Welcome to the American Revolution II
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."Dwight D. Eisenhower
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2009 - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today gave his unequivocal vote of confidence to the senior U.S. military officer in Afghanistan.
Appearing on CNN's State of the Union news show, Gates told host John King that Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is "the very best commanding officer we could possibly have" as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Gates said he believes President Barack Obama shares his strong confidence in McChrystal's abilities.
In June, McChrystal took over as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. In late August, the general submitted his assessment of how the U.S. should proceed in Afghanistan to the Pentagon and the White House.
In his assessment McChrystal found that the situation in Afghanistan "is more serious than we had thought and that he had thought before going out there," Gates said.
McChrystal has said he needs more troops and other resources to get the job done in Afghanistan. Currently, some 68,000 U.S. servicemembers are deployed in Afghanistan, including 21,500 troops that have deployed since Obama announced the new Afghan strategy in March.
When President Obama announced his new Afghan strategy, Gates recalled, the president also noted that that strategy would be reviewed following Afghanistan's presidential elections that were held in August.
McChrystal also has submitted his separate assessment of the numbers of troops and other resources that he thinks are required to carry out his recommended Afghanistan strategy, Gates said on CNN.
Right now, "we are in the middle of a process of evaluating, really, the decisions the President made in late March to say: 'Have we got the strategy right?'" Gates said.
And, once everyone is confident that the strategy for Afghanistan is correct, Gates told King, then, the question of possible additional resources, including more troops, will be addressed.
Later today, on the ABC-TV "This Week" program, Gates told host George Stephanopoulos that "it's a matter of a few weeks," before the Afghanistan review would be completed.
Stephanopoulos also asked Gates if accusations of voting fraud in the re-election of President Hamid Karzai will impact U.S. policy there.
Gates replied that news of the flawed Afghan election surfaced after McChrystal submitted his first assessment report, and that two election commissions, one internal, the other international, are now studying how the election was conducted.
However, the Afghan people still believe in their government, Gates said.
"The key is whether the Afghans believe that their government has legitimacy," Gates said. "And, everything that I've seen in the intelligence and elsewhere indicates that remains the case."
Despite pressure, McChrystal to hold firm on request for troops
Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he will not back down from his request for additional troops in Afghanistan, even though Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration have been hesitant to embrace it. Speaking on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan said pressure to rescind that request will have no affect on his actions going forward.
“Doesn’t affect me at all, and I take this extraordinarily seriously,” McChrystal said, according to a transcript. “I believe that what I am responsible to do is to give my best assessment.” McChrystal’s recent report -- delivered to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on Friday and asking for 40,000 more troops -- is a hot-button issue on Capitol Hill, with Democrats hitting the Sunday talk show circuit earlier in the day and saying that the administration should weigh McChrystal’s request very carefully. "I think the president is correct to take his time, to really examine what the alternatives are at this time," Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, echoing fellow senator and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb (D-Va.).Obama authorized 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan as soon as he came into office in January and the last from that order are still deploying to the region. McChrystal deflected when asked whether he thought he would get what he is asking for from Washington. “I’m confident that I will have an absolute chance to provide my assessment and to make my recommendations,” he said. McChrystal also stated that he had only spoken to Obama once in 70 days since taking over as commander in the eight-year-old war. He said the United States often hasn’t done what it should have during those eight years, and he is trying to change the culture of the U.S. presence in the country as the Taliban rebounds. That includes cracking down on aggressive driving by U.S. convoys and asking soldiers to take on additional risks in the name of protecting Afghan citizens. “There’s an awful lot of bad habits we’ve got to deprogram,” McChrystal said. He said time is of the essence in a war that experts say has become more difficult than Iraq, and that progress needs to be made fast. He has been blunt about the prospect of failure, and he said he will be honest if and when that prospect becomes a reality. “We could do good thing in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail,” he said, “because we’re doing a lot of good things, and it just doesn’t add up to success.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says in an interview with NPR that the Holocaust is a "historical event" and that Iranians are free to criticize the government. He also addresses questions about human rights and nuclear aspirations in his country, and praises President Obama's break with policies of previous U.S. administrations.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says in an interview with NPR that the Holocaust is a "historical event" and that Iranians are free to criticize the government. He also addresses questions about human rights and nuclear aspirations in his country, and praises President Obama's break with policies of previous U.S. administrations.
Under fire for his repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
I think Ahmadinejad need to get a new mind.
called the deaths of millions of Jews during World War II a "historical event" during an interview with NPR's Morning Edition to air Friday, but he quickly dismissed the accounts of Holocaust survivors as "claims."
"Why should everyone be forced to accept the opinion of just a few on a historic event?" he asked host Steve Inskeep.
Ahmadinejad stirred up controversy again last week by using a national televised speech in Iran to call the Holocaust a "lie and a mythical claim."
He told Inskeep: "I'm not a historian. Most certainly, I've read a lot of books about this issue, and that is why I have questions about it. My questions are very clear ones. We should allow researchers to examine all sorts of questions because it's quite clear that when they do, they will reach different conclusions."
In the interview, he complained that the event is given too much prominence, particularly by many politicians who use the Holocaust to justify actions that hurt Palestinians.
"I can see that genocide is happening now under the pretext of an event that happened 60 years ago," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "Why should the Palestinian people make up for it?"
The Holocaust discussion was one portion of a wide-ranging interview, conducted on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Ahmadinejad also discussed the fate of demonstrators in Iran who have been protesting the recent election, praised President Obama for what Ahmadinejad views as criticism of previous U.S. administrations, and addressed his country's nuclear program.
