Interview: Richard Radcliffe on International Threats to the United States

Jumping in Pools is proud to present its twenty-first interview in our series. This interview is with Richard Radcliffe. Radcliffe is a retired Air Force officer living in Apple Valley California. Richard graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Richard accepted an assignment to Kunsan Air Base, Korea flying the F-4D as a Weapons Systems Officer. He was also the Air Show Coordinator and in 1986 the Project Officer for the Ramstein Air Base Open House: Flugtag. He retired August 1, 1990. Since then Richard has kept busy with his own small computer business. He has maintained his interest in foreign affairs and occasionally posts on the Asia Times on Line blog: The Edge. Richard also writes on a site that I contribute to, World Threats.

1. President Obama stated on Friday that Iran was cheating on nuclear obligations. Do you believe that Iran is likely to stop building the facility near Qom?

No. They do not care if their facility is public or not other than it becomes a known target. The Iranians have a goal and a plan to get there. They believe that nobody will challenge them because of the threat threat they pose to 40 percent of the World's oil and support from Russia and the People's Republic of China. I believe the Iranians are wrong.

2. Do you believe that the Obama Administration will approve extra combat troops for the NATO mission in Afghanistan?

This is a tough call. Both the Army and the Marines are suffering from continued deployments with no end in sight. Units are being deprogrammed from Iraq and reprogrammed for Afghanistan. They all need a rest. They all need to get their equipment fixed. The huge backlogs at Anniston and Barstow of vehicles requiring total refurbishment is a whole lot larger than it should be. They all need to retrain to be combined arms soldiers and not cops.

My personal answer is to leave Afghanistan.

3. Do you believe that Russia will now back strong sanctions against Iran?

No. We haven't given them enough yet. They want Ukraine and Georgia. They may be talking about tougher sanctions but that is what we bought with the cancellation of the missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.


4. Do you believe that Venezuela's nuclear program is for nuclear weapons?

Yes. I don't believe that they will get to it.

5. What is the largest relatively-unknown threat to American security in the next ten years?

I won't talk about a relatively unknown threat but a roundly ignored threat: Hezbollah. As we found out in the last few days, there are illegal aliens here from the Middle East. Smadi, the Dallas bomber, is from Jordan. We have no idea who is in this country. The good news is that the FBI managed to find this guy before he found a real terrorist cell and used real C-4 instead of modeling clay. Anybody remember the Holy Land Foundation? They were located in Dallas.

Hezbollah is Iran's Ace in the Hole. They are worldwide. They are being allowed into Nicaragua without documents. They have been in South America in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil since before the Jewish Center in Buenos Aries was allegedly bombed by a group including the current Defense Minister of Iran. They are now able to freely roam Venezuela.

Cross-posted at World Threats.

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