Iran gives IAEA blueprints linked to possible nuclear arms program
Agency has been seeking possession of blueprints since 2005; Tehran has failed to meet other IAEA requests.
By The Associated Press Tags: Iran IAEA Iran nuclearVIENNA, Austria (AP) - After years of stonewalling, Iran has given the UN nuclear agency blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday, in an apparent concession meant to head off the threat of new UN sanctions.
But the diplomats said Tehran has failed to meet other requests made by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its attempts to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy on the part of the Islamic Republic.
The diplomats spoke to The Associated Press as IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei put the finishing touches on his latest report to his agency's 35-nation board of governors, for consideration next week. While ElBaradei is expected to say that Iran has improved its cooperation with his agency's probe, the findings are unlikely to deter the United States, France and Britain from pushing for a third set of UN sanctions.
The agency has been seeking possession of the blueprints since 2005, when it stumbled upon them among a batch of other documents during its examination of suspect Iranian nuclear activities. While agency inspectors had been allowed to examine them in the country, Tehran had up to now refused to let the IAEA have a copy for closer perusal.
Diplomats accredited to the agency, who demanded anonymity for divulging confidential information, said the drawings were hand-carried by Mohammad Saeedi, deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and handed over last week in Vienna to Oli Heinonen, an ElBaradei deputy in charge of the Iran investigations.
Iran maintains it was given the papers without asking for them during its black market purchases of nuclear equipment decades ago that now serve as the backbone of its program to enrich uranium - a process that can generate power or create the fissile core of nuclear warheads. Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment has been the main trigger for both existing UN sanctions and the threat of new ones.
Both the IAEA and other experts have categorized the instructions outlined in the blueprints as having no value outside of a nuclear weapons program.
While ElBaradei's report is likely to mention the Iranian concession on the drawings and other progress made in clearing up ambiguities in Iran's nuclear activities, it was unclear whether it would also detail examples of what the diplomats said was continued Iranian stonewalling.
Senior IAEA officials were refused interviews with at least two top Iranian nuclear officials suspected of possible involvement in a weapons program, they said. One was the leader of a physics laboratory at Lavizan, outside Tehran, which was razed before the agency had a chance to investigate activities there. The other was in charge of developing Iran's centrifuges, used to enrich uranium.
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The shape of the fissile core, and the explosives encasing it are collectively called an "explosive lens". In a thermonuclear bomb the assembly includes a "beryllium reflector" which helps concentrate neutrons at the heart of the implosion/reaction site to move the reaction from fission to fusion. 3rd generation nuclear warheads in fact control the propagation of primary and various secondary shock waves through the reaction plasma using the shape and the timing of the initial chemical explosive detonation in order to "tune" the reaction process. This is how the famous "neutron bomb" is made, and now we have warheads which convert the greater part of the fission/fusion energy to microwave radiation -- the nuclear High-Powered Microwave (HPM) warhead. You need to read Scientific American, not junky old 1950s US Army manuals posted on the internet.
For all the talkbackers who provided the knee-jerk responses I already predicted in my last post: *the* problem is that by being a signatory to the NPT, Iran benefits by receiving international technology *assistance* to build its reactors, like the one at Bushire. By sliming along in an Islamic takkia mode Iran is milking the international community for the very capacity the regulators say they cannot have according to Iran's own voluntary treaty obligations: they gave up the right!! Combining the acts of signing, taking the technology assistance (mainly Russian), and not-so-clandestinely building a bomb is the ultimate slap in the face of the international community. Israel never had such hutzpa! And Israel has never made official declarations supporting the annihilation of fellow UN member states.
I meant to say you are either very full of hatred,ignorance, or stupidity (all three)?
Israel has never threatened to "wipe any other country off the face of the map". If the extremist animals surrounding Israel were to live peacefully alongside Israel, the world would absolutely never see any aggression from the jewish state. But with so many jew haters intent upon the destruction of Israel, is it really any wonder whatsoever, that Israel be armed with the most sophisticated technology available? Unlike Iran, Israel would never seek to eliminate another country. Following Hitlers attempt to rid the world of jews, the jews of the world have resolved to never allow another attempt to destroy us as a people. You are either very ignorant, or very stupid Maureen Ann!
