Iran has stockpiled enough low-enriched uranium for 1-2 nuclear arms but it would not make sense for it to cross the bomb-making threshold with only this amount, a former top U.N. nuclear official was quoted as saying.
In unusual public remarks about Iran’s disputed nuclear programme Olli Heinonen, the former chief of U.N. nuclear inspections worldwide, told Le Monde newspaper that Iran’s uranium reserve still represented a “threat.”
Until he stepped down earlier this month for personal reasons, Heinonen was deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of its nuclear safeguards department, which verifies that countries’ nuclear programmes are not being diverted for military use.
A no-nonsense Finn, he was one of the U.N. agency’s leading experts on Iran, which denies Western suspicions that its nuclear programme is aimed at making bombs despite intelligence indications to the contrary, which he investigated for years.
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Iran has material for 1-2 atom bombs
Iran is nuclear
Israel said Saturday the fueling of Iran’s first nuclear reactor was “totally unacceptable” and urged greater world pressure to force Tehran to cease any uranium enrichment.
“It is totally unacceptable that a country that so blatantly violates (international treaties) should enjoy the fruits of using nuclear energy,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said in a statement.
With Russian help, Iranian engineers began loading fuel into the country’s first nuclear power plant Saturday, marking a milestone in Tehran’s development of what it insists is a peaceful nuclear energy program.
A top Iranian official, however, was quoted saying Iran will continue to enrich uranium on the side — despite a White House warning that Iran does need the enrichment program once the new Bushehr reactor is online if its intentions are indeed peaceful.
Iran threatens to block Straits of Hormuz if attacked
A senior Iranian military official says Iran will take full control of the Strait of Hormuz should Washington opt to launch aggression against Iran.
“The country’s armed forces which are under the (Islamic Revolution) Leader’s command are in the highest state of preparedness.” head of the Operations Department of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Ali Shademani was quoted by Mehr News Agency as saying on Tuesday.
“Three measures are in store to counter any potential aggression against the country”, he said.
“The first action would be to take full control of the Strait of Hormuz whereby we wouldn’t allow any move by anybody”, the top military official underlined.
He said the enemy ‘will be brought to its knees’ as soon as it makes a move.
Bolton: ‘Israel has days to strike Bushehr’
Israel has only mere days to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor if Russia makes good on its plan to deliver fuel there this weekend, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned Tuesday.
He said that once Russia has loaded the fuel into the reactor — slated for Saturday – Israel would no longer be willing to strike for fear of triggering widespread radiation in an attack.
“This is a very, very big victory for Iran,” Bolton told The Jerusalem Post. “This is a huge threshold.”
Bolton, who also once oversaw US non-proliferation policy, said that when Russia announced the plans to load the fuel last Friday, “the element of surprise was essentially taken away” from Israeli calculations.
Bolton noted that he doesn’t “have a clue” as to whether Israel would actually attack, but he said, “If Israel was right to destroy the Osiraq reactor, is it right to allow this one to continue? You can’t have it both ways.”
Forget START: Russia to provide Iran with nuclear material next week
AP,
Russia announced Friday it will begin the startup next week of Iran’s only atomic power plant, giving Tehran a boost as it struggles with international sanctions and highlighting differences between Moscow and Washington over pressuring the Islamic Republic to give up activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.
Uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21, beginning a process that will last about a month and end with the reactor sending electricity to Iranian cities, Russian and Iranian officials said.
“From that moment, the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear energy installation,” said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency.
North Korea warns of nuclear response to naval exercises
North Korea said it would counter U.S. and South Korean joint naval exercises with “nuclear deterrence” after the Obama administration said the government in Pyongyang shouldn’t take any provocative steps.
North Korea will “legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces,” the National Defense Commission said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
The maneuvers, which involve 20 vessels and 200 aircraft from the U.S. and South Korea, pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty and security, Ri Tong Il, an official with North Korea’s delegation to the Asean Security Forum, told reporters in Hanoi yesterday.
U.S. paid Iranian nuclear scientist $5 million for information
The Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed to have been abducted by the CIA before departing for his homeland Wednesday was paid more than $5 million by the agency to provide intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. officials said.
Shahram Amiri is not obligated to return the money but might be unable to access it after breaking off what U.S. officials described as significant cooperation with the CIA and abruptly returning to Iran. Officials said he might have left out of concern that the Tehran government would harm his family.
“Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran,” a U.S. official said. “He’s gone, but his money’s not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him.”
