Posted on 02/11/2006 6:57:43 PM PST by FairOpinion
Iran has drawn up designs for a deep underground tunnel with remote-controlled heat and pressure sensors as part of what Western intelligence officials believe are preparations for a secret atomic test.
The plans, which American and British intelligence conclude are genuine after studying them on a laptop computer smuggled out of Iran by a defector, appear to be the latest evidence that Teheran is conducting a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.
The Natanz enrichment facility The existence of the sophisticated sketches for a 400-metre long subterranean test shaft was made public last week in The Washington Post. The welter of documents and disclosures provides what Western governments believe is an overwhelming circumstantial case that Iran is seeking an "Islamic bomb".
Washington and London won International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) support last weekend for Iran to be reported to the United Nations Security Council, after the clerical regime resumed banned centrifuge research work at its Natanz uranium-enrichment plant.
Publicly, even American hawks such as Vice-President Dick Cheney are backing the diplomatic track to resolve the showdown over Iran's nuclear programme, which Teheran claims is for peaceful energy purposes. But the Sunday Telegraph has learnt from a senior Pentagon adviser that, as the crisis deepened in recent months, military strategists have been updating plans for "last-resort" military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The raids would be ordered if President George W Bush is advised that they are the only remaining option to prevent the Islamic republic from acquiring atomic weapons.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has consistently made clear that Britain opposes a military solution. He fears that even the threat of bombing will sabotage any hope of securing a united international diplomatic front against Teheran - as well as again splitting the Labour Party. British diplomats highlight the chaos that Iran, if attacked, could unleash in the region through its Shia surrogates in Iraq, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
A high-powered British diplomatic delegation visited Washington last week to discuss tactics with Nicholas Burns, the State Department's number three. They want to increase co-operation with Iranian exiles and make better use of satellite television channels and the internet to spread the message inside Iran that the West's opposition to Teheran's nuclear programme is not an imperialist anti-Islamic plot, as the mullahs claim.
Britain is hoping that the threat of action by the Security Council, including possible financial sanctions, will expose differences within the regime on how far to push its game of nuclear brinkmanship. But there is a growing belief in Washington that it will be impossible to win the required Chinese and Russian support at the UN for any significant measures that might inhibit Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The review of the Pentagon's contingency plans follows the stream of recent discoveries of Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he was elected last year. Iran is still thought to be anywhere between three and 10 years away from physically producing a nuclear weapon. But the West and Israel believe the "point of no return" - when Iran's scientists acquire the technological know-how and experience to make an atomic bomb - could be reached much sooner.
The Pentagon adviser told the this newspaper: "We will have reached the point of no return in the next couple of years. If diplomacy hasn't worked by then, Iran will be a long way down the line to acquiring a nuclear weapon. We're talking about choosing the least bad of a series of bad options. President Bush will also be nearing the end of his term and have to decide if he trusts this issue to another administration or wants to use the B2s." In a separate interview, Richard Perle, a senior defence official at the time of the Iraq war and who maintains close links to the military, said that 12 B2 bombers, each carrying dozens of precision-guided weapons, could deliver a serious blow to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"If the President were faced with the choice between Iran crossing the line to become a nuclear weapon state and using force to destroy or significantly delay that prospect, then I believe he would use force," Mr Perle said. "That decision will be made at the last moment but there is certainly strong contingency planning for that. I think the decision-making elite in Washington would back Mr Bush if that was seen to be his only choice."
Iran has been preparing by strengthening air defence systems and building tunnels intended to hide atomic material and facilities from a bombing campaign, Jane's Defence Weekly reported this month.
The regime has spread its nuclear programme across several sites, some of them underground, after drawing lessons from the 1981 Israeli air strike that wiped out Saddam Hussein's efforts to produce an Iraqi plutonium bomb at Osirak. But United States military strategists believe that by targeting certain key "bottleneck" facilities - probably the Natanz uranium-enrichment site, the Isfahan conversion plant and the Arak heavy water reactor - they could hobble the whole programme for years.
