Iran's WMD - Still No Evidence?

[Ahriman]

Would like to know where you live in the U.S. that has this mindset?
You can speak for the population?

New York.

And no, I don't speak for the Population. But, understanding that being a person who thinks were invincible is the reason why we end up having planes crashing into towers, no?

[Dreadnought]

New York.

And no, I don't speak for the Population. But, understanding that being a person who thinks were invincible is the reason why we end up having planes crashing into towers, no?

New York? One of the Democrat capital's of the US thinks we are invinsible? Since when? Most Democrat prefer to pull down the windowshades and wish the world went away. No the reason why 911 happened if fault was to be blamed would go to no other the Bubba Clinton and his minions not Bush.;)

[Ahriman]

New York? One of the Democrat capital's of the US thinks we are invinsible? Since when? Most Democrat prefer to pull down the windowshades and wish the world went away. No the reason why 911 happened if fault was to be blamed would go to no other the Bubba Clinton and his minions not Bush.;)

First of all, I'm not a Democrat, but I'm sure that there are people in other states do believe that we are invincible. We're not.

Two, yes, Democrats have a way of pulling the shades down, which is why I'm a Republican.

Three, the fault is the interests of the Middle East during the Cold War era. We just pissed an organization that we once help against the Soviets and now were fighting them.

[Dreadnought]

First of all, I'm not a Democrat, but I'm sure that there are people in other states do believe that we are invincible. We're not.

Two, yes, Democrats have a way of pulling the shades down, which is why I'm a Republican.

Three, the fault is the interests of the Middle East during the Cold War era. We just pissed an organization that we once help against the Soviets and now were fighting them.

The reason we helped them against the Soviets was for the blood letting of our troops in Vietnam that Russia not only armed but also supported in more ways then one. The fault was to Bubba Clintons administration for not taking the action he should have against Bin Laden knowing that he was becoming very dangerous and turning a blind eye.

[Ahriman]

The reason we helped them against the Soviets was for the blood letting of our troops in Vietnam that Russia not only armed but also supported in more ways then one. The fault was to Bubba Clintons administration for not taking the action he should have against Bin Laden knowing that he was becoming very dangerous and turning a blind eye.

True, I respect and agree about the statement on Clinton, in fact, eriee that the Clintons are considering helping Obama with foreign affairs (crap). But should it be the same about Bush when we almost got Bin Laden at Afganistan but he turn around and decided to invade Iraq?

[Dreadnought]

True, I respect and agree about the statement on Clinton, in fact, eriee that the Clintons are considering helping Obama with foreign affairs (crap). But should it be the same about Bush when we almost got Bin Laden at Afganistan but he turn around and decided to invade Iraq?

Ah but Clinton failed to pull the trigger after being dead in our sights which allowed his to produce the basis of the 911 attacks.

[Ahriman]

If the world is black and white, then I'll be pointing fingers and blame Bill Clinton for every sh!t that happens in the Middle East, but nevertheless that our foreign policies needed some reform and change so that it doesn't bite us again in the future, like dealing with Iran for example. I already posted an article about the Anti-American mindset in Iran and understanding why people hate us, and curve the hatred away.

[T_igger_cs_30]

Iran increasing uranium stockpile, says UN nuclear watchdog

A UN official stated:
We had gridlock before but then at least we were talking to each other. Now it's worse. There is no communication whatsoever, no progress regarding possible military dimensions in their programme,"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-watchdog.html

Continueing to up the ante?


Whilst on this theme, from the Washington Post:
Syrian Facility Looked Like Reactor, U.N. Says

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...dlines&sub=new

[Ironduke]

I think Iran having nuclear weapons is not itself dangerous. There is a common argument that Iran will nuke Israel or some such, because their leaders are "crazy". However states that obtain nuclear weapons have a way of being rather cautious.

An Iranian nuclear weapon would be highly destabilizing in the Middle East. The Arab states are extremely wary of Iran and would feel very threatened by this development. An Iranian nuclear weapon encourages further proliferation and arms races in that region.

