Goatboy

Israel attacked the Iraqi reactor in 1981 when they did because they had a very small window before the reactor went critical/online.

The point being: if you're going to attack, attack before the reactor goes online, or create massive contamination Chernobyl style -- perhaps worse.

However, I'm willing to listen to arguments that, should we attack Iran (hopefully not) we should specifically avoid damaging nuclear cores, and instead use ground forces to occupy the facility -- perhaps an elite paratroop battalion would be required.

Of course the risks are gigantic no matter what doctrinal formula the US army uses in a hypothetical confrontation with Iran, and i certainly can't imagine wanting the US to "go in" alone -- we'd need a clear UN mandate, as clear as the one given to Operation Desert Storm.

RustyBattleship

Actually, I think we should let Iran build its reactor.

The reason this absurd thought came to mind is because I ran across an Urban Legend of somebody getting electrocuted when answering his cell phone while it was PLUGGED IN to the recharger. Even Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel tried to generate a deadly charge and couldn't. Checking out Snopes however, it was found there have been some very severe injuries and possibly a death or two from cell phones plugged into their recharging units. Most incidents were where the phones exploded like small hand grenades (pretty gruesome if you have it up to your ear at the time).

All of these incidents were reported in Southeast Asia and the MIDDLE east.

Nokia did a detailed investigation of the exploding phones (most of them were Nokias) and found that cheap, unsafe, after-market batteries had been used to replace the original batteries. It was these poor quality batteries that blew up when plugged into a recharger.

As for the electrocution, I can see where it could happen IF the owner used a recharger unit made for American 110 volt circuitry and modified it to plug into the Eastern Hemisphere 220 volt outlets.

As I said. Most incidents happened in the Middle East. So if Iran uses after-market parts or cheapie copies of equipment - there just might not be an Iran to worry about.

Too bad. We wouldn't have any more mixed marriages that produce children that look like Catherine Bell.

Confed999

I'm in the "crack it" camp.
Ummmmm, you see how that turned out. Maybe you meant "clearer than the one given for the Iraq-Kuwait War"...

__________________
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

Goatboy

Confed999 "Ummmmm, you see how that turned out. Maybe you meant "clearer than the one given for the Iraq-Kuwait War"..."

Are you making a point Confederate?, I'm not sure but ok fine, how about "as clear a mandate or better" satisfied? because I was pointing out the massive support the UN coalition received in 1991, which we would need again in a hypothetical invasion of Iran.



Confed999 "I'm in the "crack it" camp."

Secondly, other things being equal, you'd have no problem irradiating Tel Aviv, parts of Jordan, Iraq etc, by blowing up an online Iranian reactor? Why on earth wouldn't you consider an actual occupation of the facility with special forces rather than spreading a Chernobyl amount of plutonium for hundreds of miles (depending on wind speed and direction.) which would probably occur in a massive airstrike.

--- Anyone who doesn't consider this fact relevent, at least incidently is being naive

Confed999

We're still fighting that same war. Why? Crappy mandate from a crappy organization with crappy participants...
Because it's a suicide mission and they would not be able to hold the facility. They would end up blowing it up themselves, the Iranians would be able to recover the materials and rebuild.
Just that ammount? I have no problem with that at all. The Iranians would not be able to recover the materials, or rebuild then, plus they would have to beg for help...

Garry

Hi Yale, you gave interesting thoughts! I have few questions - is it really possible to take out fuel from a running reactor? I heard from Russians here that it is highly dangerous as those cores are heated and HIGH radiactive..... even more than plutonium which is obtained at the end..... I was told that it would take at least one year to cool down the fuel in the special pool before it could be disturbed or evacuated to Russia.

Does that mean that your scenario assumes Iran to take nuclear fueld BEFORE it was loaded into reactor? Wouldn't EVERYBODY in the world aware that Iran DID NOT LET RUSSIANS LOAD THE FUEL? I mean even if Russia would agree to cover the fact that its specialists were not allowed to load fuel.... the western observes would clearly see that Busher IS NOT ACTIVATED!!! I can be reliably observed by looking at the heat signature of Busher facility and by IAEA observations.

Still your scenario is quite interesting! I never though that enrichment from Russian fuel may be a significant short-cut! Looks like it is if fuel is take for enrichment BEFORE it is loaded to reactor.

yale

The diversion of uranium is BEFORE it is placed in the reactor. There is a "pipeline" of fresh fuel for each reactor. Typically at least one annual refueling worth of fuel is on site.

About 75 tons of lightly enriched uranium (LEU) is loaded into the reactor. Another 25 tons is stockpiled for the first refuel and/or to replace defective fuel in the core.

In practice, Iran would demand to have a number of years worth of fuel available (wouldn't you?), and if it enriches its own fuel (which is what all the international frenzy is about), then the supply is enormous.