Iran is currently conducting research and development on nuclear weapons, an exiled opposition group claimed Friday in Paris - identifying two locations near Tehran where such work is allegedly taking place.
"This site and centre are the locations for research and production of the explosion system of an atomic bomb, which is one of the most important aspects of the mullahs' nuclear weapons project," Mehdi Abrishamchi, an official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said, referring to Iran's clerical leaders. In contrast, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Islamic state probably ended weapons-related work in 2003.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has received intelligence information indicating that such research could have been conducted in the past, but has not drawn a final conclusion to confirm this.
The ongoing efforts were being conducted by an entity called Research Centre for Explosion and Impact (MEFTAZ), affiliated with the Defense Ministry and housed in an unmarked building in Tehran, Abrishamchi said at a press conference.
Among other tasks, that centre was working on computer simulations, he said.
The Paris-based NCRI also alleged that there was a second site near Sanjarian village for building technical components and testing high explosives.
In nuclear weapons, high explosives are placed around a core of nuclear material and triggered simultaneously in order to implode the core and cause a nuclear chain reaction.
Iranian officials have told the IAEA that they experimented with simultaneous detonators in the past, but said the work was done for civilian rather than military use.
A diplomat close to the Vienna-based agency said its inspectors had not found anything suggesting ongoing Iranian efforts in that field.
Tehran's leaders say they have no interest in nuclear energy except for electricity generation and other peaceful uses.
The Paris-based NCRI made its allegations one week before Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are scheduled to hold talks with Iran in Geneva, where the world powers expect a serious response to their concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
The NCRI is considered the political wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a group that seeks to overthrow Iran's clerical regime.
In 2002 the NCRI played an important role in revealing Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran had kept secret from IAEA inspectors. Later claims regarding Iran's nuclear activities failed to be equally substantial.
Abrishamchi said the information was collected by dozens of sources of the Muhajedin in Iran.
Report: Ahmadinejad offers U.S. access to Iran's nuclear scientists
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered the United States and other Western powers access to scientists working in Iran's nuclear program, according to a report by the Washington Post on Thursday.
The offer - a confidence-building measure - was broached by Ahmadinejad while speaking with Post editors at the United Nations on Wednesday.
He added that Iran would seek to buy enriched uranium from the United States to use for medical purposes. A rejection, he was cited as saying, would only prove that Iran needed to enrich its own uranium.
"It is a humanitarian issue," Ahmadinejad said. "I think this is a very solid proposal which gives a good opportunity for a start" to build trust between Tehran and Washington.
In a separate report from the Washington Times, former U.S. weapons inspector David Albright confirmed that the U.S. had provided Iran a medical reactor near Tehran prior to the Islamic revolution. He said that Iran for years has been unable to obtain uranium for this medical reactor.
Exiled Iranians name sites of alleged nuclear bomb research
Iran is currently conducting research and development on nuclear weapons, an exiled opposition group claimed Friday in Paris - identifying two locations near Tehran where such work is allegedly taking place.
"This site and centre are the locations for research and production of the explosion system of an atomic bomb, which is one of the most important aspects of the mullahs' nuclear weapons project," Mehdi Abrishamchi, an official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said, referring to Iran's clerical leaders. In contrast, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Islamic state probably ended weapons-related work in 2003.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has received intelligence information indicating that such research could have been conducted in the past, but has not drawn a final conclusion to confirm this.
The ongoing efforts were being conducted by an entity called Research Centre for Explosion and Impact (MEFTAZ), affiliated with the Defense Ministry and housed in an unmarked building in Tehran, Abrishamchi said at a press conference.
Among other tasks, that centre was working on computer simulations, he said.
The Paris-based NCRI also alleged that there was a second site near Sanjarian village for building technical components and testing high explosives.
In nuclear weapons, high explosives are placed around a core of nuclear material and triggered simultaneously in order to implode the core and cause a nuclear chain reaction.
Iranian officials have told the IAEA that they experimented with simultaneous detonators in the past, but said the work was done for civilian rather than military use.
A diplomat close to the Vienna-based agency said its inspectors had not found anything suggesting ongoing Iranian efforts in that field.
Tehran's leaders say they have no interest in nuclear energy except for electricity generation and other peaceful uses.
The Paris-based NCRI made its allegations one week before Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are scheduled to hold talks with Iran in Geneva, where the world powers expect a serious response to their concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
The NCRI is considered the political wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a group that seeks to overthrow Iran's clerical regime.
In 2002 the NCRI played an important role in revealing Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran had kept secret from IAEA inspectors. Later claims regarding Iran's nuclear activities failed to be equally substantial.
Abrishamchi said the information was collected by dozens of sources of the Muhajedin in Iran.
Report: Ahmadinejad offers U.S. access to Iran's nuclear scientists
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered the United States and other Western powers access to scientists working in Iran's nuclear program, according to a report by the Washington Post on Thursday.
The offer - a confidence-building measure - was broached by Ahmadinejad while speaking with Post editors at the United Nations on Wednesday.
He added that Iran would seek to buy enriched uranium from the United States to use for medical purposes. A rejection, he was cited as saying, would only prove that Iran needed to enrich its own uranium.
"It is a humanitarian issue," Ahmadinejad said. "I think this is a very solid proposal which gives a good opportunity for a start" to build trust between Tehran and Washington.
In a separate report from the Washington Times, former U.S. weapons inspector David Albright confirmed that the U.S. had provided Iran a medical reactor near Tehran prior to the Islamic revolution. He said that Iran for years has been unable to obtain uranium for this medical reactor.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the 64th UN General Assembly in New York as delegations (below) walk out. Photo: AP
France has led a walkout of delegations, including Australia, to protest a fiery speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly.