[Herodotus]

An Iranian nuclear weapon would be highly destabilizing in the Middle East. The Arab states are extremely wary of Iran and would feel very threatened by this development. An Iranian nuclear weapon encourages further proliferation and arms races in that region.

So what of Israeli nuclear weapons? Are they not de-stabilizing and a reason Iran may pursue a nuclear deterrent of its own? The Israelis don't officially admit that they have nukes, and that is part of the problem.

[tankie]

So what of Israeli nuclear weapons? Are they not de-stabilizing and a reason Iran may pursue a nuclear deterrent of its own? The Israelis don't officially admit that they have nukes, and that is part of the problem.

Nuclear Weapons
Israel has not confirmed that it has nuclear weapons and officially maintains that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Yet the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is a "public secret" by now due to the declassification of large numbers of formerly highly classified US government documents which show that the United States by 1975 was convinced that Israel had nuclear weapons.
History

Israel began actively investigating the nuclear option from its earliest days. In 1949, HEMED GIMMEL a special unit of the IDF's Science Corps, began a two-year geological survey of the Negev desert with an eye toward the discovery of uranium reserves. Although no significant sources of uranium were found, recoverable amounts were located in phosphate deposits.

The program took another step forward with the creation of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) in 1952. Its chairman, Ernst David Bergmann, had long advocated an Israeli bomb as the best way to ensure "that we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter." Bergmann was also head of the Ministry of Defense's Research and Infrastructure Division (known by its Hebrew acronym, EMET), which had taken over the HEMED research centers (HEMED GIMMEL among them, now renamed Machon 4) as part of a reorganization. Under Bergmann, the line between the IAEC and EMET blurred to the point that Machon 4 functioned essentially as the chief laboratory for the IAEC. By 1953, Machon 4 had not only perfected a process for extracting the uranium found in the Negev, but had also developed a new method of producing heavy water, providing Israel with an indigenous capability to produce some of the most important nuclear materials.

For reactor design and construction, Israel sought the assistance of France. Nuclear cooperation between the two nations dates back as far as early 1950's, when construction began on France's 40MWt heavy water reactor and a chemical reprocessing plant at Marcoule. France was a natural partner for Israel and both governments saw an independent nuclear option as a means by which they could maintain a degree of autonomy in the bipolar environment of the cold war.

In the fall of 1956, France agreed to provide Israel with an 18 MWt research reactor. However, the onset of the Suez Crisis a few weeks later changed the situation dramatically. Following Egypt's closure of the Suez Canal in July, France and Britain had agreed with Israel that the latter should provoke a war with Egypt to provide the European nations with the pretext to send in their troops as peacekeepers to occupy and reopen the canal zone. In the wake of the Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union made a thinly veiled threat against the three nations. This episode not only enhanced the Israeli view that an independent nuclear capability was needed to prevent reliance on potentially unreliable allies, but also led to a sense of debt among French leaders that they had failed to fulfill commitments made to a partner. French premier Guy Mollet is even quoted as saying privately that France "owed" the bomb to Israel.

On 3 October 1957, France and Israel signed a revised agreement calling for France to build a 24 MWt reactor (although the cooling systems and waste facilities were designed to handle three times that power) and, in protocols that were not committed to paper, a chemical reprocessing plant. This complex was constructed in secret, and outside the IAEA inspection regime, by French and Israeli technicians at Dimona, in the Negev desert under the leadership of Col. Manes Pratt of the IDF Ordinance Corps.

Both the scale of the project and the secrecy involved made the construction of Dimona a massive undertaking. A new intelligence agency, the Office of Science Liasons,(LEKEM) was created to provide security and intelligence for the project. At the height construction, some 1,500 Israelis some French workers were employed building Dimona. To maintain secrecy, French customs officials were told that the largest of the reactor components, such as the reactor tank, were part of a desalinization plant bound for Latin America. In addition, after buying heavy water from Norway on the condition that it not be transferred to a third country, the French Air Force secretly flew as much as four tons of the substance to Israel.

