#1
TOPIX > ISRAELI MILITARY WARNING TO NUCLEAR IRAN [ISRAELI milaction "not a bluff"]. ISR urges IRAN to accept UN-favored deal ASAP to have nuc fueling for energy done abroad.
* SAME > [UN SecGen] BAN: HIZBOLLAH MUST DISARM TO ENSURE LEBANON'S SOVEREIGNTY; + IRAN IS ARMING HIZBOLLAH AND HAMAS.
I'm sure they just thought this up on their own.
The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.
The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response.
The dossier, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.
The agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".
Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. "It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.
James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "It's remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five ... To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising."
Another western specialist with extensive knowledge of the Iranian programme said: "It raises the question of who supplied this to them. Did AQ Khan [a Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running a nuclear smuggling ring] have access to this, or is it another player?"
The revelation of the documents comes at a time of growing tension. Tehran has so far rejected a deal that would remove most of its enriched uranium stockpile for a year and replace it with nuclear fuel rods which would be much harder to turn into weapons. The Iranian government has also balked at negotiations, which were due to begin last week, over its continued enrichment of uranium, in defiance of UN security council resolutions.
There are fears in Washington and London that if no deal is reached to at least temporarily defuse tensions by the end of December, Israel could set in motion plans to take military action aimed at setting back the Iranian programme by force, with incalculable consequences for the Middle East.
Iran has rejected most of the IAEA material on weaponisation as forgeries, but has admitted carrying out tests on multiple high-explosive detonations synchronised to within a microsecond. Tehran has told the agency that there is a civilian application for such tests, but has so far not provided any evidence for them.
Western weapons experts say there are no such civilian applications, but the use of co-ordinated detonations in nuclear warheads is well known. They compress the fissile core, or pit, of the warhead until it reaches critical mass.
A US national intelligence estimate two years ago said that Iran had explored nuclear warhead design for several years but had probably stopped in 2003. British, French and German officials have said they believe weaponisation continued after that date and may still be continuing.
In September, a German court found a German-Iranian businessman, Mohsen Vanaki, guilty of brokering the sale of dual-use equipment with possible applications in developing nuclear weapons. The equipment included specialised high-speed cameras, of the sort used to develop implosion devices, as well as radiation detectors. According to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security, the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, testified at the trial that there was evidence that Iran's weapons development was continuing.
The IAEA is seeking to find out what the scientists and the institutions involved in the experiments are doing now, but has so far not been given a response. The agency's repeated requests to interview Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whose name features heavily in the IAEA's documentation and who is widely seen as the father of the Iranian nuclear programme, have been turned down.
The agency has also asked Iran to explain evidence that a Russian weapons expert helped Iranian technicians to master synchronised high-explosive detonations.
The first implosion devices, like the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, used 32 high-explosive hexagons and pentagons arrayed around a plutonium core like the panels of a football. The IAEA has a five-page document describing experimentation on such a hemispherical array of explosives.
According to a diplomat familiar with the IAEA documentation, the evidence also points to experiments with a two-point detonation system that represents "a more elegant solution" to the challenges of making a nuclear warhead, but it is much harder to achieve. It is used in conjunction with a non-spherical pit, in the shape of a rugby ball, or explosives in that shape wrapped around a spherical pit, and it works by compressing the pit from both ends.The IAEA has expressed "serious concern" about Iran's failure to give an account of the research its scientists have carried out.
Descriptions of "two-point implosion" warheads designs have occasionally appeared in the public domain (there are extensive descriptions on Wikipedia) and they were first developed by US scientists in the 1950s, but it remains an offence for American officials or even non-governmental nuclear experts with security clearance to discuss them.
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Iran is demanding full delivery of reactor fuel before it gives up its stash of low-enriched uranium and has balked at further efforts to hold international talks on its nuclear program, according to a senior European diplomat.
The diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy involved, said prospects for a breakthrough with Iran have narrowed dramatically since a high-level meeting in Geneva on Oct. 1, when Iran tentatively approved a deal to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium and agreed to hold another set of talks by the end of October. Instead, the reactor deal appears to be falling apart, and there are no prospects for talks before the governing body of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets this month to consider whether Iran violated international obligations by building a nuclear facility near the city of Qom.
Such a finding would probably result in yet another referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, the diplomat said.
The diplomat said he believed the breakdown in the discussions has little to do with the nuclear issue, but instead is the result of a tense internal struggle within the Iranian political system. The issue has "paralyzed the decision-making process in Tehran," he said. "It is a battle over who is tougher or who is more anti-American, and we are in a situation so ridiculous that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is in the middle."
Ahmadinejad -- considered a hard-liner in the West -- promoted the idea of seeking an agreement with the West to acquire new reactor fuel for a medical research facility that helps detect and treat diseases. Major powers offered to convert a substantial portion of Iran's low-enriched fuel into the necessary reactor fuel at facilities in Russia and France. But according to the diplomat, Iran then said it would not ship its enriched uranium out of the country until it receives upfront all of the reactor fuel it needs for the facility. There is discussion of perhaps a third country holding Iran's stock under IAEA supervision, the diplomat said, but he expressed pessimism that the impasse could be broken.
"We keep using the Russians to pass tough messages every day, saying: 'This is a good deal. Take it,' " he said.
During the Geneva talks, which started with no official agenda, Iranian diplomats refused to discuss Tehran's uranium-enrichment program, though Western powers raised the issue, the diplomat said. Diplomats had hoped that Iran would begin to engage on its nuclear ambitions at the planned follow-up meeting, but it has refused to agree to any agenda that lists the nuclear program, he said.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
11/06/2009 00:00 ||
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TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > UN QUESTIONS IRAN OVER TEST OF ADVANCED WARHEAD DESIGN.
