Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
About as I calculated yesterday: 630 kg of 5% enriched uranium works out to about 40 kg of 80% uranium, minus losses in refining and handling.
The figures detailing Iran's progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country's main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design - a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
"They clearly have enough material for a bomb," said Richard Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. "They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that's another matter."
Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.
While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the IAEA believe it will avoid the risk of attempting "nuclear breakout" until it possessed a larger uranium supply. American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015.
#2
Just their declared centrifuges have enough capacity for 1 bomb per year. The Iranians are idiots if they don't have several times more than that humming away in tunnels.
Posted by: ed ||
11/20/2008 16:48 Comments ||
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#3
They don't need to design a thing.
The Chinese provided designs to Pakistan (for Uranium and Plutonium implosion type missile warheads). These designs were both fully tested.
The IAEA found a copy in Libya (apparently provided free by AQ Khan when his stolen centrifuge designs are purchased) still wrapped in the plastic bag from his dry cleaners in Karachi.
These included copious notes in Urdu, written by the Chinese, that describe fabrication of each component ("bombs for dummies").
The Pakistanis provided the Chinese with the Uranium enrichment centrifuge designs (stolen from URENCO in the Netherlands by AQ Khan) in exchange for this weapon.
They traded both with North Korea for ballistic missile designs and components.
Iran has bought both the North Korean missile plans and the Pakistani centrifuge plans. Why would they not have obtained the Chinese weapon designs from either?
Posted by: john frum ||
11/20/2008 17:07 Comments ||
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#4
Iran claimed ages ago to have, if I recall correctly, 80,000 centrifuges spinning to refine uranium.
The election is over. Bomb everything related to Iran's nuclear effort. Bomb the mullahs' homes. Bomb the Revolutionary Guards barracks in the middle of the night. Then bounce the rubble. If this is unwise, then put the blue Star of David on everything; the Israelis are tough -- they'll handle the fall out as they've done when they were the ones who did it.
The US Treasury has urged the United Arab Emirates to keep a close eye on Iranian banks operating in the Persian Gulf financial hub.
"There is a challenge in the (United Arab Emirates) especially because of deep commercial ties between the UAE and Iran," said Stuart Levey, US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence on Wednesday. "These banks are an issue of concern and they are deserving of scrutiny because of their track record," Levey was quoted by Reuters as saying on Wednesday.
He noted that the US's policy of sanctions against Iran would continue during the term of Democratic president-elect Barack Obama. "There's one area in US continuity -- rigorous enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions and protection of the international financial system," he said.
The US official announced that Washington is discussing issues with the UAE which are important for Dubai if it is to become "a trusted financial center".
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2008 00:00 ||
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The Syrian facility bombed by Israeli planes last year bore multiple hallmarks of a nuclear reactor, and the ruined site was contaminated with uranium, United Nations nuclear inspectors confirmed today in a report that largely backed Bush administration accounts of a secret atomic program...
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
You're a bit late. That party finished about a year ago.
Iran has blocked access to more than five million Internet sites, whose content is mostly perceived as immoral and anti-social, a judiciary official was quoted as saying on Wednesday. "The enemies seek to assault our religious identity by exploiting the Internet," Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi, an advisor to Iran's prosecutor general, was quoted by Kargozaran newspaper as saying.
The Internet "inflicts social, political, economic and moral damage, which is worrying," he said, adding that "social vice caused by the Internet is more than that by the satellite network," Mehr news agency reported.
With about 21 million users, the Internet is widely popular in Iran, which information ministry officials say ranks among the top 20 user countries.
In recent years, Internet service providers have been told to block access to political, human rights and women's sites and weblogs expressing dissent or deemed to be pornographic and anti-Islamic.
The ban has also targeted such popular social networking sites as Facebook and YouTube, as well as news sites.
Iran's reformist press was hit by a massive crackdown in 2000, and many journalists turned to blogging after their publications were shut down.
The closures have continued under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected in 2005, and have targeted newspapers and other media, including web sites and news agencies, of all political persuasions.
"Cyber imperialism"
Conservatives have also warned against "cyber imperialism" targeting developing countries.
In its latest edition, Sobh-e Sadegh, the publication of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said, "The Internet, satellite (channels) and text messages played an important role in color revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia."
The weekly said Internet search engines Yahoo and Google, BBC and CNN televisions and even international news agencies including "Reuters, Associated Press, UPI, AFP and DPA" operated as "tools of diplomacy conducted through media."
