Bush: Despite NIE Iran Can Slip Nuke Info To Scumbags - With Video
At a news conference this morning President Bush said that even though Iran’s “weapons” program is on hold, as far as we can tell, they are still enriching uranium for “peaceful” purposes. The problem with that being that they maintain missile delivery systems and can easily give nuclear information and materials to covert military organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. Marc Ginsberg comments.
The Jerusalem Post has an interesting article on this in which they say:
The threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons must not be underestimated, was the message government officials sent out on Tuesday after the release of a US intelligence report claiming that Teheran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but was continuing to enrich uranium.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Iran was continuing in its efforts to produce a nuclear bomb despite the report. According to the minister, Iran had indeed stopped its program four years ago but has since renewed it.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the opening of a meeting with the Italian deputy prime minister that the report only emphasizes and strengthens the need for the international community to tighten sanctions on Iran so that it will not be able to produce nuclear weapons.
I have serious doubts about them totally ceasing nuclear weapons developments; what’s with all the underground facilities. Let’s not forget they’ve also been responsible for killing some of our troops.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:40 amI breezed across this report the other day, and will be revisiting it. However, note the timeline when:
Teheran allegedly “halted” its nuke weapons program … 2003.
Lybia Will Halt Weapons Program
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/frontpage/seattle_pima1×220031220.pdf (12-20-03) (I know it’s the SI, but I’m in a rush right now and not taking time being selective in my sources)
MARCH 19, 2003: Bush launches invasion of Iraq.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:46 amdrillanwr… i was thinking the same thing,, what major event happened in ‘03 that would have caused them to stop?? and it tells alot of the advancement of our intel since the destruction of the 90’s..it will take along time to rebuild and intel community and a formidalbe military after what the clintons and bore did to them,, thank GOD for rummy/bush for doing the impossible of reestablishing those 2 entities..
December 4th, 2007 at 9:52 amdumboldad
Our intel agencies still have a long way to go. They are still far too political for this country’s good.
This is why I am taking the report with less than a grain of (rock) salt (icy here … heh).
December 4th, 2007 at 9:56 amre the “stopping” of the nuke project in 2003, is so much bullshit it hurts my head. Or more appropriately WTF?
iran is enriching uranium for peaceful means right now and are facing even more and more restrictive sanctions on their nation because of it, much less the threat of military action
Russia is willing to provide a full circle of supply and disposal of nuclear fuel for iran so that we can be assured that fuel grade uranium is tracked and accounted for (belief in that process aside), which this in turn would allow relief in sanctions and other benefits, but they do not want to do that.
Why not?
They have ballistic missile capability, they have a clandestine never existed nuke bomb program that is ’suspended’ the last piece is the proper uranium mix
so when the uranium is ready just put the pieces back together and away we go
I do not wish to see two suns in the sunset, act now
December 4th, 2007 at 9:57 amSteve in NC
Exactly!
Let’s see, the intel on Iraq was wrong, wrong, wrong … But now the intel on Iran is rock solid correct?
Give us a fooking break! We ALL know what’s going on over in that toxic playground on that side of the globe.
Just another selective opportunity for the agenda-driven MSM to piss on our shoes and try to convince us it’s raining … and “Bush” caused it.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:03 amdrillarwr… just like MSM we can’t totally rely on what we hear fm the intel world,, and we don’t want to know or “need to know”..it will take twice as long to rebuild our military and covert intel gathering,, we need truck loads of salt here,,
December 4th, 2007 at 10:53 amSavannah River used (and Dimona uses) heavy water-moderated reactors to produce weapons-grade Pu-239 as well as tritium. Implosion weapons are sensitive to the content of Pu-240, too much of which will make the weapon a dud - like the North Korean test. Commercial “light water” power reactors are cheaper to build and operate than heavy water reactors, but produce too much Pu-240 to be useful in weapons, and the uranium must also be slightly enriched in U-235 (to 3-5%, from the 0.72% natural level) to offset the higher absorption of neutrons in the light water moderator.
The advertised installed capacity of 3000 centrifuges (~7,500 Separative Work Units) and potential growth in the underground chambers of the enrichment cascades at Natanz is far smaller than that required to supply low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel to Bushehr (~100,000 Separative Work Units) or the total 6,000 MWe installed nuclear plant capacity cited as the goal of the Iranian nuclear power program - but could be used to rapidly make bomb-grade Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU) from diverted LEU reactor fuel supplied by the Russians. A 100 ton supply of 4.4% enriched U-235 fuel (initial load plus a reload) would contain enough U-235 to build about 200 uranium-based atomic weapons. The combination of heavy water production *and* relatively undersized (and underground) uranium enrichment capacity therefore looks suspiciously like nuclear weapons development instead of commercial power generation.
http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2006/20061109_Einhorn.asp
December 4th, 2007 at 2:09 pmhttp://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/heavy.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/arak.htm
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1016/more-on-iran-timeline
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/natanz03_02.html
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1035/more-fun-with-swu