The BBC reports

"Ukrainian arms dealers smuggled 18 nuclear-capable cruise missiles to Iran and China in 1999-2001, Ukraine's prosecutor-general has said.

The Kh-55 missiles - also known as X-55s - have a range of 3,000km (1,860 miles), the UK's Financial Times newspaper reports.

The smuggling happened while Leonid Kuchma was president of Ukraine. His administration was voted out of office in December."

Pete's Points:

Does anyone else recall that the President of the United States has been on a "mission" to bring 'democracy' to the world? Does anyone else recall recent events in the Ukraine when the USA called the first round of elections a sham and encouraged the people's revolution for democracy in that country that eventually changed the political landscape in the Ukraine into one which was favourable to the USA?

Perhaps now we know why.

It is inconceivable that the USA did NOT know that these missiles were smuggled out of the Ukraine into Iran and/or China. It is also interesting that it is only since these events that the USA has been making noises about the Iranian's nuclear capability. If the Iranians now have the delivery system and they are working on the capability to build the bomb then all of the elements are in place to make Iran a nuclear power in the middle east. Since this is obviously very destabilising to US efforts to control the Middle East and its oil supplies it is also possible that the fact that this information is suddenly available to the Western media is yet another way of putting pressure on the Iranians and at the same time increasing the level of support that the USA has for its actions in the area among its friends and allies.