Here We Go Again With the Iranian Nuclear Scare
By Eric S. Margolis
March 09, 2009 "Khaleej Times" -- - While the United States was fighting for its economic life, Obama administration officials and the media issued a blizzard of contradictory claims over Iran’s alleged nuclear threat, leaving one wondering who is really charge of US foreign policy?
Much of the uproar over Iran’s so-far non-existent nuclear weapons must be seen as part of efforts by the Israeli lobby to block President Barack Obama’s proposed opening to Teheran, and to keep pressing the US to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Israel’s supporters and most Israeli military experts insist Iran has secret weapons programmes. Israel knows about covert nuclear programs, having run one of the world’s largest and most productive.
The hawkish Hillary Clinton’s naming of veteran Israel supporter Dennis Ross as her special adviser on Iran and the Gulf suggest she is more interested in building future domestic political support than securing balanced advice.
Meanwhile, confusion over Iran grew sharply. New CIA director, Leon Panetta, said ‘there is no question, they (Iran) are seeking that (nuclear weapons) capability.’
Pentagon chief Adm. Mike Mullen claimed Iran had ‘enough fissile material to build a bomb.’ Fox News claimed Iran already had 50 nuclear weapons. While the American Rome burns, here we go again with renewed hysteria over MWMD’s - Muslim Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wars drums are again beating over Iran.
The czar of all 16 US intelligence agencies, Adm. Dennis Blair, stated Iran could have enough enriched uranium for one atomic weapon by 2010-2015. But he reaffirmed the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not pursuing them. Defence Secretary William Gates backed up Blair. So does the UN nuclear agency. Some of the confusion over Iran comes from misunderstanding nuclear enrichment, and lurid scare stories.
Iran is producing low-grade uranium-235 (LEU), enriched to only 2.5 per cent, to generate electricity. Teheran has this absolute right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its centrifuge enrichment process at Natanz is under 24-hour international inspection. Iran’s soon to open nuclear plant at Bushehr cannot produce nuclear weapons fuel. Its spent fuel will be returned to Russia.
Today, some 15 nations produce LEU U-235, including Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, and Japan. Israel, India and Pakistan, all covert nuclear weapons powers, refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty. North Korea abrogated it. UN inspectors report Iran has produced 1,010 kg of 2-3 per cent enriched uranium for energy generation, insists Iran. Theoretically that is enough for one atomic bomb.
But to make a nuclear weapon, U-235 must be enriched to over 90 per cent in an elaborate, costly process. Iran is not doing so, say UN inspectors.
Highly enriched U-235 or plutonium must then be milled and shaped into a perfect ball or cylinder. Any surface imperfections will prevent achieving critical mass. Next, high explosive lenses must surround the core, and detonate at precisely the same millisecond. In the gun system, two cores must collide at very high speed. In some cases, a stream of neutrons are pumped into the device as it explodes.
This process is highly complex. Nuclear weapons cannot be deemed reliable unless they are tested. North Korea recently detonated a device that fizzled. Iran has never built or tested a nuclear weapon. Israel and South Africa jointly tested a nuclear weapon in 1979.
Even if Iran had the capability to fashion a complex nuclear weapon, it would be useless without delivery. Iran’s sole medium-range delivery system is its unreliable, inaccurate 1,500 km ranged Shahab-3. Miniaturizing and hardening nuclear warheads capable of flying atop a Shahab missile is another complex technological challenge.
It is inconceivable that Iran or anyone else would launch a single nuclear weapon. What if it didn’t go off? Imagine the embarrassment and the retaliation. Iran would need at least ten warheads and a reliable delivery system to be a credible nuclear power.
Israel, the primary target for any Iranian nuclear strike, has an indestructible triad of air, missile and sea-launched nuclear weapons pointed at Iran. An Israeli submarine with nuclear cruise missiles is on station off Iran’s coast. Iran would be wiped off the map by even a few of Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons. Iran is no likelier to use a nuke against its Gulf neighbours. The explosion would blanket Iran with radioactive dust and sand.