"It is disappointing that Mr Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," Mark Kornblau, spokesman to the US mission to the United Nations, said in a statement.
PITTSBURGH, Sept 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran on Friday that it was "on notice" and said it would have to "come clean" about its disputed nuclear program at a meeting of world powers on Oct. 1.
"The international community has spoken. It is now up to Iran to respond," Obama told a news conference after a Group of 20 summit of rich and developing nations.
He said he did not want to speculate on possible courses of actions, but added: "We do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests."
Earlier in the day he stood with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to accuse Iran of building a secret nuclear fuel plant.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2009
West Raps Iran Nuclear Site
Ahmadinejad Is Defiant as U.S. Pushes for Sanctions Over Secret Uranium Facility
PITTSBURGH -- The leaders of the U.S., France and Britain charged Iran has built a secret nuclear facility designed to give the Islamic republic the ability to build an atomic weapon, a revelation that significantly raises the stakes in the West's intensifying face-off with Tehran.
President Barack Obama used the Pittsburgh Group of 20 venue to say that Iran was violating non-proliferation agreements with a previously unreported second nuclear-enrichment facility.
President Barack Obama made the disclosure Friday as heads of government gathered here for a G-20 summit on the world's financial and climate-change problems. U.S. officials said the discovery of the underground site, in the holy city of Qom, supported the long-held belief that Tehran is operating a second, clandestine facility to produce the highly enriched uranium used in making a nuclear bomb. Iran has a previously disclosed enrichment facility in Natanz.
President Obama said the public disclosure of the site -- which he was briefed on shortly after his election last fall -- gives Washington a new tool to unite the international community against Iran going into a pivotal face-to-face meeting with Iranian officials next Thursday in Geneva.
"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow, endangering the global nonproliferation regime, denying its own people access to the opportunity they deserve, and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world," Mr. Obama said. He was flanked by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Both Russia and China, who are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council along with the U.S., Britain and France, have opposed stiffer economic sanctions on Tehran. The Western powers now hope the Qom facility will sway them.
U.S. officials said President Obama went public with the Qom information Friday because the White House learned that Tehran had got wind of the discovery and was reporting the site on its own to U.N. nuclear monitors. The officials said the U.S. shared intelligence about the existence of the Qom site with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, when he met with Mr. Obama at the United Nations.
Mr. Medvedev emerged from that meeting and surprised diplomats by suggesting Russia would be more open to sanctions than in the past. On Friday he again took an unusually hard line, saying Iran must cooperate with an investigation by the U.N.'s monitors and that Russia would help the probe "by any available means," though he also told the G-20 group that Iran still needs a chance to prove its intentions for the plant are peaceful.
Western allies had already begun moving to a December deadline for sanctions. "If by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken," France's Mr. Sarkozy said Friday.
The White House now aims to win more support from China, whose officials were briefed on the new intelligence Wednesday in New York. China's foreign ministry, while calling for a probe, emphasized Friday it was still more interested in dialogue than punishment.
Iran showed no indication of compromise Friday. A defiant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference the new facility won't be operational for 18 months, and thus Iran hasn't violated any international reporting requirements-a claim the U.S. and its allies refute, as does the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Mr. Ahmadinejad said he would allow IAEA inspectors to visit the new site.
"What we did was completely legal, according to the law," he told reporters in New York. "At the end of the day, this is a very ordinary facility that has been set up, and it's only in the beginning stages."
Senior Iranian officials said the construction of the facility was reported on Thursday to the IAEA. The facility would be used for civilian purposes, they said, mainly the production of energy and medical tools. "With its absolute right for peaceful nuclear energy, the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken a successful new step in building a second plant for uranium enrichment," said the statement from the Iranian government, signed by the director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi.
U.S. officials said they expected Tehran would try to persuade the IAEA that its actions were purely for civilian purposes. But the plant near Qom is "very heavily protected, very disguised," a senior administration official said.
The facility is large enough to hold around 3,000 centrifuges, not enough for commercial uranium enrichment, the official said, but "the right size" for a weapons plant that could produce enough highly enriched uranium for one to two bombs a year. Tehran is still "at least a few months, perhaps more" from installing all the centrifuges needed to process the fuel and starting operations, the official said.
U.S. intelligence officials said Friday that the earliest the facility could begin enriching uranium is 2010, and that it would take about a year to make enough of the highly enriched fuel needed for one nuclear weapon.
Because the new facility isn't yet up and running, analysts said Iran is no closer to achieving a nuclear weapon than previously thought. But the facility is more easily configured to produce highly enriched uranium than Iran's existing nuclear-fuel plant at Natanz, U.S. intelligence officials said.
With the IAEA monitoring that facility, the Iranians could only enrich it to weapons-grade uranium in front of the inspectors, or kick the inspectors out. "The obvious option for Iran was to build another, secret, enrichment facility," one senior administration official said. "We've been looking for such a facility, and not surprisingly, we found one."
The new facility has been under construction for several years, and the Iranians have worked hard to keep it covert, intelligence officials said, burying it deep underground at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard base managed by the Atomic Energy Association of Iran.
The last major intelligence report on Iran's nuclear program in 2007 said that Tehran would be capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015. One intelligence official said yesterday that while they are constantly reassessing that projection, "we haven't changed our assessment yet."
When the Israeli army’s then-Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was asked in 2004 how far Israel would go to stop Iran's nuclear program, he replied: "2,000 kilometers," roughly the distance been the two countries.
Israel's political and military leaders have long made it clear that they are considering taking decisive military action if Iran continues to develop its nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at the United Nations this week that "the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons."
