Israeli Government Admits Iran has NO Nuclear Weapons Program!
Source-Haaretz.com
Source-Haaretz.com
In case you don't believe what I wrote below, then click this link to see how "they" operate.
Source-Henry Makow.com/Here's what the" Jews" did to Ancient Mongolia
7 Thousand Year History of Iran!
The 7 Thousand year history of Persians(Not Arabs or Jews) When you see what the Powers that be did to Iraq,Afghanistan, Egypt,Russia, China,etc, you begin to realize how "they" hate Ancient Civilizations and History.It's like Jews hate Civilizations that "Interrupted" their timeline for humanity.They want all past great civilizations, and there history erased from your memory, similar to the Christian History of America, and it's founders. FACT! New World Order....
7 Thousand Year History of Iran!
The 7 Thousand year history of Persians(Not Arabs or Jews) When you see what the Powers that be did to Iraq,Afghanistan, Egypt,Russia, China,etc, you begin to realize how "they" hate Ancient Civilizations and History.It's like Jews hate Civilizations that "Interrupted" their timeline for humanity.They want all past great civilizations, and there history erased from your memory, similar to the Christian History of America, and it's founders. FACT! New World Order....
Source-Iran Chamber Society/Great Persian City of Persopilis
Source-BBC News.com
7 Thousand year history
A chronology of key events:
550-330 BC - Achaemenid dynasty rules the first Persian Empire. At its greatest extent under Darius I stretches from the Aegean Sea and Libya to the Indus Valley.
492-479 - Persian attempts to conquer Greece fail.
330 - Alexander the Great of Macedon conquers the Persian Empire, founding a short-lived empire before dying in Babylon in 323.
312-140 - Most of Persia is part of the Greek-dominated (Hellenistic) Seleucid Empire, founded by a general of Alexander the Great.
140 BC - 224 AD - Persia become part of the Parthian Empire, ruled by the Arsacid dynasty.
224-651 AD - Sassanid dynasty rules Persian Empire; Zoroastrianism is the dominant religion.
Advent of Islam
636 - Arab invasion brings end of Sassanid dynasty and start of Islamic rule.
9th century - Emergence of modern Persian language (or Farsi), written using a form of Arabic script.
9th-13th century - Decline of Islamic Caliphate; rise of Seljuk Turk dynasties.
1220 - Invasion by Mongol forces of Genghis Khan.
1501 - Shah Ismail I becomes first ruler of Islamic Safavid dynasty; Shi'i Islam declared state religion.
1639 - Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin (or Treaty of Zuhab) ends about 150 years of war against Ottoman Empire.
1828 - Iran cedes control of Caucasus to Russia after second Russo-Persian war.
Shah Mohammad Reza, a close ally of the US, pursued a policy of modernisation and secularisation
1736 - Nadir Shah becomes monarch; end of Safavid dynasty.
1890 - "Tobacco Riots": ruler Naser al-Din Shah forced to withdraw trade concessions granted to Britain after mass protests.
1907 - Introduction of constitution which limits the absolutist powers of rulers.
1914-1918 - Iran declares neutrality but is scene of heavy fighting during World War I.
1925 December - Parliament votes to make Reza Khan ruler.
1921 February - Military commander Reza Khan seizes power.
1923 - Reza Khan becomes prime minister.
1926 April - Reza Khan crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza, the Shah's eldest son, is proclaimed Crown Prince.
Shah installed
1935 - Formerly known as Persia, Iran is adopted as the country's official name.
1941 - The Shah's pro-Axis allegiance in World War II leads to the Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran and the deposition of the Shah in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
1950 - Ali Razmara becomes prime minister and is assassinated less than nine months later. He is succeeded by the nationalist, Mohammad Mossadeq.
1951 April - Parliament votes to nationalise the oil industry, which is dominated by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Britain imposes an embargo and a blockade, halting oil exports and hitting the economy. A power struggle between the Shah and Mossadeq ensues and the Shah flees the country in August 1953.
1953 August - Mossadeq is overthrown in a coup engineered by the British and American intelligence services. General Fazlollah Zahedi is proclaimed as prime minister and the Shah returns.
Campaign to modernise
1963 January - The Shah embarks on a campaign to modernise and westernise the country. He launches the 'White Revolution', a programme of land reform and social and economic modernisation. During the late 1960's the Shah became increasingly dependent on the secret police (SAVAK) in controlling those opposition movements critical of his reforms.
1978 September - The Shah's policies alienate the clergy and his authoritarian rule leads to riots, strikes and mass demonstrations. Martial law is imposed.
Shah exiled, Khomeini returns
1979 January - As the political situation deteriorates, the Shah and his family are forced into exile.
1979 November - Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the US embassy in Tehran. They demand the extradition of the Shah, in the US at the time for medical treatment, to face trial in Iran.
1979 1 February - The Islamic fundamentalist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returns to Iran following 14 years of exile in Iraq and France for opposing the regime.
1979 1 April - The Islamic Republic of Iran is proclaimed following a referendum.
1980 January - Abolhasan Bani-Sadr is elected the first President of the Islamic Republic. His government begins work on a major nationalization programme.
1980 July - The exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.
Iran-Iraq war
1980 22 September - Start of Iran-Iraq war which lasts for eight years.
1981 January - The American hostages are released ending 444 days in captivity.
1981 June - Bani-Sadr is dismissed, he later flees to France.
1985 - After the US and Soviet Union halted arms supplies, the US attempted to win the release of hostages in Lebanon by offering secret arms deals, this would later become known as the Iran-Contra affair.
1988 July - 290 passengers and the crew of an Iran Air Airbus are mistakenly shot down by the USS Vincennes.
Ceasefire
1988 July - Iran accepts a ceasefire agreement with Iraq following negotiations in Geneva under the aegis of the UN.
1989 February - Ayatollah Khomeini issues a religious edict (fatwa) ordering Muslims to kill British author, Salman Rushdie, for his novel, 'The Satanic Verses', considered blasphemous to Islam.
1989 3 June - Ayatollah Khomeini dies. On 4 June, President Khamene'i is appointed as new supreme leader.
1989 August - Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is sworn in as the new president.
1989 November - The US releases 567 million dollars of frozen Iranian assets.
Major earthquake kills thousands
1990 June - A major earthquake strikes Iran, killing approximately 40,000 people.
1990 - Iran remains neutral following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
1990 September - Iran and Iraq resume diplomatic ties.
US imposes sanctions
1995 - US imposes oil and trade sanctions over Iran's alleged sponsorship of "terrorism", seeking to acquire nuclear arms and hostility to the Middle East process. Iran denies the charges.
