Free Republic

Terror State: A dithering world has for years underestimated the costs of appeasement toward Iran. Tehran's aggressive plans for 10 new nuclear plants show they want dominance, not just a bomb or two. To any informed observer, it's no surprise that Iran is now collecting its 10-to-1 winnings in the high-stakes game Tehran's Islamofascist government has been playing with the free world for years now. There's been a United Nations censure, demands to halt the building of the newly revealed enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and multiple rounds of economic sanctions. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany...

Iran Refuses To Send Enriched Uranium Abroad by Jay Deshmukh TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran is refusing to send its low-enriched uranium abroad for further processing, the influential head of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee was quoted as saying on Saturday. "We do not want to give part of our 1,200 kilos of enriched uranium in order to receive fuel of 20 percent enrichment," Alaeddin Borujerdi told the ISNA news agency. "This option of giving our enriched uranium gradually or in one go is over now. We are studying how to procure fuel and (Ali Asghar) Soltanieh is negotiating...

Iran will move to further enrich its uranium for a research reactor if it cannot obtain the fuel from overseas, semi-official state media reported Saturday. If talks with world powers and the United Nations nuclear watchdog fail, Iran will notify the latter that it will supply fuel for the Tehran reactor, said Ali Shirzadian, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. "The reactor is the major producer of radio medicines in Iran and its current fuel meets its needs for one-and-a-half year," he told the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency. It needs about 150 to 300 kilograms of...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

Title only.

The U.S. said on Wednesday that Iran was moving closer to being able to produce a nuclear bomb by stockpiling enriched uranium. "We have serious concerns that Iran is deliberately attempting, at a minimum, to preserve a nuclear weapons option," U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Glyn Davies, told a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's 35-nation governing board. "Iran is now either very near or in possession already of sufficient low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon if the decision were made to further enrich it to weapons-grade," Davies said. "(This) moves Iran closer to a dangerous...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Friday that it is in the final stages of enriching uraninum, a process that could give the nation a second way to make nuclear bombs. The official Korean Central News Agency said in a report early Friday that North Korea informed the U.N. Security Council it is forging ahead with its nuclear program in defiance of international calls to abandon its atomic ambitions. The dispatch said plutonium "is being weaponized," and that uranium enrichment—a program North Korea revealed in recent months—was entering the "completion phase."

Despite Iran's progress since 2007 toward producing enriched uranium, the State Department's intelligence analysts continue to think that Tehran will not be able to produce weapons-grade material before 2013, according to a newly disclosed congressional document. The updated assessment, by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasizes that the analysis is based on Iran's technical capability and is not a judgment about "when Iran might make any political decision" to produce highly enriched uranium. The intelligence community agrees that a political decision has not yet been made. According to the assessment, State Department analysts think such a decision...

N. Korea enriching uranium as leader's health may be relapsing: S. Korea SEOUL, June 30 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to be "definitely" pressing ahead with uranium enrichment that would give it another means to build nuclear arms, South Korea's defense chief said Tuesday. Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee also said in a parliamentary hearing that recent outside observations concerning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could suggest he is experiencing a relapse in his health. Kim, 67, reportedly suffered a stroke in August last year but has since recovered enough to reassert control over his secretive regime. Health experts say the...

After repudiating negotiations on dismantling its plutonium-based nuclear program, North Korea admitted this month to having an even more worrying way to make bombs. Following nearly seven years of adamant denials, North Korea announced it can enrich uranium—a simpler method of building nuclear weapons than reprocessing plutonium. Uranium can be enriched in relatively inconspicuous factories that can better evade spy-satellite detection, and uranium bombs may work without test explosions. The admission—made in a threatening response to a June 12 U.N. Security Council resolution punishing Pyongyang for an underground plutonium bomb test last month—poses a new challenge to the U.S., China,...

SEOUL, June 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday it will start enriching uranium and weaponize all new plutonium, protesting the U.N. Security Council resolution expanding sanctions on it. The North, which triggered the resolution after its second nuclear test on May 25, also said it will "respond militarily" if the U.S. and other countries attempt what it called a "blockade." The resolution calls on states to conduct inspections of North Korea ships suspected of carrying materials related to weapons of mass destruction.

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Senior Iranian Official: We Did Not Stop Uranium Enrichment during Khatami's Presidency Hassan Rohani, who served as secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council during the Khatami administration, denied Ahmadinejad's accusations that the reformists had suspended Iran's uranium enrichment during Khatami's presidency. He claimed that one of the purposes of the nuclear dossier negotiations during that period was to buy time to complete the construction of the nuclear facilities in Esfahan and Natanz. He added that the Khatami government had not suspended for a single moment either the construction...

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has expanded the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to almost 5,000 and this has made it harder for U.N. inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear program, according to an IAEA report seen by Reuters. Friday's restricted International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report also said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU) material, boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months. Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel was sure to fan Western fears of the Islamic Republic nearing the ability make nuclear...

Iran has dramatically increased the amount of low-enriched uranium produced by its growing number of centrifuges that are part of its nuclear fuel production system. This year's report, known as the Section 721 report after a provision of the 1997 intelligence authorization law, provided more details than a 2007 report. A comparison of the two reports shows that Iran produced 75 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) in 2007 and about 555 kilograms of LEU last year, described by the CIA as a "significant" increase. Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful and not intended to make atomic weapons. The findings,...

Special Dispatch - No. 2349 May 8, 2009 No. 2349 "Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Nuclear Program Chief Aghazadeh Give Details of Nuclear Plan" SNIPPET: "Following are excerpts from a TV program on Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which aired on Channel 2, Iranian TV, on April 9, 2009." SNIPPET: "The third stage of the project is uranium enrichment. This huge and complex project has been fruitful in the Natanz region. By now, approximately 7,000 centrifuges have been installed, and in the course of the five-year plan, this figure will rise to 50,000. Let me use this occasion to inform...

TORONTO -- A Toronto man has been arrested for allegedly attempting to export nuclear technology to Iran. Mahmoud Yadegari, a Canadian citizen, was to appear in court this morning to face federal customs charges but he may face additional charges for violating a United Nations embargo. Mr. Yadegari attempted to "procure and export" pressure transducers used in the production of enriched uranium, the RCMP said in a statement this morning. He was allegedly purchasing the materials in the United States, and sending it to Dubai but the end destination was Iran, said RCMP Sgt. Marc Laporte. While enriched uranium is...

The United States could be set to scrap its demand that Iran stop enriching uranium in the early stages of talks on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, local media reported Tuesday. The New York Times said US and European diplomats have considered allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period while talks get off the ground, a sharp shift in policy.

As a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama called a nuclear Iran "a grave threat" and insisted "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." But he also called for direct, high-level talks in the hopes that the mullahs could be persuaded to abandon their nuclear dreams. We've never held out much hope for those talks, which would inevitably be complicated and protracted. Now it turns out that the rate at which Iran's nuclear programs are advancing may render even negotiations moot. That's one conclusion to be drawn from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among...

February 21, 2009 SNIPPET: "IRAN has for the first time amassed enough enriched uranium to make an atom bomb, the UN's nuclear watchdog declared yesterday." SNIPPET: "Media reports said yesterday the agency had made the find during its annual physical inventory of nuclear materials at Iran's desert enrichment plant at Natanz, 210km south of Tehran."