tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13437119.post618028771619932517..comments2024-03-01T13:51:47.721+05:30Comments on Reality, one bite at a time: Why India and not Israel? Here's whySiddharth Varadarajanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07721228307097170092noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13437119.post-57251128992145532142008-09-24T09:15:00.000+05:302008-09-24T09:15:00.000+05:30Only fools or dishonest people will compare South ...Only fools or dishonest people will compare South Africa's need for nukes with Israel need for nukes or Indias need for nukes . SA does not have Islamo facists to keep at bay.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13437119.post-62693793516585760012008-09-17T20:07:00.000+05:302008-09-17T20:07:00.000+05:30From Dan Yurman's excellent blog, Nuke Notes, here...From Dan Yurman's excellent blog, Nuke Notes, here's a relevant extract from a 2007 post:<BR/>http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2007/11/gunmen-attack-south-african-nuclear.html<BR/><BR/><B>The 'Vela" incident resolved?</B><BR/><BR/>Although South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons in 1993, 14 years earlier it was right in the thick of a still unresolved controversy. Much of the U.S. information about it reportedly remains classified, and is therefore unknown as to content or even if it exists, so the following is a summary of open source speculation from some of the more credible analysts.<BR/><BR/>Also according to NTI [http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/SAfrica/Missile/1622_1643.html] on September 22, 1979, a U.S. Vela surveillance satellite detected a "brief, intense, double flash of light near the southern tip of Africa." Due to its characteristics, U.S. nuclear weapons experts estimated that the flash could have resulted from the test of a nuclear device with a yield of 2-4 kilotons. South Africa emerged as the prime source, but the South African government denied that it had conducted a nuclear test. Subsequently, noting that South Africa did not supply a complete nuclear device with HEU until November 1979, AEC head Waldo Stumpf said that "this should put to rest speculations as to whether South Africa was responsible for the 'double flash' over the South Atlantic Ocean."<BR/><BR/><B>Non-denial denial</B><BR/><BR/>Other speculation alleged that Israel had conducted a nuclear test, either alone or in conjunction with South Africa. Additional speculation was that the blast was designed, in part, to test the capabilities of anti-missile radars to detect incoming MIRV warheads behind the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) of the first upper atmosphere explosion. Significantly, U.S. experts assigned to investigate the explosion disputed whether the EMP detectors of the Vela satellite were operating at the time of the blast. If so then the EMP theory is just another wild idea about the blast.<BR/><BR/>According to GlobalSecurity.org, in an April 20, 1997 article the Israeli <I>Ha'aretz</I> newspaper, South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad confirmed for the first time that a flare over the Indian Ocean detected by an American satellite in September 1979 was from a nuclear test. The article said that Israel helped South Africa develop its bomb designs in return for 550 tons of raw uranium and other assistance. Assuming the ore was milled into yellowcake, the yield at four pounds per ton would have been 2,200 pounds. This doesn't make much sense. If the South Africans already had uranium enrichment facilities, why would they give the Israelis "raw" uranium?<BR/><BR/>In July 1997 Pahad denied in a statement to an Albuquerque, NM, newspaper he had made the original remarks to the Israeli newspaper. The significance of the location of the denial is that Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, located in New Mexico, were at the forefront of open source attribution that a nuclear blast had taken place. The South Africans tried to blame the flash on meteorites entering the earth's upper atmosphere.<BR/><BR/>In his 2006 book <I>On the Brink</I>, retired CIA clandestine service officer Tyler Drumheller wrote of his 1983-1988 tour in South Africa:<BR/><BR/>"We had operational successes, most importantly regarding Pretoria's nuclear capability. My sources collectively provided incontrovertible evidence that the apartheid government had in fact tested a nuclear bomb in the south Atlantic in 1979, and that they had developed a delivery system [emphasis added] with assistance from the Israelis."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com