Wednesday, July 01, 2009

This is the end 2

This is the end of this blog

Since the Google translation engine is so good I will post only in Portuguese and you can translated to English (or other available language) at your will

I will use this blog only in rare occasions.

See you in my other blog:

http://lasers-na-selva.blogspot.com/

This is the end


(continues here:)

(chaotic lyrics):
Come on, turn the lights out, man
Turn it way down
Hey Mister Lightman
You gotta turn those lights way down, man!
Hey, I'm not kidding, you gotta turn the lights out
Come on!
[or] What do we care...?

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my ownly friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land

Come on, baby!

[What?]

And we were in this house and there was a sound like
Silverware being dropped on linoleum, and then
Somebody ran into the room and they said
'Have you seen the accident outside?'
And everybody said:
'Hey man, have you seen the accident outside?'

Have you seen the accident outside
Seven people took a ride
Six bachelors and their bride
Seven people took a ride
[Sever people died]

Don't let me die in an automobile
I wanna lie in an open field
Want the snakes to suck my skin
Want the worms to be my friends
Want the birds to eat my eyes
As here I lie
The clouds fly by

Ode to a grasshopper...
I think I'll open a little shop,
A little place where they sell things
And I think I'll call it 'Grasshopper'...

I have a big green grasshopper out there
Have you seen my grasshopper, mama?
[I'll be] [Looking] real good...
(Oh, I blew it, it's a moth)
That's alright, he ain't got long to go, so we'll forgive him.

Ensenada
The dog crucifix
The dead seal
Ghosts of the dead car sun
Stop the [card] [car]
I'm getting out, I can't take it
Hey, look out, there's somebody coming
And there's nothing you can do about it...

The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he...he walked on down the hallway, baby
Came to a door
He looked inside

Father?
Yes, son?
I wanna kill you
Mother...I want to...
Fuck you, mama, all night long
Beware, mama
Gonna love you, baby, all night

...........................

Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Meet me at the back of the blue bus
Meet me at the back of the blue bus,
Blue rock,
Blue bus,
Blue rock,
Blue bus,
Blue rock,
Blue bus
Blue rock

[come on]

Kill! Kill!

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, [the end]
Hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft cries [lies]
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end

Sunday, January 11, 2009

U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site

In:


We can find:

U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: January 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.

This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.

Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations.

The interviews also suggest that while Mr. Bush was extensively briefed on options for an overt American attack on Iran’s facilities, he never instructed the Pentagon to move beyond contingency planning, even during the final year of his presidency, contrary to what some critics have suggested.

The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.

Instead, Mr. Bush embraced more intensive covert operations actions aimed at Iran, the interviews show, having concluded that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies were failing to slow the uranium enrichment efforts. Those covert operations, and the question of whether Israel will settle for something less than a conventional attack on Iran, pose immediate and wrenching decisions for Mr. Obama.

The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon.

Knowledge of the program has been closely held, yet inside the Bush administration some officials are skeptical about its chances of success, arguing that past efforts to undermine Iran’s nuclear program have been detected by the Iranians and have only delayed, not derailed, their drive to unlock the secrets of uranium enrichment.

Late last year, international inspectors estimated that Iran had 3,800 centrifuges spinning, but American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so.

While declining to be specific, one American official dismissed the latest covert operations against Iran as “science experiments.” One senior intelligence official argued that as Mr. Bush prepared to leave office, the Iranians were already so close to achieving a weapons capacity that they were unlikely to be stopped.

Others disagreed, making the point that the Israelis would not have been dissuaded from conducting an attack if they believed that the American effort was unlikely to prove effective.

Since his election on Nov. 4, Mr. Obama has been extensively briefed on the American actions in Iran, though his transition aides have refused to comment on the issue.

Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama must decide whether the covert actions begun by Mr. Bush are worth the risks of disrupting what he has pledged will be a more active diplomatic effort to engage with Iran.

Either course could carry risks for Mr. Obama. An inherited intelligence or military mission that went wrong could backfire, as happened to President Kennedy with the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. But a decision to pull back on operations aimed at Iran could leave Mr. Obama vulnerable to charges that he is allowing Iran to speed ahead toward a nuclear capacity, one that could change the contours of power in the Middle East.

An Intelligence Conflict

Israel’s effort to obtain the weapons, refueling capacity and permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran grew out of its disbelief and anger at an American intelligence assessment completed in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier.

That conclusion also stunned Mr. Bush’s national security team — and Mr. Bush himself, who was deeply suspicious of the conclusion, according to officials who discussed it with him.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate, was based on a trove of Iranian reports obtained by penetrating Iran’s computer networks.

Those reports indicated that Iranian engineers had been ordered to halt development of a nuclear warhead in 2003, even while they continued to speed ahead in enriching uranium, the most difficult obstacle to building a weapon.

