{"id":11679,"date":"2015-02-19T00:04:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T00:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=11679"},"modified":"2015-02-19T00:04:43","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T00:04:43","slug":"bombshell-report-declassified-us-helped-israel-with-h-bomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=11679","title":{"rendered":"Bombshell Report Declassified \u2013 US Helped Israel With H-Bomb"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"36.si\"<\/a>

Reuters \/ Eliana Aponte<\/p><\/div>\n

US helped Israel with H-bomb – 1980s report declassified<\/h1>\n

RT.com<\/p>\n

Conceding to a federal lawsuit, the US government agreed to release a 1987 Defense Department report detailing US assistance to Israel in its development of a hydrogen bomb, which skirted international standards.<\/p>\n

The 386-page report, \u201cCritical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations<\/a>,\u201d<\/em> likens top Israeli nuclear facilities to the Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories that were key in the development of US nuclear weaponry.<\/p>\n

Israelis are “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,\u201d<\/em> said the report, the release of which comes before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s March 3 speech in front of the US Congress in which he will oppose any deal that allows Iran’s legal nuclear program to persist.<\/p>\n

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Obama promises to veto new sanctions on Iran<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US,”<\/em> Roger Mattson, a formerly of the Atomic Energy Commission\u2019s technical staff, said<\/a> of the report, according to Courthouse News.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s release earlier this week was initiated by a Freedom of Information Act request made three years ago by Grant Smith, director of the Washington think tank Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. Smith filed a lawsuit in September in order to compel the Pentagon to substantially address the request.<\/p>\n

“It’s our basic position that in 1987 the Department of Defense discovered that Israel had a nuclear weapons program, detailed it and then has covered it up for 25 years in violation of the Symington and Glenn amendments, costing taxpayers $86 billion,\u201d<\/em> Smith said during a hearing in late 2014 before Judge Tanya Chutkan in US District Court for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: \u2018Elections, not Iran\u2019: Israeli PM accused of vote-scoring, risking US ties at Congress speech<\/a><\/p>\n

Smith described in his federal court complaint how those federal laws were violated by the US in the midst of Israel\u2019s budding nuclear program.<\/p>\n

“The Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits most U.S. foreign aid to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside international safeguards,\u201d<\/em> Smith wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Glenn Amendment of 1977 calls for an end to U.S. foreign aid to countries that import nuclear reprocessing technology.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In November, Judge Chutkan asked government lawyers resistant to the report\u2019s release why it had taken years for the government to prepare the report for public consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to know what is taking so long for a 386-page document. The document was located some time ago,\u201d<\/em> Chutkan said, according<\/a> to Courthouse News Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve reviewed my share of documents in my career. It should not take that long to review that document and decide what needs to be redacted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"image<\/p>\n

image from the report \u201cCritical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The government\u2019s representatives in the case — Special Assistant US Attorney Laura Jennings and Defense Department counsel Mark Herrington — initially said confidentiality agreements required a\u201cline by line\u201d<\/em> review of the Defense Department\u2019s report. They later shifted, arguing that its release is optional and not mandatory, as “diplomatic relations dictate that DoD seeks Israel’s review.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Smith and the US agreed that the government would redact sections of the report on NATO countries, though the passages on Israel remain intact.<\/p>\n

“The capability of SOREQ [Soreq Nuclear Research Center] to support SDIO [Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, or \u201cStar Wars\u201d] and nuclear technologies is almost an exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,”<\/em> said the report, written by the Institute for Defense Analysis for the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n

“SOREQ and Dimona\/Beer Sheva facilities are the equivalent of our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories…[and have] the technology base required for nuclear weapons design and fabrication.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The report\u2019s authors Edwin Townsley and Clarence Robinson found that Israel to had Category 1 capability regarding its anti-tactical ballistic missile and \u201cStar Wars\u201d<\/em> weapons programs.<\/p>\n

“As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. [w]as in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960,\u201d<\/em> the report said. \u201cIt should be noted that the Israelis are developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In a statement on the report\u2019s release, Smith said Thursday, “Informal and Freedom of Information Act release of such information is rare. Under two known gag orders — punishable by imprisonment — U.S. security-cleared government agency employees and contractors may not disclose that Israel has a nuclear weapons program.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu\u2019s planned address<\/a> before the US Congress was controversially arranged by Republican leadership without consultation of congressional Democrats or the White House.<\/p>\n

The speech will occur weeks before Netanyahu will seek reelection<\/a>, and is to center around his opposition to any agreement with Iran over its nuclear program<\/a>, a deal the US — while levying heavy sanctions on Tehran — has pursued despite protests from its preeminent ally in the Middle East, Israel.<\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s nuclear program is legal under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty<\/a>, to which Israel is one of the few United Nations members that is not a signatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US helped Israel with H-bomb – 1980s report declassified RT.com Conceding to a federal lawsuit, the US government agreed to release a 1987 Defense Department report detailing US assistance to Israel in its development of a hydrogen bomb, which skirted … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}