Less than a ton and a half (the pellets would fit in a box 2 foot on a side) of fuel would supply an implosion bomb. The fuel is safe to handle and practically non-radioactive.

yale


Here are some quotes:

This danger is well known:

====================================
John Chipman, Director of IISS:

”... Iran could produce (or divert -yale) a stockpile of LEU, ostensibly for nuclear power reactor fuel, and then break out by using this material as feed to produce HEU in a short period of time. In theory, with LEU feed, the 1,000-machine pilot plant could produce enough HEU for a single weapon within several months of operation, even taking into consideration likely inefficiencies and some requirements for reconfiguration.”
====================================

====================================
From “expert testimony” at a Brookings Institution, Saban Center Discussion:
Iran’s Strategic Weapons: A Net Assessment:

“The expert pointed out that the Iran could significantly accelerate the production of HEU, if it began with LEU rather than natural uranium.”
===================================

===================================
David Albright, ISIS in 1999:

“During its moratorium, Pakistan produced low enriched uranium (LEU), which can be up-graded to weapon-grade uranium relatively rapidly. Given the length of the moratorium, this stock of LEU was relatively large and would have enabled a rapid increase in Pakistan’s stock of weapon-grade uranium.”
===========================

===========================
Andrews and Chamberlain:

“However, whilst LEU has no utility for nuclear weapons, its production in an enrichment plant takes a prospective nuclear-armed country a considerable way, in terms of cost and effort, down the road to producing HEU. Roughly speaking only an additional cost and effort of 20% is needed to produce HEU from LEU, compared to the cost and effort involved in producing LEU from natural uranium.[
==========================

==========================
Ponomarev-Stepnoi presenting at a Carnegie conference:

Criteria and Structure of Innovative Nuclear Technologies: Ensuring Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Measures
...
This study demonstrates that, in this case, the scale of relative danger of nuclear matenals is radically different from the scale that is traditionally used.
...
The data shows that the highest risk of nuclear proliferation for terrorist purposes results from the use of LEU through isotope enrichment.
===========================

==========================
Ephraim Asculai
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies Tel Aviv Univ

...”When (Iran) has accumulated sufficient quantities of low-enriched uranium (LEU) and when the time is ripe, it will do one of two things: either withdraw from the NPT (citing the North Korea precedent) and then enrich the LEU to HEU, or begin enriching the LEU it will have diverted and concealed in order to produce concealed nuclear weapons.
===============

================
Victor Gilinsky, Marvin Miller, Harmon Hubbard:

“It is less appreciated that if the owners divert some of the LEU produced by the declared plant and used as feed for a clandestine enrichment plant, they can reduce the needed plant capacity by a factor of five. Moreover, such LEU feed need not rely on the existence of an LEU plant; it could come from processing the fuel pellets of a fresh LWR fuel reload.
...
There needs to be much closer accounting of LEU fuel in view of its significance as possible feed for clandestine enrichment.
...
It takes comparatively little additional “separative work” to upgrade LEU to HEU. It would be difficult for the IAEA to keep close enough track of all the LEU to stay ahead of any such conversion. Having a gas centrifuge plants producing LEU makes it much easier to construct and operate a clandestine one. The presence of the larger plant would mask many of the intelligence indicators and environmental indications of a clandestine one so it would harder to find. But even in the absence of any commercial enrichment—in the case of a country with one or more stand alone LWRs—the presence of LWRs means that a substantial supply of fresh LWR fuel would also be present at times. That such fresh fuel can provide a source of uranium for clandestine enrichment is another possibility that has received essentially no attention in proliferation writings. Since the fuel is already low enriched uranium, a much smaller gas centrifuge plant would suffice to raise the enrichment to bomb levels than would be the case if the starting point is natural uranium. By starting with such LEU fuel pellets, which are uranium oxide (UO2), the enricher would be able to skip the first five processes required to go from uranium ore to uranium hexafluoride gas, the material on which the gas centrifuge operate. To go from the uranium oxide pellets to uranium hexafluoride the would-be bomb-maker would crush the pellets and react the powder with fluorine gas. Suitably processed, the LEU pellets could provide feed for clandestine enrichment.
========================

==========================
Makhijani, Chalmers, Smith:

