The West Can't Let Iran Have The Bomb (UK)

With each week that passes, Iran's ayatollahs move closer to their goal of building an atom bomb.

This is not misinformed propaganda pumped out by trigger-happy yahoos on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party. This is the opinion of the dedicated teams of nuclear experts attached to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, whose task it is to sift through the highly complex science surrounding Iran's nuclear programme and to provide a considered judgment to the UN Security Council on the Iranians' ultimate objectives.

During three years of painstaking negotiations with Iran, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate who heads the IAEA, went out of his way to play along with the charade that Iran's nuclear ambitions were entirely peaceful and designed to develop an indigenous nuclear power industry. This, after all, is a country with known oil reserves in excess of 90 billion barrels, more than enough to meet its energy needs well into the next century.

Mr ElBaradei was even prepared to accept at face value the Iranians' shame-faced admission that their failure to disclose the existence of their massive nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz was no more than a bureaucratic oversight.

When the inspectors were finally granted admission, they were dumb-founded to find themselves in a 250,000-acre complex containing two vast underground bomb-proof bunkers designed for enriching uranium to weapons grade.

Mr ElBaradei is now prepared to concede that the Iranians have run out of excuses, and Teheran has been given until April 29 to implement a total freeze on its nuclear enrichment activities at Natanz and its other key plants, or face the wrath of the Security Council.

At the same time the IAEA's nuclear specialists are working on a report that will be submitted to the UN on the same day, in which they will state explicitly their concerns about Iran's nuclear programme.

But to judge by the Iranians' response so far, the threat of international condemnation and isolation does not appear to be causing sleepless nights.

This is because, while Western diplomats agonise over how to deal with the threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme, Iranian scientists are working hard to achieve nuclear enrichment, processing uranium to a level where it can be used to make atomic weapons.

Far from taking the UN's ultimatum seriously, nuclear experts at the IAEA now report that Iranian scientists at Natanz are taking advantage of the diplomatic stand-off to intensify their efforts to develop the technical capability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade.

This process began in January, when they began assembling new centrifuges, the sophisticated equipment needed to enrich high-grade uranium. Their ambition is to link 164 centrifuges, thereby forming a "cascade". Once that is accomplished, Iran will be able to produce its own weapons-grade uranium.

Estimates vary as to how long it will take the Iranians to accomplish such a technically demanding task, and how long it will then take them to make an atom bomb. The hawks argue that Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb within three years, while the more sanguine members of the international intelligence community say it could take 10 years.

What is not in doubt is that the work now being undertaken at Natanz, and at the processing plant at Isfahan, means the Iranians will soon be self-sufficient in producing weapons-grade uranium. And once they have passed that important milestone, it is then merely a question of when, not if, they develop a nuclear arsenal.

"Iran's strategy all along has been to talk and at the same time proceed with its nuclear programme," said an official closely involved in the IAEA's negotiations with Iran. "The longer we draw out the diplomatic process, the closer they get to fulfilling their nuclear ambitions."

The mounting frustration, particularly within the Bush Administration, over the UN's impotence to prevent Iran fulfilling its nuclear destiny explains the recent hysterical reports suggesting that George W. Bush is seriously contemplating nuclear air strikes against Iran's bomb-making infrastructure.

It is no coincidence that these reports are circulating at a time when the Iranians themselves are indulging in their own sabre-rattling, with their armed forces undertaking a series of military exercises in which they are showing off all their latest technological advances, from radar-evading missiles to stealth flying boats.

While none of these weapons would seriously threaten the overwhelming superiority enjoyed by America, the clear signal that the Iranians are trying to send out is that, if attacked, they have the ability to retaliate and cause mayhem throughout the Middle East.

Apart from starving the West of vital oil supplies by closing the Straits of Hormuz, the Iranians have an advanced ballistic missile capability that can hit targets throughout the Middle East - including Israel.

Certainly the fear of provoking a wider Middle East war is one of the reasons that divisions are already starting to appear in the Security Council over how best to deal with Iran.

While Britain and America would like to see a "smart sanctions" regime implemented if Teheran refuses to call a halt to its nuclear enrichment activities by the end of this month, other powerful voices, particularly Russia and China, believe such a move would be counter-productive.

Irrespective of the outcome, however, the Bush Administration is correct in its assessment that, without the threat of serious military action, the Iranians are unlikely to take seriously the West's determination to prevent them acquiring a nuclear arsenal.

The suggestion, contained in Seymour Hersh's article in this week's New Yorker, that Washington is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons, might appear far-fetched: the ground-penetrating bombs used to destroy Saddam's state-of-the art German-built bunkers at the start of the Iraq war three years ago adequately accomplished the task using conventional munitions.