Reporting by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources has made it clear that whether or not Iran ties all of its efforts into a formal nuclear weapons program, it has acquired all of the elements necessary to make and deliver such weapons. Just Friday, Iran confirmed that it has been developing a second uranium-enrichment facility on a military base near Qom, doing little to dispel the long-standing concerns of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the U.S. that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
Iran has acquired North Korean and other nuclear weapons design data through sources like the sales network once led by the former head of Pakistan's nuclear program, A. Q. Khan. Iran has all of the technology and production and manufacturing capabilities needed for fission weapons. It has acquired the technology to make the explosives needed for a gun or implosion device, the triggering components, and the neutron initiator and reflectors. It has experimented with machine uranium and plutonium processing. It has put massive resources into a medium-range missile program that has the range payload to carry nuclear weapons and that makes no sense with conventional warheads. It has also worked on nuclear weapons designs for missile warheads. These capabilities are dispersed in many facilities in many cities and remote areas, and often into many buildings in each facility—each of which would have to be a target in an Israeli military strike.
It is far from certain that such action would be met with success. An Israeli strike on Iran would be far more challenging than the Israeli strike that destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. An effective Israeli nuclear strike may not be possible, yet a regional nuclear arms race is a game that Iran can start, but cannot possibly win. Anyone who meets regularly with senior Israeli officials, officers and experts knows that Israel is considering military options, but considering them carefully and with an understanding that they pose serious problems and risks.
One of the fundamental problems dogging Israel, especially concerning short-ranged fighters and fighter-bombers, is distance. Iran's potential targets are between 950 and 1,400 miles from Israel, the far margin of the ranges Israeli fighters can reach, even with aerial refueling. Israel would be hard-pressed to destroy all of Iran's best-known targets. What's more, Iran has had years in which to build up covert facilities, disperse elements of its nuclear and missile programs, and develop options for recovering from such an attack.
A sign reading “Atomic Power Plant” points the way to a nuclear power plant that was built in the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr, with Russian help.
At best, such action would delay Iran's nuclear buildup. It is more likely to provoke the country into accelerating its plans. Either way, Israel would have to contend with the fact that it has consistently had a "red light" from both the Bush and Obama administrations opposing such strikes. Any strike that overflew Arab territory or attacked a fellow Islamic state would stir the ire of neighboring Arab states, as well as Russia, China and several European states.
This might not stop Israel. Hardly a week goes by without another warning from senior Israeli officials that a military strike is possible, and that Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, even though no nation has indicated it would support such action. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to threaten Israel and to deny its right to exist. At the same time, President Barack Obama is clearly committed to pursuing diplomatic options, his new initiatives and a U.N. resolution on nuclear arms control and counterproliferation, and working with our European allies, China and Russia to impose sanctions as a substitute for the use of force.
BATTLE STATIONS: Israel has to carefully consider its options.
Mr. Ahmadinejad keeps denying that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and tries to defend Iran from both support for sanctions and any form of attack by saying that Iran will negotiate over its peaceful use of nuclear power. He offered some form of dialogue with the U.S. during his visit to the U.N. this week. While French President Nicolas Sarkozy denounced Iran's continued lack of response to the Security Council this week, and said its statements would "wipe a U.N. member state off the map," no nation has yet indicated it would support Israeli military action.
Most analyses of a possible Israeli attack focus on only three of Iran's most visible facilities: its centrifuge facilities at Natanz, its light water nuclear power reactor near Bushehr, and a heavy water reactor at Arak it could use to produce plutonium. They are all some 950 to 1,000 miles from Israel. Each of these three targets differs sharply in terms of the near-term risk it poses to Israel and its vulnerability.
The Arak facility is partially sheltered, but it does not yet have a reactor vessel and evidently will not have one until 2011. Arak will not pose a tangible threat for at least several years. The key problem Israel would face is that it would virtually have to strike it as part of any strike on the other targets, because it cannot risk waiting and being unable to carry out another set of strikes for political reasons. It also could then face an Iran with much better air defenses, much better long-range missile forces, and at least some uranium weapons.
Bushehr is a nuclear power reactor along Iran's southwestern coast in the Gulf. It is not yet operational, although it may be fueled late this year. It would take some time before it could be used to produce plutonium, and any Iranian effort to use its fuel rods for such a purpose would be easy to detect and lead Iran into an immediate political confrontation with the United Nations and other states. Bushehr also is being built and fueled by Russia—which so far has been anything but supportive of an Israeli strike and which might react to any attack by making major new arms shipments to Iran.
The centrifuge facility at Natanz is a different story. It is underground and deeply sheltered, and is defended by modern short-range Russian TOR-M surface-to-air missiles. It also, however, is the most important target Israel can fully characterize. Both Israeli and outside experts estimate that it will produce enough low enriched uranium for Iran to be able to be used in building two fission nuclear weapons by some point in 2010—although such material would have to be enriched far more to provide weapons-grade U-235.
Israel has fighters, refueling tankers and precision-guided air-to-ground weapons to strike at all of these targets—even if it flies the long-distance routes needed to avoid the most critical air defenses in neighboring Arab states. It is also far from clear that any Arab air force would risk engaging Israeli fighters. Syria, after all, did not attempt to engage Israeli fighters when they attacked the reactor being built in Syria.
In August 2003, the Israeli Air Force demonstrated the strategic capability to strike far-off targets such as Iran by flying three F-15 jets to Poland, 1,600 nautical miles away. Israel can launch and refuel two to three full squadrons of combat aircraft for a single set of strikes against Iran, and provide suitable refueling. Israel could also provide fighter escorts and has considerable electronic-warfare capability to suppress Iran's aging air defenses. It might take losses to Iran's fighters and surface-to-air missiles, but such losses would probably be limited.
