[blam]

"This is not misinformed propaganda pumped out by trigger-happy yahoos on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party. "

Is he talking about me?

[bkepley]

France should help. It'd give them a chance to think about something other than their sorry selves.

[the invisib1e hand]

Imagine if Osama bin Laden had had nukes on Sept 11, 2001.

To not stop Iran is to vote to hold the world hostage to bloodthirsty Islam. Once again, regardless of the political cost, President Bush is taking the historic role of leadership he's been given.

Amazing times, amazing man.

[rickmichaels]

During three years of painstaking negotiations with Iran, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate who heads the IAEA...

Fox meets henhouse.

[DuncanWaring]

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.

Didn't they announce today they'd done this?

[JRandomFreeper]

Is he talking about me?

He's talking about us.. you know.. the people that actually feed the world and do the hard stuff, and spend time at work, and not at rallies, and don't ask for handouts, and expect the government to fulfill it's duties under the Constitution.

The ones they really, really, don't want to p!$$ off...

/johnny

[Old Grumpy]

"This is not misinformed propaganda pumped out by trigger-happy yahoos on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party."

Hey, I resemble that remark! (All but the YAHOO part, that is.)

[gafusa]

Not going to happen. Iran will get the bomb. The West appears to have lost the will to live.

[Billthedrill]

While I welcome a conclusion on the part of someone who is not a "trigger-happy yahoo on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party" that Iran "must not be allowed" to develop nuclear weapons, this commentator falls right back into full-speed dithering when it comes to discussing the means, or more precisely the sanctioning of the means. It still comes down to a bunch of UN and NGO wet-nurses gabbling about whether they'll allow the United States to make a raid on Iranian targets. They'd better think through what they're going to do about what happens next, because unless the Iranian government is decapitated in these raids (and that isn't currently under discussion) then we're going to see an escalation of Iranian hostility that most certainly is going to affect even non-participating countries. This isn't going to be a case of "let's you and he fight."

That is one reason the Chinese in particular aren't playing. They just signed some juicy oil delivery contracts with Iran and would just as soon not see that disturbed even if the rest of the world is obligated to put up with a nuclear-armed set of radical revolutionary Islamists. Their consideration is whether Iran can hurt them more by a nuclear attack or by cutting off oil supplies. The answer might not be what you'd think.

[Cementjungle]

This is the opinion of the dedicated teams of nuclear experts attached to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The same experts who will surely say (after we've done the dirty work) that there was never a threat in the first place.

[Marine_Uncle]

In no way do I wish to diminish the concerns we have. But for those that think they are going to have a fully functional low yield atomic bomb any time soon, I think we should attempt to put things in perspective.
The amount of 3-4% enriched uranium they fianally managed to produce from those 160 some centrifuges is rather miniscule. Perhaps a few hundred millgrams at most.
This is not some production process that is ready to start pumping out a lot of fission grade uranium. It is more on a lab level.
What they have accomplished is the ability to operate this little cascaded system (both parallel and series centifuge units that must be synchornize [rpms] in such a manner as to obtain the final product. A laboratory achievment. Now they have to be able to either build literally thousands of centifuges of a similar design and couple them together in a given manner. It is not just a manner of piping them together in some half assed way. It gets complicated.
Each stage within a series path must be fine tuned so to speak to operate at a certain rpm range and perhaps baffling windows and other physical parts of the system must be monitored and controlled (automated eventually) to best extract ever smaller amounts of only U₂₃₅in any particular sub set within the series groups, and at the same time each parallel group at a given level must also be closely sinked to maintain the same flow rates etc..
Now imagine this having to work with a few thousand centifuges and all the automated equipment, sensors etc., that go into such a system.
It may take them a few years to get to this point. Like I say, it is not just a matter of hooking up a bunch of units and pushing a button to turn them on.
Now keep in mind one must be able to produce at least two or more sub critical masses of U₂₃₅ which quantity depends entirely on how effecient their eventual system can obtain. That is. The lower the percentage of fission grade uranium the more is needed to produce a given amount of energy during the fission process. So if they some how could produce 90% then their bomb would need a lot of fission grade uranium. Which means it could take a few years just to be able to produce enough material for one very low yield atomic weapon.
If you have followed me thus far. Now they must design a reliable trigger system, do many tests to perfect it. They must produce or somehow obtain the required inner casings that would hold the sub critical massess. You just down load a say stainless steel container with a given amount of fission grade material. You must provide fast neutron absorbant materials properly into the physical design.
After all the stages, which only a few are briefly made here are complete, one must then assemble the bomb.
Then must test it. How many bombs will have to be test to prove any reliability into the system? Perhaps two or three for any particular design.
Bingo. Bomb goes off in some underground prepared blast hole, and we know exactly when they set it off.
So for those that only react on the fly and do not have any basics behind them as how difficult and time consuming the task is to make even one small yield atomic weapon, perhaps you can at least see, it is not so easy to do.
Our Intel feels they are years away from being at a point they can actually contruct a bomb that is controllable per design specs.
I do not diminish our concern. Believe me. But don't think they are going to cleverly make some little suit case nuke they can cart off to Israel or the US any time soon.
If you believe this due to wild articles you read, then you are being deceived.
But I am all for stopping them from even having the chance to produce such weapons in the future. So please read what I write before you start on some flame routine that shows your not thinking rationally about what is at stack.
Lastly.
Their goon ball president is a bit on the bragging side when he said they are now a member of the nuclear club. Not really, not that it matters. Being in the nuclear club indicates you have functional nuclear weapons. Iran may be five to ten years off, from achieving that level, given the best opportunities to obtain all the things that are required in the manufacturing and design stages.
If it was that easy to build a functional atomic bomb. Believe me there would be a lot more countries sipping tea at that club house.

[DCPatriot]

Is he talkin' bout us??

[wotan]

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.

If I see this stupid remark one more time, I'm going to scream. Nuclear power is way cheaper than oil for the generation of electricity. If Iran were the most loving, peaceful, wonderful nation on earth, they would still be idiots if they did not use nuclear power rather than oil for generating electricity. The oil is much better sold to others than wastefully burned to generate electricity.

When I see the stupid claim emboldened above, I know I am reading a propaganda piece or the work of an idiot.

[gogeo]

This is not misinformed propaganda pumped out by trigger-happy yahoos on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party...

Let France protect his sorry @ss.

[The Sons of Liberty]

This is not misinformed propaganda pumped out by trigger-happy yahoos on the wilder fringes of America's Republican Party.

I'm already a Charter Member of "The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy", can I belong to both groups?