State Dept Official: Iran Could Build Nukes in 'Days'

NewsMax ^ | 13 April 2006 | Carl Limbacher

[Aussie Dasher]

Iran could build a nuclear weapon within "days" once it completes plans to beef up its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, a State Department official said Wednesday.

"Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges," Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters in Moscow. "Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days."

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, appeared on Iran's state-run TV network to announce plans for "industrial scale" uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at the Natanz facility, according to the Associated Press.

Rademaker, whose stunning "nukes-in-days" prediction was first reported by Bloomberg News, offered his comments in reaction to Saeedi's announcement.

Iran's first successful attempt to enrich uranium, announced Tuesday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was accomplished with just 164 centrifuges. While it's not clear how quickly Iran could reach the 50,000 centrifuge mark, there are indications that the rogue nation is already much closer than indicated by Tuesday's announcement.

Last August, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002, told the Associated Press that Iran has already manufactured thousands of centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade.

"4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA," Alireza Jafarzadeh said. "And the regime has kept the production of these machines hidden from the inspectors while the negotiations with the European Union have been going on over the past 21 months."

In Feb. 2003, UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei visited Natanz. He reported that in a nearby building, workers were assembling parts for thousands of centrifuges.

The Natanz facility is buried 75 feet underground and has a reinforced concrete roof, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

[IncPen]

Your analysis is congent.

But I don't think they intend to strike with a nuclear device. I think that's a ruse.

I think they're inviting a strike and have something else entirely up their sleeve.

/ my .02

[popdonnelly]

Who are the Times' sources in the "American intelligence community?" I mean, they used Joe Wilson as a source.

[popdonnelly]

"Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, was very positive about Condi Rice's chances of stopping any military action"

Oh yeah, the same Andrea Mitchell who knew Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. Until she remembered that she "misspoke".

[LibWhacker]

Of course, if I were him, I'd be a raging lunatic. So I don't know how good this line of reasoning is, but . . .

If I were him, and I were working on developing nukes, I'd want to stay the American's hand as long as possible. So, since there wouldn't be much I could do to convince them that I wasn't working on a bomb, I'd try to trick them into thinking that I wasn't nearly as far along as I actually was.

I believe that there's a definite non-zero risk here that he began enriching uranium and completed his 4,000 centrifuge machines a long time ago, and is busy producing bombs right now as fast as he can.

But the Americans may have bought the big lie and believed that he only has a measly 164 centrifuges. So they won't attack just yet, giving him another few weeks or months to build even more bombs.

I just don't see why we're willing to take that risk. We can't take that risk. Good God... The lives that are at stake! We should attack. No fooling, we should attack right now. imho

[festus]

I'd support a bloody meeting. Our ordinance and their heads.

[ThirstyMan]

Even if they had 1000 nukes they couldn't be on equal footing.

You are thinking in conventional terms. These folk think very differently. One nuke in their hands is very dangerous.

[Marine_Uncle]

"I think they're inviting a strike and have something else entirely up their sleeve. "
And your two cents is quite reasonable. Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinajad belong to a mystical order within the Shiite sect, believes Allah will spare them if the skies fill with heavy stuff. And he and his Mullah masters are hoping that world opinion will suffice to overt any attacks based on the constant bad news that circulates about how high the price of oil on the world markets is going to jump and stay high if we where to take them out.
Obviously a number of outher things could be spoken off, and gone into rather great detail but to spare you and I, the bother.
One thing that has come to my attention is the fact that Iran must import 50% of it's gasoline from other countries, I believe almost all European. Probably the French and Germans.
They have a limited number of oil refineries and petro chemical plants to produce the many end product chemicals need in all areas of industry. Lubricants, say rolling oils for steel mill operations. The lists are long and diverse.
If we where to take out their refinery capacities their goos e is literally cooked. If no one where to sell them any oil fractions or petrochemicals or gas, then they got a little problem. Once their reserves of all these things where exhausted, then the game is over. The Mullahs have no more gas to ride around in their big black limos. Most Iranians are going to hate to find collies and camels for required transportation. Their airlines shut down. Their airforce and ground military no longer can operate. No use going on, I am sure you could add literally dozens of things that would now be non-available to them. If they cannot crack their oil for producing fuel oil, then their electrical power plants shut down.
So there is a lot more to why we might consider if really required some precision bombing if they do not want to come around.
They may have their often inflated aces up the sleeve, but we also have some. And we can bet our bippys, they are fully aware of how tough things can get if we wanted to make it so. And if they choose to attack any shipping in the gulf, they might as well kiss off their dream of a Caliph state coming to be. So Condi/Straw and company shall continue to add the pressures for a united UN SC vote to start sanctions in the near future.
The Russians and Chinese realizes perfectly well, if we had to bomb them, then these two countries will lose out on a lot of money in the future pertaining to sales of military hardware, joint gas/oil pipeline projects, and the continuence of Russia to supply them with their nuclear hardware and expertise.
It truly is a two edged sword and the mad man's Mullah masters must be wondering just how far things should be allowed to go.

[headstamp]

Well, thankfully we have those nuclear bunker busters and.......................oh wait a minute.

[TomasUSMC]

That means in 17 days the first VIED with a nuke in it will be on its way to the Green Zone. In fact they can just spread the rumor that there is one in Baghdad and all hell will break loose.

Nuke Iran or get Nuked.

Or maybe we are going to wait for proof this time.

No. NO TIME TO WASTE. HIT THEM NOW AND AGAIN AND AGAIN PRESIDENT BUSH.

