Evening Update: Iran and Suitcase Nukes. Ominous Development Involving Journalist

Netanyahu: Iran Will Next Hide Nuclear Suitcases

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Monday, March 10, that because the world chooses to slide over Iran’s concealed nuclear program, the next Klos C ship may not carry missiles but “nuclear suitcases.” They would not only reach an Israeli port, he said, but any port in the world.
He spoke at Israel’s naval base in Eilat at the presentation of the 60 missiles, 181 mortar shells and hundreds of bullets unloaded from the Klos C that was apprehended by Israeli commandos on the Red Sea opposite Sudan last week. Present too were defense minister Moshe Ya’alan, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and top generals.
Netanyahu did not elaborate on his reference to nuclear suitcases. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources link it to a shipment of 6-10 “nuclear suitcases” that were part of an illegal  Ukraine delivery to Iran in 2003 or 2004 of half a dozen nuclear-capable X-55 cruise missiles (NATO codenamed AS-15) whose 2000-km range covers every part of Israel.
These nuclear suitcases were believed at the time by Western and Middle East intelligence sources to be an original development of Russian nuclear agencies.
In 2005, Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko confirmed the sale of the X-55 missiles to Iran and China – by his predecessor. But never referred to the nuclear suitcases; nor were they confirmed by Russia or the US.

Nuclear suitcases were designed as a mobile weapon of mass destruction for the easy transfer of tactical nuclear weapons or dirty bombs from place to place. It was therefore perfect for terrorists.

As for the missiles, Israel intelligence estimated that they were sold to Iran without nuclear warheads but with attached diagrams and specifications,  so providing the technology whichr jumped Iran forward in its quest for a nuclear weapon.
The nuclear suitcases, too, were apparently sold without nuclear explosives.

All this means that Iran secretly possessed nuclear-capable, long-range missiles almost a decade ago.

The illicit Ukrainian transaction, hinted at by the prime minister, had additional murky and serpentine features. It is presumed that China which bought the same number of missiles as Iran footed the bill for both. To disguise the sale, Ukraine and Iran cooked the sales and shipping documents to show that the end-users of the weapons were Russian.
The forging of documents is clearly a common Iranian trick of concealment up to the present day.  Along with the inventory of weapons unloaded from the Klos C, Israel displayed Monday fake Iranian shipping manifests designed to conceal the ship’s route from Bandar Abbas in Iran to Port Sudan en route for Sinai and the Gaza Strip.   

The Prime minister implicitly rebuked EU Foreign Police Executive Catherine Ashton for failing to raise the Iranian weapons ship in her talks in Tehran Monday, when he said, “There is a shrill chorus of international condemnation when we build a balcony in Jerusalem, but scarcely a word when Iran tries to smuggle missiles into Gaza.”
IDF officers at the Eilat presentation pointed to four types of M-302 missiles shipped from Iran with ranges of 90, 120, 140 and 160 km, which could cover the distance from the Gaza Strip to Haifa. Invited to the presentation were also foreign diplomats and correspondents, although few of the latter attended.

This small seemingly insignificant article is actually quite ominous:

CBS Journalist Resigns After Being Pressured

CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson resigned today after facing pressure over reports she filed that were deemed to be overly critical of President Obama, but don’t expect the mainstream media to create a circus around Attkisson’s resignation like they did that of RT host Liz Wahl.

“Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air,” reports Politico, noting that Attkisson’s work was characterized as “agenda-driven” because she was hard on the Obama administration.

In the world of American state media, there is no room for adversarial reporting. Despite the fact that it used to be the role of the fourth estate to speak truth to power, Attkisson’s apparent unwillingness to let White House talking points go unchallenged has cost her her job.

Attkisson’s work over the past five years has primarily focused on Obama scandals such as the Fast and Furious gunrunning controversy and the attack in Benghazi, but she did also skewer Republicans. A source close to Attkisson told Politico that she was frustrated as CBS’ lack of support for anti-Obama investigative reporting.

While RT’s Liz Wahl received global attention and a slew of mainstream media appearances after she quit the Russian network for similar reasons, don’t expect the corporate press to afford Attkisson anything like the same level of attention.

As is documented in the video below, Wahl’s resignation was a cynical pre-planned stunt that had little to do with Russia’s actions in Crimea and everything to do with Wahl putting herself in the shop window for a job with CNN.

However, it was exploited by the establishment media as a tool with which to bash RT, which is stealing a good chunk of audience share from the likes of CNN and MSNBC, which have both lost around 50% of their viewership in the last year alone – precisely because they employ so few hard-hitting journalists like Sharyl Attkisson.

Russian Troops Open Fire In Crimea

That Ukraine "drill" may be coming at just the right time. Just out from Reuters:

• RUSSIAN TROOPS OPENED FIRE DURING TAKEOVER OF UKRAINIAN MILITARY POST IN CRIMEA, NO ONE WOUNDED -INTERFAX QUOTES UKRAINIAN BASE COMMANDER

More:

Russian troops opened fire with automatic rifles during a takeover on Monday of a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea, Interfax news agency quoted a Ukrainian officer as saying.

The unnamed officer from the motor vehicle battalion of the Ukrainian navy said Russian troops broke in to the base near the inland town of Bakhchisaray some time after 2 p.m. (noon GMT), took mobile phones from the Ukrainians and began trying to remove vehicles. None of the Ukrainian troops was hurt and the base commander was trying to negotiate an end to the action.

Further details were not immediately available. Russian forces who have taken control of a number of military installations across the Black Sea peninsula have not so far exchanged fire in anger with Ukrainian troops.

And at the same time:

• RUSSIA'S PUTIN SAYS TOLD FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV TO INVITE U.S. COUNTERPART KERRY FOR MORE CONSULTATIONS ON UKRAINE
• RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV SAYS HAD INVITED KERRY TO RUSSIA TODAY, BUT KERRY SAID ON SATURDAY HE WOULD LIKE TO POSTPONE VISIT
• RUSSIA'S LAVROV SAYS RUSSIA HAS OWN PROPOSALS TO RETURN UKRAINIAN SITUATION TO THE FRAMEWORK OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION INTERESTS OF ALL UKRAINIANS

No de-escalation yet. Any minute now though. The market said so.