Archive for October 25, 2010

Iran set to load fuel to core of 1st atomic plant

October 25, 2010

Iran set to load fuel to core of 1st atomic plant – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Despite delays and international pressure, head of Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee says Bushehr power plant to be loaded to its core Tuesday

Reuters

Iran will load fuel into the core of its first nuclear power plant on Tuesday, a senior MP said, and celebrations will be held to mark what is one of several important steps in the Islamic state’s nuclear program.

“The fuel of Bushehr power plant will be loaded to its core tomorrow,” the head of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Monday.

Conspiracy Theory
‘Mossad behind Iranian military base blast’ / Ynet
France’s Le Figaro claims recent explosion at secure military base was part of Mossad’s efforts to derail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions
Full story

Iran began fuelling the plant in August and officials have said the reactor will begin producing energy in early 2011, a delay of several months following the spread of a global computer virus believed to have affected mainly Iran.

Iran says the plant eventually will generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, about 2.5% of its power needs.

Experts have said firing up the $1-billion plant will not take Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb since Russia will supply the enriched uranium for the reactor and take away spent fuel which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.

Iran has been under international pressure to halt enriching uranium, something the West fears is aimed at making nuclear weapons. Tehran denies it wants to make a bomb and says its nuclear activities are aimed at reducing consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas.

The United States has criticized Russia for building and supplying fuel to Bushehr.

Tehran’s refusal to stop enrichment has resulted in a series of UN sanctions and tougher unilateral measures by the United States, the European Union and others.

Iranian officials have confirmed the Stuxnet virus had hit staff computers at the Bushehr plant but had not affected major systems there. Security experts say the computer worm may have been a state-sponsored attack on Iran’s nuclear program and may have originated in the United States or Israel.

Bushehr was begun by Germany’s Siemens in the 1970s, before Iran’s Islamic Revolution, but has been dogged by delays.

Lieberman orders ‘day after’ plans for tackling nuclear Iran

October 25, 2010

Lieberman orders ‘day after’ plans for tackling nuclear Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

While government remains committed to prevention, contingency plan hints Israel may be losing faith in the world’s ability to halt Tehran’s atomic program – either diplomatically or by force.

By Reuters

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has commissioned a report on how to prepare for a nuclear-armed Iran as doubt mounts about the efficacy of preventive action, an Israeli source said on Monday.

Publicly, Israel has pledged to deny the Iranians the means to make a bomb but its previous, centrist government also discreetly drew up “day after” contingency plans should Tehran’s uranium enrichment pass the military threshold.

Lieberman - Reuters - Oct 12, 2010 Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman before his meeting with his Finnish counterpart on October 12, 2010.
Photo by: Reuters

At the time, rightist opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu called for Israel to consider preemptive strikes against its arch-foe’s nuclear sites. Now prime minister, Netanyahu has reined in such rhetoric while not ruling out the use of force.

In a sign the government is examining a full range of options, Lieberman, the most hawkish member of Netanyahu’s coalition, has ordered ministry strategists to draft a paper on “what to do if we wake up and discover the Iranians have a nuclear weapon”, said the senior Israeli political source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Foreign Ministry planners are also preparing a report on possible responses should the Palestinians unilaterally declare a state taking in all of the occupied West Bank, where continued Israeli settlement has bogged down U.S.-sponsored peace efforts.

Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. Its aircraft bombed Iraq’s atomic reactor in 1981 and launched a similar sortie against Syria in 2007.

But many independent experts believe Israeli forces could not take on Iran alone. The Iranians have dug in, dispersed and prepared to defend many of their nuclear facilities.

Even were its warplanes to manage a successful sneak attack, Israel would almost certainly suffer retaliatory Iranian missile salvoes worse than the short-range rocket attacks of Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas in the 2006 and 2009 border wars.

There would be a wider diplomatic reckoning: World powers are in no rush to see another regional conflagration, especially while sanctions are still being pursued against an Iranian nuclear programme which Tehran says is peaceful.

The planning department of Israel’s Foreign Ministry is one of several units guiding government strategy. Chief among these are the National Security Council and an inner cabinet made up of Netanyahu and six other top ministers, including Lieberman.
Netanyahu’s office declined comment on the Lieberman initiative. A senior Israeli official said: “The government’s position is that all attempts have to be made to prevent Iran
from going nuclear.”

Israel’s government has voiced cautious confidence in sanctions. But it also believes Tehran could have a nuclear warhead as soon as 2012-2014, an assessment shared by some in the West.

Israeli defence officials have placed a priority on improving the national missile shield and bolstering a network of civilian bomb shelters – a posture that may herald
resilience in the face of an eventual nuclear-armed Iran or a bracing for reprisals should Israel strike Iran first.