Israel would, however, still face two critical problems. The first would be whether it can destroy a hardened underground facility like Natanz. The second is that a truly successful strike might have to hit far more targets over a much larger area than the three best-known sites. Iran has had years to build up covert and dispersed facilities, and is known to have dozens of other facilities associated with some aspect of its nuclear programs. Moreover, Israel would have to successfully strike at dozens of additional targets to do substantial damage to another key Iranian threat: its long-range missiles.
Experts sharply disagree as to whether the Israeli air force could do more than limited damage to the key Iranian facility at Natanz. Some feel it is too deeply underground and too hardened for Israel to have much impact. Others believe that it is more vulnerable than conventional wisdom has it, and Israel could use weapons like the GBU-28 earth-penetrating bombs it has received from the U.S. or its own penetrators, which may include a nuclear-armed variant, to permanently collapse the underground chambers.
No one knows what specialized weapons Israel may have developed on its own, but Israeli intelligence has probably given Israel good access to U.S., European, and Russian designs for more advanced weapons than the GBU-28. Therefore, the odds are that Israel can have a serious impact on Iran's three most visible nuclear targets and possibly delay Iran's efforts for several years.
The story is very different, however, when it comes to destroying the full range of Iranian capabilities. There are no meaningful unclassified estimates of Iran's total mix of nuclear facilities, but known unclassified research, reactor, and centrifuge facilities number in the dozens. It became clear just this week that Iran managed to conceal the fact it was building a second underground facility for uranium enrichment near Qom, 100 miles southwest of Tehran, and that was designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges. Iran is developing at least four variants of its centrifuges, and the more recent designs have far more capacity than most of the ones installed at Natanz.
This makes it easier to conceal chains of centrifuges in a number of small, dispersed facilities and move material from one facility to another. Iran's known centrifuge production facilities are scattered over large areas of Iran, and at least some are in Mashad in the far northeast of the country—far harder to reach than Arak, Bushehr and Natanz.
Many of Iran's known facilities present the added problem that they are located among civilian facilities and peaceful nuclear-research activities—although Israel's precision-strike capabilities may well be good enough to allow it to limit damage to nearby civilian facilities.
It is not clear that Israel can win this kind of "shell game." It is doubtful that even the U.S. knows all the potential targets, and even more doubtful that any outside power can know what each detected Iranian facility currently does—and the extent to which each can hold dispersed centrifuge facilities that Iran could use instead of Natanz to produce weapons-grade uranium. As for the other elements of Iran's nuclear programs, it has scattered throughout the country the technical and industrial facilities it could use to make the rest of fission nuclear weapons. The facilities can now be in too many places for an Israeli strike to destroy Iran's capabilities.
Israel also faces limits on its military capabilities. Strong as Israeli forces are, they lack the scale, range and other capabilities to carry out the kind of massive strike the U.S. could launch. Israel does not have the density and quality of intelligence assets necessary to reliably assess the damage done to a wide range of small and disperse targets and to detect new Iranian efforts.
Israel has enough strike-attack aircraft and fighters in inventory to carry out a series of restrikes if Iran persisted in rebuilding, but it could not refuel a large-enough force, or provide enough intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities, to keep striking Iran at anything like the necessary scale. Moreover, Israel does not have enough forces to carry out a series of restrikes if Iran persisted in creating and rebuilding new facilities, and Arab states could not repeatedly standby and let Israel penetrate their air space. Israel might also have to deal with a Russia that would be far more willing to sell Iran advanced fighters and surface-to-air missiles if Israel attacked the Russian-built reactor at Bushehr.
These problems are why a number of senior Israeli intelligence experts and military officers feel that Israel should not strike Iran, although few would recommend that Israel avoid using the threat of such strikes to help U.S. and other diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to halt. For example, retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom advocates, like a number of other Israeli experts, reliance on deterrence and Israel's steadily improving missile defenses.
Any Israeli attack on an Iranian nuclear target would be a very complex operation in which a relatively large number of attack aircraft and support aircraft would participate. The conclusion is that Israel could attack only a few Iranian targets—not as part of a sustainable operation over time, but as a one-time surprise operation.
The alternatives, however, are not good for Israel, the U.S., Iran's neighbors or Arab neighbors. Of course being attacked is not good for Iran. Israel could still strike, if only to try to buy a few added years of time. Iranian persistence in developing nuclear weapons could push the U.S. into launching its own strike on Iran—although either an Israeli or U.S. strike might be used by Iran's hardliners to justify an all-out nuclear arms race. Further, it is far from clear that friendly Arab Gulf states would allow the U.S. to use bases on their soil for the kind of massive strike and follow-on restrikes that the U.S. would need to suppress Iran's efforts on a lasting basis.
The broader problem for Iran, however, is that Israel will not wait passively as Iran develops a nuclear capability. Like several Arab states, Israel already is developing better missile and air defenses, and more-advanced forms of its Arrow ballistic missile defenses. There are reports that Israel is increasing the range-payload of its nuclear-armed missiles and is developing sea-based nuclear-armed cruise missiles for its submarines.
Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility is seen behind Imam Ali mosque just outside the city of Isfahan. This picture was taken on April 9, Iran’s recently created National Nuclear Technology Day.
