Time to fire up the jets...ng
Experts: Iran Able to Make Nuclear Bomb
Weapons Experts Say Iran Has Ability to Build Nuclear Bomb, Posing Nightmare Scenario for West
abcnews.go.com
.....Tehran plans to run 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium in the central city of Natanz. Iran says the Natanz facility is meant to meet the fuel requirements of a nuclear reactor being built with Russian help that is expected to be finished next year.
For now, it is far short of that goal, possessing less than 1,000 centrifuges, most of them bought secretly through the black market network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Kahn, the rest made domestically.
But Albright says Iran is not far away from being able to make the 20 kilograms or nearly 45 pounds of highly enriched uranium needed for one crude weapon.
"If you have 1,500 centrifuges ... they can make enough highly enriched uranium for about a bomb a year," says Albright, now the head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. He described any weapon Iran would be able to produce as packing about one-fifth the punch that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Feed stock for the centrifuges is not a problem. Iran has huge reserves of raw uranium and last week announced plans to extract more than 40 tons a year.....
REGION: Iran planning ‘first nuke next year’
dailytimes.com.pk
PARIS: Exiled Iranian opposition officials claimed Friday that the Tehran regime plans to have its first nuclear bomb built by the middle of next year.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, speaking ahead of a meeting next week of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to discuss Iran’s nuclear capability, said Tehran has allocated some 16 billion dollars to the programme.
“The Iranian regime is trying every means to avoid a decision by the IAEA’s Board of Governors next week to refer Iran’s case to UN Security Council,” the group said, citing “accurate information” from opposition inside Iran.
Khamenei “has ordered the relevant apparatus of the regime to produce the first nuclear bomb by mid 2005,” it added..... |
