TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s president claimed Sunday that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program—a long-sought Iranian goal that could add momentum to efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The claim appeared at odds with a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Thursday that put the number much lower—at close to 2,000. The International Atomic Energy Agency said enrichment had slowed and Iran was cooperating with its nuclear probe, which could fend off calls for a third round of sanctions.
“The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks carried by the state television Web site.
It’s not so much that Iran will use them that bothers me. It’s who they will give them to that concerns me.
That too. But they WILL use ’em if they got ’em.
BZ
I agree with you, BZ. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll use them. We can’t allow them to aquire Nukes!
The left won’t believe he will use them ever!! A mushroom cloud over NYC will mean (to them) that Bush has nuked us to further “the war for oil.”
Shoprat: of course; if Bush can Mastermind the falling of both Twin Towers, then cooking off a nuke on sovereign soil is a piece of cake.
BZ
What gets me is that out of the 10,000 nuclear separators that Mitutoyo sold illegally, about 1,500 – 2,000 wound up in the hands of Iran. The rest went to: Libya, Pakistan, and possibly Iraq and/or Syria.
So, where are they?
They are a bit bulky to move, difficult to set-up and getting a bit old from the original Mitutoyo sales in the mid-1990’s. Iraq, to date has come up empty… say, where did all the German, French, US, Soviet and Chinese chemical processing equipment go there, anyways? The stuff bought in the 1980’s? I know we didn’t get all or even most of it during the First Gulf War…
Be that as it may *someone* is building nuclear separators, and while I do admire the Iranians as people, creating the hardware and software to make them is quite a difficult undertaking. And with the money going to building nuclear plants and to Hezbollah and missiles, plus trying to copy the F-5 and keep a few F-14’s flying, the limit of their techincal and production capacity has got to be reached. Especially when they don’t have money left to pay teachers and bureaucrats and such.
So who is the supplier?
I can hazard some guesses, at least…
1) North Korea – limited production of high quality items via use of mass hand-work would meet their internal nuclear needs and leave some capacity left over for overseas sales. That said it would be limited production.
2) Pakistan – unlikely that they want a nuclear neighbor like Iran. The ISI may be deceitful and Taliban supporting, but they are not suicidal.
3) Syria – actually inside their technical competence. Their industrial base, however, is strapped what with SCUD-D production, Vx and Sarin warhead production, making yellowcake from their phosphate ore, and getting into the bioweapons business. Iran could be helping them to make the things…
4) Argentina – The large Syrian ex-pat community plus Hezbollah operating there, and agents put in-place in the early 1990’s could very well lead to a clandestine trade from there. They have the technical and production capability, but no want for arms themselves. It would not stop a manufacturer from piecemealing it out, however.
South Africa I consider to be too strapped socially and financially to want to get into the export of such things. India would not do so. Russia may be many things, but a nuclear Iran is something they do not want to see due to their own Chechen problems. China is possible, but the State-controlled nature of that and pulling out of an oil deal with Iran points the other way, there. France, possible but they are not suicidal, either. Ditto Germany and the UK.
So who is making them? Mitutoyo could turn them out like hotcakes, but they are Japanese… they turn *everything* out like hotcakes. From Pokemon to Toyotas that is their forte…
In any event with Syria the entire production of bombs is a complete cycle with the AQ Khan plans picked up by Iran or Syria… Syria for raw materials and initial processing, both for separating and, apparently, final bomb design team in Syria. Iran delivers refined uranium and Syria finishes the job.
Iran might have Hezbollah use them, beyond missile warheads… Syria? Able to cover the Eastern Med with SCUD-D’s and NoDong II’s? They can hit everything from the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, the Suez, Cyprus, Athens, Istanbul, the Dardanelles, even out to the heel of Italian peninsula.
Can you say: “Nuclear blackmail?”
What will it be: chemical, biological or nuclear? They should have the entire suite by the time nuclear devices are tested.
Concerned about Iran, yes… Syria, however, has the *lock* on some of the most important economic targets in the Middle East and the world.