While Iran is larger than Israel, its population centers are so vulnerable to Israeli thermonuclear weapons that Israel already is a major "existential" threat to Iran. Moreover, provoking its Arab neighbors and Turkey into developing their nuclear capabilities, or the U.S. into offering them a nuclear umbrella targeted on Iran, could create additional threats, as well as make Iran's neighbors even more dependent on the U.S. for their security. Iran's search for nuclear-armed missiles may well unite its neighbors against it as well as create a major new nuclear threat to its survival.
By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 25, 2009; 5:37 PM
NEW YORK, Sept. 25 -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday sternly denied charges by the United States, France and Britain that his government had sought to conceal a nuclear enrichment facility, insisting that Tehran had met its legal obligation to inform the U.N.'s key nuclear agency of its activities and that it had invited inspections of the facility.
"It's not a secret facility," Ahmadinejad told reporters at a press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel. "What we did was completely legal."
The Iranian president said his government had recently notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its plans to operate the new facility. He said the Vienna-based nuclear energy agency "will come and take a look and produce a report and nothing new."
Ahmadinejad's remarks came hours after President Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused Iran of pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment facility in violation of U.N. rules.
Ahmadinejad said that the United States and its European partners were seeking to exploit the latest nuclear revelation to turn the international community against Iran, and to strengthen their negotiation position on the eve of Oct. 1 nuclear talks. He said Obama's contention that the facility was not for peaceful purposes was not true. "I don't think Mr. Obama is a nuclear expert," he said. "We have to leave it to the IAEA and let the IAEA carry out its duty."
At the crux of the dispute between Iran and the West is a difference of opinion over Iran's obligation to notify the IAEA of its plan to build nuclear facilities. Ahmadinejad claims that Iran is not required to notify the IAEA of its intention to construct a nuclear facility until six months before it begins operation, citing a longstanding IAEA policy. The IAEA has persuaded most countries with the capacity to produce nuclear power to agree to notify the IAEA before they begin construction. Iran reached a similar agreement with the agency in 2003, but then withdrew from the accord four years later, when nuclear talks with the West collapsed. The IAEA maintains that Iran is still bound by that agreement, but that its failure to abide by it does not constitute a formal violation of its obligations, according to David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector and now the head of the Institute for Science and International Security.
The chief of Hawaii's Department of Health twice has issued statements trying to convince doubters that President Obama was born in the state, and now those words may backfire if a new legal challenge comes to fruition.
In July, the state's director of health, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement on the subject of Obama's birth:
"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai‘i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago."
Last year, at the time of the election, she stated:
"There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawaii Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.
"No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii."
While her statements have been picked to pieces and, in fact, leave out a number of key issues, they now are being used as a reason for a demand that "information collected and maintained" be made public.
On his blog, Donofrio explained that one of his contacts, identified as "TerriK," had asked for all of the state information "collected and maintained" for the purposes of preparing Fukino's public statements.
Under state law, he said, "such information must be released."
"TerriK was interested in knowing how Director Fukino came to the conclusion that the president was a natural born citizen. She was familiar with Section 92F-12(15) which demands that all information collected and maintained for the purposes of making such a public statement be made public. She was denied that information despite the clear wording in the statute. Furthermore, the case law from Hawaii clearly demands production of the records TerriK requested," he said.
Donofrio said work is under way to press the demand.
"I will provide legal research and relevant examples of official correspondence in my follow up report and press release at this blog. TerriK has previously provided details of her investigation and correspondence with the state of Hawaii in comments to this and other blogs. She has also authorized me to speak publicly about her case and to provide the public with all relevant correspondence," he said.
Under the state's law addressing records. exceptions are made for government records that would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Also exempted are various records regarding prosecutions and certain court papers.
But it explains that disclosure "shall not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal private if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the privacy interests of the individual."
Department spokesman Janice Okubo told WND the laws have been interpreted to leave birth documentation exempted from public disclosure.
But she admitted the law allows a challenge to such decisions in the courts.
In fact, the law states, "A person aggrieved by a denial of access to a government record may bring an action against the agency at any time within two years after the agency denial to compel disclosure. … The circuit court may examine the government record at issue, in camera, to assist in determining whether it, or any part of it, may be withheld."
WND also has reported on plans by Hawaii state Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat, to pursue legislation through which the state's lawmakers would force the public disclosure of all Obama's birth documents held by the Hawaii Department of Health, including Obama’s long-form original birth certificate.
Espero told WND at the time his bill is aimed at "giving citizens access to birth records" under a standard of government transparency which would permit journalists to request in writing the public disclosure of vital birth records, including long-form birth certificates of all persons born in Hawaii.
"My decision to file the legislation was primarily a result of the fuss over President Obama's birth records and the lingering questions," Espero said.
Espero told WND that he believes President Obama was born in Hawaii.
"My motivation is strictly to promote transparency," he said. "When I found out that Hawaii birth records were not available to the public my first thought was, 'Why wouldn't they be available to the public?' "As far as I am concerned, records regarding whether a person was born here or not should be in the public domain."
Donofrio said he would issue a full statement and make available the complete history of correspondence with the Hawaii agency on his blog.
"Any legal assistance provided by me to TerriK will be pro bono. I will seek to be admitted pro hac vice in Hawaii for purposes of filing the case and conducting the trial. If such admission is not forthcoming, other counsel may be retained or TerriK may represent herself pro se. In any case, I will be drafting the pleadings. The only issue will be related to who files them and conducts the trial de novo," he said.
He said correspondence already has confirmed "President Obama's vital records have been amended."
But he said this case already has circumvented the issue that has been the downfall of many of the court cases challenging Obama's eligibility: "standing."
"The [state] manual states: 'Any person' may make a request for government records under part II, the Freedom of Information section of the UIPA. 'Person' is defined broadly to include an individual, government agencies, partnerships and any other legal entities," he wrote.
