I hadn't linked the missile defense thing with the new nuclear plant thing until listening to Rachel doing the math...
MADDOW: OK. Do not turn your TV volume up. Please. But also, please do not be alarmed by the sound in this little bit of tape that we`re about to play. This is a sound cannon being deployed against protestors at the G-20 economic meeting by Pittsburgh police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SIREN)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That bowel-liquefying annoyance is a sound cannon or, in military speak, an L-RAD, a Long-Range Acoustic Device. Being used at not all about longer-range, against Americans protesting at the G-20 summit.
Sound canons can emit noise as loud as 151 decibels, the equivalent of an un-silenced gun shot being fired three feet from in your ear. A hundred and fifty-one decibels. For perspective, they say you can get permanent hearing loss from 110 decibels of sound, even if it`s just in short bursts, not a constant sound barrage like you get from the L-RAD.
Adding to the cartoon villain effect, Pittsburgh police mounted the sound canons on these menacing black trucks, completely with balaclava-clad ninja dudes, dressed all in black, aiming the thing at the back.
According to city officials, this is the first time the sound cannon had been used for crowd control in Pittsburgh. The police also used tear gas and stun grenades that explode with sharp flashes of light and bean-bag projectiles shot out of guns, and of course, the good, old-fashioned night stick.
Who knows how much world leaders inside the G-20 summit knew of the brute force and intimidation on the streets outside their meetings, but their day began with a rather blunt show of political force.
In a surprise early-morning bombshell announcement by President Obama and his French and British counterparts. While, the networks` morning news shows were still on the air, President Obama made an announcement about Iran, an announcement that played to a massive audience as shocking and urgent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are here to announce that yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom and France presented detailed evidence to the IAEA, demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The newly-announced secret Iranian facility is pictured here. This photo supposedly shows new above-ground facilities and changes in terrain due to underground construction, compared to earlier photos taken years ago. This photo showing what it looked like before, the other showing what it looked like after.
It emerged during the day today that the U.S. has known about this site for a long time and that Mr. Obama was even told about its existence while he was still president-elect. So why hold this announcement until today, then? I don`t know. But consider the context.
Just the events of the last two weeks. President Obama pulled back on missile defense, right? Which Russia is saying forged a new cooperative alliance between us and Russia.
Both Russia and France have been really unwilling to go after Iran in the past. But this week the president got everyone in the Security Council, including Russia and France, to go along with his broad declaration against nukes.
And then, right after that -- pow, right in the kisser -- he hits them with this evidence of secret nuclear activity by Iran that`s way outside the rules of what Iran is supposed to be doing.
Now -- now it`s a whole new world. Russia`s saying they feel better about sanctions on Iran. And France, the French president even stood next to Obama going after Iran today. He`s the one who said Iran is on deadline now, a two-month deadline to shape up or face sanctions.
You know, if diplomacy got reported like war does, I think what we would be reporting right now is shock and awe.
Joining us now is NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Andrea, thanks very much for coming on the show tonight. Appreciate your time.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well put. You put it in the right context.
MADDOW: Good.
MITCHELL: I`m glad to be here.
MADDOW: That was my -- going to be my first question, because I know you are far more expert in these matters than I am. Is it true that Iran is facing a much more unified -- more unified pressure, more unified opposition than they were even a week ago?
MITCHELL: This has never happened before. I mean, we have been plodding along and watching this diplomacy inch by inch for so many years now. And for the first time, Russia has really stood by the president.
Their statement today could not have been better if it were written by the White House itself. Medvedev told some students at the University of Pittsburgh yesterday, last night, that he really likes Barack Obama. So personal diplomacy in a sort of Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev way has a role to play here.
He says, "He doesn`t lecture to me." Who do you think he was talking about there? (*Busch, perchance?) He doesn`t try to tell me what to think? He listens. We are of the same generation and I learned that we were studying law at the same time. And I was reading some law review articles that he edited. So you can see, they`ve talked a lot along the margin.
That said, it sets the stage for the fact that, when Barack Obama took Medvedev aside on Wednesday at the United Nations and told him this news about Iran, that things had changed, that they had more recent intelligence that Iran was moving in a dangerous direction, had stepped it up, was crossing a red line, if you will.
Medvedev listened and took it in. And then they gave him a special, him and his experts, a special experts intelligence briefing. And it wasn`t just the United States. It was the U.s., France and Great Britain. It made a very big difference.
MADDOW: Strategically, it seems like this is a real diplomatic roundhouse.
MITCHELL: Yes.
MADDOW: I mean, because it seems like a very heavy hit to have landed, given that this was not necessarily new information. It`s not necessarily all that shocking information, given how deceitful Iran has been about its nuclear capacity in the past. But he has, with timing, turned it into quite a shocking press conference and big diplomatic gains.
MITCHELL: Well, there is something that is new, or at least new as of a couple of months ago. They`ve seen, in these last few months and recent weeks, that Iran has crossed a line, that Iran was beginning to develop this facility, which was an underground facility that was suspicious, but not necessarily providing the evidence. They didn`t have, really, the deal nailed down.
And given all the history of Iraq and WMD and bad intelligence and false accusations, you can believe that this new president was going to be very certain that he was not being misled by any of the facts that he was given.
So within recent weeks and months, they believe that they came to a very strong conclusion that this was definitely not a peaceful nuclear facility. That it was of the size and scale as the president said, that could only be a weapons facility, and therefore, Iran was in violation, even for bidding it and not disclosing it, but in dangerous violations, and was now coming close to validating what the Israelis have been saying all along. And that`s not something that Obama came to -- came to very easily.
MADDOW: That`s important insight. Andrea Mitchell, NBC`s chief foreign affairs correspondent. Thanks very much for sharing part of your Friday with us. Appreciate it.
MITCHELL: You bet.
*My wild guess
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