Colin Powell Says Israel Has 200 Nukes in Leaked Email

http://www.newsweek.com/colin-powell-says-israel-has-200-nukes-leaked-email-499192

by uptown • 10 years ago

92 44 10 years ago

koolba• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure everybody assumes they've got nukes already. It's an open secret. Whether it's 100 or 200 at home doesn't really change much either.

agumonkey3• 10 years ago

What worries me a bit is Isreal is a bit trigger sensitive and prone to throw stuff defensively. I hope they never reach nuclear level anxiety.

fit2rule4• 10 years ago

More worrying is the fact that Israel considers its secret nuclear arsenal to be a primary motivating force when dealing with its relations with Western nations. The 'Goliath' program has a very, very sinister purpose: to hold the world ransom with nuclear deterrents, such that Israel gets its way no matter what.

cema5• 10 years ago

I think the history of the state of Israel shows it is much less than trigger sensitive.

danso• 10 years ago

While I think the subject of Powell's email getting hacked is very interesting -- he's admitted to the hack but have we learned any technical details regarding how his GMail account was breached? -- this doesn't appear to be a very newsworthy insight.

First of all, he's not writing as a Secretary of State, so the number "200" could be conjecture, he certainly doesn't seem to be making an appeal to authority, i.e. "When I was at State, Israel told us etc etc etc". Who are the "boys in Tehran" who know that Israel has 200? CIA spies? The negotiators? Diplomats?

Meanwhile, President Carter has been giving speeches and interviews about this for years: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/isr...

Former CIA Director Robert Gates said so during his 2006 Senate confirmation hearings for secretary of defense, when he noted—while serving as a university president—that Iran is surrounded by “powers with nuclear weapons,” including “the Israelis to the west.” Former President Jimmy Carter said so in 2008 and again this year, in interviews and speeches in which he pegged the number of Israel’s nuclear warheads at 150 to around 300.

tcoppi2• 10 years ago

Was it ever implied or said that his account was breached? It seems more likely that they are coming from the accounts of recipients at the DNC, based on the context of the article.

ceejayoz2• 10 years ago

It seems more likely that they are coming from the accounts of recipients at the DNC, based on the context of the article.

Condoleezza Rice is definitely not a member of the DNC.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/colin-powell-called...

sandworm1012• 10 years ago

They don't need spies to count the actual bombs. One can estimate the number through a combination of knowing which warhead tech Israel has acquired and an estimate of their production capacity. Whether it is Israel or North Korea, the math is the same.

Or, assuming that Israel has had time to make far more bombs that it needs, one can estimate the stockpile through a measurement of potential delivery systems. 150 missiles + 50 aircraft = at most 200 warheads.

daemin• 10 years ago

So the number of actual warheads could be far greater, but it is effectively only as many as the number of delivery vehicles. Especially in the event of a full nuclear war, since they won't exactly be able to go back and rearm with those spare warheads.

Someone• 10 years ago

"They don't need spies to count the actual bombs. One can estimate the number through a combination of knowing which warhead tech Israel has acquired and an estimate of their production capacity."

And how do you think they estimate their production capacity or know which tech they acquired? They can know what they sold or gave them, but cannot rule out that others played a role, too.

If they somehow manage to get those answers without spying, checking to what extent those answers can be trusted surely needs it.

"one can estimate the stockpile through a measurement of potential delivery systems."

They may be bluffing: trying to appear stronger than they are to prevent others from attacking you.

They also may play the statistics game: if they have 3 bombs and build only 3 rockets, enemies may think they can take them all out. If they have 3 bombs and build 20 rockets, enemies may think twice even if they know they have only 3 bombs.

Again, additional info is needed to figure out what information you got means_.

AlgorithmicTime• 10 years ago

Who are the "boys in Tehran" who know that Israel has 200? CIA spies? The negotiators? Diplomats?

The Iranians. The Iranians know that Israel has approximately 200 nukes pointed mostly at them.

JshWright• 10 years ago

Specifically, the decision makers in the Iranian government.

perseusprime11• 10 years ago

He's probably got that number from Quora. Sorry! I had to go there...

thieving_magpie• 10 years ago

I think what's far more interesting is his dismissive attitude toward Iran possessing a nuclear weapon. How would they test it? What would they do, polish it? It puts the Iranian nuclear deal in an interesting context.

