Posted on 12/19/2004 7:38:28 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
Teheran had assured European leaders that it would suspend uranium enrichment activities, but new information suggests otherwise
Iran has drawn up secret plans to make large quantities of a gas that can be used to produce highly enriched uranium, despite promises to suspend enrichment activities.
Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, Iran's atomic energy chief, has authorised construction of a plant to make Anhydrous Hydrogen Fluoride (AHF), a gas that has many uses, from petrochemical processing to uranium enrichment.
The plant is expected to be finished by 2006 and will have a capacity to produce 5,000 tons of AHF a year, according to a Western intelligence official.
It is to be built near Isfahan, a city where the authorities are said to have authorised a number of secret nuclear facilities.
"Such a plant would directly enhance enrichment activity," said one Western diplomat based in Vienna. "Iran has a deal with us, but it is pushing the envelope in every way it can.
"It shows that in their mind they have not accepted suspension. Politically, on the domestic stage, the officials in charge have to show that enrichment is still going forward."
Iran's nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, met Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and his European counterparts in Brussels last week, and offered renewed assurances that Iran had suspended all declared enrichment activity.
Construction of an AHF facility would not itself violate Iran's agreement with Britain, France and Germany that was hammered out over several days of negotiations at the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters in Vienna.
The gas is not listed as a controlled nuclear technology, but it can be used during the process of turning uranium tetrafluoride into uranium hexafluoride, used in atom bombs.
America has previously blocked Iranian efforts to acquire AHF.
Four years ago, Washington put enormous pressure on Beijing to withdraw a shipment of large quantities of the gas to Iran.
According to a report by the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, in California, China may have sold a blueprint for a facility to produce highly enriched uranium to Iran as part of the same deal. Isfahan is one of the main centres of Iran's alleged programme to develop nuclear weapons.
The German magazine, Der Spiegel, alleged last month that Iranian officials had ordered a tunnel to be constructed to house a secret operation to produce uranium hexafluoride.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said last week that Iran was one of the countries with nuclear expertise that were close to possessing a nuclear deterrent. He said: "The fundamental issue is that countries look at knowhow as a deterrent. Once you get into areas of deterrence, you get into the area of security and insecurity. If you have the nuclear material the weapon part is not far away."
The gas is not listed as a controlled nuclear technology, but it can be used during the process of turning uranium tetrafluoride into uranium hexafluoride, used in atom bombs."
Unbelievable! Are the Europeans that stupid to not stipulate that any activity involving Anhydrous Hydrogen Fluoride (AHF)is a violation of their agreement with Iran. These negoiations are a real joke.
Ping.
(did you note the tunnel?)
After all, we're all in the same boot, as Kofi would say.
(steely)
"...said one Western diplomat based in Vienna. "Iran has a deal with us, but it is pushing the envelope in every way it can."
It's called LYING, and muslims do it well.
Is it oil that Iran is holding over France, Germany and the Brits' head in these negoitations? Aside from, or short of an (accidential?) explosion that occurs (in 2006) in the tunnel and backs up right into the facility where they are creating the bomb and thus spreading nuclear radiation all over Iran, killing millions of people, is there any other solution?
I can't stand that we (the US) are for some reason subject to watching this potential doomsday scenario unfold (Iran having the bomb) from the sidelines while European idiots slide "that envelope" back and forth across the negoiation table.
Didn't Europe learn anything from WW2? Let's negotiate! Was it Neville Chamberlin who proclaimed "peace in our lifetime"? The European tendency to bury their collective heads in the sand is simply amazing to me.
ditto!
Isn't it frustrating watching this happen? Wish there was a way we could actively have a say? (How about us pulling out of NATO all together, or would that make the Europeans happy?)
4.1 Uses
Etching and glass cleaning in the manufacture of glass,
semiconductors (computer chips), and ceramics (home and
industrial applications)
Rust removal in commercial and home laundry products
Milling titanium
Metallurgy laboratories
Petroleum exploration, refining (in alkylation units), and in
the oil fields
Dental laboratories (for cleaning porcelain prosthetics)
Electroplating
Some janitorial products for cleaning tiles, and ceramic
devices
Aluminum brighteners
Various chemical industries
Porcelain painters (at home)
Very frustrating indeed! NATO? We are NATO. We've committed thousands of troops + millions(billions?)of dollars to defend westrn Europe, and the kicker is that they don't like us,don't appreciate us, are not reliable allies....While i'm at it, how about the UN? What a farce. Is there a way we could actively have a say? No. Will we pull out of NATO? Not in the foreseeable future.
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