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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks


Iran may or may not want the bomb -- I don't know. We can be sure, though, that there's no way in hell they'll have one in six months. Even if they have the proper designs, they just don't have the uranium.

A good rule of thumb is that about 1500 centrifuges running for a year will give you enough U-238 to build a nuclear bomb. Iran is currently running 20 to 30 centrifuges. Plus, I've heard several reports that they're having technical problems with their enrichment: the Pakistanis sold them the blueprints to an enrichment method twice as fast, but the Iranians don't know how to use it.

The tricky part is that with only 20-30 centrifuges running, Iran's program does look more like a energy program than a weapons program. That causes problems for the US on both ends. On one hand, we could overreact and get ourselves into an unnecessary war with a non-nuclear Iran; on the other hand, if we're complacent, they may be able to quickly "breakout" to a weapons program if the IAEA isn't watching.


33 posted on 03/06/2006 8:27:16 AM PST by justinellis329
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To: justinellis329

This is all predicated on the assumption that they're not being supplied with what they need. I am opposed to all UN Inspection programs. The reason? They kept telling us in Iraq how their entire WMD program could fit into a trailer. How can you inspect a whole country? Any nation that wants to keep the inspectors in the dark can do so.


34 posted on 03/06/2006 9:24:39 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (The only good muslim is a bad muslim)
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To: justinellis329

20-30 or 200-300?

If we don't have access to the facility, how would we know?

if the Iranians have put these enrichment facilities undergroun d as reported, it seems to me it would be extraordinarily difficult for us to know just how many centriguges they have running, even within one order of magnitude.


37 posted on 03/06/2006 7:53:49 PM PST by John Valentine
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