Washington would do better to stop worrying about Iran and focus on its economic meltdown.
Eric S Margolis is a veteran US journalist who has reported from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan for several years
March 09, 2009 "Khaleej Times" -- - While the United States was fighting for its economic life, Obama administration officials and the media issued a blizzard of contradictory claims over Iran’s alleged nuclear threat, leaving one wondering who is really charge of US foreign policy?
Much of the uproar over Iran’s so-far non-existent nuclear weapons must be seen as part of efforts by the Israeli lobby to block President Barack Obama’s proposed opening to Teheran, and to keep pressing the US to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Israel’s supporters and most Israeli military experts insist Iran has secret weapons programmes. Israel knows about covert nuclear programs, having run one of the world’s largest and most productive.
The hawkish Hillary Clinton’s naming of veteran Israel supporter Dennis Ross as her special adviser on Iran and the Gulf suggest she is more interested in building future domestic political support than securing balanced advice.
Meanwhile, confusion over Iran grew sharply. New CIA director, Leon Panetta, said ‘there is no question, they (Iran) are seeking that (nuclear weapons) capability.’
Pentagon chief Adm. Mike Mullen claimed Iran had ‘enough fissile material to build a bomb.’ Fox News claimed Iran already had 50 nuclear weapons. While the American Rome burns, here we go again with renewed hysteria over MWMD’s - Muslim Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wars drums are again beating over Iran.
The czar of all 16 US intelligence agencies, Adm. Dennis Blair, stated Iran could have enough enriched uranium for one atomic weapon by 2010-2015. But he reaffirmed the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not pursuing them. Defence Secretary William Gates backed up Blair. So does the UN nuclear agency. Some of the confusion over Iran comes from misunderstanding nuclear enrichment, and lurid scare stories.
Iran is producing low-grade uranium-235 (LEU), enriched to only 2.5 per cent, to generate electricity. Teheran has this absolute right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its centrifuge enrichment process at Natanz is under 24-hour international inspection. Iran’s soon to open nuclear plant at Bushehr cannot produce nuclear weapons fuel. Its spent fuel will be returned to Russia.
Today, some 15 nations produce LEU U-235, including Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, and Japan. Israel, India and Pakistan, all covert nuclear weapons powers, refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty. North Korea abrogated it. UN inspectors report Iran has produced 1,010 kg of 2-3 per cent enriched uranium for energy generation, insists Iran. Theoretically that is enough for one atomic bomb.
But to make a nuclear weapon, U-235 must be enriched to over 90 per cent in an elaborate, costly process. Iran is not doing so, say UN inspectors.
Highly enriched U-235 or plutonium must then be milled and shaped into a perfect ball or cylinder. Any surface imperfections will prevent achieving critical mass. Next, high explosive lenses must surround the core, and detonate at precisely the same millisecond. In the gun system, two cores must collide at very high speed. In some cases, a stream of neutrons are pumped into the device as it explodes.
This process is highly complex. Nuclear weapons cannot be deemed reliable unless they are tested. North Korea recently detonated a device that fizzled. Iran has never built or tested a nuclear weapon. Israel and South Africa jointly tested a nuclear weapon in 1979.
Even if Iran had the capability to fashion a complex nuclear weapon, it would be useless without delivery. Iran’s sole medium-range delivery system is its unreliable, inaccurate 1,500 km ranged Shahab-3. Miniaturizing and hardening nuclear warheads capable of flying atop a Shahab missile is another complex technological challenge.
It is inconceivable that Iran or anyone else would launch a single nuclear weapon. What if it didn’t go off? Imagine the embarrassment and the retaliation. Iran would need at least ten warheads and a reliable delivery system to be a credible nuclear power.