Trouble arose in May 1960, when France began to pressure Israel to make the project public and to submit to international inspections of the site, threatening to withhold the reactor fuel unless they did. President de Gaulle was concerned that the inevitable scandal following any revelations about French assistance with the project, especially the chemical reprocessing plant, would have negative repercussions for France's international position, already on shaky ground because of its war in Algeria.

At a subsequent meeting with Ben-Gurion, de Gaulle offered to sell Israel fighter aircraft in exchange for stopping work on the reprocessing plant, and came away from the meeting convinced that the matter was closed. It was not. Over the next few months, Israel worked out a compromise. France would supply the uranium and components already placed on order and would not insist on international inspections. In return, Israel would assure France that they had no intention of making atomic weapons, would not reprocess any plutonium, and would reveal the existence of the reactor, which would be completed without French assistance. In reality, not much changed - French contractors finished work on the reactor and reprocessing plant, uranium fuel was delivered and the reactor went critical in 1964.

DIA Estimate For Israeli Nuclear Weapons


Excerpt from 160-page secret DIA report, first disclosed and reproduced in Rowan Scarborough, Rumsfeld's War (Regnery, 2004), pp. 194-223.
The United States first became aware of Dimona's existence after U-2 overflights in 1958 captured the facility's construction, but it was not identified as a nuclear site until two years later. The complex was variously explained as a textile plant, an agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility, until David Ben-Gurion stated in December 1960 that Dimona complex was a nuclear research center built for "peaceful purposes."

There followed two decades in which the United States, through a combination of benign neglect, erroneous analysis, and successful Israeli deception, failed to discern first the details of Israel's nuclear program. As early as 8 December 1960, the CIA issued a report outlining Dimona's implications for nuclear proliferation, and the CIA station in Tel Aviv had determined by the mid-1960s that the Israeli nuclear weapons program was an established and irreversible fact.

United States inspectors visited Dimona seven times during the 1960s, but they were unable to obtain an accurate picture of the activities carried out there, largely due to tight Israeli control over the timing and agenda of the visits. The Israelis went so far as to install false control room panels and to brick over elevators and hallways that accessed certain areas of the facility. The inspectors were able to report that there was no clear scientific research or civilian nuclear power program justifying such a large reactor - circumstantial evidence of the Israeli bomb program - but found no evidence of "weapons related activities" such as the existence of a plutonium reprocessing plant.

Although the United States government did not encourage or approve of the Israeli nuclear program, it also did nothing to stop it. Walworth Barbour, US ambassador to Israel from 1961-73, the bomb program's crucial years, primarily saw his job as being to insulate the President from facts which might compel him to act on the nuclear issue, alledgedly saying at one point that "The President did not send me there to give him problems. He does not want to be told any bad news." After the 1967 war, Barbour even put a stop to military attachés' intelligence collection efforts around Dimona. Even when Barbour did authorize forwarding information, as he did in 1966 when embassy staff learned that Israel was beginning to put nuclear warheads in missiles, the message seemed to disappear into the bureaucracy and was never acted upon.

Nuclear Weapons Production

In early 1968, the CIA issued a report concluding that Israel had successfully started production of nuclear weapons. This estimate, however, was based on an informal conversation between Carl Duckett, head of the CIA's Office of Science and Technology, and Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. Teller said that, based on conversations with friends in the Israeli scientific and defense establishment, he had concluded that Israel was capable of building the bomb, and that the CIA should not wait for an Israeli test to make a final assessment because that test would never be carried out.

CIA estimates of the Israeli arsenal's size did not improve with time. In 1974, Duckett estimated that Israel had between ten and twenty nuclear weapons. The upper bound was derived from CIA speculation regarding the number of possible Israeli targets, and not from any specific intelligence. Because this target list was presumed to be relatively static, this remained the official American estimate until the early 1980s.

The actual size and composition of Israel's nuclear stockpile is uncertain and the subject of many - often conflicting - estimates and reports. It is widely reported that Israel had two bombs in 1967, and that Prime Minister Eshkol ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six-Day War. It is also reported that, fearing defeat in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs.

