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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Report: Iran budgeted $2.5 billion for nuke warheads |
| 2005-04-04 |
| Iran allocated $2.5 billion to obtain three nuclear warheads in 2005, according to a report cited by an opposition official. The Iranian opposition said the Islamic leadership in Teheran approved a project to procure nuclear warheads meant to be deployed on Shihab-class intermediate-range missiles produced by Iran. The opposition said that nearly a year ago Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei ordered Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani to procure the warheads, Middle East Newsline reported. "In mid-2004, Khamenei allocated $2.5 billion to obtain three nuclear warheads by their own means [production] or buy them abroad," National Council of Resistance of Iran foreign affairs committee chairman Mohammad Mohaddessin told a news conference in Paris on Thursday. Mohaddessin did not say whether the money has already been spent, but stressed that Teheran wanted to acquire the warheads in 2005. He said he received this report hours earlier and had no further information on the project. Last month, Ukraine acknowledged that 12 Soviet-origin cruise missiles meant to deliver nuclear weapons were sold to Iran in 2001. The Kiev government said the X-55 missiles were sold by criminal elements and delivered to Iran without full systems and instructions. In 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran disclosed the existence of two major nuclear facilities — Arak and Natanz — concealed from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then, the opposition group reported on other secret nuclear facilities later confirmed by the IAEA. At the news conference, Mohaddessin disclosed an Iranian project to develop a nuclear reactor at Arak, about 240 kilometers south of Teheran. He said the reactor would be able to produce 10 kilograms of plutonium, sufficient for an atomic bomb, by 2007. "The regime told the International Atomic Energy Agency the reactor would be operational in 2014," Mohaddessin said. "But in reality, they want to start it in 2006 or 2007." Commercial satellite images released by a U.S. institute in February pointed to the near completion of a heavy water plant at Arak. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said the plant would contain a nuclear reactor that could eventually produce plutonium for one atomic bomb per year. Later, institute president David Albright said the satellite images indicate that Iran has been testing the Arak plant. He said the images showed steam coming out of the facility. On Thursday, the institute released a report that asserted that Iran has established a facility to manufacture gas centrifuges, required for uranium enrichment. The report said the facility, termed Kalaye Electric, was established in 1995 and inspected by the IAEA in 2003. The Iranian opposition said Teheran's nuclear program has been kept secret from much of the government and parliament. Mohaddessin quoted from what he termed a classified report by parliament in February 2004 that complained of a lack of government information on Arak as well as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. "The legislative branch does not clearly know where the budget for these two projects is coming from," the parliamentary report was quoted as saying. "It neither knows how the project was started and how it was put into place." In Washington, a leading U.S. expert said Iran appears to be developing what he termed "latent" nuclear weapons capability. The expert said Iran has not yet assembled complete bombs or openly violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "They absolutely want to stay within the existing rules of the NPT and regime and they will do everything they can to play by the rules," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace vice president George Perkovich said. "The rules allow you — and in their argument give you the right, which I dispute — to acquire a capability to enrich uranium or to separate plutonium." Perkovich said Iran has sought to follow the Japanese model. He said Japan maintains large stockpiles of plutonium without international recrimination. "What we have learned is that some technologies, in particular uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technology, are just too inherently dual use, they have too many inherent weapons applications to be allowed to proliferate to new countries," Perkovich said. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 Japan maintains large stockpiles of plutonium without international recrimination Yup, and the Japanese got the crap kicked out of them to help them through their world domination phase. That's something Islam sorely needs. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2005-04-04 6:56:46 PM |