Israel, the primary target for any Iranian nuclear strike, has an indestructible triad of air, missile and sea-launched nuclear weapons pointed at Iran. An Israeli submarine with nuclear cruise missiles is on station off Iran’s coast. Iran would be wiped off the map by even a few of Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons. Iran is no likelier to use a nuke against its Gulf neighbours. The explosion would blanket Iran with radioactive dust and sand.
Washington would do better to stop worrying about Iran and focus on its economic meltdown.
Eric S Margolis is a veteran US journalist who has reported from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan for several years
Comment
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Comment by Jeff on March 11, 2009 at 2:00pm
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DU Safe?
Are you on psychotropic drugs, suffering from advanced dementia or just plain Stupid?
There are volumes of corroborated scientific evidence linking the breathing of DU dust to a myriad of lethal and quite debilitating diseases. Even Time Magazine did an expose of American soldiers dramatically increased incidence of birth defects.
This is how the elite get rid of their spent, used, worthless uranium. They profit in the arms industry from their poisonous waste.
I suppose you drink Agent Orange for breakfast?
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Comment by illuminated-dj on March 11, 2009 at 7:27am
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no depleted uranium problem?would you let your children play in the dust and dirt in an area where a shell went off?
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Comment by Roger Helbig on March 11, 2009 at 7:04am
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Trout,
You have been brainwashed by a group led by pseudoscientists and con artists. There is no "depleted uranium" problem. Iraq would have been cleaned up long ago had the UN been allowed in in 1991 and had it been safe after 2003 to do so. You have been fed a steady diet of lies that began with Saddam Hussein's propaganda campaign in 1992. They were not true then and they are not true now. The propaganda campaign dug up every grotesque birth defect that it could find, even a couple from jars in a Czarist era Russian museum (see www.depletedcranium.com ) and said that they all were due to DU, DU that never contaminated anyone unless they were sitting in or next to an Iraqi tank when it was attacked with a kinetic energy penetrator. A penetrator is basically a long thin rod fired at very high velocity out of a cannon on a tank or aircraft. The rod does not explode and it does not catch fire passing through the air. It does become intensely hot when it hits armor plate and it then has exploded the on-board ammunition and fuel of the target tank. The UN Environment Programme and International Atomic Energy Agency have done extensive field sampling and laboratory tests and found that DU is not the "deadly dust" portrayed by people like Trout. Too bad, I grew up near a lake with lots of nice lake trout. Doubt that they would spread this nonsense.
DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com
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McDonalds in Iran:
Iran capital Tehran at night:
Tehran by day:
Obviously not terribly different than any other cosmopolitan city where the people simply want peace, to be left alone to pursue jobs, family, raising children; life, like everyone else.
Only governments want war and I'm beginning to believe that only Western governments want war.
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Nice pics man. I hope you know I wasn't talking about you; I'll assume you do.
You and I are probably the only two people I know that have a reasonable perspective.
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Comment by Marklar on March 10, 2009 at 10:05am
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This non-controversy has managed to really piss me off!
To begin with a very simple assessment exists to counter any argument either for or against Iran becoming armed with a single nuclear weapon.
Anyone who thinks that Iran would threaten any other country with a nuclear weapon just isn't operating on all cylinders. It would be absolute suicide for Iran to do so.
Secondly, Iran is one of the few countries in existence on the planet that hasn't attacked another country in almost 1,000 years.
Most people in this country haven't been to Iran, know very little if anything at all concrete about life in Iran and haven't even taken the hour or so necessary to view the many wonderful pictures of Iran on Google Earth.
Iran is no different than most other countries. There are McDonalds, Universities, Medical facilities, Malls, roads, bridges and infrastructure that look much like the US.
The average person, on a global scale, wants nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives in peace and this includes Iranians.
Only governments make war.
Generally to facilitate the needs of corporations.
Always using middle class youngsters who know no better as cannon fodder.
The United States is personally responsible for the deaths of more people as a result of it's wars of aggression than any other country in the history of the entire world from the beginning of time. We're a terrorist country, more so than any other country on the planet. Shameful indeed.
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