Nuclear War

Iranian dancers holding aloft some brand new enriched Uranium
Seems weird to use the actual tubes though, instead of symbolic tubes, but what do I know...
Not as much as the bloggers at
arms control wonk.
I can only take the full-scale-wonk posts in small doses due to my low wonk-reading-comprehision-IQ. They are smarter than yer average blogger.

Like fer instance:

Iran probably made the announcement to celebrate the very first grams of LEU. Even if the cascade has been operating for a month, assuming 2 SWU per centrifuge per year, Iran can’t have produced more than a few (say half a dozen) kilograms of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent.

Hence the dancing guys with tiny lightsabers of LEU.

There's plenty more where that came from, including why "We're Not Going to Nuke Iran."

The Moscow Times is reporting that some Russians are concerned that they'll run out of Nukes and (this is my speculation) become vulnerable to a first strike by the United States.

According to the article, one of Russia's top missile designers - Yury Solomonov, head and chief designer at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology - told reporters that Russia still has plenty of nuclear warheads and nuclear capable missiles, namely the Topol-M and Bulava.

He said the two missiles were second to none in surviving a nuclear strike or an attempt to destroy them by laser beams.

They also can easily penetrate any missile shield, including the fledgling U.S. national missile defense system, Solomonov said.

Bulava and Topol-M drop their engines much faster than their U.S. analogs, making them hard to detect early, he said, adding that this and other features would allow the re-entry vehicles to pierce any missile shield "with a probability of one."

How close is Iran to enriching enough uranium to build one nuclear weapon?

Bloomberg - Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says

``Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. ``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.''

OR

New York Times - Analysts Say a Nuclear Iran Is Years Away

"They're hyping it," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, a private group that monitors the Iranian nuclear program. "There's still a lot they have to do." Anthony H. Cordesman and Khalid R. al-Rodhan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington called the new Iranian claims "little more than vacuous political posturing" meant to promote Iranian nationalism and a global sense of atomic inevitability.

THE IRAN PLANS - Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH paints a grim picture: If Iran is to be bombed, the best tool in the U.S. arsenal to eliminate Iran's Nukes is the use of U.S. nukes...

Here's a bit of the recent article:

...Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars...

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface...conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said...The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said...

Read more about theB61 Nuclear Bomb from Global Security dot Org.

READ the full New Yorker article

The Story created enough of a splash to warrant a reaction from the administration.
Bush: Talk of Iran attack 'wild speculation'

"There's just no way you can hide it." [said] Mr Donohue [who] is part of a multinational team of scientific sleuths attached to the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose latest monitoring report on Iran's nuclear programme is due next month...

A single stray picogram of plutonium, one trillionth of a gram, is all that is needed to raise suspicions that a civilian nuclear plant could be making weapons-grade material...

And...


The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday that it was up to Iran to ensure a diplomatic resolution of its nuclear standoff with the West, which suspects Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a statement on Wednesday calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which can produce fuel for atomic power plants or weapons, and asked the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear agency to report back on Tehran's compliance in 30 days.

The IAEA's Full Iran Page

Meanwhile:

Today Iran says it has test fired an underwater missile that they claim to be the worlds fastest, durring their `Holy Prophet war games' northwest of the Persian Gulf. Why not see what Fox News has to say about this latest development, which has a worst-case-nuke-warhead-scenario.