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A blow to the the "peaceful generation of electricity" alibi. "IAEA unveils allegations of Iranian arms work," by Mark Heinrich and Louis Charbonneau for Reuters:
VIENNA/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. investigators want Iran to explain an organizational chart linking projects to process uranium, test explosives and modify a missile cone for a nuclear payload, diplomats briefed on the matter say. [...]
"This presentation was a graphic demonstration that ... amplifies the concerns we've had for a number for years. And we are waiting for answers," Simon Smith, British ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters after the February 25 briefing.
The disclosures came as the United States and key European allies were piling pressure on four developing nations on the U.N. Security Council to vote for sanctions against Iran on Monday for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program.
Iran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and has dismissed the intelligence, key bits from a laptop smuggled out of the Islamic Republic and passed to Washington, as baseless, forged or irrelevant. [...]
In the power-point presentation, IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen displayed an organizational diagram linking the three projects with numbered code names -- "5" for processing nuclear fuel, "110" for purported tests of an atomic device and "111" for a longer-range, Shahab-3 missile adapted to carry it.
Project 111 was also known as the "Orchid Office".
One of dozens of slides screened by Heinonen cited a progress report on the related projects for the period July 9, 2003-January 14, 2004. Other files showed the warhead design project began in July 2002. [...]
The summary said Heinonen showed diagrams depicting tests with explosives to be placed in a shaft 400 meters (1,300 feet) underground and detonated from 10 km (6 miles) away.
Electrical bridge-wire (EBW) detonators would be used to ensure the several fissile layers of the warhead blew up in a chain reaction within 130 nanoseconds.
See? There's electricity involved in the project.
"The high-tension firing systems and multiple EBW detonators fired simultaneously are key components of nuclear weapons," the summary quoted Heinonen as saying.
Iran had said its explosives tests were for conventional arms only, he told the diplomats from the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors who will debate Iran at a meeting starting Monday.
Heinonen cited documentation from "Project 111" showing steps, including mathematical simulations, to design a "spherical warhead", suitable for the Shahab-3 missile, that would explode at a height of 600 meters (2,000 feet). [...]
And in anticipation of the usual accusations of fabrications by the Zionist entity and Great Satan:
Heinonen said the IAEA had some of its own information and was not merely relying on Western states, the summary said.
Posted by Marisol at March 3, 2008 12:12 AM
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I know GWB has lost some of his lustre here. But his acceptance of the so-called intelligence assessment that Iran had stopped nuclear weapons work was very cleary designed to call the bluff of those who claimed that he was exaggerating the Iranian threat. Now those guys will be walking jokes, as over the next few months more reports like this surface to rip their credibility.
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at March 3, 2008 12:57 AM
U.N. investigators want Iran to explain an organizational chart linking projects to process uranium, test explosives and modify a missile cone for a nuclear payload
BUSTED but iran will use kitman to carry out its fatasy of destorying dc and the israles it home built nukes
at March 3, 2008 4:35 AM
I hope our next president is resolute enough to keep the Iranians from getting The Bomb and the means to deliver it. If Iran develops a bomb, the question about war is when, not if. Iran cannot flout international agreements or produce a menacing fait accompli. Obvious, isn't it?
Posted by: John C at March 3, 2008 5:26 AM
It will depend who becomes our next president: not much of a choice. Obama, well, he will become the great pacificator with Islam – Hillary, only God and, perhaps Bill, truly know her analysis and intentions when it comes to Iran and the never-ending war on terror.
McCain, he may be the only candidate not to kowtow to the Islamists. Even then, I would not place a wager on it.
Iran, thus far, has been allowed to snub and have a great guffaw at our expense, because of the weak-kneed West… I can not foresee this shrinking-violet mindset changing until it is too late.
Historically, the West has opted for appeasement – even when we have taken pre-emptive action, we seldom finish the task. Regarding Iran and other terror sponsoring states, Israel will be left holding the, proverbial, bag; we know what that contains. This has been Israel’s lot since her birth: nothing has changed.
Sorry for my less than optimistic viewpoint.
at March 3, 2008 8:32 AM
ivan,
If only that were the case. Those whom you refer to as "walking jokes" will be the loudest voices saying we need to "talk to our enemies". If only we sit down with Ahmadinejad and show him how much we love him all will be sweetness and light.
(Barf!)
John C,
What does the international community care about these agreements? As long as they have signing ceremonies that is all they care about. (They signed the Kyoto Protocols and then did nothing to implement them. All that mattered was that they got to preen about their own environmentalism while the evil US was polluting the world.) Otherwise there would have been action taken against Iran long ago, like thirty years ago, when they violated international law and seized an embassy.
Instead the only country with "illicit nukes" that anyone can point to is Israel, even though Israel never ratified the NPT and Iran did. The EU countries would have been more serious in their negotiations three years ago if they had really cared about international agreements. They weren't and they don't. They just need some way to feel important. An Iran with nukes will do that for them. An Iranian nuke will validate all future negotiations with this rogue regime.
at March 3, 2008 8:33 AM
If the world was like an ice cream cone, Iran's mullahs wouldn't have to kill so many people.
It's okay, they are just kuffirs.
Posted by: tanstaafl at March 3, 2008 9:57 AM
"I know GWB has lost some of his lustre here. But his acceptance of the so-called intelligence assessment that Iran had stopped nuclear weapons work was very cleary designed to call the bluff of those who claimed that he was exaggerating the Iranian threat. Now those guys will be walking jokes, as over the next few months more reports like this surface to rip their credibility."
So Bush stuck a fork in meaningful sanctions, permitted the Russian,Chinese deals with Tehran, and almost guaranteed himself that Russian and China won't go along for any meaningful sanctions in the UNSC all because he wanted to show the "intelligence community" who foolishly wrote that NIE report that they're walking jokes?
No, Bush accepted it because he agreed with it.
Posted by: Sneakyzionistcrusader at March 3, 2008 10:17 AM
Allowing irrational, fatalistic, theocratic lunatics to have the weaponry of the Apocalypse in their unstable, slimy paws is a guaranteee of Terror and Carnage to come.
Prevent it, -or die with the results.
Because there will be no living with them.
Posted by: profitsbeard at March 3, 2008 10:54 PM
John C says:
I hope our next president is resolute enough to keep the Iranians from getting The Bomb and the means to deliver it. If Iran develops a bomb, the question about war is when, not if. Iran cannot flout international agreements or produce a menacing fait accompli. Obvious, isn't it?
You mean you'd better hope the next Israeli Prime Minister is resolute enough to keep the Iranians from getting the bomb and the means to deliver it, because, rest assured, the next President of the United States will do absolutely nothing. I'm afraid that Iran and the Islamic world has sussed out the US and the whole of the West as a paper tiger.
Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at March 4, 2008 5:39 AM
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