Iranian nuclear scientist returns to Tehran
The mystery surrounding Mr. Amiri has fed those tensions. Mr. Amiri disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009. It remains unclear how Mr. Amiri reached the U.S., or even obtained a visa; officials familiar with the matter said he defected.
One year after his disappearance, Iranian state media aired a video in which Mr. Amiri alleges he was being held against his will in the U.S. after being captured by U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. Iran filed a complaint to the U.S., according to Iranian media. American officials denied Tehran’s charge that he was kidnapped.
In a second video that surfaced on the Internet, Mr. Amiri appeared to contradict that, saying he was in the U.S. of his own free will, but denying he had defected to the U.S.
In a third video, Mr. Amiri says he is in Virginia, and he isn’t a free man. “If any thing happens to me the United States is responsible. I want my family to know that I never ever betrayed my country.”
Obama plans to cut up to 40% of nukes
AP,
A government document reveals that the Obama administration is planning to cut the U.S. nuclear stockpile by up to 40 percent by 2021.
The Energy Department document provides details of the reductions that President Barack Obama has called for on a path to eliminating nuclear weapons. The reductions continue a trajectory of cuts that already has reduced U.S. stockpiles by about 75 percent since 1989.
In May the administration said that it had 5,113 nuclear warheads.
The new document says the administration would like to reduce that number to a range of 3,000 to 3,500.
Judges block Obama effort to close Yucca Mountain waste site
The Obama administration has suffered a defeat in its efforts to close the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Three administrative judges within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled last week that President Barack Obama and Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu don’t have the authority to close the controversial site unilaterally. That can only be accomplished, the judges said, by an act of Congress.
“Unless Congress directs otherwise, DOE may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process by withdrawing the (Yucca repository) application. DOE’s motion must therefore be denied,” the judges wrote, adding that the DOE had weakened its arguments by “conceding that the application is not flawed nor the (Yucca) site unsafe.”
Iran postpones any nuclear talks until late August
Iran will not hold talks with the West over its nuclear program until late August to “punish” world powers for imposing tougher sanctions against the country, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday.
He also vowed that Iran will retaliate should its ships be searched over suspicions that the cargo may violate the new sanctions, which were approved by the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.
The European Union and U.S. Congress followed with new punishing measures in a bid to show the Iranian government that notions of becoming a nuclear power could be accompanied by a steep economic price. Tehran insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
Defying sanctions, Iran plans more nuke sites
Fox News (AP), “Defying Sanctions, Iran Plans More Nuke Sites”
Defying week-old U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, Iran promised to expand its atomic research Wednesday as its president vowed to punish the West and force it to “sit at the negotiating table like a polite child” before agreeing to further talks.
Tehran, which insists its nuclear work is peaceful, said it will build four new reactors for atomic medical research. The United States and some of its allies believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and the Islamic Republic’s plans to expand research could encourage calls in the West for more economic pressure against the country.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will not make “one iota of concessions.” He said he will soon announce new conditions for talks with the West, but first he wants to punish world powers for imposing sanctions.
Fox News (AP) article continues here.
Appeasement: White House now backing off tough Iran sanctions
Los Angeles Times, “White House works to ease Iran proposal in Congress”
by Paul Richter
The Obama administration, which labored for months to impose tough new United Nations sanctions against Iran, now is pushing in the opposite direction against Congress as it crafts U.S. sanctions that the White House fears may go too far.
Administration officials have begun negotiations with congressional leaders, who are working on versions of House and Senate bills that would punish companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran or help the country’s oil industry.
Unlike the U.N. measures, congressional action would pertain only to U.S. policies and agencies and would not be binding on other countries. Other countries and groups of nations also are considering adopting measures to augment the U.N. action.
Los Angeles Times article continues here.
Iran to build new nuclear site in March
The Jerusalem Post, “Iran to build new nuclear site in March”
Iran’s nuclear chief says his country will begin construction of a new uranium enrichment plant by March of next year, a defiant announcement days after the UN approved tougher sanctions.
Ali Akbar Salehi is quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying construction will start by the end of the Iranian calendar year in March.
Iran’s government has approved plans for 10 new enrichment facilities that can process uranium gas into fuel for nuclear power plants.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday passed a fourth sanctions resolution meant to curtail Iran’s nuclear activity.
The Jerusalem Post article continues here.
Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites
Times Online, “Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites”
Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.
In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.
To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.
Times Online article continues here.