Adding to the proliferation concerns regarding the spread of enrichment technologies as part of the spread of nuclear power, it is important to note that if, instead of starting with natural uranium, low enriched uranium (3.6% U-235) was used as the feed material, then it would require just 70 to 78 SWU and 26 to 27 kilograms of feed material to produce one kilogram of highly enriched uranium. Just 1.6 tons of LEU, less than one tenth of the amount needed annually to fuel a single 1000 megawatt reactor, would be enough to yield the HEU required to assemble a Hiroshima style bomb if it was further enriched. Thus, stockpiles of low enriched uranium, if maintained in a form suitable for enrichment, can provide the base material to more easily and more rapidly manufacture highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons. In this example, approximately two-thirds of the total enrichment services necessary to produce weapons usable HEU goes into enriching the uranium from natural uranium (0.7% U-235) to LEU (3.6% U-235) while only about one-third goes into enriching the LEU the rest of the way from 3.6% U-235 to HEU with 90% U-235.
=======================

yale

An excellent paper on the proliferation hazard of the so-called "proliferation-resistant" Light Water Reactor (most "civilian" reactors are of this type):

http://www.npec-web.org/Reports/Report041022%20LWR.pdf

yale

Swift Sword

Hi Guys,

I really think that it is worth discussing the various merits and demerits of a nuclear armed Iran since that is one of the most obvious possible outcomes.

This would be a very contrarion exercise but it certainly might be fruitful.

This is not to say that I would be happy with the situation as I endorse counterproliferation on grounds of principle but rather to hedge, as it were.

We have to determine if a nuclear armed or perhaps a nuclear refining Iran is a threat to the supreme interests of the United States. War is a matter of supreme interests, or so I have been told.

Historically, the United States has not gone to war over nuclear proliferation, even when the proliferators were clearly unsavory characters.

We might conclude from this historical trend that proliferation of nuclear weapons has not been an occassion to go to war over, even when people actively working and speaking against the U.S. gained posession of these weapons and their delivery system.

The current U.S. President has pandered to and appeased nuclear proliferaters and past Presidents did not seem particularaly fazed when the Soviet, British, Chinese, French, Israelis, etc. built them so building nuclear weapons is not exactly grounds to go to war over, even when the other government is engaged in heated rhetoric and actively engaged in efforts to destabilize the U.S. and it's allies.

Secondly, it stands to predictability. If we are to beleive the likes of Dulles and other architects of American policy and power, predictability in the international system is the brass ring, even when it means the sacrafice of sovereignty in it's pursuit.

Thridly, as I have stated previously, the international state system has proven to be perfectly capable of absorbing and balancing nuclear proliferators and new members of the nuclear club.

Finally, it would appear, that in general, posession of nuclear weapons creates limitations on a state's behavoir that provides convenient definition and enhances predictability.

So really, discounting popular right wing, mainstream media talking points and the "mushroom cloud over an American city" propaganda hysteria, how does the downside of a nuclear armed Iran stack up to the many potential downsides of a war of aggression against them?

Regards,

William

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

smilingassassin

In reguards to the U.S. not going to war over nuclear proliferation, just look at the players. Except for Russia most were allies, Russia was a powerfull superpower so again not worth the extreme effort a war would require to prevent nuclear proliferation.

In the case of India and Pakistan, and more specifically Iran, these states are not seen as stable enough to handle nuclear weapons responcibly. India would appear to be stable enough to discount intervention and they have a similar deterent effect in reguards to the sheer manpower neededto take on their forces.
Pakistan is worrysome, but Iran with its support for Islamic militants and Jihadi rehtoric against Israel (be it deserved or not and isn't very re-assuring) is simply frightening.

Garry

Well the more I think about the problem the more I come to understanding that .... RUSSIA AND EUROPE NEED ANIMISSILE DEFENSE in around 15-20 years....

I don't think that fuel from Busher would be diverted.... it is observed by IAEA and Russians and from space and by whoever interested..... Unless it is really bombed..... but then fuel will not be distroyed!!!

However I see that acquisition of enrichment technology by Iran can not be STOPPED unless Iran gives it up.... Bombing will not stop them but slow them down - and there is no realistic possibility that bombing Iran regularly or to the ground like some here think would take place. So in 10 years or in 15 years Iran and some others would have bomb....

It is not possible to stop proliferation of nuclear power... the more developping nations would be building them, having nuclear fuel on their territory. The only hope is with IAEA control..... But who can prohibit them from manufacturing their own fuel? Brazil did complete its own facility recently and somebody else would join them as well. If Iran is prohibited than Brazil must shut down its facility as well???? Iranians will never accept that Brazilians have more rights in this regard..... not Suadis..... nor any other nation.

I guess that we are entering a new world where old american proverb would come back - God created people and Colt equilized them

Change Colt to Uranium

Confed999

Could easily cause the survivors to give it up though.

Goatboy

US can not stop Iran - it has ABSOLUTELLY no influence on them.

You're assuming Iran will maintain its theocracy in its current form in the future. I think a different Iranian leader could translate into a different Iranian foreign policy. No way Khatami (the previous leader) was as hard nosed as the current Ahmed...

Confed999

*BOOM*

Goatboy

Does *BOOM* mean nuke Tehran?