But if the current round of diplomacy is to stand any chance of success, then the Iranians must be made to understand that their prevarication tactics at the UN can no longer be tolerated over an issue of such importance for international security.

For while Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, regards the concept of military action against Iran as "nuts", it would be even nuttier to allow Teheran to have an atom bomb.

"I think you're referring to a plutonium-based "Fat Man" design. "Our" first uranium-based bomb, "Little Boy", did not, to the best of my knowlege, have a particularly sophisticated trigger, and was untested prior to first use."
One can only go by what we see in diagrams. I believe with the uranium bomb it was a proximity fuse that set off a explosive charge that drove the lesser of two fission masses into the larger one (down a tube). I believe that essentially a similar mechanism was used for the plutonium bomb in the context both used a proximity fuse that then set off a explosion moving the sub critical masses together in of course different geometric configurations. The bombs guts as you well know looked a lot different in how things where arranged.
So perhaps you are on to a very good point. In neither case would it be very difficult to design a functional "trigger mechanism". As we view the various diagrams it is apparent the plutonium bomb used a somewhat more sophisticated design both as how the sub critical masses where segregated as well as the means of triggering. For all we know they have various designs in place perhaps from the Paki.
I hope I am not coming off like they cannot eventually design a functional atom bomb. For they can. I mostly was trying to appeal to folks, that it may be a lot longer then some reports have suggested based on the idea if they are soley depending on using gas centifuge techniques, they have a long way to go before they will obtain adequate quantities of weapon grade uranium.

Fair enough answer. I was not trying to give you a hard time, just better wanted to understand the question.
Of course the Japanese are quite inventive. And I am sure they have exactly what configurations of particular centifuges they would quickly purchase and with the other parts of the system be able to quite quickly put the whole huge cascade system together. And there engineers, scientest, and programmers would most likely be able to write the appropriate software tools in at least a raw form (not specific CAD tools) in perhaps a half to a years time. But here you are dealing very highly trained people. Physicists well ground in many areas of the science engineering fields associated with these type activity.
So perhaps for them, it could be done. And they can pick and choose quite easily what hardware is required to do the job.
Now along with that. Let us remember before one runs the gas seperation process, they must put in place the refining processes that allow one to take raw uranium ore and convert it to yellow cake. Once the yellow cake is available in required quantities, then one can using chemical techniques convert it to uranaium hexafloride gas.
So it there is more to the equation then one might expect.
If the Japanese have no experience nor equipment in place to finely ground and treat the raw uranium ore into the next step. Then again they have to put in place a whole system to achieve this step.
Now if they where to work on all these issues and some other things not mentioned, could they do it in six months. I do not have an answer. And I would be mis-leading if I tried to venture a guess. I don't know.
I do however suspect that Iran is not Japan. Iran as any other nation that has trained nuclear scientist, engineers, electrical engineers, physical chemist etc., have the potential to do it. I for a minute would say they can't do it. But if they choose the gas seperation method to obtain weapon grade uranium, then all I am saying is it is going to take them years to accomplish that. They must somehow build or smuggle in literally tens of thousands of specific type centifuge machines. Unless they now have the engieering and applied manufacturing capability to make their own units.
If they can make their own centifuges. Well, then it depends on how long they take to make them. Think about it a moment. There are many type centifuge designs for given applications. American and Western countries have companies that design and produce them. They are a rather sophisticated piece of equipment. It is not so easy to produce a something like this on the fly. It can require many years of design and test to build a specific type of centifuge based on its rmp rating, ability to move a given volume of gas etc.. And these things are not low cost. Quite the opposite.
Now if Iran has obtain those 164 units and the associated piping etc., from say Pakistan. And has asemble it per spec, ran perhaps many test for who knows how long, could have been over a year or more, things get involved, before they actually fired the system up to start the gas seperation. Then I say they have a long road to walk before they will be able to assemble and quality test a total system capabile of producing 90% plus uranium U235. I do not believe Iran has such capability in this department. Their manufacturing capabilites are probably pretty limited. They do not have the accumulated wealth of engineers and designers from various industries say the US or Japan would have. You just don't take a few kids out of college with an undergrad and have them develope a new manufactoring industry in a short time. These centifuges require extremely well machined parts using approved manufacturing techiques to fashion the parts as well as in the assembly. So if they only got the 164 from out side the country. I doubt they are anytime soon going to be able to crate this whole project to reach their desired goal.
It could take then a few years to literally be able to assemble and test out a system that could be used to produce say 10-20% enrichment. And like I have commented elsewhere. It could take a few years to actually (assuming they can assemble quite a few thousand cascased systems) to be able to even process enough 3.5-5% enrichment grade to use in one reactor load (amount of fuel rods to make the reactor work for say two to five years).
It just is not that simple to do these things. I rest my case. If I am way off track so be it.

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