ISIS Study Points Up Complexity of “Killing” Iran’s Nuke Weapons Program and Keeping It Dead
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Israel Could Almost Certainly Devastate Iran’s Nuke Program But It Would Need Help to Keep It That Way
A new report titled “Can Military Strikes Destroy Iran’s Gas Centrifuge Program? Probably Not,” by The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) says the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program would require a sustained air combat campaign by the United States presumably because Israel couldn’t sustain it after its initial attacks. .
ISIS’s premise is that Iran’s nuclear program has been dispersed, concealed, and protected and this would rule out a limited air strike on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. Destruction it says “would need multiple strikes against many sites.”
ISIS said because Teheran’s uranium enrichment program is based on gas centrifuges, they could be dispersed throughout Iran. Conversely Iraq and Syria had sought to develop nuclear weapons based on reactors it made both vulnerable to pinpoint strikes.
ISIS thinks that “Following an attack, Iran could quickly rebuild its centrifuge program in small, easily hidden facilities focused on making weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons,” the report, dated Aug. 7, said.
The two leading Iranian nuclear facilities were identified as Isfahan and Natanz. ISIS said the destruction of these two facilities would require “far more military ordinance than that used” to bomb Iraq’s Osirak reactor or Syria’s Al Kibar. Israel destroyed Osirak in 1981 and Al Kibar in 2007. ISIS does not describe how or if Israel could wipeout Isfahan and Natanz.
Absent ISIS opinion on that subjects it is very likely that Israel has sophisticated ordinance that it could almost certainly deliver spot on target with devastating results.
Further ISIS infers that Israel has likely mapped Iran’s nuclear facilities in detail it, most probably with on-ground agents as it did in Syria last fall. It does not discuss what would be “ball bearing plant equivalent” for Iran’s or where it is making precision centrifuge parts. Once know that becomes equivalent to destroying Nazi Germanys ability to make ball bearings for it was those steel balls that literally propelled Hitler’s war machines - so it is with the centrifuge parts factories.
The report says Isfahan was said to contain more than 300 tons of uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, a feeder gas that could facilitate the production of more than 30 nuclear weapons. Clearly destroying that would create a significant contamination problem for Iran and set Iran back many months and it a priority.
ISIS’s contention that Iran can somehow establish a cottage industry of thousands of centrifuges and effectively serialize the sequential refinement of purer and purer uranium 235 feels far fetched.
Whether ISIS’s report is spot on, flawed or of limited efficacy it does underscore the complexities involved.
ISIS said Western intelligence remains uncertain of the precise locations and vulnerabilities of Iranian nuclear facilities.
Personally I have little doubt Israel has and can apply the tactics necessary to badly damage Iran nuclear ambitions, and unless Iran suddenly shows a hitherto unseen willingness to be reasonable it is going to be proved, and sooner than later.
Comment by Marshall Ivan Risidin on 16 August 2008:
Richard,
First, read my latest post “Strategic Independence”.
Second, ISIS concentrated on aviation.
Israel has pulled of many substantial ground assaults later disguised by bombing. Reference what happened to the Syrians in Lebanon after the Goodman affair. More recently, I and others suspet that the Syrian reactor destroyed was from the ground, later covered by air. a beautiful mission because it has made Syria distrust its newly purchased multi-billion dollar air defense system.
Reference also the perfectly planned and executed elimination of Al Mugniyeh–the terrorist who planned the explosion of the US Marine barracks in Beirut–Reagan administration.
Israel will likely know what it is doing—and likely get us in through the back door. they have accomplished that feat many times before.
Ivan
Comment by Richard Cochrane on 16 August 2008:
Ivan - agreed. It is a report not an analysis, prediction normrecommendation.
Comment by hass on 16 August 2008:
Nevermind of course that Israel would be bombing a civilian, IAEA-monitored, safe-guarded, economically-justified nuclear program that started under the Shah, at the behest with the participation of the US, which produces only low-enriched uranium that can’t be used to make bombs, which is massively popular amongst the Iranians people — and that any such attack would be illegal and a war crime too.
http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2006/05/blasts_from_the.html
And nevermind that the Israelis themselves privately conceed that Iran does not present a threat to Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/916758.html
Funny how the debate becomes artificially limited to “whether” or “how” Israel would bomb Iran, never asking “Why” but instead taking it simply for granted that Israel is always the victim which has the right to go around bombing other people. Why is that?
Comment by Richard Cochrane on 17 August 2008:
Haas - In 25 words of less, do you suggest Israel is unjuwtified in removing a mortal treat by a theocracy pledged to its distruction?
Comment by Marshall Ivan Risidin on 17 August 2008:
Every element of the Haas comment is disingenuous. IAEA has been thrown out time and again for whatever it is worth. Of course bomb grade material is being manufactured–if not–why the centrifuges? As for a crime, when has self defense against a nation that openly intends to “burn your country” been a crime. I suppose stopping Hitler in Czechoslovakia would have been criminal too.
Regardless of anyone’s opinion, Israel will effect “strategic independence” as JCPC calls it.
Comment by Hass on 17 August 2008:
The IAEA has NEVER been “thrown out” and in fact Iran has allowed more inspections than legally required.
The IAEA itself says so:
On 11 March 2007, Reuters quoted International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire, “We have not been denied access at any time, including in the past few weeks. Normally we do not comment on such reports but this time we felt we had to clarify the matter…If we had a problem like that we would have to report to the IAEA board … That has not happened because this alleged event did not take place.”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/May/theworld_May343.xml§ion=theworld
Comment by Marshall Ivan Risidin on 17 August 2008:
Iran “allows” inspections when it wants.
The reactors are not likely to be a problem for long. With enough time the Iranian people might be able to dump the theocrats who are leading them to disaster.A disaster not only for Iran but for the people to be affected by Iran’s likely terrorist response.Israel is going to exercise its options, and no amount of bravado is going to stop them. They no longer trust the US for ultimate protection hence less US ability to coerce them out of it.
End of significant discussion.