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| 5/24 |
| 2004/9/21 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iran, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:33667 Activity:insanely high |
9/21 So Iran today started to enrich uranium, from a stock sufficient for
several nukes. I read that it will be about a year before Iran can
build nukes without outside help. I don't understand this; I believe
they can do it by themselves today if they kicked the inspectors out.
Isn't this accurate? Granted it would be 3-12 months before a
successful nuke test. -liberal
(For all you wankers who think I'm a crazed freeper since I'm talking
about Iran, here's an anti-Bush carrot for you: http://csua.org/u/959
\_ Obviously you are a nuclear arms expert and intelligence agent
rolled into one so I believe you.
\_ I took Muller's Physics 7B class and read what he wrote about
calutrons. I think that, reading Sum Of All Fears, knowing
what happened with Pakistan / India, and having some clue is
enough to make my assertion. I am asking whether it's accurate,
after all.
Muller: "separation is the hard part; the weapon design is easy"
http://people.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb5.htm -op
\_ I saw 'Red Dawn' and took Physics 7ABC and I think you
are a troll.
\_ Have you read Sum Of All Fears (no, watching the movie
definitely doesn't count)? Have you read Muller's article?
Repeat after me:
"separation is the hard part; the weapon design is easy"
http://people.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb5.htm
Muller: "... can employ the simple, reliable gun method.
... the Hiroshima bomb ... was considered so reliable that
it was never tested before it was used."
http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/09_Lowest_Tech_Atom_Bomb.htm
-op
\_ Repeat after me: troll.
\_ That's because he's an idiot. He has however
discovered that one of the best ways to troll
is calling serious posters trolls.
\_ The best way to troll is to arm yourself
with a little bit of knowledge and act like
you know something. This guy is hilarious!
Physics 7B!!! I am going to bust a gut!
\_ With Muller. If you took his class, you'd
know what I meant.
I don't see you disputing any of the
evidence provided, and again, the original
post was "please show me I'm wrong". -op
\_ Let's start with your first
sentence: "Iran today started to
enrich uranium." You follow this
with: "I believe they can do it by
themselves today." You think they
can process two tons of ore in a
day? This is where the year comes
from.
\_ You really have a tough time with
English comprehension. The, "...
can do it today" part obviously
refers to the build a bomb without
outside help. In fact, the whole
construct makes no sense otherwise.
Why you would take an ambiguous
phrase and interpret it in the way
that makes it senselessness is
beyond me. Is English your native
language? -!op
\_ No, its the motd. He just wants
to start a fight. --also !op
\_ Yep, I think this is about the time the Isreali special forces
show up and blow the crap out of it.
\_ Whatever. Israel, Bush, Kerry, Europe, Russia -- they all know
the score, I just want sodans to know too when something goes down,
whatever that may be. -op |
| 5/24 |
|
| csua.org/u/959 -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040921/pl_afp/iran_nuclear_iaea_us_040921184658 VIENNA (AFP) - The United States would have an easier time dealing with Iran if it were as willing to reward Tehran for cooperation in coming clean on an alleged nuclear weapons program as it is to punish the Islamic republic for not cooperating, a former senior US official said. web sites) administration, said in a phone conference interview Monday. The interview in which AFP and nine other news organizations took part was conducted from Washington and organized by the Jerusalem-based Access/Middle East journalist services organization. Einhorn said the United States is now stressing only putting pressure on Iran, after Washington pushed at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Saturday for a resolution that called on Iran to immediately halt all work on the nuclear fuel cycle and set a November 25 deadline for a review of the Iranian program. Russia and China, which are both members of the IAEA's 35-member board of governors that passed the resolution, only signed on reluctantly to the US position. The resolution was drafted by Britain, France and Germany, which have moved closer to the US stance after Iran broke an agreement with the so-called Euro-3 for a full suspension of uranium enrichment, the process which makes fuel for nuclear reactors but also the explosive material for atomic bombs. Einhorn said the Euro 3 and Washington should reverse their "good cop/bad cop" roles with Europe becoming tougher and the United States more conciliatory. web sites) was willing to show it was ready to meet cooperation from Tehran with "carrots," such as transfers of peaceful nuclear technology, this would give it more weight with IAEA members who favor constructive engagement rather than confrontation with Iran. Russia has a huge financial interest in Iran since it is helping Tehran build its first nuclear reactor in Bushehr. The United States "has to indicate that if Iran is ready to give up its uranium enrichment, the United States will drop its opposition to Bushehr," Einhorn said. He said the United States, which has had Iran under economic and security sanctions for decades, has to show it is "prepared to engage Iran bilaterally," something the Iranians desire. If the Iranians did not cooperate with all these carrots, then the Russians and others would be more willing to back a tough US line on Iran, Eihnorn said. He said "Russia and Putin are sceptical of Iran's intentions" and have told Iran privately "that unless the (alleged atomic weapons) issue is resolved, Bushehr won't go ahead." "Russian cooperation is absolutely critical in getting a positive result to this crisis," Einhorn said. The United States wants the IAEA to send the Iranian file to the UN Security Council, which could then impose punishing international sanctions on Iran. Einhorn said that "the readiness of the United States to (constructively) engage with Iran" will give the United States a better chance of winning Russian backing on the Security Council if Iran does not cooperate. "The United States may be paradoxically having a better chance of taking Iran to the Security Council if it shows a balanced approach to dealing with Iran," Einhorn said. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse. |
