Western leaders reacted with a combination of indignation and outrage today when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that Iran had informed them it was in the process of constructing a second uranium enrichment facility.
Several officials used the revelation as a call to action against the Iranian government, just days before six-party talks with the nation about its civilian nuclear program. But despite a flurry of claims that the West had uncovered the “secret” facility it seems unclear that Iran actually did anything wrong.
The IAEA only actually requires that it be informed six months before an enrichment facility comes online, and the new site is at least that far from completion. Nuclear material has not been added, and the IAEA says that the data they’ve been given suggests that as with the existing Nanatz facility, the new site is only designed to enrich uranium to 5%, useful for energy production at the nation’s Bushehr power plant but not for military purposes.
Western leaders are now demanding that UN inspectors be given access to the new site. Such a demand would be seemingly reasonable, if Iran hadn’t already promised to do so days ago to the IAEA and publicly said hours before the “demands” that they have every intention of doing so.
If anything the revelation coming from Iran is inopportune for the US in pressing sanctions on the nation, as they had reportedly known about the construction for “a few years” and were planning to use the revelation to spur their call for “crippling” sactions when they discovered that Iran had already told the IAEA, as required.
Iran has done just about everything the IAEA and the NPT require. Bad Iran! So international legal and treaty participation is meaningless. Then there's nuclear Israel sitting on the global table and mum's the word. Obama spews up bravado and veiled threat. More of that "change" we've come to know and loath.
Iran, you dumbasses! The tough guy is NOT you! Montrez patte blanche!
Oh well, all the oily outrage distillate (Gordon Brown and the Gnome of Paris come to mind) seem to boil down to whether Iran correctly and lawfully informed the IAEA about their new facility at least six months before go-live or whether they broke some sort of (gentleman's?) agreement to inform the IAEA at construction time (as the Grauniard puts it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/iran-… "western officials point out that at the time this enrichment plant appears to have been started, in 2006, Iran had an agreed obligation to notify the IAEA as soon as construction began on any new nuclear facility")
Now, if western intelligence knew about this or had suspicions about this all along and kept it as a trump card (why do you need a trump card in the first place?), then they can conclusively tell us whether the feared "parallel nuclear industry" actually exists or not by just coming out with all their "suspicions" … actually we already know through that National Intel Estimate, right? It must have factored in this facility. So nothing new at all.
I someone has the time, a large A1-sized chart with the path to deployable U-based nukes and the current state of IAEA-verifications and of that path would be helpful. I always need to explain to colleagues why Iran is NOT likely to go full ICBM next weekend. Gives me high blood pressure. Come to think of it, our challenged politicians might have some use of such a chart, too.
What happend to North Korea's U-based nukes anyway? Have they fallen off the front pages?
Iran, you dumbasses! The tough guy is NOT you! Montrez patte blanche!
Oh well, all the oily outrage distillate (Gordon Brown and the Gnome of Paris come to mind) seem to boil down to whether Iran correctly and lawfully informed the IAEA about their new facility at least six months before go-live or whether they broke some sort of (gentleman's?) agreement to inform the IAEA at construction time (as the Grauniard puts it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/iran-… "western officials point out that at the time this enrichment plant appears to have been started, in 2006, Iran had an agreed obligation to notify the IAEA as soon as construction began on any new nuclear facility")
Now, if western intelligence knew about this or had suspicions about this all along and kept it as a trump card (why do you need a trump card in the first place?), then they can conclusively tell us whether the feared "parallel nuclear industry" actually exists or not by just coming out with all their "suspicions" … actually we already know through that National Intel Estimate, right? It must have factored in this facility. So nothing new at all.
I someone has the time, a large A1-sized chart with the path to deployable U-based nukes and the current state of IAEA-verifications and of that path would be helpful. I always need to explain to colleagues why Iran is NOT likely to go full ICBM next weekend. Gives me high blood pressure. Come to think of it, our challenged politicians might have some use of such a chart, too.
What happend to North Korea's U-based nukes anyway? Have they fallen off the front pages?
Iran, you dumbasses! The tough guy is NOT you! Montrez patte blanche!
Oh well, all the oily outrage distillate (Gordon Brown and the Gnome of Paris come to mind) seem to boil down to whether Iran correctly and lawfully informed the IAEA about their new facility at least six months before go-live or whether they broke some sort of (gentleman's?) agreement to inform the IAEA at construction time (as the Grauniard puts it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/iran-… "western officials point out that at the time this enrichment plant appears to have been started, in 2006, Iran had an agreed obligation to notify the IAEA as soon as construction began on any new nuclear facility")
Now, if western intelligence knew about this or had suspicions about this all along and kept it as a trump card (why do you need a trump card in the first place?), then they can conclusively tell us whether the feared "parallel nuclear industry" actually exists or not by just coming out with all their "suspicions" … actually we already know through that National Intel Estimate, right? It must have factored in this facility. So nothing new at all.
I someone has the time, a large A1-sized chart with the path to deployable U-based nukes and the current state of IAEA-verifications and of that path would be helpful. I always need to explain to colleagues why Iran is NOT likely to go full ICBM next weekend. Gives me high blood pressure. Come to think of it, our challenged politicians might have some use of such a chart, too.
What happend to North Korea's U-based nukes anyway? Have they fallen off the front pages?
Iran, you dumbasses! The tough guy is NOT you! Montrez patte blanche!
Oh well, all the oily outrage distillate (Gordon Brown and the Gnome of Paris come to mind) seem to boil down to whether Iran correctly and lawfully informed the IAEA about their new facility at least six months before go-live or whether they broke some sort of (gentleman's?) agreement to inform the IAEA at construction time (as the Grauniard puts it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/iran-… "western officials point out that at the time this enrichment plant appears to have been started, in 2006, Iran had an agreed obligation to notify the IAEA as soon as construction began on any new nuclear facility")
Now, if western intelligence knew about this or had suspicions about this all along and kept it as a trump card (why do you need a trump card in the first place?), then they can conclusively tell us whether the feared "parallel nuclear industry" actually exists or not by just coming out with all their "suspicions" … actually we already know through that National Intel Estimate, right? It must have factored in this facility. So nothing new at all.
I someone has the time, a large A1-sized chart with the path to deployable U-based nukes and the current state of IAEA-verifications and of that path would be helpful. I always need to explain to colleagues why Iran is NOT likely to go full ICBM next weekend. Gives me high blood pressure. Come to think of it, our challenged politicians might have some use of such a chart, too.
What happend to North Korea's U-based nukes anyway? Have they fallen off the front pages?