Posted on 11/07/2011 3:13:21 AM PST by maquiladora
Iran has already acquired the knowledge, technology, and resources to create a nuclear bomb within months, according to Western experts who were briefed on the intelligence information due to be released in this week's report by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to the experts, Iranian scientists acquired the knowledge with the help of weapons scientists from Russia, Pakistan and North Korea.
Haaretz reported last week that other experts also estimated that Iran could assemble a nuclear bomb within months and carry out an underground nuclear experiment if it wishes to do so.
(snip)
New disclosures in the IAEA report provide details on an apparent secret research program that was more ambitious, more organized and more successful than commonly suspected, The Washington Post said.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
That also.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Don’t worry about Iran: they’re at least 10 years away from being able to build a bomb.
-Liberal talking points, circa 1995
Thank god Iran is a peaceful state with a long history of Human rights or I’d be worried. :)
Statement today from the rather dovish Israeli President, Shimon Peres -
“The possibility of a military attack against Iran is closer than the diplomatic option,” the president said in an interview with the daily Israel Hayom .
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/11/israel-military-attack-against-iran.html
I cannot see Russia/China agreeing to any new sanctions, and even if they somehow did agree in maybe 6 months time after some new revelation, the sanctions are not going to be the effective type that Israel would want anyway.
It might all be irrelevant anyway.
It’s been reported before that Iran may be planning to move all of its 20% enriched uranium to the Qom nuclear site which is under a mountain, before the end of the year.
If they do that then that gives them the option of shutting the doors to Qom any time they like and let the world guess whether they are doing the final step and enriching the uranium to weapons grade.
No conventional bunker buster could do anything about it.
I think Israel would obviously prefer to face the consequences of a conventional pre-emptive strike while it still can rather than wait and be left with facing the consequences of an Israel nuclear first strike against Iran.
The next few weeks could be absolutely critical.
Why bother with underground testing?
Just do it above ground. Nobody's gunna stop 'em.
Wasn’t aware of the report that Iran may move all of its 20% enriched uranium to the Qom site. That really does put an expiration on any conventional strike option against the program.
I think it’s also telling that our defense establishment is growing increasingly concerned with the likelihood of a unilateral Isareli strike. Panetta didn’t get the warm fuzzies after meeting with Netanyahu/Barak, along with Barbara Starr’s report that we are actively monitoring Israeli/Iranian military movements
Smart money says it’s a U235 implosion device, like the South African bomb.
We do have one option remaining.
Blockade.
One of three things will come from a blockade and while the chances are SLIM it still provides a chance to avoid all-out war.
1. The economic pinch works and the mullahs decide to play nice...or the Iranian people finally rise against the regime.
2. Iran goes on the offensive in the Persian Gulf sinking and shooting everything they can reach. Still keeps the nuke genie in the bottle.
3. Iran accelerates the assembly of nukes precipitating total war.
I like the blockade option. It has a more favorable political dynamic for the US and gets us to the same place anyway.
I thought it was the Uranium PU-38 explosive space modulator???
Yeah, zeros October suprise. Iran would have nuked Israel years ago if the were not such incompentent boobs.
“Actually, I think you’re referring to a plutonium-239 based implosion device, which is what the Fat Man bomb is based upon. But since Iran has not said anything openly about refining plutonium, so the more likely device is a uranium-235 based gun barrel device of around 12-15 kT in yield.”
Nope.
The Iranian bomb is almost certainly based on the Pakistani bomb (which was based on the South African bomb, which was based on the Chinese bomb)is a U235 implosion device, requiring somewhere between 12 and 20kg of U235 to work.
In fact, most of the Chinese bombs are U235 implosion weapons, coupled with fusion kickers.
A U235 implosion weapon is not quite as efficient as a Plutonium bomb (or a Plutonium U-235 alloy), but it is much easier to produce U235, and requires far less U235 than a gun-type weapon.
They are also lighter and much easier to stick on the end of a missle.
Here:
http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html
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