Two days ago Haaretz canned this story, reported from Cairo by its own reporter Yoav Stern, about how Arabs are really not interested in Peace regardless of Israel`s actions. Find out what Haaretz is hiding from its readers: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/922744.html
Ableaze come here already for the good life awiting you as my third best wife.
I remember the "Red Mercury" scare. The Soviets, it was revealed, had invented "red mercury" which was the key to a super-small, super-powerful nuclear weapon. Like "cold-fusion" it was a fraud.
Dear Ovadiah It follows from your logic that in order to rejoin the good safe nations, Iran has to renege on having signed the non proliferation treaty and goes underground like Israel. A very curious argument indeed. But what can you expect from fanatics Zionists eager to justify everything Israel does?
to develop nukes like other countries,notably those who have used it once and those who threaten the ME because they have possession of nukes.If and when the entire world cuts back,better still destroys all its nuclear armaments and nuclear weapons are banned from the planet,Iran has the right.This is all to keep the monopoly in israel's hands.I personally believe that Iran should develop nukes so that there will be a balance of terror in the ME& israel can no longer act like the lawless nation that it now is !
Iran released only those drawings that were obsolete and were no longer required---Anything of value, they're still holding on to, keeping it close to the vest--
Really? That Iran has finally turned over what it was known to have just eliminates one issue - and a very old issue. "Iran has given the UN nuclear agency blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, . . " - AP It would appear that the Associated Press has no idea about 'warheads'. The first Uranium bomb was Little Boy L-11 which went critical over Hiroshima. It had a roughly cylindrical critical mass (actually well over a critical mass composed of a projectile composed of rings which was a hollow cylinder and a target, composed of a number of small parts which was roughly a cylinder the size of the hollow core of the projectile. See the "Los Alamos Primer" for essential factors of the masses of U-235 involved. let us consider the most common US strategic warhead right now, the W-88. Anyone want to tell me the shape of the primary of the W-88? Hint, it isn't a sphere. One can make the fissile core of atomic weapons many shapes.
there's no other option. nuclear iran is not an option.
Nobody with a clear mind will be able to say now, he doesn't know, what Iran is preparing. It means that in case of continued non-cooperation with the IAEA and the continuation of this program Iran implicitly accepts the possibility of a forces disassembling of it's nuclear abilities in the near future. Simple as it is.
The best part of the report was IAEA dupes stumbled over top secret nuclear plans, showing the MOLD of a warhead.I am sure that the fiddlers actually LOST those plans. Soon they will stumble over another LOST guidance system. And so on. Maybe they will find the screenplay for" LOST." Thats where they are building their Persian Nuke. Bye bye.
Where is Israel's international responsibility? Israel, a belligerent little state with an aging nuclear plant, Dimona, and other 'special weapons' facilities!
It will be the usual, "this is old news", "they're only partial plans", "they received it accidentally", "they deserve to be a nuclear power", "Israel has nukes", and all the other dismissive blah blah from those kooks. But basically, and this is the IAEA trying to be gentle with Iran, Iran is caught red-handed here and even tried to resist 'fessing up. The issue is that Iran has failed the test of international responsibility by subverting its signatory status on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is now a known international treaty violator, a completely dishonest agent. Say what you will about Israeli nuke capability, but she honestly went her own way by *not* joining the treaty and bearing all the flack generated by *not* signing. Iran, by contrast, slimes along under the rubric of Nationalist Islamic takkiya -- religiously sanctioned lying. It's Muhammed's Hudabiya treaty violation all over again, at the nuclear threshold. So much for MAD paradigms from the West!
Who buys nuclear equipment on the black market and does not ask for blueprints. We are suppposed to believe they were just dropped off in Teheran by accident?