1997 May - Mohammad Khatami wins the presidential election with 70% of the vote, beating the conservative ruling elite.
1998 September - Iran deploys thousands of troops on its border with Afghanistan after the Taleban admits killing eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist in Mazar-e Sharif.
Student protests
1999 July - Pro-democracy students at Tehran University demonstrate following the closure of the reformist newspaper 'Salam'. Clashes with security forces lead to six days of rioting and the arrest of more than 1,000 students.
2000 February - Majlis elections. Liberals and supporters of Khatami wrest control of parliament from conservatives for the first time.
2000 April - The judiciary, following the adoption of a new press law, bans the publication of 16 reformist newspapers.
2000 May - Inauguration of the Sixth parliament.
Khatami's second term
2001 June - President Khatami re-elected.
2002 January - US President George Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil", warning of the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries. The speech causes outrage in Iran and is condemned by reformists and conservatives alike.
2002 September - Russian technicians begin construction of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US.
2003 June - Thousands attend student-led protests in Tehran against clerical establishment.
2003 September - UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, gives Tehran weeks to prove it is not pursuing an atomic weapons programme.
2003 October - Shirin Ebadi becomes Iran's first Nobel Peace Prize winner; lawyer and human rights campaigner became Iran's first female judge in 1975 but was forced to resign after 1979 revolution.
2003 November - Iran says it is suspending its uranium enrichment programme and will allow tougher UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. IAEA concludes there is no evidence of a weapons programme.
2003 December - 40,000 people are killed in an earthquake in south-east Iran; the city of Bam is devastated.
Conservative resurgence
2004 February - Conservatives regain control of parliament in elections. Thousands of reformist candidates were disqualified by the hardline Council of Guardians before the polls.
Nuclear crisis
2005 August-September - Tehran says it has resumed uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant and insists the programme is for peaceful purposes. IAEA finds Iran in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
2004 June - Iran is rebuked by the IAEA for failing to fully cooperate with an inquiry into its nuclear activities.
2004 November - Iran agrees to suspend most of its uranium enrichment under a deal with the EU.
2005 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultra-conservative mayor, wins a run-off vote in presidential elections, defeating cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
2006 January - Iran breaks IAEA seals at its Natanz nuclear research facility.
Bomb attacks in the southern city of Ahvaz - the scene of sporadic unrest in recent months - kill eight people and injure more than 40.
2006 February - IAEA votes to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear activities. Iran resumes uranium enrichment at Natanz.
2006 April - Iran says it has succeeded in enriching uranium at its Natanz facility.
2006 31 August - UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its work on nuclear fuel passes. IAEA says Tehran has failed to suspend the programme.
Holocaust denial
2006 December - Iran hosts a controversial conference on the Holocaust; delegates include Holocaust deniers.
UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology. Iran condemns the resolution and vows to speed up uranium enrichment work.
2007 February - IAEA says Iran failed to meet a deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, exposing Tehran to possible new sanctions.
2007 March - Diplomatic stand-off with Britain after Iran detains 15 British sailors and marines patrolling the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq.
2007 April - President Ahmadinejad says Iran can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.
IAEA says Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant. It also says that Iran has started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines.
2007 May - IAEA says Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in three to eight years if it so chooses.
2007 June - Protests erupt after government imposes petrol rationing amid fears of possible UN sanctions.
2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.
2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.
Iran agrees to allow inspectors to visit the Arak nuclear plant following talks with the IAEA.
New sanctions
2007 October - US announces sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the toughest since it first imposed sanctions almost 30 years ago.
2007 December - A new US intelligence report plays down the perceived nuclear threat posed by Iran.
2008 February - Iran launches a research rocket to inaugurate a newly built space centre. Washington describes the launch as "unfortunate".
2008 March - President Ahmadinejad makes unprecedented official visit to Iraq, where he calls on foreign troops to leave. He also stresses his government's desire to help rebuild Iraq and signs a number of cooperation agreements.
Conservatives win over two-thirds of seats in parliamentary elections in which many pro-reform candidates were disbarred from standing. The conservatives include supporters of President Ahmadinejad as well as more pragmatic conservatives who oppose his confrontational foreign policy.
UN Security Council tightens economic and trade sanctions on Tehran.
2008 May - IAEA says Iran is still withholding information on its nuclear programme.
Iran's new parliament elects former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani as its speaker.
Incentives offered
2008 June - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presents an offer of trade benefits, which Tehran says it will look at, but will reject if it demands suspension of uranium enrichment.
2008 July - Iran test-fires a new version of the Shahab-3, a long-range missile it says is capable of hitting targets in Israel.
2008 August - Informal deadline set by Western officials for Iran to respond to package of incentives in return for halt in nuclear activities passes without reply.
Iran says it has successfully launched a test rocket capable of carrying a satellite into space.
2008 September - UN Security Council passes unanimously a new resolution reaffirming demands that Iran stop enriching uranium, but imposes no new sanctions. The text was agreed after Russia said it would not support further sanctions.
Relations with US
2008 November - Parliament votes to dismiss the interior minister, Ali Kordan, who admitted that a degree he said he held from Oxford University was fake. The move is a blow to President Ahmadinejad ahead of next year's presidential election.
In an unprecedented move, President Ahmadinejad congratulates US president-elect Barack Obama on his election win. Mr Obama has offered to open unconditional dialogue with Iran about its nuclear programme.
2008 December - Police raid and close the office of a human rights group led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi. Officials say the centre is acting as an illegal political organization.
2009 February - Speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he would welcome talks with the US as long as they are based on "mutual respect".
2009 March - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tells anti-Israel rally that US President Obama is following the "same misguided track" in Middle East as President Bush.
2009 April - An Iranian court finds Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi guilty of spying for the US. She is sentenced to eight years in prison.
2009 May - Iran rejects a US state department report saying it remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.
Jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi is freed and returns to US.
Election protests
2009 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is declared to have won a resounding victory in the 12 June presidential election. The rival candidates challenge the result, alleging vote-rigging. Their supporters take to the streets, and at least 30 people are killed and more than 1,000 arrested in the wave of protests that follow.
The Iranian authorities claim foreign interference is stoking the unrest, and single out Britain for criticism.
2009 July - President Ahmadinejad dismisses his most senior vice-president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, under pressure to do so by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2009 August - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sworn in for second term as president, presents cabinet - the first since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 to include women.
A number of senior opposition figures are accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest and are put on trial.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says there is no proof that opposition leaders blamed for the post-election unrest were agents of foreign powers.
Missile tests
2009 September - Iran admits that it is building a uranium enrichment plant near Qom, but insists it is for peaceful purposes.
