Officer of Engineers

No centerfuges.

__________________
Chimo

Sameer

Was that not why AQ Khan was sent to Iran considering the fact that his expertise was centrifuge tech....

Officer of Engineers

Maybe. Maybe not. But the point is that the Iranians have not finish building them yet.

Garry

that is an assumption same as one that they have it.... Iran is a next interesting black box to guess what they actually have, what they prentend to have but have no... and what they pretend to have no but they have.... my english is not that good to express it

Sameer

How hard could it be, AQ the hero gave them blueprints and spent weeks in Iran, at times even one month, surely he was not buying Persian carpets there.

Probably if we figure out what the Koreans have and then go back 5-7 years, we will get what Iran has.

Who knows but the west seems too nervous, perhaps Iran is closer than previously thought.

Parihaka

I don't know if we do seem nervous, there seems to be a lot of European effort going in here, and all the euro bashing on this board aside, they didn't buy in at all to the Iraqi campaign, so there is a big difference. In the end though it all becomes irrelevant because of one thing: if Israel decides it is threatened it will strike, regardless of consequences.
At that point Iran will attack Israel with whatever it has and will attack American forces with whatever it has and will attack the straits of hormuz with whatever it has.
Then diplomacy, approval ratings and the should we/shouldn't we, do they/don't they arguments no longer matter. The question I have to anyone is, does Sharons illness make it more likely or less likely that Israel will strike?

Officer of Engineers

Armscontrolwonk.com has a full summary of ALL publically available intelligence on Iran. This means forget the sensationalism of the media.

Iran & the Bomb 1: How Close Is Iran?
Iran & the Bomb 2: Iran's Missiles
Iran & The Bomb 3: Strike options

BTW, the NK's capabilites are way overblown.

Parihaka

excellent , thank you

Swift Sword

Hello Garry,

I beleive the English word you seek is "bluffing".

From an older edition of "Webster's Dictionary":

Bluff \Bluff\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bluffed; p. pr. & vb. n.
Bluffing.]
1. (Poker) To deter (an opponent) from taking the risk of
betting on his hand of cards, as the bluffer does by
betting heavily on his own hand although it may be of less
value. [U. S.]

2. To frighten or deter from accomplishing a purpose by
making a show of confidence in one's strength or
resources; as, he bluffed me off. [Colloq.]

Every side in the crisis arising from the issue of Iranian nuclear proliferation has most likely has/is/will engange in the practice before it is all said and done.

Hope this helps!

William

__________________
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?

Aryan

Just read the last few pages of this thread, and a few comments caught my attention...

"However, think this through. Iran was ready to goto war with the Taliban. You think Pakistan was going to sit back and let that happen? They didn't have a choice with the pissed off Americans but would you think they would be scared of Iran? Even a nuclear armed Iran?"

No. No. No. I think it was only a matter of time before Iran became directly involved in Afghanistan (they already had clandestine involvement), but it would be highly unlikely Iran and Pakistan would ever go to war against each other about it, certainly not a nuclear war. There is a big misconception in the west that the NA represented the shia of Afghanistan, and the taliban represented the sunni pushtun, and the standoff between then was just a proxy war between Iran and Pakistan. Nothing could be further from the truth. NA itself was composed of some very far right sunni groups, as well as moderate (Sayyaf, Hekmatyar etc). Pakistan had enemies in the taliban and people it could court in the NA. If Iran did decide to invade Afghanistan, it would be after consulting Pakistan, and deal would have been made to divide up administration of Afghanistan, much like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In heinside, it might have been a good idea.




"Pak nukes are rumoured in some Indian thinktanks to be under American control. While I don't think Washington holds the release orders, it does mean that the Pak nuclear program is under an American microscope. Bush Jr probably knows more about the Pak nuke program than Mushuraf himself.

Pretty much agreed with that point. The CIA probably know more as much as Musharraf about the status of the military program; in the past it has been proven that the CIA had access to nuclear information Sharif didn't know! The same probably applies to India, although there is less incentive to seek information on their programme.

But I don't doubt that the nukes under Pakistan's control.



American influence in Pakistan is like treating the symptom rather than treating the illness. As long as the illness remains, the job is still half done.

Americans don't really care about Pakistan having nuclear weapons, so it isn't a job for them. So long as they keep tabs on our nuclear scientists, which they do, and the nukes are pointed towards Delhi, which they are, America couldn't care less.

If anyone is going to disarm Pakistan, i'm afriad it is going to have to be India. You are more than welcome to try

srirangan, you have a point, but Iran does not yet have nukes whereas Pakistan does. Nobody can really get rid of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, there is still a chance to stop Iran.

