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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran has completed heavy water factory
2005-03-05
VIENNA - Iran, at loggerheads with the United States and European Union over its nuclear activities, has completed a heavy water production plant built to supply a nuclear research reactor, which could make plutonium for atom bombs, a think tank said late on Friday. Providing satellite photos to back up its assertion, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), also quoted Iranian security official Hassan Rowhani saying on February 7: "We may be able to produce heavy water soon, within the next few weeks."

According to the ISIS the heavy water would supply a 40-megawatt reactor being built despite objections from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is investigating Iran on the US charges that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. "Adjacent to the reactor construction site is the heavy water production plant, which is anticipated to supply the necessary heavy water for the heavy water reactor," ISIS said, explaining three crystal-clear satellite photos taken by the US commercial firms Space Imaging and DigitalGlobe.
Bet the Israelis have better pictures.
It said the photographs had been taken on February 17 and 27, 2005 and on February 29, 2004. ISIS president David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, said he also had ground photos, some sent to his institute anonymously, which showed the Iranians already testing the production plant as there was steam coming off pipes. "It looks like the plant is completed," Albright said. He said the "huge" facility, its towers for distilling heavy water clearly visible in the satellite photos, has been under construction for several years.

AFP had revealed Thursday that Iran was already pouring the foundation for the reactor, citing diplomats working from satellite photos, and this is also clearly visible in the ISIS-supplied images. Albright said there was even progress being made in the images 10 days apart, although the foundation was not yet completed. Work on the reactor could be completed in 2009.

The construction work for the reactor began in September, just after the IAEA had asked Iran to refrain from building it as a "confidence-building measure" to show it does not seek to make nuclear weapons, a diplomat who asked not to be named told AFP. IAEA deputy director Pierre Goldschmidt had Tuesday told an IAEA governing board meeting in Vienna that Iran was pressing ahead with work on the Arak reactor but he gave no details.
Because he doesn't have any.
Goldschmidt said IAEA inspectors had not visited the site since the agency's board adopted a resolution on September 18 calling on Iran "voluntarily to reconsider its decision to start construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water."
Posted by:Steve White

#9  After reading the article, a little tune started running through my head. (if there's a copyright problem with this post, please remove it with extreme prejudice)

They burned down the gambling house - It died with an awful sound
Funky & Claude was running in and out, pulling kids out of the ground
When it all was over, we had to find another place
Swiss time was running out - It seemed that we would lose the race

Smoke on the water - A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

Words & music by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice
Posted by: mrp   2005-03-05 8:07:37 PM  

#8  There is a lot of intel we do not know about. And that is good, because it means that we can keep some secrets now. Hacks Journalists like Seymour Hersch are useful idiots. All this brouhaha about drones, clones, and tapped phones becomes a spike in the news and disappears from the screen in a week. Bush makes friendly conversation with the Euros and the appeasement negotiaons with the MMs of Iran continues. Meanwhile, the REAL work continues: recon, targetting, planning, surveillance. The rest is a smokescreen for the gullible. President Bush said that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. He has pretty much kept his word on everything else. I do not see this situation with Iran as an exception.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2005-03-05 11:39:53 AM  

#7  Oh Look! A new target!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-03-05 11:37:52 AM  

#6  The Iranian government has a death wish and is soon going to die. I believe that it's only a matter of the final timing at this point. I hope that we can spare as many innocent Iranians as possible, but the Iranian government and nuclear facilities need to be obliterated in a decisive blow that will make those who do not respect us at least live in constant fear our wrath.
Posted by: Tom   2005-03-05 10:47:01 AM  

#5  No way is Iran gonna be allowed one of these babies. Will it be Israel again, or the US this time to blow it up? Just wait till they've invested enough resources so it's a drain to build another one.... BOOM!

But one problem: reactor or not, it is just a matter of time before Islamofascist nuts get their hands on nukes.

It's a race isn't it: can we modernise and moderate them (and uproot the death cult of Islamonazism) before they get the ability to murder millions of our people?

Because if we lose the race and they nuke us, we are going to have to respond.

And the only response possible then will be millions of theirs for millions of ours and a sea of glass covering Mecca.
Posted by: anon1   2005-03-05 10:14:01 AM  

#4  Kaliphate KoolAid. haha.
Posted by: 2b   2005-03-05 9:24:04 AM  

#3  Now they can make Kaliphate KoolAid.
Posted by: .com   2005-03-05 7:20:53 AM  

#2  Maybe more of a Booming disaster..
Posted by: JerseyMike   2005-03-05 7:13:06 AM  

#1  As I gaze into the space time continuum, a Dooming natural disaster Looms.
Posted by: Icanseeformilesandmiles   2005-03-05 3:47:21 AM  

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