The country test-fires a series of medium- and longer-range missiles that put Israel and US bases in the Gulf within potential striking range.
2009 October - Five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany offer Iran proposal to enrich its uranium abroad.
2009 November - Iran refuses to accept the international proposal to end the dispute over its nuclear programme. UN nuclear watchdog IAEA passes a resolution condemning Iran for developing a second uranium enrichment site in secret.
Iran denounces the move as "political" and announces plans to create 10 more uranium enrichment facilities.
2009 December - Death of influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri triggers further clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. At least 8 people die in what is the worst violence since the contested presidential election.
2010 January - Iran executes two men arrested during the period of unrest that followed the disputed presidential election of June 2009. It also puts 16 people on trial over the Ashura Day opposition protests in December, when eight people were killed.
Iranian physics professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi is killed in a bomb attack in Tehran. No group claims responsibility. The government accuses the US and Israel of his death, while Iranian opposition groups say Mr Mohammadi supported one of their candidates in last year's presidential election.
2010 February - Iran says it is ready to send enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment under a deal agreed with the West. The US calls on Tehran to match its words with actions.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says the opposition will continue its peaceful struggle against the government.
2010 May - Iran reaches a deal to send uranium abroad for enrichment after mediation talks with Turkey and Brazil; Western states respond with scepticism, saying the agreement will not stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium.
More sanctions
2010 June - UN Security Council imposes fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, including tighter financial curbs and an expanded arms embargo.
2010 July - International outcry as a woman is sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
27 killed as suicide bombers attack a Shia mosque in Zahedan near the Pakistan border.
2010 August - In what Tehran describes as a milestone in its drive to produce nuclear energy, engineers begin loading fuel into the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
2010 September - Stuxnet - a computer worm which affects industrial systems and which may have been created by a nation-state - is reportedly detected in staff computers at the Bushehr nuclear plant.
Sarah Shourd, a US citizen caught hiking with two friends near the Iran-Iraq border, is freed after a year in prison. The three deny they were spying.
2010 October - A former British embassy employee jailed in 2009 for espionage has his sentence commuted.
2010 December - Main achievement of talks in Geneva between Iran and key world powers on Iran's nuclear programme is to agree to hold another round of talks in Istanbul in January.
President Ahmadinejad sacks Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, thought to be his main opponent within Iranian leadership.
2011 January - Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi says Iran now possesses technology needed to make fuel plates and rods for nuclear reactors.
2011 February - First mass opposition demonstrations in a year amid a wave of unrest rippling across the Middle East and North Africa.
Iran sends two warships through Suez Canal for first time since the Islamic Revolution, in what Israel describes as an act of provocation.
Leadership rift
2011 April - Rare public row between Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad over the resignation of Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi.
2011 May - Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation says the generating unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant has begun operating at a low level.
2011 August - Two US citizens arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009 are found guilty of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison.
2011 September - Iran announces that the Bushehr nuclear power station has been connected to the national grid.
2011 October - The US accuses Iran of being behind an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Tehran rejects the charges as part of an American propaganda campaign.
2011 November - A report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA says Iran is carrying out research that can only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger. Iran rejects the findings as politically motivated.
2011 November/December - The British embassy in Tehran comes under attack from protesters after London imposes tighter economic sanctions. Britain evacuates its diplomatic staff from Iran and expels all Iranian diplomats, but the two countries do not sever all ties.
Oil sanctions and Straits stand-off
2011 December - Faced with the prospect of fresh sanctions over its nuclear programme, Iran threatens to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
2012 January - US administration says that Iran's enrichment of uranium to levels close to weapons-grade at its Fordo underground plant constitutes "further escalation" of its violation of UN resolutions.The European Union adopts an oil embargo against Iran over its nuclear programme. The EU accounts for about 20% of Iran's oil exports.
The same day the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, a British frigate and a French warship, pass through the Straits of Hormuz without incident in the wake of Iranian threats to block the trade route.
U.S. wants Pakistan ties to Iran to end, so they [Entice] them with cheaper gas than Iran sells them, The U.S. is doing everything to Isolate Iran.
Sourec-The Express Tribune
ISLAMABAD:
They may loathe you for being ‘duplicitous’ in the war on terror, but they will gladly sell gas to you – especially if it means you will give up gas from Iran.
The United States has stepped up efforts to lobby Pakistan to abandon the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline, and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports from Iran. What’s on offer? Cheaper gas from US.
US embassy officials held a meeting with stakeholders from the power and energy sector last Tuesday to seek input on Pakistan’s current LNG import and IP gas pipeline projects.
Expensive from Iran
Iranian gas will not be affordable for Pakistan, a participant from the meeting quoted US embassy officials as saying.
Iranian gas will cost $12 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) while LNG would cost $18 per mmbtu, the officials said, adding that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline was the most viable option for Pakistan financially.
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain is presently in India to negotiate the transit fee for TAPI.
US officials expressed concern regarding the current gas crisis in Pakistan, and even asked the stakeholders for suggestion on how the US could help, but made no direct offers to bring LNG to Pakistan, sources said.
The main focus of the discussion was the TAPI gas pipeline and cheaper LNG imports, they added.
Cheaper from US
Sources said that officials from United States Agency for International Development (USAID), at a meeting at the petroleum ministry, had indicated that LNG could be made available at$4.5 per mmbtu.
When contacted, Secretary Petroleum Ijaz Chaudhry said that US has made no offer to provide LNG, but added that USAID gave a briefing two months ago on the historical trend of LNG prices in the world market. The price of LNG was $4.5 per mmbtu four to five years ago but shot up due to rising LNG demand in Japan following the earthquake, he said, quoting US officials.
According to Wall Street Journal, American energy companies have increased gas supply to the point that prices have started to plummet. Natural-gas prices fell 5.7% on January 12, 2012 to their lowest level in over two years. Despite a 32% drop in prices, on-shore production rose 10% last year and is expected to rise another 4% this year, according to Barclays Capital.
Excess reserves
The US has six billion cubic feet of surplus gas per day that could be exported, an energy expert said, adding that further reserves of shale gas have also been discovered.
The US has potential to export LNG and is setting up two to three LNG terminals to start exporting possibly in 2015, the expert said.
He added that price of gas in US is around $4 per mmbtu and its transportation from US to Pakistan would add between $3 and $4 per mmbtu, the expert added.
The expert did caution though that in all likelihood, Pakistan would have to pay prevailing market rates in the region.
The US may move to export cheaper LNG, however, in order for Pakistan to abandon the IP gas pipeline project, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2012.
Security Experts getting close to revealing the "Creators" of the Stuxnet worm malware.