Again, I don't doubt for a second that America can disarm Pakistan. Even a conventional strike could render either Pakistan or India's nuclear programme to be practically useless. The issue is motivation. Until

A Plutonium implosion assembly is more than a few orders of magnitude more difficult and requires more skilled and specialized personnel.

True to a certain extent, but still is much easier today. Computer simulations, advances in polymer technology and electronics, and of course the fact that Iran doesn't even need fissile material to test out a crude implosion system. Natural uranium will do just fine for modelling the energy waves travelling through the core.

The real challenge lies in setting up the facilities for fissile material production. It took Pakistan decades to reach this point, and that was with copious (in comparison to Iran) foreign assistance.

Finally, history has shown that every nation that has seriously pursued fission weapons has acquired them.

Not sure where you picked that up from. Of the top of my head, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Libya, Brazil and Argentina. All have tried and failed.

"Without the scientists, you got no nukes. Nukes are a very high maintenance nightmare. You have to keep the plutonium or uranium in prime condition and that means tests and more tests and constant refinement. That takes a great deal of skill and experience that is very difficult to replace.

If you want to protect your nuclear program, protect your scientists at all costs. The materials are something that can be replaced which is far more easier than replacing scientists."

And how do you propose killing the scientists?? And which scientists are you talking about?? That's the stupidest thing I've heard all day.

Asides from ethical/political challenges, scientists are much more mobile, more numerous. They are also easier to blend into non-nuclear civilian projects, especially fields like metallurgy, mathematics, chemistry etc.

A much simpler idea would be to offer green cards or financial motivations to any Iranian scientists working in the nuclear programme. Or just tomahawk any facilities the Iranians set up straight away.

Aryan

I can't see what all the fuss is about, Iran is nowhere near achieving nuclear capability. Someone on PMF posted an article claiming Iran already had a gun assembly type uranium warhead, and the article then proceded to talk about how Iran will use it with one of their missiles to nuke Israel.

With all world scrutinizing each and every Iranian move, I don't think Ahmadinejad can fart without the CIA checking it for traces of plutonium.

Both Israel and Pakistan had plenty of foreign assistance, had a large pool of well placed expatriates prepared to help, and were able to smuggle key components relatively easily. The mullah inspired brain drain certainly doesn't favour Iran.

I don't think Iran can do all of the above, and maintain secrecy.

I'd also be suprised if Iran was any closer to nukes in 10 years than it is now.

Garry

Very very interesting site and reading..... Only NOW I understand why US Administration was so surprised when USSR had its first test in 1949...... Now I understand much WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT it was and how fast it was done...... They build everything from zero in just 4 years since the time when they first heard that this weapon is possible!!! Amount of work was really INCREADIBLE

1945.... in August Stalin learned that it is possible and ordered to make it.....

So Soviet scientists....

explored uranium deposits
built uranium mines
mined enough uranium
designed enrichment process
built enrichment process
refined uranium
designed and built first reactor and fission process
used stolen design of US bomb to design their own bomb
manufactured first bomb with enriched uranium
....
tested it in August 1949

THIS WAS REALLY BIG SUPRISE..... Now I understand why it was such a surprise...

Well after reading OE's links I am not that sure that Iranians can deliver same surprise now

Confed999

It's easier to do today, especially with people selling you the tech required to do it...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

lwarmonger

Agreed. The Soviet Union knew it could be done, but really had to start from scratch. After that though, acquiring the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons became fairly easy for nation states... then it became a question of money, engineering, and precision tools.

Garry

The difference of Iran today and Soviet Union then.... was number of scientists. Soviet Union has and had VERY advanced scientific school which let them avoid many mistakes.... The intelligence help which Soviet scientista got then is probably comparable to the amount of knowledge Iranians got today though exchange with Korea and Pakistan. But they really knew how to use it... that is why they managed to do it in just four years from NOTHING. Due to STRONG SCHOOL IN FUNDAMENTAL PHISICS

I was in Iran and I remember my deep impression that this country lack educated people in general.... and I would guess that scientists are rare there as well. This has to do with IDEOLOGY. Soviet Union fostered Sientific Breakthrough.... while in Iran a man can not be a gynecologist and treat women. I guess there are many other cases in which a science there would be suppressed by IDEOLOGY.... Science don't grow in such climate....

In addition to that USSR had strong industry - a manufacturing economy which could design and manufacture required equipement. Iran does not have even its own automotive manufacturers - the vehicles they produce are designed by other nations and components for them are supplied from abroad. Soviet Union then was the largest manufacturer of aircraft...... an industry which exists only when a certain level of industrial development is achieved.

Well. I don't know now. I see that designing bomb is feasible. It becomes even more feasible every year.... but it still requires a lot of resources and work.... CAN IRAN FOLLOW USSR AND DO IT FAST? God knows.