TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011
HOLGER AWAKENS
It's my estimation that every United Nations official associated with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) needs to be brought up on charges of coercion with the Iranian government and sentenced to prison. Well, now that the evidence of Iran's efforts to create nuclear warheads is mountainous, the U.N. agency is saying that indeed the Iranians are guilty of bringing nuclear weapons into their arsenal.From the report at The Jerusalem Post:
In the most critical and damning report of Iran’s nuclear program to date, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tuesday that the Islamic Republic is working to develop a nuclear-weapon design and is conducting extensive research and tests only relevant for a nuclear weapon.
I mean, does this news come as news to ANYONE??!! Are there people on earth who actually believed the Iranians when they professed their nuclear ambitions were for power to run air conditioners and frigidaires?
"The agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," the IAEA said in the report, which included a 13-page annex with key technical descriptions of its research. “The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
Blow this damn country into the stratosphere and do it now. Call your Congressman and Senators and tell them you expect military action taken against Iran in order to safeguard the security of the United States of America.
IAEA confirms Iran worked on building nuclear bomb
In the most critical and damning report of Iran’s nuclear program to date, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tuesday that the Islamic Republic is working to develop a nuclear-weapon design and is conducting extensive research and tests only relevant for a nuclear weapon.
"The agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," the IAEA said in the report, which included a 13-page annex with key technical descriptions of its research. “The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
Israel played a key role in helping the IAEA compile the report and its intelligence agencies provided critical information over the years used in the report. Israel now hopes that the United States will use the report to push through a new regimen of sanctions against Iran including a focus on the Central Bank of Iran and the Iranian energy sector.
The report can be found here.
In the report, the IAEA reveals a list of Iranian research centers that are connected to the work on the nuclear weapons program.
The agency says that it frequently confronted Iran with information it obtained from various IAEA member states – including documents seized from computers belonging to members of a black market nuclear arms network which supplied technology to Iran. The reference is likely to the Pakistani ring led by AQ Kahn.
The report focuses on three main technical areas - the “green salt project”, a name for a covert Iranian program to enrich military-grade uranium; the development and testing of high explosives; and the re-engineering of the payload chamber of ballistic missiles to be able to accommodate a nuclear warhead.
In the report, for example, the IAEA reveals that Iran was working on “exploding bridgewire detonators” which are fast-acting detonators required to create a nuclear explosion.
“Given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device, and the fact that there are limited civilian and conventional military applications for such technology, Iran’s development of such detonators and equipment is a matter of concern,” the report said.
One member state provided the IAEA with information about a “large-scale” test Iran conducted in 2003 to initiate a high explosive charge in the form of a hemispherical shell whose dimensions are consistent with the dimensions of a potential nuclear payload that can be installed on a Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
Work on this project was assisted, according to the IAEA, by a foreign expert, apparently a reference to a Russian scientist who worked with Iran from 1996 to 2002. The scientist has been named in various media reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko.
Additional information in the report reveals that Iran has manufactured simulated nuclear explosive components using high density materials such as tungsten to determine if its theoretical design of an implosion device is correct.
These high-explosive tests are referred to as “hydrodynamic experiments” are conducted when fissile and nuclear components are replaced by surrogate materials.
The explosives chamber, the IAEA said, was constructed in a facility called Parchin in 2000.
The agency said that it obtained commercial satellite images of the facility which showed the chamber built around a large cylindrical object and that it was designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives, which would be suitable for carrying out nuclear weapons experiments.
The IAEA also said that it obtained evidence from a member state that Iran was working to manufacture small capsules called “neutron initiators” which are placed in the center of the nuclear core and produce a burst of neutrons needed to create a fission chain reaction.
The location where the experiments were conducted was said to have been cleaned of contamination after the experiments had taken place. The IAEA said that Iran allegedly worked on validating this process through 2010.
Lastly, the IAEA said that Iran also appeared to have taken preparatory steps to conduct an underground nuclear weapons test. It said that it obtained a document in Farsi which relates directly to the logistics and safety arrangements that would be necessary for conducting a nuclear test.