Source-MSNBC
Security experts have dug deeper into the Duqu Trojan and discovered a scary shared characteristic between the newly discovered piece of malware and last year's infamous Stuxnet worm, supporting the theory that the same authors are behind both.
The Hungarian security firm CrySyS, which discovered Duqu in October, found that it hides in a Microsoft Word document and contains something astonishing: a zero-day exploit of a vulnerability in the Windows kernel, the very heart of the operating system.
Zero-day exploits are the Holy Grail for hackers. Unknown flaws in software are few and far between, and when one is found, cybercriminals exploit it as much as possible during the brief precious window before the software maker patches it. The fact that Duqu contains one zero-day, and Stuxnet four, yet both programs steal nothing, indicates that their makers are both highly skilled, motivated by something other than money and willing to squander knowledge that could be worth millions to secure their objectives.
Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for the security firm Sophos, wrote that Windows zero-day flaws are uncommon in traditional malware. He noted that a recent Microsoft report found no zero-day exploits in any of the malware infections cleaned by the Malicious Software Removal Tool.
Stuxnet was designed to sabotage nuclear facilities in Iran, but also infected systems in India and Indonesia. Duqu infections have been confirmed in Iran as well as in Sudan, India, Vietnam, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Ukraine, the security firm Symantec reported.
Duqu shares much of its code with Stuxnet. Two major digital security firms are divided about Duqu's intentions; Symantec says it is designed to steal data from industrial control systems, such as those running power plants and oil refineries, while McAfee argues it's meant to steal authentication certificates that websites use to verify their identities.
Regarding the zero-day exploit that Duqu uses, Alex Gostev, chief malware analyst for the security firm Kaspersky Lab, wrote that his team "discovered a similar vulnerability a year ago when analyzing the Stuxnet worm."
Source-BBC News.com
7 Thousand year history
A chronology of key events:
550-330 BC - Achaemenid dynasty rules the first Persian Empire. At its greatest extent under Darius I stretches from the Aegean Sea and Libya to the Indus Valley.
492-479 - Persian attempts to conquer Greece fail.
330 - Alexander the Great of Macedon conquers the Persian Empire, founding a short-lived empire before dying in Babylon in 323.
312-140 - Most of Persia is part of the Greek-dominated (Hellenistic) Seleucid Empire, founded by a general of Alexander the Great.
140 BC - 224 AD - Persia become part of the Parthian Empire, ruled by the Arsacid dynasty.
224-651 AD - Sassanid dynasty rules Persian Empire; Zoroastrianism is the dominant religion.
Advent of Islam
636 - Arab invasion brings end of Sassanid dynasty and start of Islamic rule.
9th century - Emergence of modern Persian language (or Farsi), written using a form of Arabic script.
9th-13th century - Decline of Islamic Caliphate; rise of Seljuk Turk dynasties.
1220 - Invasion by Mongol forces of Genghis Khan.
1501 - Shah Ismail I becomes first ruler of Islamic Safavid dynasty; Shi'i Islam declared state religion.
1639 - Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin (or Treaty of Zuhab) ends about 150 years of war against Ottoman Empire.
1828 - Iran cedes control of Caucasus to Russia after second Russo-Persian war.
Shah Mohammad Reza, a close ally of the US, pursued a policy of modernisation and secularisation
1736 - Nadir Shah becomes monarch; end of Safavid dynasty.
1890 - "Tobacco Riots": ruler Naser al-Din Shah forced to withdraw trade concessions granted to Britain after mass protests.
1907 - Introduction of constitution which limits the absolutist powers of rulers.
1914-1918 - Iran declares neutrality but is scene of heavy fighting during World War I.
1925 December - Parliament votes to make Reza Khan ruler.
1921 February - Military commander Reza Khan seizes power.
1923 - Reza Khan becomes prime minister.
1926 April - Reza Khan crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza, the Shah's eldest son, is proclaimed Crown Prince.
Shah installed
1935 - Formerly known as Persia, Iran is adopted as the country's official name.
1941 - The Shah's pro-Axis allegiance in World War II leads to the Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran and the deposition of the Shah in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
1950 - Ali Razmara becomes prime minister and is assassinated less than nine months later. He is succeeded by the nationalist, Mohammad Mossadeq.
1951 April - Parliament votes to nationalise the oil industry, which is dominated by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Britain imposes an embargo and a blockade, halting oil exports and hitting the economy. A power struggle between the Shah and Mossadeq ensues and the Shah flees the country in August 1953.
1953 August - Mossadeq is overthrown in a coup engineered by the British and American intelligence services. General Fazlollah Zahedi is proclaimed as prime minister and the Shah returns.
Campaign to modernise
1963 January - The Shah embarks on a campaign to modernise and westernise the country. He launches the 'White Revolution', a programme of land reform and social and economic modernisation. During the late 1960's the Shah became increasingly dependent on the secret police (SAVAK) in controlling those opposition movements critical of his reforms.
1978 September - The Shah's policies alienate the clergy and his authoritarian rule leads to riots, strikes and mass demonstrations. Martial law is imposed.
Shah exiled, Khomeini returns
1979 January - As the political situation deteriorates, the Shah and his family are forced into exile.
1979 November - Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the US embassy in Tehran. They demand the extradition of the Shah, in the US at the time for medical treatment, to face trial in Iran.
1979 1 February - The Islamic fundamentalist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returns to Iran following 14 years of exile in Iraq and France for opposing the regime.
1979 1 April - The Islamic Republic of Iran is proclaimed following a referendum.
1980 January - Abolhasan Bani-Sadr is elected the first President of the Islamic Republic. His government begins work on a major nationalization programme.
1980 July - The exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.
Iran-Iraq war
1980 22 September - Start of Iran-Iraq war which lasts for eight years.
1981 January - The American hostages are released ending 444 days in captivity.
1981 June - Bani-Sadr is dismissed, he later flees to France.
1985 - After the US and Soviet Union halted arms supplies, the US attempted to win the release of hostages in Lebanon by offering secret arms deals, this would later become known as the Iran-Contra affair.
1988 July - 290 passengers and the crew of an Iran Air Airbus are mistakenly shot down by the USS Vincennes.
Ceasefire
1988 July - Iran accepts a ceasefire agreement with Iraq following negotiations in Geneva under the aegis of the UN.
1989 February - Ayatollah Khomeini issues a religious edict (fatwa) ordering Muslims to kill British author, Salman Rushdie, for his novel, 'The Satanic Verses', considered blasphemous to Islam.
1989 3 June - Ayatollah Khomeini dies. On 4 June, President Khamene'i is appointed as new supreme leader.
