Posted on 02/12/2011 2:12:43 PM PST by robowombat
Expert: Pakistan building fourth plutonium reactor Published: 02.10.11, 20:54 / Israel News
An independent expert says Pakistan has begun building what appears to be a fourth plutonium reactor, increasing concerns that the volatile nation is creating more nuclear material than it can safeguard.
(Excerpt) Read more at ynetnews.com ...
How many plutonium reactors does Israel currently have? Does anyone know for sure. If any army on earth has control of it’s nuclear assets it’s Pakistan and Israel.
Compliments of the American Taxpayer....sheesh!
Living On US dole, Pakistan Builds Fourth Plutonium Reactor
February 10, 2011 | The Times of India
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2671612/posts
WASHINGTON: Despite being in the throes of a crippling political and economic crisis and almost entirely dependent on handouts from the United States and multilateral aid, Pakistan is poking a finger in the international community’s eye. Days after it was revealed that Islamabad has doubled its nuclear weapons’ inventory in the past decade, American experts have discovered that it has begun building a fourth plutonium-producing reactor to produce even more nuclear bombs to add to the 100-plus it already has.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) announced on Wednesday that it has obtained commercial satellite imagery from January 15, 2011 that shows what appears to be a fourth reactor under construction at Pakistan’s Khushab nuclear site. The reactor construction was not visible during a previous satellite pictures last November.
“Pakistan is determined to produce considerably more plutonium for nuclear weapons,” ISIS said in an outline of the progression of the country’s plutonium reactors. While Pakistan’s initial nuclear weapons were enriched uranium-based, it expanded to plutonium-based weapons (which are more compact) with the commissioning in 1998 of the first reactor at the Khushab site, which lies southwest of Islamabad. Sometime between 2000 and 2002, Pakistan began constructing a second reactor at the site, and in 2006, it began building a third reactor, adjacent to the second Khushab reactor.
ISIS, a think-tank with expertise in nuclear proliferation, said that in commercial satellite imagery from December 2009, vapor could be seen rising from some of the second reactor’s cooling tower fan blades, indicating that the second reactor was at least at some stage of initial operation. Vapor can again be seen rising from some of the second reactor’s cooling towers in the January 15, 2011 imagery, though none can be seen yet over the third reactor’s cooling towers, while construction of the fourth has just begun.
The U.S administration, as usual, is not expected to react to the development amid mounting criticism that it is effectively funding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program because Islamabad does not generate enough revenues on its own and lives on international dole. The country is in such bad shape that its state-owned airline PIA and its railways are now crippled by strikes and shortages. The federal cabinet resigned en masse earlier this week to pave way for a smaller ministry to save money amid growing disquiet about the profligate ways of its politicians and the military.
But none of this appears to have affected its nuclear program, that in effect are indirectly underwritten by Washington, and which in turn has made no effort to rein in the unstable country’s massing of nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration last month quietly swallowed an expert report that Pakistan had doubled its nuclear weapons stockpile to over 100, much of which happened during the Bush dispensation, and was well on its way to becoming the world’s fifth largest nuclear weapons state, overtaking France. While doing so, Pakistan has also blocked a prospective international treaty to end production of fissile material that every other nation wants to bring into force.
Analysts surmise that Pakistan is pushing the envelope because it believes it has a foot on the American jugular going into Afghanistan and also that it (Pakistan), with a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, “is too big to fail.” But some experts are starting to question its premise.
“Giving the Pakistani government more money because it is ‘too big to fail’ is a doomed policy in every way except one: it allows us to believe (for the time being) that nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of people who would like to detonate those weapons in Long Beach or Baltimore Harbor,” John Ellis, a U.S Consultant wrote this week. Even U.S lawmakers, who signed off on the $ 7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar aid bill, are starting to question their munificence particularly in light of the spat over jailed American national Raymond Davis.
We are going to end up having to obliterate that country! The West should pull out, and give them a warning; “Anything,,, ANYTHING,, happens because of you, we’re going to kill all of you!”
Of course, Bammy would never do that.
You get more of what you reward.
Or those pesky control rods just get stuck ( aka the Mossad....) in the full "throttle" position.....
Well stated, and I am in complete agreement.
David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security said Thursday that commercial satellite images show construction has begun of a building near three other plutonium reactors at Khushab, outside Islamabad. He said based on its footprint it probably is a fourth reactor.
32°23’30.91”N
71°27’41.79”E
Chashma Unit 1; Unit 2 near by — no sign of 3 or 4 in picture
Re: How many plutonium reactors does Israel currently have? Does anyone know for sure. If any army on earth has control of it’s nuclear assets it’s Pakistan and Israel/
India may be a little concerned.
I don't have to read past the title to know that bill is a piece of crap.
Somebody gets it. See Egypt. Not intended for you Doc. You seem well apprised of the potential for disaster in Pakistan.
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