Well, there you go. No need to even have diplomatic talks with Iran. It’s merely a civilian program with no hidden motives, after all. Good luck with that civilian program.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Well, there you go. No need to even have diplomatic talks with Iran. It’s merely a civilian program with no hidden motives, after all. Good luck with that civilian program.[/quote]
Hey I’ve got a bridge to sell ya too.
Quote from another great WSJ piece on this topic.
GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS
The NIE Fantasy
December 11, 2007; Page A26
[i]
In “Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy” (1996), MIT’s Owen Cote notes that “The recipe [for designing a weapon] is very simple. . . . Nor are the ingredients, other than plutonium or HEU [highly enriched uranium], hard to obtain. For a gun weapon, the gun barrel could be ordered from any machine shop, as could a tungsten tamper machined to any specifications the customer desired. The high-explosive charge for firing the bullet could also be fashioned by anyone with access to and some experience handling TNT, or other conventional, chemical explosives.” (My emphasis).
In other words, Iran didn’t abandon its nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, it went public with it. It’s certainly plausible Tehran may have suspended one aspect of the program – the aspect that is the least technically challenging and that, if exposed, would offer smoking-gun proof of ill intent. Then again, why does the NIE have next to nothing to say about Iran’s efforts to produce plutonium at the Arak facility, which is of the same weapons-producing type as Israel’s Dimona and North Korea’s Yongbyon reactors? And why the silence on Iran’s ongoing and acknowledged testing of ballistic missiles of ever-longer range, the development of which only makes sense as a vehicle to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?[/i]
Iran tested a newly-developed ballistic missile on the day of the Annapolis conference, Channel 10 reported Wednesday.
The Ashoura missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and is capable of reaching Israel, US Army bases in the Middle East and eastern European cities, including Moscow, said the TV channel.
According to the report, the new missile is an improvement on the existing Shihab-3 missile. The Ashoura uses solid fuel instead of the Shihab’s liquid fuel, giving it a significantly faster launch sequence which is harder to detect.
Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Mostafa Muhammad-Najjar had announced the development of the new missile on the day of the summit, but had not specified whether it had actually been tested.
According to the country’s IRNA news agency, Najjar said the missile was named the “Ashoura,” meaning “the tenth day” in Farsi - a sacred reference among Shi’ite Muslims to the martyrdom of the third imam.
The Iranian defense minister said that “the production of the new missile was one of the Defense Ministry’s greatest achievements.”
Analysts believe much of Iran’s military production has benefited from assistance from Russia, China and other countries, but many of their weapons development claims have not been independently verified.
Recent weapons development has been motivated by Iran’s standoff with the US over its controversial nuclear program.
The Shihab-3, which means “shooting star” in Farsi, has a range of at least 1,300 kilometers.
In 2005, Iranian officials said they had improved the range of the Shihab-3 to 2,000 kilometers, a range equal to that of the new missile reported Wednesday.
Experts also believe Iran is developing the Shihab-4 missile, thought to have a range between 2,000 and 3,000 kilometers that would enable it to hit much of Europe.
^^ sigh How else do you expect them to deliver their goodwill & holiday baskets?
[quote]lixy wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Sorry, let me be clearer then: according to my sources, Iran hasn’t a single working nuclear reactor.
Nuclear reactors aren’t rocket science nor voodoo magic. It’s fairly old technology. Iran’s first nuclear reactor was fully functional back in 1967. Then came the revolution and Saddam (armed and supported by the US and other countries) decided to attack Iran, destroying much of the country’s infrastructure.
Fast forward to today: Iran has several working nuclear reactors. That is probably the one point the IAEA, Tehran, and the international intelligence community agree upon. My guess is that you misunderstood or misinterpreted the Economist’s piece on the issue (can’t vouch for the latest acquisition of the Murdoch’s empire).
And in case you missed it, I suggest you get acquainted with the report referred to in the OP’s piece.
So, to come back to your what possible need could they have for enriched uranium? question, the Iranians, the IAEA and your very own CIA are saying it isn’t military. My personal opinion is that Tehran is enriching uranium to achieve independence from Russia at some point.[/quote]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071230/wl_nm/iran_nuclear_plant_dc_2
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran’s first atomic power plant will start operating in mid-2008, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday, two days after the country received a second delivery of nuclear fuel from Russia.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Libya and Iran both halted their nuclear-weapons development programs in 2003. There must have been some sort of catalyst that happened then to cause that action, but I just can’t put my finger on it… what was that again?[/quote]
The Forever War?
The Iranians launched their first low-orbit research satellite and guess what? The White House called the launch “unfortunate”.
Hilarious.
Support drops for action on Iran