The “key judgments” of the National Intelligence Estimate, which were publicly released, emphasized the suspension of the weapons work.

The public version made only glancing reference to evidence described at great length in the 140-page classified version of the assessment: the suspicion that Iran had 10 or 15 other nuclear-related facilities, never opened to international inspectors, where enrichment activity, weapons work or the manufacturing of centrifuges might be taking place.

The Israelis responded angrily and rebutted the American report, providing American intelligence officials and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with evidence that they said indicated that the Iranians were still working on a weapon.

While the Americans were not convinced that the Iranian weapons development was continuing, the Israelis were not the only ones highly critical of the United States report. Secretary Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the report had presented the evidence poorly, underemphasizing the importance of Iran’s enrichment activity and overemphasizing the suspension of a weapons-design effort that could easily be turned back on.

In an interview, Mr. Gates said that in his whole career he had never seen “an N.I.E. that had such an impact on U.S. diplomacy,” because “people figured, well, the military option is now off the table.”

Prime Minister Olmert came to the same conclusion. He had previously expected, according to several Americans and Israeli officials, that Mr. Bush would deal with Iran’s nuclear program before he left office. “Now,” said one American official who bore the brunt of Israel’s reaction, “they didn’t believe he would.”

Attack Planning

Early in 2008, the Israeli government signaled that it might be preparing to take matters into its own hands. In a series of meetings, Israeli officials asked Washington for a new generation of powerful bunker-busters, far more capable of blowing up a deep underground plant than anything in Israel’s arsenal of conventional weapons. They asked for refueling equipment that would allow their aircraft to reach Iran and return to Israel. And they asked for the right to fly over Iraq.

Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off, but “we said ‘hell no’ to the overflights,” one of his top aides said. At the White House and the Pentagon, there was widespread concern that a political uproar in Iraq about the use of its American-controlled airspace could result in the expulsion of American forces from the country.

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, declined several requests over the past four weeks to be interviewed about Israel’s efforts to obtain the weapons from Washington, saying through aides that he was too busy.

Last June, the Israelis conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea that appeared to be a dry run for an attack on the enrichment plant at Natanz. When the exercise was analyzed at the Pentagon, officials concluded that the distances flown almost exactly equaled the distance between Israel and the Iranian nuclear site.

“This really spooked a lot of people,” one White House official said. White House officials discussed the possibility that the Israelis would fly over Iraq without American permission. In that case, would the American military be ordered to shoot them down? If the United States did not interfere to stop an Israeli attack, would the Bush administration be accused of being complicit in it?

Admiral Mullen, traveling to Israel in early July on a previously scheduled trip, questioned Israeli officials about their intentions. His Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, argued that an aerial attack could set Iran’s program back by two or three years, according to officials familiar with the exchange. The American estimates at the time were far more conservative.

Yet by the time Admiral Mullen made his visit, Israeli officials appear to have concluded that without American help, they were not yet capable of hitting the site effectively enough to strike a decisive blow against the Iranian program.

The United States did give Israel one item on its shopping list: high-powered radar, called the X-Band, to detect any Iranian missile launchings. It was the only element in the Israeli request that could be used solely for defense, not offense.

A New Covert Push

Throughout 2008, the Bush administration insisted that it had a plan to deal with the Iranians: applying overwhelming financial pressure that would persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, as foreign enterprises like the French company Total pulled out of Iranian oil projects, European banks cut financing, and trade credits were squeezed.

But the Iranians were making uranium faster than the sanctions were making progress. As Mr. Bush realized that the sanctions he had pressed for were inadequate and his military options untenable, he turned to the C.I.A. His hope, several people involved in the program said, was to create some leverage against the Iranians, by setting back their nuclear program while sanctions continued and, more recently, oil prices dropped precipitously.

Mr. Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said last week that Mr. Gates — whom Mr. Obama is retaining as defense secretary — believed that “a potential strike on the Iranian facilities is not something that we or anyone else should be pursuing at this time.”

There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.

A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.

What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”

Then, he cautioned, “none of these are game-changers,” meaning that the efforts would not necessarily cripple the Iranian program. Others in the administration strongly disagree.

In the end, success or failure may come down to how much pressure can be brought to bear on Mr. Fakrizadeh, whom the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate identifies, in its classified sections, as the manager of Project 110 and Project 111. According to a presentation by the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, those were the names for two Iranian efforts that appeared to be dedicated to designing a warhead and making it work with an Iranian missile. Iranian officials say the projects are a fiction, made up by the United States.

While the international agency readily concedes that the evidence about the two projects remains murky, one of the documents it briefly displayed at a meeting of the agency’s member countries in Vienna last year, from Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects, showed the chronology of a missile launching, ending with a warhead exploding about 650 yards above ground — approximately the altitude from which the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was detonated.