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.
Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated over $1 million to avoid releasing an original long-form state birth certificate that would put to rest the questions.
The "certification of live birth" posted online and widely touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.
Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.
"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson
I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. - Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
This is a letter to the AARP. It is a must read regardless of your age. Some people just make sense in what they say. This lady certainly does. Please forward this to everyone on your contact list. This was sent to Mr. Rand, the Executive Director of AARP
Dear Mr. Rand: Recently you sent us a letter encouraging us to renew our lapsed membership in AARP by the requested date. I know it is not what you were looking for, but this is the most honest response I can give you. Our gap in coverage is merely a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith.
While we have proudly maintained our membership for several years and have long admired the AARP goals and principles, regrettably, we can no longer endorse it's abdication of our values. Your letter specifically stated that we can count on AARP to speak up for our rights, yet the voice we hear is not ours. Your offer of being kept up to date on important issues through DIVIDED WE FAIL presents neither an impartial view nor the one we have come to embrace. We do believe that when two parties agree all the time on everything presented to them, one is probably not necessary. But, when the opinions and long term goals are diametrically opposed, the divorce is imminent. This is the philosophy which spawned our 200 years of government.
Once upon a time, we looked forward to being part of the senior demographic. We also looked to AARP to provide certain benefits and give our voice a power we could not possibly hope to achieve on our own. AARP gave us a sense of belonging which we no longer enjoy. The Socialist politics practiced by the Obama administration and empowered by AARP serves only to raise the blood pressure my medical insurance strives to contain. Clearly a conflict of interest there!
We do not understand the AARP posture, feel greatly betrayed by the guiding forces whom we expected to map out our senior years and leave your ranks with a great sense of regret. We mitigate that disappointment with the relief of knowing that we are not contributing to the problem anymore by renewing our membership. There are numerous other organizations which offer discounts without threatening our way of life or offending our sensibilities.
This Presidential Administration scares the living daylights out of us. Not just for ourselves, but for our proud and bloodstained heritage, but even more importantly for our children and grandchildren. Washington has rendered Soylent Green a prophetic cautionary tale rather than a nonfiction scare tactic. I have never in my life endorsed any militant or radical groups, yet now I find myself listening to them. I don't have to agree with them to appreciate the fear which birthed their existence. Their borderline insanity presents little more than a balance to the voice of the Socialist mindset in power. Perhaps I became American by a great stroke of luck in some cosmic uterine lottery, but in my adulthood I CHOOSE to embrace it and nurture the freedoms it represents as well as the responsibilities it requires.
Your website generously offers us the opportunity to receive all communication in Spanish. ARE YOU KIDDING??? Someone has broken into our 'house,' invaded our home without our invitation or consent. The President has insisted we keep the perpetrator in comfort and learn the perp's language, so we can communicate our reluctant welcome to them.
I DON'T choose to welcome them. I DON'T choose to support them. I DON'T choose to educate them. I DON'T choose to medicate them, pay for their food or clothing.
American home invaders get arrested. Please explain to me why foreign lawbreakers can enjoy privileges on American soil that Americans do not get? Why do some immigrants have to play the game to be welcomed and others only have to break & enter to be welcomed?
We travel for a living. Walt hauls horses all over this great country, averaging over 10,000 miles a month when he is out there. He meets more people than a politician on caffeine overdose. Of all the many good folks he enjoyed on this last 10,000 miles, this trip yielded only ONE supporter of the current administration. One of us is out of touch with mainstream America. Since our poll is conducted without funding, I have more faith in it than one which is power driven.
We have decided to forward this to everyone on our mailing list, and will encourage them to do the same. With several hundred in my address book, I have every faith that the eventual exponential factor will make a credible statement to you.
I am disappointed as hell. I am scared as hell. I am MAD as hell, and I'm NOT gonna take it anymore!
Walt & Cyndy Miller Farms Equine Transport
Miller Farms Equine Transport: Cheraw, SC
With a spotless CDL record, I have been hauling horses for over 20 years. My passion is to deliver your horse looking like it went across town rather than cross country. My second goal is to make you feel like you rode shotgun on the haul. My truck is a new Ram 3500 pulling a late model 6 horse Sundowner with customized dividers and oversized windows. I disinfect with non toxics and fully powerwash the trailer between trips. With millions of miles and thousands of horses in my resume, I have seen and done it all. I offload the horses every night, travel with apples,carrots, apple honey treats and electrolytes. The horses travel untied with hay/water in front of them all the time. If 'my way' sounds like 'your way', contact me. I proudly supply references and expect to add you to that list shortly. Looking forward to hearing from you. Area Served: East Coast Corridor, East Coast--> West Coast
Phone: landline: 843-320-9917 cells; 516-818-8616 or 631-682-5176
Barack Obama denounced by rightwing marchers in Washington
To Mr. Obama’s critics, thousands of whom took to the streets of Washington this weekend to protest a new era of big government, all these efforts are part of a plan to dismantle free-market capitalism. On the ground it looks quite different, as a new president and his team try to define the proper role, both as owners and regulators.
The size of the demonstration on Capitol Hill took the authorities by surprise. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Washington at the weekend in the largest manifestation yet of the angry anti-Obama sentiment being whipped up among rightwing Republicans.
Bearing flags saying "Don't tread on me!", "Enough, enough" and "I'm not your ATM", they descended on the capital on Saturday from all corners of the country to denounce what they believe is the administration's march towards socialism.