[traumer]

We need to get the UN involved... :o)

[headstamp]

Thanks for your insights MU.

We are watching another game of "Nuclear Poker" unfold in front of us.

[RayChuang88]

I wonder has Iran started to build an atomic bomb based on the Little Boy bomb with its "gunbarrel" design of colliding two critical masses of U-235. The yield of the bomb would be approximately 12 kT, which can still cause quite lot of damage (as what happened at Hiroshima showed).

They may be quite a ways from building a plutonium-based implosion device, since that requires far more sophisticated technology.

[Marine_Uncle]

"We are watching another game of "Nuclear Poker" unfold in front of us."
Sadly the madman and his Mullah masters have choosen the wrong route. What is interesting is they could easily just buy the frigen fuel rods in and optimized configuration for use for their type reactor. They are going to expend huge amounts of money to attempt to eventually reach the point where they can provide fuel to feed their commerical reactor(s).
There un-believably hard headed and proud. Fortunately many more Iranians are starting to see what @ssholes are really running their country.

[carl in alaska]

I understand what you're saying, but remember this quote from the article:

"4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA," Alireza Jafarzadeh said.

So while Limbacher (author) didn't say this explicitly, the implication is that there may be as many as 4,000 centrifuges already enriching Uranium in Iran, and not just the 164 centrifuges used to generate that small sample. In that case, then it's possible that if 50,000 centrifuges can produce enough U235 for a bomb in 16 days, then 4,000 centrifuges could theoretically produce fissile material for a bomb in 12.5X that length of time, or only 200 days.

This is assuming that Iran has its centrifuge cascades set up correctly and has cleared the other major technical hurdles. Thus, if they started this process 100 days ago, they could be only 100 days from producing a bomb in the fastest scenario. I think that's the point of this article, that Iran may have far more enrichment activity going on then the world knows about. Hopefully the western intelligence agencies have a good grasp of the actual level of enrichment activity. I don't want us to find out we were wrong through an underground nuclear detonation in Iran.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Mo, I think that he announced exactly what happened, just as soon as it happened.

He (like most/all liberals) HATES Bush, and is doing this to rub Bush's nose in the fact that he DOES has enriched U235 now.

Now, real facts: Enriched U235 from so few centrifuges, isn't enough to light a candle, much less a reaction in a bomb.

Days Nah. Months - many months perhaps, but not years.

Figure the Manhattan project went about 8 months from "pile" to one bomb. And that was with many thousands of centrifuges. Add a little machining time and assembly. Not much, it won't take long to make the cannon-style bomb, but they do need more than just enriched U235.

[carl in alaska]

Interesting stuff there and highly informative.

For all: Vote YES on our proposal to convert Iranian nuclear facilities into open-pit aluminum mines. Aluminum mining is a growth industry and this could be a double-win for Iran.

[carl in alaska]

Yeah, but what if they actually have closer to 4,000 centrifuges working away instead of the 164 they have admitted publicly?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Concur with your concern.

Admit the lab-sized unit, to hide the factory-sized unit, while using the lab to conceal/reveal that whatever enriched U235 they DO have is from that source?

[Marine_Uncle]

Understand your repies and appreciate them. Yes, we just don't know, or we are not being clued in as how many operational cascade systems along with associated hardware they may actually have, and perhaps operational mode.
Not knowing other then visiting various sites on uranium production I do not want to come over like an authority.
But I believe the total length (series units) which defines the qualitative level of enrichment that can be achieved. Say for arguement, it would take ten thousand serially connected sub units (individual centifuges) to provide a high probability of obtaining a seperation that would yield 90% or more pure U-235.
Now the parallel element within the configuration, would provide the quantitative yield, e.g. how many grams of uranium containing 90% or greater U-235 within the lifetime of the process. I believe once started it must run effeciently with no breakdown in any of the sub stages.

If this is the case. Then they cannot produce weapon grade uranium with a sub total of series units. How many is required to reach 90% or more I really do not know, only that it is not just a few hundred of them in series. And one needs a number of paralel series chains all working at the same effeciency (rpms are synchronous in each paralel stage) as most probably in all the single units in the series chain, to then produce a given amount of 90% or greater U235.
So that is why I write as I do. As for how long in reality a given system, say what you might find in America, France, Germany or Russia, one must operate the seperation system, to produce weapon grade uranium, I have no idea. For all we know for a standardized system (the whole 50K plus) it may take a few months to create enough fission material for one low grade atomic bomb. It could take say a half year to make enough higher enriched uranium for say a 200 or 300K ton yield device.
And where are they getting all these centifugal units from?
Are they actually at the point where they are manufacturing them. Or have they been able to get their hands on some 164 of them and as indicated built a very crude first step seperation system that in itself is not capable of even producing enough 3-10% enriched uranium that could be used in making fuel rods.
And their reactor will required many dozens of fuel rods. So that is why I feel they are not as close as it may appear.
But I am not hard headed. Perhaps they have somehow imported thousands of the correct type centifuges and have started a more elaborate hidden process center.
Hopefully they haven't and all sources will be cut off that would supply them with these units.
Guess we shall see more data that appears valid flow in over time. But as you are well aware, seldom do does the real info get into the news chain.
In either case your statements are reasonable.

[defenderSD]

That's a likely ploy by Iran. I've been following this issue more at the political level. Do you know if any IAEA inspectors have actually been inside the Natanz facility lately? Does anyone know for sure what's happening in there?