The exact status of Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects today is unclear. While the National Intelligence Estimate reported that activity on Projects 110 and 111 had been halted, the fear among intelligence agencies is that if the weapons design projects are turned back on, will they know?

David E. Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Reporting for this article was developed in the course of research for “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” to be published Tuesday by Harmony Books.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Too Much Heaven On Their Minds

Sorry. I do not have any recipe to solve the "Israel-Arab" conflict.

But why is not anyone speaking about the possibility of an Hamas attack from the north (from Lebanon).

If Israel commit ground troops to the Gaza Strip, that is the next step. It will be an illogical move (because they do not have any air power), but they can move a few kilometers south, under surface to air missiles protection.

And again that may be what Israel is waiting for.


Monday, November 10, 2008

EU Council refuses to release secret ACTA documents

EU Council refuses to release secret ACTA documents

Brussels, 10th November 2008 - The EU Council of Ministers refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) had requested these documents to make public and parliamentary scrutiny possible. After the Council's refusal, the FFII sent in a confirmatory application, for the EU Council to review its position, as allowed by Article 7(2) of the regulation dealing with public access to such documents.

ACTA's secrecy fuels concerns that the treaty may give patent trolls the means to extort companies, undermine access to low-cost generic medicines, lead to monitoring all citizens' Internet communications and criminalize peer-to-peer electronic file sharing.

The EU Council refuses to release the secret documents stating that disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations, would weaken the position of the European Union in these negotiations and might affect relations with the third parties concerned.

The FFII reaffirms its application stating that the legislative process in the EU has to be open. If the agreement will only be made public once all parties have already agreed to it, none of the EU's national parliaments nor the European Parliament will have been able to scrutinise its contents in any meaningful way. To prevent this from happening, it may be necessary to renegotiate ACTA's transparency.

The FFII's confirmatory application letter questions ACTA's secrecy in no uncertain terms: "The argument that public transparency regarding 'trade negotiations' can be ignored if it would weaken the EU's negotiation position is particularly painful. At which point exactly do negotiations over trade issues become more important than democratic law making? At 200 million euro? At 500 million euro? At 1 billion euro?What is the price of our democracy?"

The Canadian government released documents under the Access to Information Act that provide additional insights into the secretive nature of the negotiations.

If the EU Council again refuses to release the secret documents, the FFII can take the case to the European Court of Justice. An earlier case on transparency of EU legislation took 6 years. By that time ACTA may long have entered into force.

Ante Wessels, FFII analyst, says: "We do not have so much time. The only solution we see is that the parliaments of Europe force the Council to publish the texts by making Parliamentary scrutiny reservations."

Friday, November 07, 2008

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Great Gig in the Sky

Richard Wright (1943-2008)







So
So you think you can tell
Heaven from hell
Blue skys from grey
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail
A smile from a veil
(Yeah) do you think you can tell

Did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts
Hot ashes for trees
Hot air for a cool breeze
Cold comfort for change
(Yeah) (and) did you exchange
A walk on part in this war
For a leading role in a cage

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
(We're) running over the same old ground
What have we found
The same old fears
(Well) (I) wish you were here

CUT HERE ---------------

I said I wish you were here yeah
Oh how I wish you were here
How I wish you were here
Hey and I wish you were here
Hey my rock star
How did you get so turned around
My rock star
How you did you get so turned around
Oh my rock star
(how did you get so turned around)
Did you get so turned around
Hey my my rock star
(how did you get so turned around
Inside out
Cut it all out now
Cut it all out now
Cut it all out now
Cut it all out now
Cut it out now
Cut it out now
Cut it out now
Cut it out now
Cut it all out now
Cut it all out now
Cut it all out

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Results from the Russian Invasion of Georgia

Ukraine offers West radar warning

...Ukraine has said it is ready to make its missile early warning systems available to European nations following Russia's conflict with Georgia...

...Last week, Kiev limited the freedom of movement of Russia's Black Sea Fleet...

...Ukraine's foreign ministry said that because the country was no longer party to the 1992 agreement with Russia on the use of its radar stations, it could now "launch active co-operation with European nations"...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7566070.stm


US and Poland sign defence deal

Poland has signed a preliminary deal with the US on plans to host part of its new missile defence shield.

Under the agreement, the US will install 10 interceptor missiles at a base on the Baltic coast in return for help strengthening Polish air defences. ..

...At a press conference in Moscow, the deputy chief of general staff, Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said US plans for a missile base in Poland "cannot go unpunished".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7561926.stm

Thursday, July 17, 2008

No Coments

from: http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Excerpts_from_Saudi_Textbooks_715.pdf

and http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021810.php

2007-2008 Academic Year
Excerpts from Saudi Ministry of Education Textbooks for Islamic Studies: Arabic with English Translation

...

