All Posts Tagged With: "Irans"
ISIS Study Points Up Complexity of “Killing” Iran’s Nuke Weapons Program and Keeping It Dead
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.
Iran’s Motives and Moves Maladroit
Iran Saber Rattles.
Sources in London, England have revealed that Iranian scientists were stationed at the Syrian plutonium production plant in Al Kibar, destroyed in an Israeli air strike in September 2007. The Iranians as well as Syrian personnel were trained by North Korea to operate Al Kibar, designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Iran paid North Korea to build the plant tom produce plutonium (P239) for nuclear weapons and to build those weapons in Syria closer to Israel. In addition Iran has been jointly developing its long range ballistic missile with North Korea and Syria. Wednesday Iran tested nine offensive missile - one that could deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel and other capable of attacking U. S. and allied ships in the Persian Gulf.
In the last two days Iran has launched and televising to Iranians a score of offensive missiles.
Teheran has also financed joint missile production with Syria. The sources said Iran’s remaining obstacle to nuclear weapons was the ability to install a nuclear warhead on a missile delivery system. The Iranian delivery system selected for a nuclear warhead has been the Shihab-3B intermediate-range missile, the sources said. They said Iran, with assistance from North Korea, was expected to complete weaponization by mid-2009.
Iran’s 4th of July Surprise.
It has been nearly two years since the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany first offered a package of economic, technological and political incentives to Tehran on condition that it suspend uranium enrichment program to make sufficient weapons grade uranium and then produce plutonium.
Finally Iran has made a response on July 4th to correspond with America’s Independence Day celebrations.
Last month the EU announced more severe sanctions that if exacted could greatly damages Iran’s economy, Israel staged extensive military exercises clearly meant to signal Iran that its time is running out. President Bush increased pressure on the Iranians while France and Germany also signaled displeasure.
Iran’s response was not immediately known but there is small optimism that it will agree to end is nuclear bomb program. It is known that Iran is encouraged that an Obama presidency will usher in a new flaccid “Rodney King” foreign policy, and Iran has little incentive to acquiesce it believes time is entirely on its side, and it is desperate to complete what most believe is at least one nuclear wweapon and some say it already has on hand.
2009 Too Late To Stop Iran’s Nuke Weapons.
If not stopped by next year, Iran will have “crossed the threshold of stockpiling fissionable material,” warns Dennis Ross who served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton in remarks to Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim Congregation that were reported by the Canadian Jewish News.
Not only did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” but former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has stated that it would “take only one bomb” to annihilate Israel, Ross told the gathering.
There are clear signs that the Bush administration will not wait that long and military action is imminent. Israel “is preparing for heavy casualties,” expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution following a U.S. strike. Saudi Arabia is reportedly taking emergency steps in preparing to counter any radioactive hazards that may result from an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
U. S. To Attack Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Plants.
A leading member of the American Jewish community told NEWSMAX this week to expect a U. S. attack on Iran this summer. Although Israel will not be directly involved it expects retaliatory strikes and heavy casualties and told Iran to expect a “prompt severe reaction … which will destroy the Iranian nation.” On Sunday Iran “abruptly cancelled” a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency that was set to investigate allegation Iran has already tried to make a nuclear bomb.”