The protesters vented their spleens over a wide range of targets, from conservative staples such as perceived high taxes and big government, through President Barack Obama's plans to reform health care, to more extreme portrayals of Obama as a terrorist or a Hitler figure. The depiction of the administration as socialist or communist was a unifying theme.
Marchers took three hours to walk from the White House to Capitol Hill, and the crowd that assembled on the west lawn of the Capitol spilled out on to the National Mall.
Democratic commentators were quick to dismiss the protest as the ranting of an intensely motivated but electorally marginal rightwing alliance. The Obama administration is intent on pressing ahead with selling health reform to the US public, despite all the rightwing noise.
The president will take his message of the urgent need for change to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and Maryland on Thursday. He told a rally in Minneapolis at the weekend: "I will not accept the status quo. Not this time. Not now."
The largest gathering since the inauguration of President Barack Obama gathered Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 in Washington, D.C., to protest high taxes, government spending and government-run health care.
But the large numbers at Saturday's march took city authorities by surprise, and came as the culmination of an ad hoc movement that has been building in size and momentum since April's anti-tax "tea party" demonstrations.
The organisers of the march represent a ragbag coalition of disparate groups, joined at the hip by their hatred of Obama's perceived radicalism. They include right-wing thinktanks such as the Heartland Institute, small government campaigns like Americans for Tax Reform and Tea Party Patriots, and internet-based protest networks such as ResistNet.
FreedomWorks, a Washington-based body led by Richard Armey, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, was also behind the march. He addressed the rally, accusing Obama of betraying the founding fathers. When he spoke, the crowd shouted "Liar! liar!" – an allusion to the Republican congressman Joe Wilson who shouted out "Liar!" at Obama during the president's address to Congress last week.
They came. They saw. They protested.
Yet it remains to be seen whether the demonstration Saturday in the nation's capital, against what protesters view as out-of-control spending by an expanding federal government, will conquer Washington.
The tens of thousands of protesters marched to the U.S. Capitol chanting various slogans and waving posters that voiced a rather broad array of grievances against big government and the leaders, particularly President Obama, who the protesters blame for its size and scope.
Some signs, reflecting the growing intensity of the health care debate, depicted President Obama with the signature mustache of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Many made reference to Obama as a socialist or communist, and another imposed his face on that of the villainous Joker from "Batman." Other protesters waved U.S. flags and held signs espousing fiscal conservatism, declaring "I'm Not Your ATM" and "Go Green Recycle Congress."
The rally, and others like it, have been billed as "tea parties," part of a movement that takes its cue from the Boston Tea Party and other imagery from the days of the founding fathers. On Saturday, men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" -- Election Day 2010.
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, has organized several groups from across the country for the Saturday event, dubbed a "March on Washington."
Demonstrators chanted "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Some carried signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick"
The line of protesters clogged several blocks near the capitol, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
The demonstration was part of the so-called Tea Party Movement that gathered steam in April to protest tax policies. And Saturday's event was the culmination of a 34-city, 7,000-mile bus tour that began Aug. 28 in Sacramento, Calif.
The "partiers" have cited a host of grievances and demands, such as a call for any health care reform to create more competition and be guided by market principles, not a government-run plan.
Organizers said they anticipated tens of thousands of proponents of limited government to attend. They said it would be the largest group of fiscal conservatives to ever gather in Washington.
Lawmakers also supported the rally. Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Americans want health care reform but they don't want a government takeover.
"Republicans, Democrats and independents are stepping up and demanding we put our fiscal house in order," Pence, of Indiana, told The Associated Press.
"I think the overriding message after years of borrowing, spending and bailouts is enough is enough."
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also spoke at the rally. DeMint said he'd had enough of "Alice in Wonderland" politicians promising more programs at the risk of financial disaster.
"The president has warned us if we disagree with him he's going to call us out," DeMint said. "Well, Mr. President, we are out."
Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He said health care needs to be reformed -- but not according to President Barack Obama's plan.
"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.
The rally comes on the heels of heated town halls held during the congressional August recess when some Democratic lawmakers were confronted, disrupted and shouted down by angry protestors who oppose President Obama's plan to overhaul the health care system.
"I can't figure out to save me what [Mr. Obama and the Democrats] are trying to accomplish, unless they want socialism," 73-year-old Joseph Wright, a retired paper-mill worker, told The Wall Street Journal.
Wright rode from Tallahassee, Fla., to Washington this week on one of the many chartered buses bringing in demonstrators from states as far-flung as Massachusetts and Arkansas.
Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event -- an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.
Terri Hall, 45, of Starke, Fla., said she felt compelled to become political for the first time this year because she was upset by government spending.
"Our government has lost sight of the powers they were granted," she said. She added that the deficit spending was out of control, and said she thought it was putting the country at risk.
Other sponsors of the rally include the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights.
Norman Kennedy, 64, of Charleston, S.C., said he wants to send a message to federal lawmakers that America is "deeply in debt." He said though he'd like everyone to have free health care, he said there's no money to pay for it.
"We want change and we're going to get change," Kennedy said. "I want to see fiscal responsibility and if that means changing Congress that will be a means to that end."
The White House on Friday claimed it was unaware of the planned rally.
"I don't know who the group is," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters with a shrug.
But a House leadership aide warned fellow Democrats that up to 2 million demonstrators could turn out.
"It looks like Saturday's event is going to be a huge gathering, estimates ranging from hundreds of thousands to 2 million people," Doug Thornell, an aide to Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote in a memo obtained by FOXNews.com.
But conservatives believe the memo is ploy to inflate expectations for the turnout anticipating that it will fall short.
"It's an old political tactic to get out in front and make wild projections and when they're not met, claim their opponents don't have the juice," said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, one of the organizers of the rally.
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