Posted 4/11/2006 06:35:00 PM by Douglas

Terrifying article about Iran and the nookular options that are sadly, still on the table.

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."

Pretty scary stuff, coming as it does from a president that "doesn't want war." And there's more here.

The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.

President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

But what kills me is the infographic. Not to mention the 60,000 tons of fallout from one kiloton, but the "dial-a-yield" feature of this particular weapon. Is Ron Popeil now designing our country's nuclear arsenal? I mean I'm pretty sure it slices, dices, and vaporizes everything in the vicinity, but what the hell?

And how did they decided how far they could "dial it up." Spinal Tap? Do these nuclear weapons go to 11?