Israel could potentially have produced a few dozen nuclear warheads in the period 1970-1980, and is thought to have produced sufficient fissile material to build 100 to 200 warheads by the mid-1990s. In 1986 descriptions and photographs of Israeli nuclear warheads were published in the London Sunday Times of a purported underground bomb factory at the Dimona nuclear reactor. The photographs were taken by Mordechai Vanunu, a dismissed Israeli nuclear technician. His information led some experts to conclude that Israel had a stockpile of 100 to 200 nuclear devices at that time.

By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates. The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s. We believe these numbers are exaggerated, and that Israel's nuclear weapons inventory may include less than 100 nuclear weapons. Stockpiled plutonium could be used to build additional weapons if so decided.


Estimates for Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile range from 70 to 400 warheads. The actual number is probably closer to the lower estimate. Additional weapons could probably be built from inventories of fissile materials.
The Dimona nuclear reactor is the source of plutonium for Israeli nuclear weapons. The number of nuclear weapons that could have been produced by Israel has generally been estimated on the basis of assumptions about the power level of this reactor, combined with estimates for the number of delivery vehicles (aircraft, missiles) assigned a nuclear mission.

Information made public in 1986 by Mordechai Vanunu indicated that at that time, weapons grade plutonium was being produced at a rate of about 40 kilograms annually. If this figure corresponded with the steady-state capacity of the entire Dimona facility, analysts suggested that the reactor might have a power level of at least 150 megawatts, about twice the power level at which is was believed to be operating around 1970. To accommodate this higher power level, analysts had suggested that Israel had constructed an enlarged cooling system. An alternative interpretation of the information supplied by Vanunu was that the reactor's power level had remained at about 75 megawatts, and that the production rate of plutonium in the early 1980s reflected a backlog of previously generated material.

The constraints on the size of Israel's stockpile include several potential variables, several of which are generic to any nuclear weapons program. The Dimona reactor may have operated an average of between 200 and 300 days annually, and produced approximately 0.9 to 1.0 grams of plutonium for each thermal megawatt day. Israel may have use between 4 and 5 kilograms of plutonium per weapon [5 kilograms is a conservative estimate, and Vanunu reported that Israeli weapons used 4 kg].

The key variable that is specific to Israel is the power level of the reactor, which is reported to be at least 75 MWt and possibly as high as 200 MWt. New high-resolution satellite imagery provides important insight this matter. The imagery of the Dimona nuclear reactor was acquired by the Public Eye Project of the Federation of American Scientists from Space Imaging Corporation's IKONOS satellite. The cooling towers associated with the Dimona reactor are clearly visible and identifiable in satellite imagery. Comparison of recently acquired commercial IKONOS imagery with declassified American CORONA reconnaissance satellite imagery indicates that no new cooling towers were constructed in the years between 1971 and 2000. This strongly suggests that the reactor's power level has not been increased significantly during this period. This would suggest an annual production rate of plutonium of about 20 kilograms.

Based on plausible upper and lower bounds of the operating practices at the reactor, Israel could have thus produced enough plutonium for at least 100 nuclear weapons, but probably not significantly more than 200 weapons.

Some type of non-nuclear test, perhaps a zero yield or implosion test, occurred on 2 November 1966 [possibly at Al-Naqab in the Negev]. There is no evidence that Israel has ever carried out a nuclear test, although many observers speculated that a suspected nuclear explosion in the southern Indian Ocean in 1979 was a joint South African-Israeli test.

H/ Courtesy of google as i found your post straight to the point as in denial by the isreali,s , but the world knows that Israel is the best strategicaley placed nuclear US launching pad for the mid east .

[Castellano]

So what of Israeli nuclear weapons? Are they not de-stabilizing and a reason Iran may pursue a nuclear deterrent of its own? The Israelis don't officially admit that they have nukes, and that is part of the problem.

- Israeli nuclear weapons are not destabilizing, quite the contrary.