1989 August - Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is sworn in as the new president.
1989 November - The US releases 567 million dollars of frozen Iranian assets.
Major earthquake kills thousands
1990 June - A major earthquake strikes Iran, killing approximately 40,000 people.
1990 - Iran remains neutral following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
1990 September - Iran and Iraq resume diplomatic ties.
US imposes sanctions
1995 - US imposes oil and trade sanctions over Iran's alleged sponsorship of "terrorism", seeking to acquire nuclear arms and hostility to the Middle East process. Iran denies the charges.
1997 May - Mohammad Khatami wins the presidential election with 70% of the vote, beating the conservative ruling elite.
1998 September - Iran deploys thousands of troops on its border with Afghanistan after the Taleban admits killing eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist in Mazar-e Sharif.
Student protests
1999 July - Pro-democracy students at Tehran University demonstrate following the closure of the reformist newspaper 'Salam'. Clashes with security forces lead to six days of rioting and the arrest of more than 1,000 students.
2000 February - Majlis elections. Liberals and supporters of Khatami wrest control of parliament from conservatives for the first time.
2000 April - The judiciary, following the adoption of a new press law, bans the publication of 16 reformist newspapers.
2000 May - Inauguration of the Sixth parliament.
Khatami's second term
2001 June - President Khatami re-elected.
2002 January - US President George Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil", warning of the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries. The speech causes outrage in Iran and is condemned by reformists and conservatives alike.
2002 September - Russian technicians begin construction of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US.
2003 June - Thousands attend student-led protests in Tehran against clerical establishment.
2003 September - UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, gives Tehran weeks to prove it is not pursuing an atomic weapons programme.
2003 October - Shirin Ebadi becomes Iran's first Nobel Peace Prize winner; lawyer and human rights campaigner became Iran's first female judge in 1975 but was forced to resign after 1979 revolution.
2003 November - Iran says it is suspending its uranium enrichment programme and will allow tougher UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. IAEA concludes there is no evidence of a weapons programme.
2003 December - 40,000 people are killed in an earthquake in south-east Iran; the city of Bam is devastated.
Conservative resurgence
2004 February - Conservatives regain control of parliament in elections. Thousands of reformist candidates were disqualified by the hardline Council of Guardians before the polls.
Nuclear crisis
2005 August-September - Tehran says it has resumed uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant and insists the programme is for peaceful purposes. IAEA finds Iran in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
2004 June - Iran is rebuked by the IAEA for failing to fully cooperate with an inquiry into its nuclear activities.
2004 November - Iran agrees to suspend most of its uranium enrichment under a deal with the EU.
2005 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultra-conservative mayor, wins a run-off vote in presidential elections, defeating cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
2006 January - Iran breaks IAEA seals at its Natanz nuclear research facility.
Bomb attacks in the southern city of Ahvaz - the scene of sporadic unrest in recent months - kill eight people and injure more than 40.
2006 February - IAEA votes to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear activities. Iran resumes uranium enrichment at Natanz.
2006 April - Iran says it has succeeded in enriching uranium at its Natanz facility.
2006 31 August - UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its work on nuclear fuel passes. IAEA says Tehran has failed to suspend the programme.
Holocaust denial
2006 December - Iran hosts a controversial conference on the Holocaust; delegates include Holocaust deniers.
UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology. Iran condemns the resolution and vows to speed up uranium enrichment work.
2007 February - IAEA says Iran failed to meet a deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, exposing Tehran to possible new sanctions.
2007 March - Diplomatic stand-off with Britain after Iran detains 15 British sailors and marines patrolling the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq.
2007 April - President Ahmadinejad says Iran can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.
IAEA says Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant. It also says that Iran has started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines.
2007 May - IAEA says Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in three to eight years if it so chooses.
2007 June - Protests erupt after government imposes petrol rationing amid fears of possible UN sanctions.
2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.
2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.
Iran agrees to allow inspectors to visit the Arak nuclear plant following talks with the IAEA.
New sanctions
2007 October - US announces sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the toughest since it first imposed sanctions almost 30 years ago.
2007 December - A new US intelligence report plays down the perceived nuclear threat posed by Iran.
2008 February - Iran launches a research rocket to inaugurate a newly built space centre. Washington describes the launch as "unfortunate".
2008 March - President Ahmadinejad makes unprecedented official visit to Iraq, where he calls on foreign troops to leave. He also stresses his government's desire to help rebuild Iraq and signs a number of cooperation agreements.
Conservatives win over two-thirds of seats in parliamentary elections in which many pro-reform candidates were disbarred from standing. The conservatives include supporters of President Ahmadinejad as well as more pragmatic conservatives who oppose his confrontational foreign policy.
UN Security Council tightens economic and trade sanctions on Tehran.
2008 May - IAEA says Iran is still withholding information on its nuclear programme.
Iran's new parliament elects former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani as its speaker.
Incentives offered
2008 June - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presents an offer of trade benefits, which Tehran says it will look at, but will reject if it demands suspension of uranium enrichment.
2008 July - Iran test-fires a new version of the Shahab-3, a long-range missile it says is capable of hitting targets in Israel.
2008 August - Informal deadline set by Western officials for Iran to respond to package of incentives in return for halt in nuclear activities passes without reply.
Iran says it has successfully launched a test rocket capable of carrying a satellite into space.
2008 September - UN Security Council passes unanimously a new resolution reaffirming demands that Iran stop enriching uranium, but imposes no new sanctions. The text was agreed after Russia said it would not support further sanctions.
Relations with US
2008 November - Parliament votes to dismiss the interior minister, Ali Kordan, who admitted that a degree he said he held from Oxford University was fake. The move is a blow to President Ahmadinejad ahead of next year's presidential election.
In an unprecedented move, President Ahmadinejad congratulates US president-elect Barack Obama on his election win. Mr Obama has offered to open unconditional dialogue with Iran about its nuclear programme.
2008 December - Police raid and close the office of a human rights group led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi. Officials say the centre is acting as an illegal political organization.
2009 February - Speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he would welcome talks with the US as long as they are based on "mutual respect".
2009 March - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tells anti-Israel rally that US President Obama is following the "same misguided track" in Middle East as President Bush.
2009 April - An Iranian court finds Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi guilty of spying for the US. She is sentenced to eight years in prison.
2009 May - Iran rejects a US state department report saying it remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.
Jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi is freed and returns to US.
Election protests
2009 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is declared to have won a resounding victory in the 12 June presidential election. The rival candidates challenge the result, alleging vote-rigging. Their supporters take to the streets, and at least 30 people are killed and more than 1,000 arrested in the wave of protests that follow.
The Iranian authorities claim foreign interference is stoking the unrest, and single out Britain for criticism.
