Posted on 08/17/2010 6:41:37 AM PDT by Scythian
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Israel has "eight days" to launch a military strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.
Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia's help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant's core.
At that point, John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sorry, I didn’t mean to impute that to you.
You have echoed my thoughts.
At the time I called for carpet bombing Tehran in sections until they gave up the hostages. Nothing in the last 30+ years has given me reason to think I was wrong.
“Military strike against the facility.” They’ll just build another one.
Bomb the leaders instead. The Iranian people will be grateful and look at collateral damage as a reasonable sacrifice. Bomb the facility and the Iranian leadership gets the sympathy, Israel gets the hissing and booing, and the Iranian people get nowhere.
Bushehr is the softest, least difficult target - because of its location.
However a mass of inland strikes that destroyed all the Besijji barracks would be a impressive act of social engineering, and wouldn’t even involve killing any Iranians.
Israel might have some trouble doing this - its a lot of sites to hit and a lot of territory - but they could maybe make an example of the Besijji in some western town.
No they do not fly USN style a/c, but the Iranians will fall for anything.
The question I have is will the U.S. readily share their covert spy details of this Iranian facility with the Israelies right now, and what data does the IDF have of their own.
The longer this goes on without an attack, the more I suspect the Israelis don't have sufficient intelligence to get it done effectively. It is a huge risk if they fail in any way. But I can assure you, they are looking at it by the minute detail as we speak.
One neutron bomb would kill personnel as well as render the area useless due to radiation.
Am I missing something? This nuclear power plant isn’t a big deal. The big deals are the centrifuges and the heavy water reactor. The centrifuges can enrich natural Uranium so that it can be used to create a fission device. The already operating heavy water reactor (Arack) can be used to create plutonium (assuming it has the correct configuration) to create a fission device. A standard light water reactor like the one Russia built isn’t good for creating plutonium for a series of reasons including the Pu-240 and Pu-242 and the other fission products – unless the fuel has short core residence times.
About half way through this article note the mention of Israeli satellite being shifted from Iran to Syria to send photos.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2461421.ece
P.S. Resist the specials on Jordanian honeymoon packages!
Excellent points.
Bushehr is not the main attraction, it’s just one more site that the Israelis have to deal with.
But it does need to be dealt with. This is because even if there’s no weapons-grade production at Bushehr it still provides the ability to build ‘dirty’ bombs laced with lethal daughter isotoBpes.
I think they are still looking for the October 1973 declarations from Egypt and Syria - you know, something to model it on. I hear they contracted the Japanese to finish the final draft.
In any case, an attack would be a "police action" designed to enforce UN embargos.
The little town is/was Zellwood, the “big town” was Mount Dora. Author lived in Zellwood.
Um no. Bushehr has been downplayed publicly in order to defend the Russians who built it. Bushehr is capable of producing a quarter ton of plutonium per year, enough for 30 bombs. The other sites aren’t nearly as important.
Really? Frack, I didn’t know that.
Ah well, Bushehr really is ‘Uncle Target’ then.
The amusing thing was that Obama and MSM made a big deal about his offer last fall that Iran export 1 ton of enriched uranium (which they of course refused to do), despite the fact that in 2007 and 2008 Russia imported 80 tons of enriched uranium for use in Bushehr. Iran could have accepted the offer and it would’ve had no effect whatsoever on their ability to make bombs.
I was only thinking of the big booms.
From my understanding, the Bushehr plant is a Ruskie VVER-1000/440 plant which is a low enriched light water Uranium PWR. This means that the Iranians can't use the Uranium for making fission devices without using their centrifuges. Since it is light water and a PWR, this means that its fuel cycle is not built for Plutonium production either - and the stuff coming out after a refueling won't be that good for a bomb. But as agere_contra points out, it will create tons and tons of fission product and daughter isotopes.
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