"There may well be secret sites out there but a nuclear programme is not that easy to hide," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon consultant and vice-president of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank. "You need large sites for uranium enrichment and manufacturing plutonium. It's not like a biological or chemical warfare programme: you cannot conduct research in a Petri dish."
Mr Perle and Dr Goure believe that America is better equipped to carry out the attacks than Israel, whose F15s and F16s would encounter refuelling problems. In a further signal that if strikes were required the US would prefer to carry them out, Mr Bush said last week that America would "rise to Israel's defence" if Iran threatened it.
I cant understand why they would build a tunnel to test a nuclear bomb. If they tested the bomb in secret there is no way seismographs and other instruments couldnt detect the explosion, If they exploded a bomb they would be telling the world they were lying and developed a bomb and not a nuclear power plant. If they tested a bomb there would be no choice left for Israel or America but to destroy them.
I believe the tunnel is eyewash and the first test will be when Israel is glowing.
I laughed when I noted this little nugget in the article you linked :)
ROFL! Sure he is ... uh huh!
Here's some news. If/when it happens, though, we'll probably know about it after it's mostly happened.
It's hard to tell about these types of leaks -- it could be an unauthorized leak, or a deliberate one ( I.e. not really a "leak") to be a warning to Iran that we are ready, willing and able to do what it takes to stop them from building the bomb (if they haven't already done so, which isn't certain).
THIS is really high stakes poker, except that the US is not bluffing.
Been working on it. I don't like what I've been seeing in the world the last few months.
A Most EXCELLENT point Rocko!
It's great that we're publishing on the internet everything we know about their bomb plans. You couldn't keep a secret in the present age, no matter how hard you tried.
All considered...... I wouldn't want to be in South Korea right now.
http://grani.ru/War/Arms/Nukes/p.101878.html
Iran threatens to leave the nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty
Iran can reexamine its relationship to the treaty on the non-proliferation on nuclear weapons, stated Iranian president Makhmud Akhmadinejad on Saturday according to the BBC.
The president was addressing an enormous crowd that had gathered in Teheran for the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. According to him, Iran, until now, had conducted its nuclear program within the framework of the non-proliferation treaty, but could change its policies if other countries were violating Iran's rights.
A week ago the IAEA decided to send a dossier on the Iranian nuclear program to the UN Security Council. In reply, Teheran stated that it would curtail its voluntary collaboration with the agency; however, he emphasized that Iran would continue collaboration within the framework of the Non-proliferation treaty. Furthermore, Iran promised to renew full-scale work on uranium enrichment, and would not permit international inspectors into its nuclear sites.
The United States and Europe fear that Iran is using its plans to create an atomic energy infrastructure as a cover for its intentions to build nuclear weapons. The decision by the IAEA to send the question on the Iranian atomic energy program to the Security Council could lead to international sanctions against Teheran.
February 11th, 2006 13:59
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Verbatim:
Makhmud Akhmadinejad, president of Iran
"Until now the Islamic republic has kept its nuclear developments within the framework of the IAEA and non-proliferation treaty. However, if we see that these limits are used to infringe on the rights of the Iranian people, then Iran will reexamine its policy.
"We are still patient, so do not attempt to exhaust our patience."
CNN, February 11th, 2005 (sic)
We need to move 3 carriers into the region STAT! Also, we need to start moving planes to Diego Garcia.
"Whose helping them?.. Providing technological expertise,training,and equipment?..."
Russia, China, Pakistan, France....could be a very long list.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and "other nations" will eventually remove Israel from the region.
Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust "fairy tale".
"We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them," Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
"Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations," the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a "fairy tale" and said Europeans have become hostages of "Zionists" in Israel.
"If we'd not ignored the Iran problem all through the clinton years, we wouldn't be in this dithering positioin now!
Don't forget to thank Jimmy Carter as well."
lest we forget Roosevelt! Frankilin Rooselvelt!
Related from UK Sunday Telegraph
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Z2IV1JZHYXDUNQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2006/02/12/wiran12.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/02/12/ixportaltop.html
Something "accidental" is going to happen.
Got two...8-)
Same here !
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