See, these three articles are all interrelated. Yes they are. Absolutely they are. Condi is trying to prove to Russia that Iran is an evil nation with the capacity to strike Eastern Europe with WMD. Now, if you buy that, then, what the heck is Iran attempting to purchase short missiles for?
Additionally, the USA and Russia have been working together on a peace plan that includes disarming stockpiles of nuclear warheads while converting them to 'PEACEFUL USE' of nuclear material. Of course, the political 'dig' if you will, is to indicate that, like Iran, even the USA needs nuclear material for their Peaceful Purpose nuclear power plants.
While there is no reason for any nation to believe Iran has the capacity for WMD while creating a 'concern' for Israel, the Bush White House wants to exploit the USA Treasury even further by installing a missle defense shield which an be destroyed as soon as the station is due to be built in Eastern Europe.
U.S. missile defense cannot affect Russia nuclear capability-Rice (click here)
15:57
02/ 02/ 2008
WASHINGTON, February 2 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. missile defense system in Europe is meant to deal with limited threats and cannot degrade the thousands of nuclear warheads Russia has, the U.S. secretary of state said.
Condoleezza Rice said the missile defense plan has nothing to do the strategic defense initiative (SDI) that "the United States once had."
"This is not that program. This is not the son of that program. This is not the grandson of that program. This is a very different program that is meant to deal with limited threats," she said at a press conference after a meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.
"There is no way that a few interceptors in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic can degrade the thousands of nuclear warheads that the Russians have and there is no intent to do so," she said.
Rice said Russia and the United States are faced with the same threats, and cooperation in missile defense is vital for both "in a completely different environment."
"We are having discussions with the Russians that President Putin and President Bush have wanted to go ahead about how we can cooperate in missile defense because the Russians face some of the same threats; how can we talk about joint threat assessment, how can we talk about a system that would take advantage of the full geography so that we could have a way to counter these 21st century threats," she said....
Russia, U.S. sign $5 bln uranium sales deal (click here)
13:34
02/ 02/ 2008
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, February 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and the United States have signed a trade deal allowing Russia to boost enriched uranium exports to the U.S., Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom said Saturday.
Rosatom director Sergei Kiriyenko made a one-day working visit to the United States on Friday, meeting in Washington with U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. He also met with chief executives of U.S. energy companies affiliated with Ad Hoc Utilities Group, an industrial group comprised of owners and operators of U.S. nuclear power plants.
"The deal is worth $5-6 billion over the next 10 years," said Kiriyenko, after signing the document together with Carlos Gutierrez.
The deal allows for sales of Russian enriched uranium directly to U.S. utilities. Previously, such direct transactions were not permitted.
Gutierrez said: "The agreement will encourage bilateral trade in Russian uranium products for peaceful purposes. It will also help to ensure that U.S. utilities have an adequate source of enriched uranium for U.S. utility consumers."...
Iran says still negotiating purchase of Russia's S-300 systems (click here)
15:57
01/ 02/ 2008
TEHRAN, February 1 (RIA Novosti) - A non-official Iranian news agency quoted a top diplomat as saying on Friday that Iran is still in talks with Russia on buying advanced S-300 air defense systems, despite an earlier denial from Moscow.
In December 2007, Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said that the issue of the delivery of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran, raised by the media, was not a subject of current negotiations and had not been discussed with the Iranians.
"The statement that many considered to be a denial of the negotiations on S-300 was simply a statement by a Russian official who referred to the latest round of military cooperation talks in Tehran [in December 2007]," Mehdi Safari said in an interview with the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).
"However, the sides [Iran and Russia] are continuing work to study the possibility of delivering these [S-300] systems to Iran," Safari said.
The issue was first raised in December last year when Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said that Iran and Russia had agreed to deliver an unspecified number of advanced S-300 air defense complexes to the Islamic Republic under a previously signed contract.
The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), has a range of over 150 kilometers (about 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making this system an effective tool for warding off possible air strikes on Iran....