The magazine accused the European Union of seeking to "develop anti-Iranian cyber space" by supporting dissident bloggers.
Despite a strict ban on satellite television, dishes dot many Iranian rooftops and people have access to dozens of Persian-language channels, including the Voice of America, broadcasting a daily dose of politics and entertainment.
Islamic republic officials have been concerned about BBC Persian-language television which is yet to be launched and warned against interviewing or cooperating with such media.
The head of Iran's state-run television recently said that 30 percent of Iranians watch satellite channels, but observers say the figures are likely to be higher.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
So is Rantburg blocked in Iran? And what about the Daily Kos? What about Nick Scipio? Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/20/2008 1:08 Comments ||
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#2
Hey, if anyone wants to come over to my house today I'm going to be "assaulting their religious identity by exploiting the Internet" for most of the afternoon. Got nothin else to do, I already cleaned out the garage.
#4
Blogs won't have to be shut down. Obama FCC Commissioner appointee Henry Rivera will simply desigate Web sites and "bloggers" as media transmission venues and require that they fall under current regulations and licensing.
Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear programme, the United Nations nuclear watchdog reported on Wednesday, deepening the dilemma facing US president-elect Barack Obama over his campaign promise to engage with Tehran.
The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency reveals that Iran is rapidly increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, which could be rendered into weapons-grade material should Tehran decide to develop a nuclear device. The agency says that, as of this month, Tehran had amassed 630kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride, up from 480kg in late August. Analysts say Iran is enriching uranium at such a pace that, by early next year, it could reach break-out capacity one step away from producing enough fissile material for a crude nuclear bomb.
630 kg of low-enriched uranium (I think that's ~5% enriched) is enough for nuclear power stations. I see various numbers quoted for the highly enriched uranium required for a bomb: most say 80% but some say 20% if you don't mind a dirty, low-yield bomb. But to get to 80% enrichment that 630 kg becomes ~40 kg, minus any losses in additional centrifugation, and that ought to be enough to build a small bomb or two.
They are moving forward, they are not making diplomatic overtures, they are accumulating low enriched uranium, said Cliff Kupchan, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy in Washington. These guys are committed to their nuclear programme: if we didnt know that, they just told us again.
Bambi and the Dhimmicrats aren't listening. They think they can talk to Short Round and succeed where the Brits, Germans and French have failed. And Bambi could: all he has to do is sacrifice Israel. That might buy us a few years. Maybe.
The IAEA report also says there has been a breakdown of communication between the agency and Iran over alleged research on an atomic weapon. The Iranians are making good progress on enrichment but there is absolute stone-walling on past military activities, said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International institute for Strategic Studies. Its very disappointing.
Get thee to the hotel bar then and drown your disappointment ...
The progress chalked up by Iran increases the difficulties for Mr Obama, who campaigned on promises of talking to Americas enemies, although during the election he scaled down his initial vow to meet Irans leaders to a more general commitment to consider doing so if it advanced US interests.
And unfortunately McCain could never pin him to the wall on that, not that it would have mattered to the people who voted for Bambi. Bambi needs to learn: when you talk with thugs, you end up talking about what you're going to do for them and not vice-versa.
Obama faces a real dilemma, said the Eurasia Groups Mr Kupchan. He must decide whether to pursue diplomacy quickly in light of rapid Iranian progress or whether to wait in the hope of a more moderate Iranian leadership after Irans June presidential election.
There's a third option: what I've called Operation Lemony Snickett, which implements a whole series of unfortunate events in Iran, all designed to put the current regime of Mad Mullahs in disrepute. The fourth option is brute military force: not preferred but all we may be left with. The fifth option is to let the Israelis do the job, if they can. Mr. Kupchan didn't mention any of those.
European diplomats have responded favourably to Mr Obamas suggestion of US engagement with Iran, although they are keen to avoid unilateral US actions that would rip up the approach fashioned by the permanent five members of the UN Security Council and Germany.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
11/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
All for peaceful medicinal purposes, of course.
#2
ION WORLD MIL FORUM > [IIUC]BRAIN SCAN IMAGES AND ANALYSES INDCATES THAT NORTH KOREA'S KIM JONG-IL WILL PROBABLY NOT RULE/ALIVE AFTER ANOTHER FIVE YEARS [2012-13]???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