- Israeli nukes might be one of the reasons Iran pursues nukes, but certainly not in the same sense Israel has them as a responsible deterrent (like they proved in the Yom Kippur War, when they were with their back to the wall).
The point here is that nobody in its right mind fears Israel with nukes: or only out of madness or evil one would. On the other hand nobody in its right mind would be at ease with Iran with nukes.

- I don't see how Israel admitting they have nukes would change a thing.

Let's tell a short History of the Nuke:

It began when Einstein-Szilárd sent a letter to United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, that was signed by Albert Einstein but largely written by Leó Szilárd in consultation with fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.

One of those rare moments when History condenses, and there you go, in a single sentence you have many of the names that actually unleashed the genius from the bottle.

And one first observation is that Albert Einstein came close to being the first president of Israel and when President Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, Einstein was formally asked to be Israel's second president.

But my point is; notice how these people didn't even think of writing Hitler or Stalin. Einstein had sympathy for Socialist ideas and had plenty of Communist friends, yet, anyone thinks he doubted that the right guy to give nukes to was Roosevelt not Stalin?

And now, let's imagine a copy of the letter leaked to the present day New York Times: they'll publish it in frontpage. And then, we'll have an army of fools decrying "Hypocrisy!", "Double standards!", even "Racism!" "Why didn't Einstein send copies to Hitler, Stalin and the Japanese Empire?"

That is in essence the argument "If the US and Israel have nukes, why not Iran?" The people who argue it, really think they are serious when they say it.

Well, the answer is: for the same reason Einstein wrote to Roosevelt and not to Hitler or Stalin. That's why.

Voilá: this is my little trap to catch the extremely slippery moral relativists.

[Herodotus]

- Israeli nuclear weapons are not destabilizing, quite the contrary.

- Israeli nukes might be one of the reasons Iran pursues nukes, but certainly not in the same sense Israel has them as a responsible deterrent (like they proved in the Yom Kippur War, when they were with their back to the wall).
The point here is that nobody in its right mind fears Israel with nukes: or only out of madness or evil one would. On the other hand nobody in its right mind would be at ease with Iran with nukes.

- I don't see how Israel admitting they have nukes would change a thing.

Let's tell a short History of the Nuke:

It began when Einstein-Szilárd sent a letter to United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, that was signed by Albert Einstein but largely written by Leó Szilárd in consultation with fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.

One of those rare moments when History condenses, and there you go, in a single sentence you have many of the names that actually unleashed the genius from the bottle.

And one first observation is that Albert Einstein came close to being the first president of Israel and when President Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, Einstein was formally asked to be Israel's second president.

But my point is; notice how these people didn't even think of writing Hitler or Stalin. Einstein had sympathy for Socialist ideas and had plenty of Communist friends, yet, anyone thinks he doubted that the right guy to give nukes to was Roosevelt not Stalin?

And now, let's imagine a copy of the letter leaked to the present day New York Times: they'll publish it in frontpage. And then, we'll have an army of fools decrying "Hypocrisy!", "Double standards!", even "Racism!" "Why didn't Einstein send copies to Hitler, Stalin and the Japanese Empire?"

That is in essence the argument "If the US and Israel have nukes, why not Iran?" The people who argue it, really think they are serious when they say it.

Well, the answer is: for the same reason Einstein wrote to Roosevelt and not to Hitler or Stalin. That's why.

Voilá: this is my little trap to catch the extremely slippery moral relativists.

I'm aware of the history so I don't need a lecture on it. Have you read Waltz on nuclear weapons? Kahn, Schelling? Osirak didn't happen in a vacuum, neither does Iran's pursuit of nukes. Think about it.

[Castellano]

Herodotus reply

One single sentence recapitulating is hardly lecturing. But there is a very necessary lesson for these times to be learned from the whole episode: values are very real and not all values have the same value, and that was my point.

Although you haven't stated it, the next logical step from your line of argument is putting Israel's nukes in the negotiating table with Iran, (indeed, the poison of moral relativism began to spread with conflict resolution schemes in western universities, I know it first hand). I wouldn't be surprised if the next administration pushes Israel in that direction but I think it would be appalling.

