Posted on 08/17/2010 9:05:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said he didn't see "any signs whatsoever that President Obama would make the necessary decision" to strike Iran's nuclear reactor, speaking in an interview with Israel Radio Tuesday.
Bolton claimed Israel has only three days to strike before Russia "begins the fueling process for the Bushehr reactor this Friday," after which any attack would cause radioactive fallout that could reach as far as the waters of the Persian Gulf.
In an interview with Fox Business Network earlier Tuesday Bolton had said the deadline was eight days, but he revised it to three in the Israel Radio interview, saying Iran and Russia had announced they would begin fueling on Friday.
"It has always been optimal that military force is used before the fuel rods are inserted," Bolton explained. "That's what Israel did in Osirak in 1991, and when they attacked the North Korean reactor built in Syria." Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, and a Syrian reactor in 2007.
However Bolton didn't see any indication that an Israeli strike was going to happen. "Obviously if Israel were going to do something it wouldn't exactly be advertising it. But time is short."
Bolton said that it would be "a much more dangerous world" if Iran were to gain nuclear capability. "That's why I think it's so critical. It won't stop with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, perhaps other states as well."
Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said earlier Tuesday that an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would be an "international crime."
In an interview with IRNA, Salehi said that the impact of such a strike would be global. "This is stipulated in the resolutions passed by the IAEA and the UN Security Council as well as in the resolution adopted at the close of the NPT Review Conference," he stressed.
Russia, who is supplying the uranium fuel for the plant, announced last week that they will begin loading the Bushehr reactor on August 21.
In an initial interview earlier today with Fox Business Network earlier Tuesday, Bolton warned that once the Bushehr facility is operational it will be too late for a military air strike against Iran because such an attack would spread radiation and harm Iranian civilians.
"Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they're in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it," Bolton said.
"Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor."
Bolton was critical of Russia for aiding Iran in the fueling of the nuclear reactor.
"The Russians are, as they often do, playing both sides against the middle. The idea of being able to stick a thumb in America's eye always figures prominently in Moscow," Bolton concluded.
Gee, Bolton’s really going out on a limb here.
Did anybody really think that an individual named Barack Hussein Muhammed Obama was going to support democracy in the mideast, europe and AMERICA?
Thanks, Nostradamus. ;-)
Thanks, John. I love ya, but we all know Obama holds his Muslim/Persian brothers in higher regard than Americans.
I can almost hear soetoro yelling, ¨Allahu Akbar!¨
I’m pretty well convinced this world will “end” through a nuclear winter. Once they get the nuke they’ll use it on Israel. Then what happens. Then again, other nations may be afraid to retalliate. I know we won’t.
The radioactive inventory of the fuel does not increase simply because it has been loaded into the reactor. The reactor will not sustain a chain reaction for some time after the fuel loading begins. The radioactive inventory will not begin to increase until the reactor starts producing power (has a sustained chain reaction).
” I’m pretty well convinced this world will “end” through a nuclear winter. “
There’s more than one kind of ‘winter’...
It’s become politically-incorrect/taboo to mention this, but a nuclear-armed Iran is in a position to coercively control a more-than-significant portion of the world’s oil production....
We could all be huddled in the cold and dark, if the ‘international community’ doesn’t get its collective head out of its collective a$$.....
I think he means that once the fuel rods are in or near the reactor, the danger of bombing becomes greater due to possible radioactive contamination.
Time to come out of the closet - girly man.
Methinks Bolton jumped the shark
.
that’s like saying that the Pittsburgh Pirates will not be going to the World Series this season....110% certainty!
I disagree with Bolton’s claim that bombing the power plant will necessarily release radiation. There are plenty of non-nuclear parts that could be bombed — substation, cooling towers, generators, etc. Knock out enough to prevent the plant for operating for a few months, then bomb again when the damage is about to be fixed.
My point is that this assessment is incorrect. The fuel can be sitting in the reactor, but, as long as the reactor has not sustained a chain reaction, the amount of radioactivity is minimal.
When the reactor starts producing power, the radioactive inventory will increase, but, until then, the danger of wide-spread contamination is nil.
Besides, you want to disable the plant? Take out the turbine building with a few well-placed bombs. Unlike the reactor containment building (which is several feet of reinforced concrete and is designed to keep bad things outside from getting in and bad things inside from getting out), the turbine building typically has sheet metal exterior walls. Geez, some plants in the USofA, particularly in hurricane-prone areas, don’t even have walls of any sort.
Turbines take a long time to replace, particularly if the turbine building has been collapsed.
If the plant doesn’t have a turbine, then it cannot produce power (pesky thing, that law of conservation of energy).
Alternatively, take out the switch-yard. If you can’t send the power off site, then you can’t generate it.
I suspect that Ambassador Bolton knows these things.
We'll be open to a whole new world of funny with a nuclear-capable Iran. Nuclear blackmail is going to become very common very soon. Unfortunately, threatening to nuke the iranians right back won't impress them much.
I think it was Gulf War I, but we dropped something like shredded carbon on Baghdad substations which effectively shorted out the power station. I thought it was a particularly clever way to disable the city's power while maintaining the infrastructure for later use (i.e., when GI Joe rolled into town).
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