Allah be braised!
Posted on 01/20/2006 12:31:49 PM PST by Flavius
VIENNA (AFP) - Iran may have received three shipments of sophisticated P-2 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, diplomats said, which could support Western claims that Tehran is hiding sensitive nuclear work. ADVERTISEMENT
Iran, which already has the less high-tech P-1 centrifuges, denies having received the more advanced machines, which make enriching uranium easier.
One diplomat said there were reportedly three shipments of one centrifuge each from the black-market network of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1997.
Tehran says its nuclear program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity but the United States alleges it is hiding covert work on atomic weapons.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium for either nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material. They work in cascades of hundreds, or thousands, spinning at high speed to refine out the uranium U-235 isotope.
Enrichment is seen as a "breakout capacity" which, once mastered, makes manufacturing nuclear weapons possible.
A second diplomat said the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been investigating Iran's nuclear program for three years and has already found Tehran to be in non-compliance with international atomic safeguards, was actively working on the P-2 report.
Asked if it could be the "smoking gun" that confirms the West's fears, the diplomat replied: "Yes. If this is confirmed the game is over" for Iran.
The diplomat did not rule out that the shipments could have contained more than one centrifuge, or have involved deliveries to Iran and another country.
Friday's development came as the IAEA's board of governors prepares to meet here on February 2 to discuss its response after Iran broke seals on a nuclear facility in order to resume nuclear fuel work.
Britain, France and Germany, supported by the United States, want the Iran dossier referred to the UN Security Council for possible action.
Iran claims it only received designs for P-2 machines in the mid-1990s and "that it did not pursue any work on the P-2 design between 1995 and 2002," an IAEA report in September 2005 noted.
But in November the IAEA said it was "still seeking additional assurance that no P-2 program was conducted between 1995 and 2002."
The agency said it had "emphasized to Iran the importance of providing the additional requested supporting documentation" on its work with both P-1's and P-2's.
The first diplomat, who like other envoys interviewed asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a suspected member of Khan's network who was arrested and detained in Malaysia in 2004, had told Western interrogators of "three actual shipments to Iran of one P-2 each, three separate times in 1997."
Iranian officials in Vienna could not be reached for comment.
Non-proliferation analyst David Albright told AFP from Washington that the Khan network "always sent sample machines with designs."
"It would make sense if Iran got this. This is how the Khan network worked. They had stockpiles of these things in Dubai," said Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector.
If Iran "imported whole P-2 machines, that's a significant difference from what they told the IAEA," he said.
He said that while "you can't argue they are somehow hiding enrichment but you can certainly argue they have been hiding a significant part of their P-2 program."
Albright said having an actual P-2 centrifuge as a sample "is helpful for people who want to make parts from designs... It just helps your manufacturers if you have the actual parts being made."
I think centrifuge is the secret word of the Day on Free Republic!!!!
Allah be braised!
well it seems like a logical thing to do migth as well buy couple of prayer rugs while we are at it
It is not a game, and nobody on earth has the slightest doubt what Iran is doing, thus no revelation about it would make the slightest difference. The west isn't going to do anything because it doesn't have the balls. Right now the Italian foreign minister is saying we should all be more precise about what we want, as though the Iranians defy us because we are being vague when we tell them to cease their nuke program. And then he tells Israel not to do anything because doing anything would set the world on fire for years to come. As though Iran hasn't already decided that, and as though Italy ignoring things makes the slightest difference to anything, in the material world. EU is brain dead, a pack of cowards watching as their murderers gather and arm, urging anyone who might protect them to stand still and not anger the murderers. It is pathetic. This was at one time the cradle of civilization. Now it is a graveyard.
one thing is clear oil is at 69, just a bit more of a nudge and 100 here we come
its such a nice number
In the spirit of Ramadan Fools Day, Ali shish-kabab al Dente sent 3 flux capacitors to Iran nuclear scientists.
This time it may cost millions of lives.
Thanks, U.N. and EU, for pretending you could negotiate with a terrorist regime. Thanks for laughing at the Axis of Evil rhetoric from President Bush. Thanks for acting like AMERICA is the problem in the world and not the Islamofacists.
Your reward? I bet the mullahs like you so much, you'll be the last ones they nuke.
its not just them
49%-51 of us dems feel the same
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