Iran Was Burying Nuclear Facilities, U.S. Says

Reuters ^ | 12/13/02

[Heartlander2]

Iran was trying to hide parts of the nuclear facility it is building near the central town of Natanz by burying some of the buildings underground, the State Department said Friday.

The United States says the Natanz complex and another facility in nearby Arak were part of a secret project to make nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran said Friday they were for non-military uses.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the plan to hide them was evident from commercial satellite imagery which came to light this week and which cast some doubt on Iran's position that they are for civilian purposes.

"You can tell that portions of the Natanz nuclear facility, the suspect uranium enrichment plant, ultimately will be underground," he told a daily briefing.

"It appears from the imagery that the service roads, several small structures and perhaps three large structures are being built below ground and some of these are already being covered with earth. Iran clearly intended to harden and bury that facility," he added.

This indicated that Iran never intended to declare the facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but was caught building a plant to make fissile material, he said.

Iran Friday dismissed U.S. accusations that the Arak and Natanz plants could be used to make secret nuclear weapons and said it had already invited U.N. inspectors to visit them.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said it was aware of the new nuclear facilities, had been talking to Iran about them since August and planned to inspect them in February.

But Boucher said Iran had repeatedly rebuffed the agency's request for access to the sites.

"We've always talked about the Bushehr reactor (on the Gulf coast of Iran), which will be subject to IAEA safeguards, but clearly that has been used as a pretext for obtaining sensitive technology for the weapons program," he added.

[lelio]

I would like to see the images of this. I can't imagine the amount of manpower required to move this much dirt. Perhaps they dug a hole, blew up the plant and pushed it into there, using the remaining dirt to cover up the rubble.
But its not like there is anything else going on in Iran that would prevent this from happening. People there are probably just happy to have a job.

[chachacha]

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said it was aware of the new nuclear facilities, had been talking to Iran about them since August and planned to inspect them in February.

THE UNITED NATIONS IS THE GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS FOR ALL THE WORLD TERRORISM. IT HAS BEEN A BREEDING GROUND FOR THE WORLDS WORST COMMUNIST NATIONS AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED BUT THE NAME OF THE ENEMY!

THE NEW ENEMY IS NOW MUSLIMS "ALL OF THEM".PERIOD