Iran and The Bomb

[Occhidiangela]

The Bushehr reactor (which Russia assisted Iran in putting up) is exempted from some IAEA limitations. The article below suggests that this exception, doubtless endorsed by UNSC member Russia, is a viable path toward a weaponized atomic weapon (plutnium it seems) in Iran in the short term, not the 3-5 year term.

Is this reporter crying wolf? Is the UNSC once again having trouble with consensus due to inter party agenda mongering? Mr Stephens is somehow privy to a confidential document, which raises the question of his article: How does he know, and who leaked this to him?
From WSJ.com
Wall Street Journal October 31, 2006
Giving Iran The Bomb By Bret Stephens

Does the Bush administration seriously mean to give Iran a nuclear bomb? Look carefully at the confidential text of a forthcoming U.N. Security Council resolution, and the answer, it would seem, is yes.

This is a Halloween column, but it is not a prank. Through diplomatic efforts spearheaded by Undersecretary of State Nick Burns, the administration is prepared to endorse a European draft of a U.N. resolution that imposes limited sanctions on the Islamic Republic for flouting its Aug. 31 deadline to stop enriching uranium. The chances the resolution will soon be voted and agreed on increased with last week's news that Iran has again enriched uranium using a second "cascade" of 160 or so centrifuges. Iran plans to operate 3,000 such centrifuges -- which can spin uranium hexafluoride to either reactor- or weapons-grade levels -- by March of next year.

In an interview last month with this newspaper, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice allowed that while a sanctions resolution would not satisfy the U.S. on every point, it would usefully ratchet up the pressure on Tehran and pave the way, if necessary, for tougher Security Council action later on. On its face, the current draft of the resolution does just that. After noting that the International Atomic Energy Agency "is unable to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran," the resolution forbids the sale or transfer of "all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs." It also freezes the financial assets of everyone and everything known to be involved in those programs.

But then we come to the Bushehr exception, so broad the Iranians could drive a truck through it -- or, to be more precise, a truck carrying 330 kilograms of reactor-grade plutonium. That's enough to make about 55 Nagasaki-type atomic bombs.

Bushehr is a light-water nuclear reactor that Russia began building for Iran in the mid-1990s over the objections of the Clinton administration. Ten years on, the billion-dollar facility is nearly complete: All that remains to make it operable is reactor-grade uranium, which Moscow promises to supply by next October. In a sop to the Russians, the draft resolution specifies that the prohibition on technology transfers to Iran "shall not apply to supplies of items, materials, equipment, goods and technology, nor to the provision of technical assistance or training, financial assistance, investment, brokering or other services . . . related to the construction of Bushehr I."

For years it was widely believed that a light-water reactor could not be used -- at least not covertly -- to generate weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. It was for this reason that President Clinton agreed to supply two such reactors in 1994 to North Korea in exchange for freezing the reactor at Yongbyong, which lent itself more easily to nuclear-weapons production.

But as Henry Sokolski of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Education Center explains in a phone interview, the problem with that view is that it is at least 30 years out of date. Iran could secretly remove fuel rods of lightly enriched uranium pellets from Bushehr by substituting dummy rods, something the IAEA would be unlikely to notice using current inspection practices. It could then use its 3,000 centrifuges to enrich the uranium to weapons-grade levels in as little as five weeks.

That's not all. After a year's operation the Bushehr reactor would produce the previously mentioned 330 kilograms of plutonium in the form of spent fuel. That plutonium could be reprocessed at small and dispersed facilities, completely hidden from the IAEA's view. And unlike uranium, reactor-grade plutonium is only slightly less serviceable than the weapons-grade stuff when it comes to building a bomb. "It would take as little as 10 days of operation to get the first significant quantity [of plutonium] and then you could get a bomb's worth every day," says Mr. Sokolski. "You're talking about weeks, not months."

This means we need to radically revise our estimates of how soon the Islamic Republic will have all the ingredients and know-how it needs to build a bomb. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte speculated in June that Iran would be there sometime between 2010 and 2015 -- long after President Bush and presumably Mr. Negroponte are out of office. But as Mr. Sokolski notes, once Bushehr is operational, Iran could go nuclear "before the end of next year." We know that Iran already possesses a design for a functional weapon, probably courtesy of the A.Q. Khan proliferation network.

Proponents of the draft resolution argue that the Bushehr exemption is the only way the Russians will agree to any sanctions, and that an incremental resolution is better than none. This argument is questionable on three counts. Why would the Russians oppose the completion of Bushehr next year when they refuse to do so today? Why should the international community allow Iran to get a reactor when it is already in material breach of the safeguards agreement of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

Finally, why should the U.S. hand Moscow a bargaining chip for its broader strategic ambitions, which are increasingly antithetical to America's? Imagine if Vladimir Putin demanded that the U.S. abandon its support for the embattled Republic of Georgia in exchange for his compliance on the Iranian issue. Is that a trade-off George W. Bush would be willing to accept?