2009 July - President Ahmadinejad dismisses his most senior vice-president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, under pressure to do so by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2009 August - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sworn in for second term as president, presents cabinet - the first since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 to include women.
A number of senior opposition figures are accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest and are put on trial.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says there is no proof that opposition leaders blamed for the post-election unrest were agents of foreign powers.
Missile tests
2009 September - Iran admits that it is building a uranium enrichment plant near Qom, but insists it is for peaceful purposes.
The country test-fires a series of medium- and longer-range missiles that put Israel and US bases in the Gulf within potential striking range.
2009 October - Five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany offer Iran proposal to enrich its uranium abroad.
2009 November - Iran refuses to accept the international proposal to end the dispute over its nuclear programme. UN nuclear watchdog IAEA passes a resolution condemning Iran for developing a second uranium enrichment site in secret.
Iran denounces the move as "political" and announces plans to create 10 more uranium enrichment facilities.
2009 December - Death of influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri triggers further clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. At least 8 people die in what is the worst violence since the contested presidential election.
2010 January - Iran executes two men arrested during the period of unrest that followed the disputed presidential election of June 2009. It also puts 16 people on trial over the Ashura Day opposition protests in December, when eight people were killed.
Iranian physics professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi is killed in a bomb attack in Tehran. No group claims responsibility. The government accuses the US and Israel of his death, while Iranian opposition groups say Mr Mohammadi supported one of their candidates in last year's presidential election.
2010 February - Iran says it is ready to send enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment under a deal agreed with the West. The US calls on Tehran to match its words with actions.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says the opposition will continue its peaceful struggle against the government.
2010 May - Iran reaches a deal to send uranium abroad for enrichment after mediation talks with Turkey and Brazil; Western states respond with scepticism, saying the agreement will not stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium.
More sanctions
2010 June - UN Security Council imposes fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, including tighter financial curbs and an expanded arms embargo.
2010 July - International outcry as a woman is sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
27 killed as suicide bombers attack a Shia mosque in Zahedan near the Pakistan border.
2010 August - In what Tehran describes as a milestone in its drive to produce nuclear energy, engineers begin loading fuel into the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
2010 September - Stuxnet - a computer worm which affects industrial systems and which may have been created by a nation-state - is reportedly detected in staff computers at the Bushehr nuclear plant.
Sarah Shourd, a US citizen caught hiking with two friends near the Iran-Iraq border, is freed after a year in prison. The three deny they were spying.
2010 October - A former British embassy employee jailed in 2009 for espionage has his sentence commuted.
2010 December - Main achievement of talks in Geneva between Iran and key world powers on Iran's nuclear programme is to agree to hold another round of talks in Istanbul in January.
President Ahmadinejad sacks Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, thought to be his main opponent within Iranian leadership.
2011 January - Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi says Iran now possesses technology needed to make fuel plates and rods for nuclear reactors.
2011 February - First mass opposition demonstrations in a year amid a wave of unrest rippling across the Middle East and North Africa.
Iran sends two warships through Suez Canal for first time since the Islamic Revolution, in what Israel describes as an act of provocation.
Leadership rift
2011 April - Rare public row between Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad over the resignation of Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi.
2011 May - Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation says the generating unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant has begun operating at a low level.
2011 August - Two US citizens arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009 are found guilty of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison.
2011 September - Iran announces that the Bushehr nuclear power station has been connected to the national grid.
2011 October - The US accuses Iran of being behind an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Tehran rejects the charges as part of an American propaganda campaign.
2011 November - A report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA says Iran is carrying out research that can only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger. Iran rejects the findings as politically motivated.
2011 November/December - The British embassy in Tehran comes under attack from protesters after London imposes tighter economic sanctions. Britain evacuates its diplomatic staff from Iran and expels all Iranian diplomats, but the two countries do not sever all ties.
Oil sanctions and Straits stand-off
2011 December - Faced with the prospect of fresh sanctions over its nuclear programme, Iran threatens to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
2012 January - US administration says that Iran's enrichment of uranium to levels close to weapons-grade at its Fordo underground plant constitutes "further escalation" of its violation of UN resolutions.The European Union adopts an oil embargo against Iran over its nuclear programme. The EU accounts for about 20% of Iran's oil exports.
The same day the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, a British frigate and a French warship, pass through the Straits of Hormuz without incident in the wake of Iranian threats to block the trade route.
U.S. wants Pakistan ties to Iran to end, so they [Entice] them with cheaper gas than Iran sells them, The U.S. is doing everything to Isolate Iran.
Sourec-The Express Tribune
ISLAMABAD:
They may loathe you for being ‘duplicitous’ in the war on terror, but they will gladly sell gas to you – especially if it means you will give up gas from Iran.
The United States has stepped up efforts to lobby Pakistan to abandon the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline, and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports from Iran. What’s on offer? Cheaper gas from US.
US embassy officials held a meeting with stakeholders from the power and energy sector last Tuesday to seek input on Pakistan’s current LNG import and IP gas pipeline projects.
Expensive from Iran
Iranian gas will not be affordable for Pakistan, a participant from the meeting quoted US embassy officials as saying.
Iranian gas will cost $12 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) while LNG would cost $18 per mmbtu, the officials said, adding that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline was the most viable option for Pakistan financially.
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain is presently in India to negotiate the transit fee for TAPI.
US officials expressed concern regarding the current gas crisis in Pakistan, and even asked the stakeholders for suggestion on how the US could help, but made no direct offers to bring LNG to Pakistan, sources said.
The main focus of the discussion was the TAPI gas pipeline and cheaper LNG imports, they added.
Cheaper from US
Sources said that officials from United States Agency for International Development (USAID), at a meeting at the petroleum ministry, had indicated that LNG could be made available at$4.5 per mmbtu.
When contacted, Secretary Petroleum Ijaz Chaudhry said that US has made no offer to provide LNG, but added that USAID gave a briefing two months ago on the historical trend of LNG prices in the world market. The price of LNG was $4.5 per mmbtu four to five years ago but shot up due to rising LNG demand in Japan following the earthquake, he said, quoting US officials.
According to Wall Street Journal, American energy companies have increased gas supply to the point that prices have started to plummet. Natural-gas prices fell 5.7% on January 12, 2012 to their lowest level in over two years. Despite a 32% drop in prices, on-shore production rose 10% last year and is expected to rise another 4% this year, according to Barclays Capital.
Excess reserves
The US has six billion cubic feet of surplus gas per day that could be exported, an energy expert said, adding that further reserves of shale gas have also been discovered.
The US has potential to export LNG and is setting up two to three LNG terminals to start exporting possibly in 2015, the expert said.
