Posted on 04/13/2006 11:56:20 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
Wow. This guy has really gone out on a limb with all of this intelligence. He has claimed to know the exact date of their first underground test, and the technology/yield of the system. My dog could make a more accurate prediction.
10 to 20 Kiloton yield?
No, 10 to 20 ton.
It took 3 years 8 months from FDR giving the go ahead for the Manhattan Project to dropping the bombs on Japan. Now in 2006 all of the physics is well understood and Iran is enriching uranium. I don't think anyone sane could say that any major country on earth is more than 3 years 8 months from producing atomic bombs. And since Iran has proceeded well down the road it is a lot closer than that.
That's assuming they make the smallest possible weapon and it is 1.1 of critical mass.
"You have to wonder where AP finds them."
From every single "Journalism School" in the country.
Sometimes it makes more sense to overreact to insistent cries of "Wolf", than to be too readily dismissive. After all, wolves do exist and ignoring them can lead to one painful lesson.
So we have years before we need to worry about Iran...Why don't I believe these people???
Are these the same folks that assured me less than 6 months ago that iran was 7-10 years away from enriching it's uranium.
Give me open access to everything in a Radio Shack store and about 10,000 smoke detectors, which contain Cesium, and In Hoc can make a atomic weapon...
The trickiest part of a nuke, outside the trigger mechanism, is obtaining fissile material.
Iran is way, way, way, closer than 5-10 years...
Several years from now to me (according to our estimates) means 2-3 yrs from a deliverable weapon. It will not be a missle - something somewhat portable. They'll try to sneak it in either by ship or fake airline, some other way. Have to intervene by the summer of 2007 or I think it will be too late and next President wont be as apt to get involved.
Show off ;-)
You figure add to that a conservative estimate of 1 year for building their network for delivering it (which they are probably attempting to do right now setting up contacts now), and thats a strike window opening in 2010, 4 years from now.
Iran can get nukes quickly with the right entities helping them. Whatever they do, it will be done secretly in deep underground laboratories. We will have to light up their world to hit the many to get the one.
As a young student, the first Iranians I ever met were female (!) nuclear physicists who were visiting scientists at one of our major national laboratories. The refinement of uranium to weapons grade (~80% enriched U, very far from the few % ballyhooed by Iran's crazy president) is an enormous undertaking that requires, among other things, hugh infrastructure investments and an army of scientists, engineers and technicians - in other words, a technologically advanced middle class.
That last requirement is a moderating influence. Bush stated this week (I believe at Johns Hopkins) that he wanted to prevent Iran from even acquiring the knowledge for U-enrichment. Well, THAT is decades too late, because we'd have to kill off or otherwise neutralize every physicist, nuclear engineer or physics student in Iran - the very class of people most likely to be western-leaning. I think most politicians are not quite up-to-speed here.
The real, immediate danger is a "dirty bomb" or other small nuclear device planted in one of our major cities or critical power plants. Far, FAR easier, and much harder to detect is simply obtaining a bomb or the U through underground sources. In this respect our security is woefully lacking to 2 critical areas: 1) port security and 2) tracking Soviet-era nukes (some scary number of which are still unaccounted for).
We collaborated with Soviet scientists for decades on basic research projects throughout the Cold War, and that helped develop a class of western-leaning, freedom seeking people, highly skilled and intelligent (Sakarov, the father of the Soviet H-bomb, was just one outstanding example), that cranked up the internal pressure to overthrow Communism there. All the Iranians I have personally met are very pro-American (though some are not too happy with the current admin., who they feel are encouraging the Islamoradicals). So in that sense, I see the development of a nuclear enrichment program as less of a threat (and a possible positive change) than most would here.
Please keep the flames at moderate levels! :)
True enough, but with atomics and nukes, we're talking real, palpable terror. He may be insane, but he means what he says.
Good point. Since we had some scientific development already done before the go-ahead, and Iran is operating under international contstraints, I would add a half year to that and make it 4 at best speed.
Regarding the dirty bomb, that doesnt seem to fit. The Iranian government is very proud and desires to run the entire process themselves. It is much easier for them to work in secret in their own country where we cannot see anything, rather than to risk putting out more feelers for black market weapons while our post 9-11 ears are everywhere watching for these kind of shady deals.
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