Tehran has grown shrill in its warnings that there will be "repercussions" if any step is taken to halt its nuclear programs. Whatever. It's time the Bush administration called Iran's bluff, and regained its nerve, by taking effective action in the face of the present danger. The Kabuki dance now being played out at Turtle Bay is not that.

Once Iran has the bomb, what happens to balance of power in the Persian Gulf? Note the use of the words "material breach" regarding a WMD, exactly the same words use vis a vis Saddam.

Occhi

[Munkay]

The Bushehr reactor (which Russia assisted Iran in putting up) is exempted from some IAEA limitations. The article below suggests that this exception, doubtless endorsed by UNSC member Russia, is a viable path toward a weaponized atomic weapon (plutnium it seems) in Iran in the short term, not the 3-5 year term.

Is this reporter crying wolf? Is the UNSC once again having trouble with consensus due to inter party agenda mongering? Mr Stephens is somehow privy to a confidential document, which raises the question of his article: How does he know, and who leaked this to him?
From WSJ.com
Wall Street Journal October 31, 2006
Giving Iran The Bomb By Bret Stephens

Once Iran has the bomb, what happens to balance of power in the Persian Gulf? Note the use of the words "material breach" regarding a WMD, exactly the same words use vis a vis Saddam.

Occhi

One one hand, it sounds like the author is crying wolf over Iran receiving a Nuclear Reactor. It's my understanding that almost all "nuclear power plant grade" plutonium, can be enriched rather quickly into weapons grade plutonium. The possibility is there to 'easily' convert it, but only because the plutonium usable in a reactor is by its very nature 'easily' convertable to weapons grade.

On the other hand, Iran is a country obviously willing to convert plutonium into weapons grade, if given the chance.

I'm more interested in the rationale behind allowing Iran Nuclear Power in the first place. Seems like a terrible idea to give any material usable in a nuclear weapon (even if its a different "grade") to a country where there is fear of creating a nuclear weapon.

Kind of like giving a hand gun to a kid and telling him it's only for hammering nails.

Pardon the over simplification of the issue, but I'm having quite a hard time getting past the need for Iran to have nuclear power in the first place.

Cheers,

Munk

[Assur]

Pardon the over simplification of the issue, but I'm having quite a hard time getting past the need for Iran to have nuclear power in the first place.

Cheers,

Munk

The reasons Iran gives for getting nuclear power are:

a. They cam make more money selling gas and oil to the world and supplying their own power with nuclear reactors.

b. Sooner or later their reserves of gas and oil are running out (probably sooner the way their population is growing) and they don't want to becaught unprepared.

A few other points worth mentioning:

-the Iranians have every right under the NPT to go for a Nuclear Power.

- The Iranian Nuclear Power program started in the 1960s when the US supplied a reactor and under the Shah there was a plan to build ca. 24 nuclear power plants, to be supplied by Westinghouse!

- I have to wonder what that journalist from the WSJ is taking when he calls upon the administration to call Iran's bluff. The Iranians aren't bluffing, they know that they hold all the cards and there isn't anything the US can do without facing a backlash which will severly damage the position of the US + their allies in the Middle East.

Enjoy

[Taem]

Interesting stuff. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out! I always wondered why Iran went with uranium instead of platonium, but whatever.

[Occhidiangela]

Interesting stuff. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out! I always wondered why Iran went with uranium instead of platonium, but whatever.

As a follow up, I suggest you sit down so you don't fall down in a ROFL moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/mi...artner=homepage

In a nutshell, this article explains that the US Govt had, until it was taken down recently, a number of Iraqi documents showing the details of Saddam's pre 1991 nuclear development program, to include some details that the US DoE, the IAEA, and some non proliferation sorts thought were waaaaaaay too sensitive for public domain, easy internet access due to their specific technical nature. (Not convinced that all things needed for nukes aren't in the hands of them as wants them, but aiding and abetting does not seem a wise course.)

So, to make political points on nukes for Saddam, US publishes bits that would help anyone with an eye to making a useful pocket nuke on the web.

I just had to laugh.

The opening bits:

U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer
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By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 3, 2006

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

Early this morning, a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte about the Web site.

But former White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said today that senior officials had been cautioned against posting the information.

“John Negroponte warned us that we don’t know what’s in these documents, so these are being put out at some risk, and that was a warning that he put out right when they first released the documents,” Mr. Card said on NBC’s “Today” show, according to The Associated Press.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”

The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the Web site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.

The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence.

Mr. Negroponte had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents’ release.

You can't make up stuff this stupid, unless you are Peter Sellers. He's dead.

Occhi

[Lissa]

As a follow up, I suggest you sit down so you don't fall down in a ROFL moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/mi...artner=homepage

In a nutshell, this article explains that the US Govt had, until it was taken down recently, a number of Iraqi documents showing the details of Saddam's pre 1991 nuclear development program, to include some details that the US DoE, the IAEA, and some non proliferation sorts thought were waaaaaaay too sensitive for public domain, easy internet access due to their specific technical nature. (Not convinced that all things needed for nukes aren't in the hands of them as wants them, but aiding and abetting does not seem a wise course.)