First of all, I still dispute that Israel's nukes are the driving force behind Iran's nukes' program or that had anything to do with Osirak, and anyway, their motives are irrelevant, it is their values that are important.

And what do those values show? They show that if Iran gets nukes, nukes could well end up in the hands of implacable foes of Israel, but also the US and Western Civilization at large. That's right, implacable foes, who cannot be appeased.

That is problem #1 to apply in this case Waltz's thesis that "the slow spread of nuclear weapons will promote peace and reinforce international stability".

Problem #2 is that Islamic terrorism is waging its wars by proxy. Jihad brings the resources of the State to the struggle but establishes a deniability of culpability. I don't see how Iran's acquisition of nukes can lead to anything but an increase of terrorism.


I'm not saying do not negotiate with Iran, I'm saying Israel's nukes should not be part of the bargain.

[Herodotus]

One single sentence recapitulating is hardly lecturing. But there is a very necessary lesson for these times to be learned from the whole episode: values are very real and not all values have the same value, and that was my point.

Although you haven't stated it, the next logical step from your line of argument is putting Israel's nukes in the negotiating table with Iran, (indeed, the poison of moral relativism began to spread with conflict resolution schemes in western universities, I know it first hand). I wouldn't be surprised if the next administration pushes Israel in that direction but I think it would be appalling.

First of all, I still dispute that Israel's nukes are the driving force behind Iran's nukes' program or that had anything to do with Osirak, and anyway, their motives are irrelevant, it is their values that are important.

And what do those values show? They show that if Iran gets nukes, nukes could well end up in the hands of implacable foes of Israel, but also the US and Western Civilization at large. That's right, implacable foes, who cannot be appeased.

That is problem #1 to apply in this case Waltz's thesis that "the slow spread of nuclear weapons will promote peace and reinforce international stability".

Problem #2 is that Islamic terrorism is waging its wars by proxy. Jihad brings the resources of the State to the struggle but establishes a deniability of culpability. I don't see how Iran's acquisition of nukes can lead to anything but an increase of terrorism.


I'm not saying do not negotiate with Iran, I'm saying Israel's nukes should not be part of the bargain.

Iran uses terrorism because they don't have an effective deterrent. Using terrorism is fraught with risk for the state sponsor. Do you think Hezbollah is a blank slate on which Iran can project its own ambitions whenever it wants? Or does it have ambitions of its own? I doubt seriously that if the regime did develop nuclear weapons they would turn around and give them to their uncontrollable proxies. If anything Iranian funding of Hezbollah may decrease, if they have nukes. Everyone gets real rational with nuclear weapons.

As for "values" a state, any state, is motivated by self-interest and survivability. The Israelis understood why Osirak was being built and did not want to give up their own nuclear advantage in the Middle East. Why did the Soviet Union want nuclear weapons? Why did Pakistan, and India? Iran pursues nuclear weapons because they want/need a deterrent. You talk about "moral relativism" as if Israel was always a constant good in the international system.

But one man's morality is not every man's morality, which is why it shouldn't enter into the equation (I am certainly not a "relativist"). I am just pointing out that Iranian nuclear ambitions do not happen in a vacuum. Nuclear proliferation, in one sense, is inevitable. The technology has been around for 60 years, so those states without a nuclear guarantee in place from one of the major nuke powers are going to feel insecure.

Thus we have an insecure non-nuclear state situated in a volatile region like the Middle East, facing a hostile regional power that is also an undeclared nuclear power, and a major nuclear power who incidentally invaded its closest neighbor while calling both "evil", suddenly wants a nuclear deterrent... The horror, the horror .... It only has to be because the regime is evil, unstable, wants to wipe Israel off the map, give the nukes to terrorists, etc. or whatever other talking points you want to use. So yeah put Israel's nukes on the table, and see what Iranian nuclear ambitions are really about. If they are truly intent on nukes regardless of who else has them, then at the worst you call their bluff.