When God sent his Prophet Muhammad, He abrogated with his law all [other] laws and He commanded all people, including the people of the book, to believe him and to follow him. The people of the book should have been the first to believe him because they find him in their scriptures. Their prophets had informed them of Muhammad's mission. But most of them denied and rejected him.
The clash between this [Muslim] nation and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills. In this hadith, Muhammad gives us an example of the battle between the Muslims and the Jews.

Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, "The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him. Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.’"

Al-Bukhari: 103/6, number 2926. Volume: Jihad; Chapter: Fighting the Jews. But it does not contain "except for the gharqad..." [The hadith is also cited in] Muslim, including said expression: 2239/4, number 2922. Volume: Pertaining to the turmoil and portents of the last hour; chapter: The hour [of judgment] will not come until a man passes by a man's grave and wishes to take the place of the deceased.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Why oil is so expensive / The cold fall of 2008

"Israel must be wiped off the map"

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

[ disclaim: I do NOT possess any privileged information about the subject]

Let us start by with a rule: Israel has always managed to stop any development, in nearby countries, of any weaponisable nuclear technology. They have done that in the past with the Osiraq Iraqi reactor and recently with a Syrian reactor made with North Korea assistance.In both cases the plans have been executed flawless with no loss of hardware and no casualties in the Israeli side.

In some sense this is the continuation of Kennedy doctrine from the '60s ( Cuban Missile Crisis ). Any possible nuclear weapon would be considered real and pointed the ours head (and the heads of ours friends) and that it will be used in appropriate conditions. Until proved otherwise.

This seems to contradict our western concept of "innocent until proved guilty", but in a nuclear age, where a target can be n-bombed in a few minutes, without any warning and without any possible defense, that makes sense (although questionable). By the way, that was the principle behind the USA invasion of Iraq, although never clearly stated.

As a result any middle east country with ambition to produce weaponisable materials will take countermeasures against a foreseeable attack. Syria defend itself using camouflage and buying a new generation of radar. The camouflage failed completely, as the intelligence ( Israeli and/or American ) managed to get, not only excellent satellite images, but also amazing pictures, taken from the ground. Apparently the radar network was not operational yet ( and this is a hint about the importance of timing ).

What about Iran? Iran is now mastering the capacity of enrich uranium. With highly enriched uranium it can make ( if it choose to ) atomic bombs. Uranium bombs are relatively ease to build compared to plutonium bombs. If we have learn anything, we will now that Israel is going to try to destroy Iranian facilities.

What is Iran doing? Theoretically Iran could choose to prove that it is not going to build a bomb, submitting itself the "no proliferation treaty" (NPT) - it has signed - inspections. That path has not be chosen.

Iran is building its facilities underground, for two reasons. First this keep the facilities hidden, second it turn them more resistant to bombs. Also it has bough, from Russia, surface-to-air, short and medium range, Tor missiles and it is probably installing S-300 long range missiles. In the near future it will have S-400 missiles , ( see also http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=21983&sectionid=351020602 )

What is Israel going to do? It sure could use some support from the United States. Soft-support and/or hard-support.

In the soft side it needs intelligence and permission and protection to refuel (in air or at the ground) over or in Iraq. In the hard side it could use a couple of stealth bombers or a few radar seeking missiles.

However the new Russian S-400 missiles seem to have technology to counterbalance the American hardware.

After installing S-400 missiles, Iran will be invulnerable to an air strike and, in reality, to a ground attack, even from American strikes. Then it would be free to use its nuclear facilities to enrich uranium to a weapons-grade quality and make a few atomic bombs. This is why Iran has been trying to make some kind of a agreement with USA and/or UE, because they know that only after having S-400 missiles ready, they can proceed to make weaponisable uranium.

So let us look at the time line

past - Tor missiles installed
2008 Nov 04 - USA Elections
2009 Jan 20 - Inauguration Day (New USA president)
2009 ??? ?? - S-300 installed (Iran invulnerable to an Israeli air attack)
future ???? - S-400 installed (Iran invulnerable to an American air attack)

Is improvable an attack before the USA elections, since that will help the democrat candidate (and Israel prefers the republican candidate). Is improvable an attack after the Inauguration Day, since Israel can be dealing with a less favorable president (even if it is a republican) and may be dealing with some S-300 already installed.

So Israel must attack before, 2009 Jan 20, probably after 2008 Nov 04, with or without American hardware. Without American hardware Israelis may face some casualties due to Tor missiles.

The result? Iranians will target any civilian (or military) ship in the Hormuz strait probably with modified Silkworm missiles that can traverse the strait.

The price of oil will double overnight and we could have supply problems in many western countries.

Probably USA will attack Iranian shore-based launchers, probably with UN security council support. But they would have to destroy silkworm bases again and again to turn the Hormuz strait in a relatively safe place.

I know that a lot of people know this, and this is why the price of oil is already so high.

More links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7486971.stm

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/index.html