which recapped the “Smoking Gun…” piece and also cited the American and IAEA inspectors discovery of digital blueprints of a Pakistani advanced nuclear warhead design on the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network computers in various locations around the world.

Two days ago, 18 February 2009, Bill Gertz published a report on the GeostrategyDirect.com website entitled “Specialist: Iran has already achieved nuclear weapons capability” which reported that retired Russian Major General Vladimir Dvorkin (imaged above) told the annual Herzliya Conference in Israel on February 4 that “Iran has developed the capability to produce and fire nuclear weapons.”

Who is retired Major General Vladimir Dvorkin and what qualifies him to make such a statement? “Vladimir Dvorkin is one of the authors of all major documents related to the Strategic Nuclear Forces and the Strategic Missile Forces. For many years he has been participating as an expert in preparing SALT II, the INF Treaty, START I and START II. He made a significant contribution to formulating Soviet and Russia’s position at the negotiations on strategic offensive arms control and reduction.”

Oh.

“Major-General Vladimir Dvorkin is well-known in Russia and abroad. He is an Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Science, Professor, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences, the Academy of the Military Sciences, the Russian Engineering Academy, the International Engineering Academy, and the Academy of Astronautics.”

I see, yes, Vladimir Dvorkin is an expert on the subject of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Contrary to those folks who produced the now fully disgraced November 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, Vladimir Dvorkin actually knows what he is talking about.

What else did Dvorkin have to say? Well, he told the Herzliya conference attendees that Iran has engineered its missiles to carry (i.e. deliver to a down range target) a nuclear warhead, that Iran acquired most of the components it needed to construct a nuclear weapon six years ago (2003). And in the “no kidding” department, Dvorkin made public that Iran managed to systematically pull the wool over the eyes of the whole world regarding its nuclear ambitions.

Is any of this sounding familiar to readers of this website? Have you not read similar information here over the past five years? Over two years ago I discussed the Iranian Shahab-6 ICBM, its being a clone of the North Korean Tae’po Dong 2C/3 ICBM, and how U.S. intelligence is on record assessing that Iran would not have such a capability until 2015. Two days prior to Vladimir Dvorkin’s address at Herzliya Iran placed a payload named “Omid” (“Hope”) into orbit around the earth via their Safir-2 (Messenger) rocket. This rocket is obviously an improved big-brother variant of the Shahab-3. Call it a Shahab-6 or Safir-2. What’s in a name? That which we call a nuclear warhead delivery system by any other name would destroy a city just as complete.

There is one final item to report here. Vladimir Dvorkin also stated that, “The only way I see the problem being resolved is by military action.” Yeah, I know General, I know. And we did nothing. The whole world sat by and did nothing. Does anyone think Bibi Netanyahu will shortly do something, or is it too late because Iran is a new nuclear reality?