He added that price of gas in US is around $4 per mmbtu and its transportation from US to Pakistan would add between $3 and $4 per mmbtu, the expert added.
The expert did caution though that in all likelihood, Pakistan would have to pay prevailing market rates in the region.
The US may move to export cheaper LNG, however, in order for Pakistan to abandon the IP gas pipeline project, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2012.
Security Experts getting close to revealing the "Creators" of the Stuxnet worm malware.
Source-MSNBC
Security experts have dug deeper into the Duqu Trojan and discovered a scary shared characteristic between the newly discovered piece of malware and last year's infamous Stuxnet worm, supporting the theory that the same authors are behind both.
The Hungarian security firm CrySyS, which discovered Duqu in October, found that it hides in a Microsoft Word document and contains something astonishing: a zero-day exploit of a vulnerability in the Windows kernel, the very heart of the operating system.
Zero-day exploits are the Holy Grail for hackers. Unknown flaws in software are few and far between, and when one is found, cybercriminals exploit it as much as possible during the brief precious window before the software maker patches it. The fact that Duqu contains one zero-day, and Stuxnet four, yet both programs steal nothing, indicates that their makers are both highly skilled, motivated by something other than money and willing to squander knowledge that could be worth millions to secure their objectives.
Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for the security firm Sophos, wrote that Windows zero-day flaws are uncommon in traditional malware. He noted that a recent Microsoft report found no zero-day exploits in any of the malware infections cleaned by the Malicious Software Removal Tool.
Stuxnet was designed to sabotage nuclear facilities in Iran, but also infected systems in India and Indonesia. Duqu infections have been confirmed in Iran as well as in Sudan, India, Vietnam, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Ukraine, the security firm Symantec reported.
Duqu shares much of its code with Stuxnet. Two major digital security firms are divided about Duqu's intentions; Symantec says it is designed to steal data from industrial control systems, such as those running power plants and oil refineries, while McAfee argues it's meant to steal authentication certificates that websites use to verify their identities.
Regarding the zero-day exploit that Duqu uses, Alex Gostev, chief malware analyst for the security firm Kaspersky Lab, wrote that his team "discovered a similar vulnerability a year ago when analyzing the Stuxnet worm."
Source-LA PD Online.org/Military Urban Assault training
Military Exercises to be Conducted in the Downtown Area NR12040kr
Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.
The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.
This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.
Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.
As such, this training is not open to the public.
Americas Corrupt, Private Military Contractors(link below Article)
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison
America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that “the tide of war is receding,” we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing—literally and figuratively speaking.
The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence—jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad (in fact, the government’s extensive use of private security contractors has surged under Obama). According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors. As a result, the U.S. employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq (that number increases dramatically when U.S. troop numbers decrease). For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous, career path (private contractors are 2.75 times more likely to die than troops). Incredibly, while base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 – $250,000 per year.
The exact number of military contractors on the U.S. payroll is hard to pin down, thanks to sleight-of-hand accounting by the Department of Defense and its contractors. However, according to a Wartime Contracting Commission report released in August 2011, there are more than 260,000 private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than the number of ground troops in both countries. As noted, that number increases dramatically when troops are withdrawn from an area, as we currently see happening in Iraq. Pratap Chatterjee of the Center for American Progress estimates that “if the Obama administration draws down to 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by September 2012, they will need 88,400 contractors at the very least, but potentially as many as 95,880.”
With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed by George W. Bush as the “coalition of the willing” has since evolved into the “coalition of the billing.” The Pentagon’s Central Command counts 225,000 contractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Between December 2008 and December 2010, the total number of private security contractors in Afghanistan increased by 413% while troop levels increased 200%. Private contractors provide a number of services, including transport, construction, drone operation, and security. One military contractor, Blackbird, is composed of former CIA operatives who go on secret missions to recover missing and captured US soldiers. Then there is the Lincoln Group which became famous for engaging in covert psychological operations by planting stories in the Iraqi press that glorified the U.S. mission. Global Strategies Group guards the consulate in Basra for $401 million. SOC Inc. protects the US embassy for $974 million.
Unfortunately, fraud, mismanagement and corruption have become synonymous with the U.S. government’s use of military contractors. McClatchy News “found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects [in Afghanistan] grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government’s questions about their effectiveness or cost.” One program started off as a modest wheat program and “ballooned into one of America’s biggest counterinsurgency projects in southern Afghanistan despite misgivings about its impact.” Another multi-billion-dollar program resulted in the construction of schools, clinics and other public buildings that were so poorly built that they might not withstand a serious earthquake and will have to be rebuilt. Then there was the $300 million diesel power plant that was built despite the fact that it wouldn’t be used regularly “because its fuel cost more than the Afghan government could afford to run it regularly.” RWA, a group of three Afghan contractors, was selected to build a 17.5 mile paved road in Ghazni province. They were paid $4 million between 2008 and 2010 before the contract was terminated with only 2/3 of a mile of road paved.
Mind you, with the U.S. spending more than $2 billion a week in Afghanistan, these examples of ineptitude and waste represent only a fraction of what is being funded by American taxpayer dollars. (Investigative reports reveal that large amounts of cash derived from U.S. aid and logistics spending are being flown out of the country on a regular basis by Afghan officials, including $52 million by the Afghan vice president, who was allowed to keep the money.) Yet what most Americans fail to realize is that we’re funding the very individuals we claim to be fighting. The war effort has become so corrupt that U.S. taxpayers are not only being bilked by military contractors but are also being forced to indirectly fund insurgents and warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Taliban, which receives money from military contractors in exchange for protection. This is rationalized away as a “cost of doing business” in those countries. As the Financial Times reports, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan “found that extortion of funds from US construction and transportation projects was the second-biggest funding source for insurgent groups.”
Despite what one might think, the boom in contracting work in the war zones isn’t necessarily aiding U.S. employment, given that large numbers of contractors are actually foreign nationals. For example, over 90% of the private security contractors in Afghanistan are Afghans. One contractor, Triple Canopy, most of whose guards are from Uganda and Peru, has a $1.53 billion contract with the State Department to protect its employees. ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), which is contracted to secure the US embassy in Kabul, hires many Nepalese (known as Gurkhas) whose English is not proficient. “One guard described the situation as so dire that if he were to say to many of the Gurkhas, ‘There is a terrorist standing behind you,’ those Gurkhas would answer ‘Thank you sir, and good morning.’”