| people.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb5.htm Gun-Triggered Fission Bomb The simplest way to bring the subcritical masses together is to make a gun that fires one mass into the other. A sphere of U-235 is made around the neutron generator and a small bullet of U-235 is removed. The bullet is placed at the one end of a long tube with explosives behind it, while the sphere is placed at the other end. A barometric-pressure sensor determines the appropriate altitude for detonation and triggers the following sequence of events: 1 The explosives fire and propel the bullet down the barrel. |
| muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/09_Lowest_Tech_Atom_Bomb.htm Technology Review Online October 11, 2002 Saddam Hussein had us completely fooled, once. Prior to Desert Storm in 1991, we had monitored and embargoed his importation of high tech centrifuge and laser equipment that could be used to make highly-enriched uranium (HEU). material that--once you have it--makes building an atomic bomb easy. After Saddam's defeat, inspectors found that he had spent an estimated $8 billion building calutrons, ancient devices (from the 1940s) that Ernest O Lawrence had used to make HEU for the Hiroshima bomb. Nobody had anticipated that Saddam would use such a low-tech approach. UN weapons inspectors, if they are ever readmitted to Iraq, will search specifically for evidence of calutron construction. A calutron is a magnetic separator that makes HEU by taking raw or partially-purified uranium and concentrating the rare and more easily fissionable isotope U-235, which makes up only 07% of natural uranium. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 25 kilograms is a "significant amount" of HEU--an amount, they say, "in respect of which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive cannot be excluded." If Saddam has this much HEU, he essentially has a nuclear weapon. It takes nearly two tons of uranium ore, run efficiently through calutrons, to separate 25 kilograms of HEU. Most analysts believe it unlikely that Saddam has enriched this much uranium. When his previous calutrons were discovered and destroyed, they hadn't even been finished. Thus, he probably doesn't have sufficient HEU--yet--for a nuclear weapon. Unless he is using an even lower tech approach: smuggling. In 1996, Swiss police in Zurich arrested a Turkish national and confiscated 12g of HEU. They determined that the material had been obtained in either Kazakhstan or Russia. The trail was hot, and four days later Turkish police arrested the remainder of the smuggling ring, with 12 kilograms of HEU in their possession. Is there reason to think that a substantial quantity of HEU is available? After the Soviet breakup, a large amount of HEU was left in the republic. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the government of Kazakhstan gave its stockpile to Russia for dilution and safekeeping in 1995. A year later, much to their embarrassment, the Kazakhstanis reported the discovery of another 205 kilograms of HEU. It had never been listed as missing, and no one was looking for it; The bookkeeping of the former Soviet states makes Enron's accounting look scrupulous. If you have your hands on a few grams of U-235, then Saddam is almost certainly your best customer. Assuming he had spent $8 billion on calutrons to try to produce 25 kilograms, then his cost was $320 million per kilogram. That is over 12 times the market value of gem-quality diamonds. In November 2001, police in Istanbul seized about one kilogram of HEU that smugglers tried to sell to undercover agents for $750,000. Or--here's a chilling thought--maybe there is competition, and it is a buyer's market. But experience with drug smuggling shows that we catch only a small fraction of what is smuggled. This suggests that Saddam might even now have many kilograms. Suppose he has a significant quantity of HEU--what could Saddam do? Uranium bombs, unlike the more complex plutonium bombs, don't require the tricky implosion method, but can employ the simple, reliable gun method. This is all explained in detail by one of the original designers of the Hiroshima bomb, Robert Serber, in his book, The Los Alamos Primer. Serber says that the critical mass for a uranium-tampered bomb is 15 kilograms; the Hiroshima bomb, which used three critical masses, was finished two years and four months after the Los Alamos laboratory opened. It was considered so reliable that it was never tested before it was used. Fortunately for Saddam, Serber's book gives equations and tricks (such as the use of neutron-reflecting tampers, or casings) that apparently eluded even Heisenberg, the leader of Nazi uranium project. What's more, Saddam's designers have been at work for over a decade, while waiting for their supreme ruler to obtain the HEU. But Saddam has no missiles that could reach the United States. Unlike weapons-grade plutonium, (which is typically contaminated with Pu-240, a spontaneous neutron emitter), U-235 is difficult to detect without active probing, as with a thermal neutron source). It emits alpha particles and some energetic gamma rays, but these can be shielded with lead. The easiest way to get a bomb into the US is probably in a shipping container. We wouldn't detect it unless we were tipped off about where to look. Saddam sets off a bomb in Washington DC Unlike the designers of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, he derives great pleasure from mass death. Unlike bin Laden, he takes credit immediately for his terrorism. He announces that he has additional weapons, and that if the US retaliates, he will start setting them off in major US cities. Last month, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Saddam has been seeking to buy uranium from African countries (which produce 20 percent of the world supply). This is, of course, illegal, since he has no reactors, and no legitimate use for large amounts of uranium. Doesn't his interest prove that he is, at worst, rebuilding calutrons? If I were Saddam, I would import uranium in order to give that impression, to lull the US into a false sense of security, into believing that there is plenty of time. Let's not make that same mistake twice--of assuming that Saddam is doing it in the obvious way. Well, maybe the Kazakhstan case was a fluke, and there is not a significant quantity of HEU available. Maybe most of the reported smuggling cases were actually fraud, or CIA sting operations designed to find out who is buying, and there is no real HEU to purchase. |