Posted on 02/09/2010 1:25:23 PM PST by doria253
BBC Ex-USSR: Iran aiming to provoke regional military conflict - Russian exper 91) ☆ By enriching uranium to a higher grade, Iran is embarking on a deliberate course of provoking a military conflict in the Middle East due to its unstable domestic situation, Aleksey Arbatov, head of the International Security Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations, said in a live interview to Russian Defence Ministry-controlled Zvezda TV on 9 February. He also said that Tehran will suddenly announce it has developed a nuclear weapon, and noted that 20 per cent-grade uranium was sufficient to develop a primitive but functioning nuclear device. On 9 February Iran announced that it had started enriching uranium to
It is already the 11th in Iran! I am on pins and needles...braced for the punch.
Either a live test or a publicity stunt is probably all that is needed for Israel to justify a strike that they have been preparing for over the past year.
Our intel must see something in the cooker given the additional abm assets forwarded to the region.
Our intel must see something in the cooker given the additional abm assets forwarded to the region.
...
Ah, but a “demo” of a nuclear test (that Israel drops a nuke in from their newly-moved ship (which eliminates the Iraq-Jordan overflight issue)) would be hard to distinguish between the Israel strike and the Iran test, wouldn't it? Except the Israel “test” would explode over top the Iranian test lab, not the test site.)
On the other hand, YES - our intel agencies would have the knowledge.
But the White House and Pentagon would (deliberately_) ignore that intelligence anyway. They have been bred to hate Israel even more than they hate the US military and capitalism.
I heard Amb. John Bolton talking about Iran’s enrichment program.
He said getting the uranium to 20% was 75% of the battle.
Going to 80-90% was much easier than getting the first 20%.
In general, you put a device in a properly constructed, grounded Faraday shield to keep the EMP away from it. Such shields can be a small box or the entire interior of a hardened bunker. The shield is usually a separate container. It is uncommon to build equipment inside a shield unless the express purpose is performing measurements where you want all RF excluded. Kyocera Wireless as a lab full of Faraday shielded test stations for measuring their cellular equipment. The stations are nominally inside a cube that is 8 ft on an edge.
Thanks for the ping!
I think Barry Goldwater was one of the proponents of this. Non explosive but lethal if you got enough exposure. The fear factor was counted on to be a deterrent.
Israel could do something similar around Iran's nuke sites. "Glowing Ayatollahs" has a nice ring to it.
Of course there would have to be some way to render the U235 unusable/unrefinable or you might just be sowing trouble downstream. I doubt that is a realistic possibility.
Might work as a temporary way to force Iran to stop work while the Israeli's take care of business in other ways.
That is why I view the recent deployment of Patriot and SM-2 ships to the region evidence that at least someone may have their head screwed on right and is preparing for backlash of some sort.
Thats what I said when this all started to surface...
What will be funny to me is that if we see a mushroom cloud over there, will it be theirs, or ours???
I hope for the latter...
I did a little research and apparently 20% will make a low grade bomb. I was recalling that we use 95%, not that you have to have it to create a mess.
Without going into a lot (nor a little!) of classified details, you can make quite a bit of damage (particularly with the “dirty leftovers/spread radiation around) type of bomb at low enrichments ... IF you are willing to transport by truck or train or ship (yacht or fishing boat) or 8 foot shipping container.
The very highly enriched U235 that we used above Hiroshima is essential for small air-dropped bombs, but if you accept “lots” of wasted (non-reacting) U235 around the smaller bit that does react fast enough to blow up, then a lower enrichment works OK. More expensive, but they have lots of oil money to spend, and lots of hatred to spend it upon.
Everything nuclear gets much, much less expensive anyway if you are willing to work quickly and contaminate your buildings and people, instead of trying to keep them safe and clean for many years.
Obviously, the Iranians, in their hatred, can go for the cheap and fast and contaminated solution. Part of the “cheap” solution is to create much more of the lower enriched U235 mix. My equations have NOT covered other materials (some would contaminate the reaction, some contribute to the nuclear reactions inside the bomb’s core) that could be present. Leftover Pu239 for example, Thorium, etc. from the original enrichment reactions.
The Israel might contribute to the cloud. Depends whether the explosion (er, lab accident) happens outdoors at the test site or indoors (above) the lab site.
Thanks for the ping.
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