Posted on 04/21/2006 7:23:59 AM PDT by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON -- Just when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it had its hands around the Iranian nuclear program, NewsMax has learned from intelligence sources that Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is completing a secret, underground uranium enrichment plant that should begin operating in October 2006.
Work on the new plant, located 50 miles outside the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad, was begun with help from Russian engineers in 2003, Iranian intelligence sources said.
The facility has been built 150 meters below ground in a rugged highlands valley some 38 kilometers southeast of the city of Nishabour. The nearest inhabited area is a town named Homa.
A large agricultural center was constructed overhead to disguise the existence of the buried plant, the sources said. A similar disguise was initially used to hide the existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant to the southwest of Tehran, before a foreign government revealed its existence to the IAEA.
Over the last seven months, according to former Iranian army military analyst Homayoun Moghaddam, now exiled in Europe, scientists and technicians from Belarus and Ukraine have been working on site to prepare the new facility to accommodate 155,000 P1 and P2 uranium enrichment centrifuges.
He said the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Department, which is in charge of the facility, refers to it as the Shahid Moradian center, and that 850 Iranian scientists and technicians are currently working there, along with 85 experts from Belarus and Ukraine.
Their goal is to enrich enough uranium to build at least nine nuclear weapons per year, and to keep the site secret for the next three years, Moghaddam said.
The IAEA has verified previously clandestine production in Iran of the P1 centrifuge, an older design copied by Pakistan from plans acquired in Europe in the late 1970s by Dr. A.Q. Khan.
Iran announced last week that it had successfully begun enrichment of uranium in a cascade of 164 P1 centrifuges at a pilot plant in Natanz, in defiance of a United Nations Security Council statement calling on Iran to cease all enrichment activities by April 28.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also announced last week that Iran was now capable of producing the more advanced P2 centrifuge, which is considered more efficient and more reliable than the older P1 design.
Until his announcement, Iranian officials had denied reports that they had imported P2 centrifuges from the A.Q. Khan network and claimed that sample P2 centrifuges found in Iran had been produced experimentally by a private company not working on a government contract. But these latest reports of a completely separate, clandestine enrichment facility near Nishabour, if confirmed, would completely alter the picture the IAEA has constructed of Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
"I would argue that they have a parallel program of some size," said Paul Leventhal, a former U.S. Senate aid and founder of the Nuclear Control Institute, an independent research and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
Leventhal was debating Iran's nuclear programs on the "NewsHour" program with Jim Lehrer on April 11 before information on the Nishabour facility was made public.
"I would also caution against a grand deception by Iran to play into Western perceptions of Iran as being technologically and industrially backward, and apparently having problems in facilities that they're letting the IAEA into, while, at unknown locations, they are proceeding with all the technological help and technology that money can buy," Leventhal added
No worries folks...the UN is all over this.
I almost got that out without shaking my head.
"Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is completing a secret, underground uranium enrichment plant that should begin operating in October 2006.
Work on the new plant, located 50 miles outside the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad, was begun with help from Russian engineers in 2003, Iranian intelligence sources said. "
isnt all that "secret" is it
But wait, weren't we told by the Democrats that Iran isn't in the Axis of Evil?
</smack> Oops sorry, lost touch with reality there for a moment.
Well that explains Russia's reason for NOT wanting Iran's Nuclear plants attacked. Also the fact that Russia is supplying mitary weapons to Iran.
If you notice they are waiting until after the U.S. fall elections to go active since they know once the Dems win back the house that the Bush impeachment will futher weaken the U.S. resolve and they will be able to pursue their weapons...
I have no doubt that Iran will have a nuclear weapon by the time 2008 comes around. The UN and the IAEA can jabber all they want with Iran - it's all stalling for time on the Iranian's part. Russia and China will help them just like they helped Saddam. Deja Vu all over again.
following the construction , start to go, how can it still be called "secret"?
150 m below ground? Ain't no non-nuclear bomb that can touch that. Plus, if you've got 150,000 metal centrifuges, those things are tough and couldn't be knocked out easily with conventional bombs even if they were above ground.
Bottom line is that a conventional bombing is looking like it's not an option, and I don't think the US should actually use nukes first in this situation when Iran doesn't have missiles that can reach us. Israel may be another story, but that's their call.
I don't think the U.S. will ever use nukes either. Too controversial and the fallout would be very dangerous.
And just yesterday, we have Negroponte out there saying that 'we need to keep this in perspective' and that 'it will be years, probably into the next decade' before Iran will have enough material for a bomb.
This is the same Negroponte that sat on the Sadaam docs for 3 years becuase 'they were only slighly relevant, and then only in a historical perspective' and had to be FORCED by Bush (after told several times over months) to release them.
I wouldn't be at all unhappy if he got the boot.
Would you please add a few keywords when you post an article. It's difficult to find articles later in the day without them.
Thank you.
Sure thing! :-)
Aha! The old "Public Secret Stalking Horse plant" caper, eh?
You can pretty much see the place on Google Earth at:
33.05.43.09 North
49.51.42.89 East
It is on the main road East of Homa. There is a group of roads that converge at the edge of a mountain, and it appears to be some heavy industrial activity at the base.
I'm not crazy about NewsMax either but I can believe them. I think Iran is way far ahead in development than what the IAEA is saying.
Doesn't seem like much of a secret to me..
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