UNIAEA > YOO IRAN, we have select evidence that indicates you dev an advanced nuclear warhead design - did ya, or didn't ya?
IRAN > We want to make it absolutely positively undeniably categorically, ...@clear to the UN-World, WE CANNOT CONFIRM OR DENY YOUR CLAIM. WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU!?
After approximately 30 years, everything has changed in Iran except the regime. What has happened in Tehran 30 years later? Public repentance has come over the architects of the old era.
Many of the activists of that era abandoned their revolutionary ideologies including highly extremist elements such as the leader of the US embassy takeover in 1979 who became an advocator of reconciliation. A number of political leaders also renounced their revolutionary ideologies such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, faithful disciples of Ayatollah Khomeini such as Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi who served as Prime Minister of Iran during the Khomeini era, as well as dozens of clerics, ministers and ambassadors. They all gave up their revolutionary ideologies and embraced nationalist thought and the concept of the modern Iranian state. But the power game kept hold of the most extremist elements, and we are now watching as another era repeats itself.
Though the repentant figures from the old generation that founded the current regime might not constitute a majority, the overwhelming majority of the new generation of Iranians certainly does not share the same old concept; rather, this majority supports the concept of the state. This is what caused the shock in last June's presidential elections, as most Iranians have nothing to do with the ideology of the revolution. They do not aim to export it and they do not care about how Arabs or Pakistanis live or what the Americans are doing; they only want to change their difficult internal conditions.
This is why we see a change in ideas with regards to the 30th anniversary of the US embassy crisis. The authorities deployed its security forces to prevent protests in front of the embassy out of fear that they would demand changing the Iranian regime itself. These are historic moments that express a strong desire to break free from a legacy that has overburdened the Iranians and worried the world for three consecutive decades; a legacy that has reached such a degree that Ahmedinejad's leadership can no longer ignore it.
Iran's leadership, which wants to impose a solution on the Lebanese, the Palestinians, the Yemenis and others, is now facing the same challenge. There are those who want to impose a policy that differs to its own policy. The only difference is that what is happening internally in Iran developed naturally and evolved from the womb of a local crisis. Despite the regime's attempts to promote the idea that [the crisis] was created at the hands of foreign powers, it has failed to invalidate all the clear signs that this crisis was a local creation. If the Iranian regime had enough confidence in itself then it would have let the day pass as normal. However, the regime was scared and it warned the Iranians against the consequences of protesting, excluding only those who would support the regime on the anniversary of the US embassy takeover. The regime knew beforehand that millions of Iranians would take to the streets raising green flags and protesting against the Iranian government.
Whether or not Iran manages to build its nuclear bomb or succeeds in stationing thousands of Basij troops and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, change is bound to come to the very city that residents managed to change by marching through the streets over 30 years ago. It was the Shah who began the nuclear bomb project, built a mammoth army and openly proclaimed his desire to be the regional policeman and nothing less. But his ambition abroad prevented him from understanding what was going on internally. His nuclear deterrent, his army and his regional ambitions proved to be of no use to him. Now the religious regime in Tehran is committing the same folly. I am not referring here to its nuclear project, but rather to its challenge against the desire of millions of Iranians seeking change.
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2009 00:00 ||
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Hizbullah on Thursday issued its first response to Israel's seizure of a cargo ship loaded with hundreds of tons of weaponry sent to the terror group from Iran.
The Lebanese Shi'ite organization issued a statement saying that it "categorically denies" any connection to the weapons "that the Zionist enemy claims to have confiscated from the ship."
"Lies! All lies!"
On Wednesday, Israel announced that the Francop, a large cargo vessel, contained dozens of containers holding several hundred tons of weapons concealed in crates marked "parts for bulldozers."
Hizbullah also condemned "Israeli pirates operating in international waters."
Israeli Navy Seals captured the Francop some 100 nautical miles west of Israel's northern shores.
Hizbullah's statement echoed a statement made by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, who denied late Wednesday that the cargo ship was carrying weapons from Iran, and implicitly called the Israeli naval forces "pirates."
"Unfortunately there are official pirates disrupting the movement of goods between Iran and Syria," he told reporters on a visit to Teheran. "I stress, the ship was not carrying Iranian arms bound for Syria, nor was it carrying material for manufacturing weapons in Syria. It was carrying [commercial] goods from Syria to Iran."
Lebanese MP Michel Aoun, who in 2006 became aligned with Hizbullah, remarked later on Wednesday that Lebanon would get its arms from China if not from Iran, adding that such weapons would be better suited to the "liberation of Palestine" than to the internal Lebanese conflict.
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief says that UN inspectors have found "nothing to be worried about" in Iran's latest nuclear facility.
"The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things," Mohamed ElBaradei told the Thursday print of the New York Times, pointing to Iran's Fordo nuclear facility, some 160 kilometers southwest of Tehran.
"It's a hole in a mountain," the IAEA chief said.
Nuclear inspectors had visited the newly constructed nuclear facility in October.
The IAEA is expected to declare details of the inspection in its next report due in mid-November.
ElBaradei also said that he was examining possible compromises to unblock a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and major powers.
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Iran is demanding full delivery of reactor fuel before it gives up its stash of low-enriched uranium and has balked at further efforts to hold international talks on its nuclear program, according to a senior European diplomat.
