US News
By M&C US News Dec 3, 2007, 20:13 GMT
US Intel says Iran has no nukes
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Older Talkback
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Cheney looks as if he was just fed a crap sandwich. It looks good on him. More of his lies exposed.
They are just working the spin on this new information. This administration does not need anything as trivial as 'facts'. Getting close to a year to be rid of these complete and total failures.
..Iran has over 100 nuclear research facilities
Iran allegedly has over 3000(?) enrichment centrifuges....(they only produce bomb material)
Iran has no real nuclear electrical power program to speak of
No wonder Cheney isn't smiling...
Other fabulous US intel coups:
Bombing of Chinese Embassy in Romania due to complete lack of intel
US missile gap of the 60's
Pearl Harbor
Bay of Pigs
Aldrich Ames
Oh yeah, they don't want a bomb....
Under the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
'Iran allegedly has over 3000(?) enrichment centrifuges....(they only produce bomb material)'
Iran has plans for 3000. they currently have only 2 operating centifuges. They are of very poor design and low quality. They probably don't even work. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium so that it can be used as fuel in a reactor. Due to heavy metal contamnination, the uranium Iran possesses cannot be enriched beyond 20% without further special prosessing in Russia China, or the US. Far, far below the 98% needed. As a matter of fact Iran will have a very difficult time getting it to the 3% needed for use as reactor fuel.
If you want to stop nuclear proliferation, take away the 200 nukes that Israel has built with US technology, guidance and raw materials. So, Mr. know-it-all, chew on that for a while. Stop spreading the Bush/Cheney lies.
For clarification, I recommend Wikipedia on ''nuclear enrichment''.
Fact is, that enrichment for fuel rods in reactors requires U235 at an enrichment level of 3.5 to 5%, for which a cascade (installed in a series) of 3,000 centrifuges is needed. A gas, uranium hexaflouride, is routed to this cascade, enriching the remainder at each step more, using centrifugal (center-fleeing) forces -- the principle of a centrifuge, duh!
To make weapons grade uranium, the compound needs to be enriched to roughly 95% U235, but for this enrichment, cascades of 30,000 centrifuges are needed. This early November 2007, IAEA's ElBaradei noted, that Iran had had enormous difficulties in getting the 3,000 centrifuges to work in a cascade, but they succeeded and indeed produced a small amount of 3.5% fuel-rod material.
Bear in mind here, that Iran's first nuclear reactor is still not operational, and has not yet been equipped with nuclear 'fuel' by Russia. The uranium used by Iran is domestically mined, and the Iranians plan to eventually use their own uranium for fuel in their nuclear plant(s), after the initial set of fuel rods supplied by Russia.
Here comes the kicker!
The article states:
'We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,' the report says. ... end of quote ...
In 2003, Tehran may have been in experimental stages on how to enrich uranium from uranium hexaflouride, made from domestic yellow cake -- but Iran's program certainly could not be called a ''weapons program'' back then, when they barely managed, four years later, to produce a small amount of fuel grade uranium as opposed to weapons grade uranium, that requires a ten- to twenty times larger infrastructure.
The US-backslapping on how well diplomacy and ''pressure'' works, is ludicrous. Iran did suspend its enrichment activities (largely experiments) in 2003, because it was promised by the EU3 (France, Germany and the UK) that it would receive technical assistance, a promise that was wiped off the table by Cheney/Bush and cohorts.
Given, what the IAEA knows about Iran's uranium enrichment program, anyone outside the CIA can also ''judge with high confidence'' that Iran does not have a weapons program. To even hint at such a program having been given up in 2003 is already bullshitting the public, but the administration should be allowed to try to save face, made necessary, because the IAEA did not cave in this time round. In 2003, the IAEA did find traces (for SP4: ''minute parts'') of highly enriched uranium, but it was meanwhile determined that these traces stem from contamination of the Pakistani centrifuges, where they were used in that nation's weapons program.
One last thing, reserved for ''SP4:'':
''Bombing of Chinese Embassy in Romania due to complete lack of intel''
During the Kosovo conflict, the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed by NATO (intentional or not will be eventually found out). Be advised, that Belgrade is the capital of Serbia (back then: Yugoslavia).
Typical information from SP4---'Fox News', 'Rush News'. SP4 gives us information just like this administration gives us information---90% lies- 10% truth.
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