As for Israel possessing 200 nukes, I'm sure that surprises no one. Yeah they don't publicly address it but anyone remotely familiar with their foreign policy would have known this for some time.

finid• 10 years ago

That Israel has about 200 nukes has been public knowledge for about 2 decades.

fit2rule4• 10 years ago

That they have them is not a question.

Where they are, is another thing entirely.

Mossad operate the worlds greatest border infiltration teams, and operates the widest network of smugglers of any nation.

Most of Israels' nuclear arsenal is man-portable.

Israel is under no obligation to report anything about its nuclear arsenal.

0xcde4c3db• 10 years ago

Maybe they (edit: meaning Iran, not Israel) can't practically detonate a device because it would be detected and bring swift retaliation?

fit2rule4• 10 years ago

ahem Bali bomb ahem ..

nabla9• 10 years ago

The idea that Iranian theocracy is crazy and determined to destroy Israel even at the cost of the destruction of Iran and collapse of their state is convenient fiction. I think most IR scholars think that Iran wants to be regional power next to Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

It's easy to use threatening soundbites in both sides. Axis of evil and Death to the America are just slogans. Theocratic leaders of Iran are first and foremost cynical and calculating politicians.

JoeAltmaier• 10 years ago

Maybe too much credit? They are first, theologians. Explains much of what they do.

jkot• 10 years ago

I am more worried about Saudi Arabia. It paid a lot of money to Pakistan.

ythl• 10 years ago

I'm tolerant of Edward Snowden-related politics on HN, but this just appears to be straight up politics with little/nothing related to tech.

tantalor• 10 years ago

You are right,

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ceejayoz2• 10 years ago

Read a little further.

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link.

nxzero• 10 years ago

This is not news, here's a report from 2007 covering the topic in detail: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/

("Updated 2007" is in the footer of the page.)

DanielBMarkham• 10 years ago

Colin Powell has to be one of the few people who has had their privacy invaded and has come out looking better because of it.

It's a very strange cultural thing going on with this hack. I've read three articles about the hack, and depending on the political views of the author, Colin agrees with him. If the author doesn't like Trump? Colin said some bad things about him. If the author doesn't like Clinton? Same thing.

Of course, I'm sure the reality is that he was frank and biting about all of them, but the reporting on this leak is like an exercise in propaganda -- find something true that demoralizes the other guys, then publish it.

I feel sorry the guy got robbed, and I hope they catch whoever did it, but I'm not holding my breath.

feltmind• 10 years ago

Israel prosecuted one its citizens for disclosing this type of information in the 1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

contingencies2• 10 years ago

They didn't just prosecute him - they illegally abducted him from Australia, dragged him back to Israel, locked him in prison and threw away the key.

cema5• 10 years ago

Italy, not Australia. Released in 2004 (according to Wikipedia, did not dig further).

saiya-jin• 10 years ago

sounds quite Israelish... or when they killed genius ammunition inventor Gerard Bull in Brussels for cooperating with Saddam when he was still cool with US.

sometimes when they decide to kill/abduct people around the world ignoring any international laws it makes at least a bit of sense (holocaust perpetrators), sometimes a bit less...

YeGoblynQueenne• 10 years ago

I wonder if this was "hacked" (as in, leaked) as some kind of warning to Iran, perhaps following one of those diplomatic incidents that never make it to the popular press.

Not that it's very productive to wonder this sort of thing, since I don't have any way to know what's up, but I can't help to wonder anyway.

durzagott• 10 years ago

Is there any speculation as to where Israel got it's nukes? Did they develop them independently? If so where did they test them anyway?

For what it's worth, I think Colin Powell is right: Iran doesn't want to develop nukes as an offensive weapon. What they really want is a seat at the grown-up table and to prevent regime change being imposed on them.

AKifer• 10 years ago

An interesting engineering question that needs to be raised is, given no known nuclear test conducted by Israel, how do they know about the reliability of their design ? Assuming they built the warheads by themselves. Did they use foreign blueprints ? Or did foreign countries tested their weapons under their [the foreign country's] official program ? Or do they have access to advanced computation models [which is less probable given they had these weapons since the 70s]

dingaling• 10 years ago

They are believed ti have tested at least once, in the South Atlantic in 1979.

Colin Powell Says Israel Has 200 Nukes in Leaked Email

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