The practices employed by the military contractors also reflect poorly on America’s commitment to human rights—both in the way that they treat their employees and in their employees’ behavior. For example, Triple Canopy houses its employees in overcrowded shipping containers. In addition to soliciting underage Chinese prostitutes, AGNA contractors have also been described as “peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…” This behavior is not reserved to lower level employees, and has been observed and even encouraged by upper level management. Blackwater employees have also been accused of weapons smuggling as well as cocaine and steroid use. Despite all this, Blackwater—which, as the New York Times has reported, “created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq”—still won a cut of a $10 billion contract given out by the State Department in 2010.
Despite the high levels of corruption, waste, mismanagement and fraud by military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government continues to shield them, resisting any attempts at greater oversight or accountability. War, after all, has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire, is one of its best customers. Indeed, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope and dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. It’s the military industrial complex (the illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago and which has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.
Unfortunately, Americans have been inculcated with a false, misplaced sense of patriotism about the military that equates devotion to one’s country with supporting the war machine so that any mention of cutting back on the massive defense budget is immediately met with outrage. Yet the military-industrial complex is engaged in a deadly game, one that all presidents, including Obama, foster. And the consequences, as Eisenhower recognized, are grave:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and editor of GadflyOnline.com. His new book The Freedom Wars (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org
Source-NewJerseytoday.net/Corrupt Private Military Contractor
Military Exercises to be Conducted in the Downtown Area NR12040kr
Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.
The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.
This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.
Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.
As such, this training is not open to the public.
Americas Corrupt, Private Military Contractors(link below Article)
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison
America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that “the tide of war is receding,” we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing—literally and figuratively speaking.
The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence—jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad (in fact, the government’s extensive use of private security contractors has surged under Obama). According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors. As a result, the U.S. employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq (that number increases dramatically when U.S. troop numbers decrease). For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous, career path (private contractors are 2.75 times more likely to die than troops). Incredibly, while base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 – $250,000 per year.
The exact number of military contractors on the U.S. payroll is hard to pin down, thanks to sleight-of-hand accounting by the Department of Defense and its contractors. However, according to a Wartime Contracting Commission report released in August 2011, there are more than 260,000 private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than the number of ground troops in both countries. As noted, that number increases dramatically when troops are withdrawn from an area, as we currently see happening in Iraq. Pratap Chatterjee of the Center for American Progress estimates that “if the Obama administration draws down to 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by September 2012, they will need 88,400 contractors at the very least, but potentially as many as 95,880.”
With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed by George W. Bush as the “coalition of the willing” has since evolved into the “coalition of the billing.” The Pentagon’s Central Command counts 225,000 contractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Between December 2008 and December 2010, the total number of private security contractors in Afghanistan increased by 413% while troop levels increased 200%. Private contractors provide a number of services, including transport, construction, drone operation, and security. One military contractor, Blackbird, is composed of former CIA operatives who go on secret missions to recover missing and captured US soldiers. Then there is the Lincoln Group which became famous for engaging in covert psychological operations by planting stories in the Iraqi press that glorified the U.S. mission. Global Strategies Group guards the consulate in Basra for $401 million. SOC Inc. protects the US embassy for $974 million.
Unfortunately, fraud, mismanagement and corruption have become synonymous with the U.S. government’s use of military contractors. McClatchy News “found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects [in Afghanistan] grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government’s questions about their effectiveness or cost.” One program started off as a modest wheat program and “ballooned into one of America’s biggest counterinsurgency projects in southern Afghanistan despite misgivings about its impact.” Another multi-billion-dollar program resulted in the construction of schools, clinics and other public buildings that were so poorly built that they might not withstand a serious earthquake and will have to be rebuilt. Then there was the $300 million diesel power plant that was built despite the fact that it wouldn’t be used regularly “because its fuel cost more than the Afghan government could afford to run it regularly.” RWA, a group of three Afghan contractors, was selected to build a 17.5 mile paved road in Ghazni province. They were paid $4 million between 2008 and 2010 before the contract was terminated with only 2/3 of a mile of road paved.
Mind you, with the U.S. spending more than $2 billion a week in Afghanistan, these examples of ineptitude and waste represent only a fraction of what is being funded by American taxpayer dollars. (Investigative reports reveal that large amounts of cash derived from U.S. aid and logistics spending are being flown out of the country on a regular basis by Afghan officials, including $52 million by the Afghan vice president, who was allowed to keep the money.) Yet what most Americans fail to realize is that we’re funding the very individuals we claim to be fighting. The war effort has become so corrupt that U.S. taxpayers are not only being bilked by military contractors but are also being forced to indirectly fund insurgents and warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Taliban, which receives money from military contractors in exchange for protection. This is rationalized away as a “cost of doing business” in those countries. As the Financial Times reports, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan “found that extortion of funds from US construction and transportation projects was the second-biggest funding source for insurgent groups.”
Despite what one might think, the boom in contracting work in the war zones isn’t necessarily aiding U.S. employment, given that large numbers of contractors are actually foreign nationals. For example, over 90% of the private security contractors in Afghanistan are Afghans. One contractor, Triple Canopy, most of whose guards are from Uganda and Peru, has a $1.53 billion contract with the State Department to protect its employees. ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), which is contracted to secure the US embassy in Kabul, hires many Nepalese (known as Gurkhas) whose English is not proficient. “One guard described the situation as so dire that if he were to say to many of the Gurkhas, ‘There is a terrorist standing behind you,’ those Gurkhas would answer ‘Thank you sir, and good morning.’”
The practices employed by the military contractors also reflect poorly on America’s commitment to human rights—both in the way that they treat their employees and in their employees’ behavior. For example, Triple Canopy houses its employees in overcrowded shipping containers. In addition to soliciting underage Chinese prostitutes, AGNA contractors have also been described as “peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…” This behavior is not reserved to lower level employees, and has been observed and even encouraged by upper level management. Blackwater employees have also been accused of weapons smuggling as well as cocaine and steroid use. Despite all this, Blackwater—which, as the New York Times has reported, “created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq”—still won a cut of a $10 billion contract given out by the State Department in 2010.
Despite the high levels of corruption, waste, mismanagement and fraud by military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government continues to shield them, resisting any attempts at greater oversight or accountability. War, after all, has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire, is one of its best customers. Indeed, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope and dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. It’s the military industrial complex (the illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago and which has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.
Unfortunately, Americans have been inculcated with a false, misplaced sense of patriotism about the military that equates devotion to one’s country with supporting the war machine so that any mention of cutting back on the massive defense budget is immediately met with outrage. Yet the military-industrial complex is engaged in a deadly game, one that all presidents, including Obama, foster. And the consequences, as Eisenhower recognized, are grave:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and editor of GadflyOnline.com. His new book The Freedom Wars (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org
Source-NewJerseytoday.net/Corrupt Private Military Contractor
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