To Destroy Iran's Nuclear Bomb Program, 350 Targets Must Be Hit (Debka)

According to one official with access to the material, a “walk-in” source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles.

DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4.

The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.

According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, the Pentagon’s most recent game model on military measures to dispose of Iran’s nuclear threat concludes it will be necessary to topple the Islamic republic’s regime at the same time.

The first stage would be a bombing mission against the regime’s primary prop, the Revolutionary Guards.

The second stage would be the destruction of known and probable nuclear sites – a much harder mission given the hundreds of sites known and unknown number and carefully camouflaged underground behind cunning window-dressing. US intelligence estimates as many as 350 sites. It does not have precise knowledge of which are the most important or even which are active.

The most secret section of the latest report the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director Mohammed ElBaradai has drafted on Iran’s nuclear program is also the most embarrassing for the international nuclear watchdog. We reveal exclusively that when inspectors arrived in Iran in mid-May and asked to revisit installations they saw in February or April, they were astonished to find empty spaces. When they questioned their Iranian escorts, they were greeted with blank stares. “What installations?” the officials asked.

According to our sources, US officials involved in the Iranian nuclear issue have no doubt that the installations were not destroyed but removed to secret subterranean sites probably built under military bases scattered around the country and that the Iranians are industriously advancing their forbidden programs.

Five months later, we have discovered one of those clandestine destinations to be the Nour “nuclear suburb” of Tehran.

From www.EdwardJayEpstein.com

Question:

General Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian Deputy Chief of Staff said in Moscow on June 2002, "Iran does have nuclear weapons. These are non-strategic nuclear weapons."

Is there a Russian connection to Iran's nuclear program that might explain this assessment?

Answer:

Yes, Russia is the prime subcontractor for Iran' nuclear program. Consider the following:

1) Russia is building six nuclear reactors for Iran, four at Bushehr and two at Akhvaz, and a uranium-conversion plant that can be used for, among other things, uranium enrichment.

2) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) laboratory at Seibersdorf, Austria, ascertained that Iranian centrifuges made indigenously in Iran — not imported gear — showed traces of on enriched uranium with a purity level of 36 percent U-235. Russia appears to have been the source of this enriched uranium, since the IAEA lab also found a "likely match" between the atomic signatures of the 36% uranium used in Russian submarines and the traces gathered from Iranian centrifuges.

3) Russian 36% U-235 could easily be raised to weapon-grade U-235 with either centrifuges or the laser isotope separating system it reportedly acquired from Russia . ( It would take just 25 centrifuges to convert 70 pounds of 36% U-235 into 90% weapon-grade U-235.)

4) The AIEA also determined that Iran produced polonium 210, an isotope used by Russian scientists (in combination with beryllium) to ensure the chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion begins at the right time.

5) According to a report in the Jerusalem Post in 1998, a defecting Iranian nuclear scientist's provided an account of Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons to Israel. These efforts included using Russian criminal intermediaries to buy four tactical nuclear weapons and enriched uranium from Kazakhstan. According to this account, Iranian technicians were unable to disarm the passive locks on these weapons. So it bought two additional tactical nuclear warheads directly from Russia, which were shipped to the Lavizan military base outside Teheran.

6) Iran has also tested the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile and is developing other missiles that could become intercontinental merely by adding a solid-fueled stage. These ballistic missiles, which lack pinpoint accuracy, would only be useful for carrying nuclear warheads. According to the Rumsfeld Commission in 1998 "The ballistic missile infrastructure in Iran is now more sophisticated than that of North Korea, and has benefited from broad, essential, long-term assistance from Russia.

Link:

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/2003question/IransWMD.htm

Yeah Iran poses a small problem though that makes it slightly sticky. They have a Sub fleet. We cant engage Iran effectively with out first neutralizing their sub fleet. We need the air power that the carriers bring. Carriers are big loud sub targets so how do we take out the subs without tipping our hat while starting the air strike before they can get a solid air defense program up. Yes we can Tomahawk their strong points but tomahawks come off of ships and anti ships are the purpose of attack subs. Things the DOD is going to have to think about in their war game planing

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