So, to make political points on nukes for Saddam, US publishes bits that would help anyone with an eye to making a useful pocket nuke on the web.

I just had to laugh.

The opening bits:


You can't make up stuff this stupid, unless you are Peter Sellers. He's dead.

Occhi

Wish I had had a chance to see the site before it being taken down. Just heard about this this morning. Would have been an interesting read from my stand point.

[Swiss Mercenary]

I guess it's only National Security until you can score political points with it. ;)

[Lissa]

The Bushehr reactor (which Russia assisted Iran in putting up) is exempted from some IAEA limitations. The article below suggests that this exception, doubtless endorsed by UNSC member Russia, is a viable path toward a weaponized atomic weapon (plutnium it seems) in Iran in the short term, not the 3-5 year term.

Is this reporter crying wolf? Is the UNSC once again having trouble with consensus due to inter party agenda mongering? Mr Stephens is somehow privy to a confidential document, which raises the question of his article: How does he know, and who leaked this to him?
From WSJ.com
Wall Street Journal October 31, 2006
Giving Iran The Bomb By Bret Stephens

Once Iran has the bomb, what happens to balance of power in the Persian Gulf? Note the use of the words "material breach" regarding a WMD, exactly the same words use vis a vis Saddam.

Occhi

I would have to go back and look at some of my notes and books from when I got my degree. I can give you a better idea if he's blowing smoke or not if I can find more information on the Bushehr site. The amount of usable Plutonium that would come out of the reactor would depend on the power of the reactor, the more effective power it has (and I'm talking Thermal power, not Electrical power), and thus higher neutron flux within the core, will increase the amount of Uranium 238 converted to Plutonium 239. Also, it would depend on if the reactor is similar to the Chernobyl reactors. (Most people don't realize it, but the Chernobyl reactors were of a design that could be refueled while operating, thus allowing fuel rods that had been in the neutron flux long enough to convert Uranium 238 to Uranium 239 without said Uranium 239 being fissioned.) If the design of Bushehr is that of a converter style reactor, it is a big deal, if it is instead a burner style reactor (normal civilian eletrical producer) it would be less of a worry (but still a worry).

Let me get some research in and I can answer this better.

Begin edit as I don't want to produce another post:

Ok, I've read over the Bushehr reactor design by the Russias, this is not a Chernobyl style reactor, this is more like the GE and Westinghouse designs which make refueling much more difficult. The Iranians cannot easily remove fuel rods from the reactor except during a true downtime for refueling. Since it would take weeks to remove the fuel rods (powering down the reactor, allowing the fuel to cool down to thermal levels based on decay, lowering pressure inside the thermal loop, removal of the reactor cap, removal of the fuel bundles) and with the agreement in place that the spent fuel must be returned to Russia, I don't see this as a viable option for Iran. From what I was able to read pretty quickly, anytime there is a refueling cycle there will be Russia engineers on site to make sure that the fuel is removed, put into transport casks, and sent back to Russia for processing, this makes it more difficult for the Iranians to sneak some fuel off for reprocessing. If the Iranians were to substitute fresh fuel into the spent fuel, the Russians would find the ruse very quickly.

So, in effect for the Iranians to use Bushehr to create nuclear weapons the Russians would have to be incolusion with them to give them the bomb which might hurt them (the Russians) far more than they're willing to get hard cash from the Iranians (Russia gets large amounts of hard currency from selling their natural resources that are slowly becoming available with the advent of western technologies, giving Iran the bomb would be akin to destroying your own gravy train and I don't see the Russians being that stupid).

[Chesspiece_face]

As a follow up, I suggest you sit down so you don't fall down in a ROFL moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/mi...artner=homepage

In a nutshell, this article explains that the US Govt had, until it was taken down recently, a number of Iraqi documents showing the details of Saddam's pre 1991 nuclear development program, to include some details that the US DoE, the IAEA, and some non proliferation sorts thought were waaaaaaay too sensitive for public domain, easy internet access due to their specific technical nature. (Not convinced that all things needed for nukes aren't in the hands of them as wants them, but aiding and abetting does not seem a wise course.)

So, to make political points on nukes for Saddam, US publishes bits that would help anyone with an eye to making a useful pocket nuke on the web.

I just had to laugh.

The opening bits:


You can't make up stuff this stupid, unless you are Peter Sellers. He's dead.

Occhi

Looks like bush will have to bring back a joke from his past to clear this one up:

"hmmm. where are those WMD documents?

Over here? nope!

Under here? nope!

Behind here? nope!

lets google it! There they are!"

[Taem]

Looks like bush will have to bring back a joke from his past to clear this one up:

"hmmm. where are those WMD documents?

Over here? nope!

Under here? nope!

Behind here? nope!

lets google it! There they are!"

Omg, when I read this I nearly cried, I laughed that hard.

Regarding the article itself, it just makes me sick. No comment.