Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Nuclear Power -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arno who wrote (7)	6/3/2004 11:13:45 PM
From: arno	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 180

Iran threatens Israel with matching reply: Nuclear facilities' bombing plan TEHRAN: Israel will suffer a "painful" response if it dares to attack any of Iran's nuclear facilities, the Islamic republic's top national security official warned on Wednesday. "I do not think Israel will make such a stupid move because it knows fully well how we will respond," Hassan Rohani told a news conference. "Our response will be painful to Israel," he said, but dismissed all talks of an Israeli attack as "propaganda". Last month Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran was "probably the main existential threat" to his country. Both Israel and the United States suspect Iran is developing nuclear weapons under cover of an effort to generate nuclear energy. In 1981, Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear facility, and there has been speculation it may consider doing the same for Iran - which continues to call for the destruction of the Zionist state. Rowhani's comments came as he answered to new revelations from the UN nuclear watchdog that bolstered suspicions over the Islamic republic's shadowy atomic energy programme. US N-ALLEGATIONS: Mr Rohani challenged the United States on Wednesday to produce any evidence it has that Tehran is actively trying to build a nuclear bomb. "If the Americans have any claims or information they should hand it over to the (UN nuclear watchdog) agency, but it's clear they have nothing," Mr Rohani told reporters in Tehran. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had only minor concerns about Iran and would soon be able to reassure the world Tehran has no atomic arms ambitions. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told NATO parliamentarians on Tuesday that he could not rule out that Iran's nuclear programme was linked to a military weapons programme. "The jury is out on whether (Iran's) programme has been dedicated exclusively for peaceful purposes," ElBaradei said. The IAEA said on Tuesday in a confidential report on Iran, obtained by Reuters, there are two major issues it must resolve. First is the origin of enriched uranium traces found at sites in Iran, which some diplomats on the IAEA board say had raised concerns Iran was secretly enriching uranium for use in weapons. The second is Iran's centrifuge programme, especially its interest in advanced P2 enrichment centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium. The report said Iran had admitted importing P2 parts and may have had interest in parts for thousands of centrifuges - contrary to what it told the agency before. The United States accuses Iran of running a secret nuclear weapons programme that is parallel to its declared atomic energy programme. Iran denies this, insisting its ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity. "I think the administration oversteps the evidence by saying it knows Iran has a weapons programme," said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington. "There's no evidence that's been found that shows they have an active nuclear weapons programme," Albright said. But he said Iran seems to be keeping the weapons "option" open by pursuing uranium enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants or in weapons. "I think the US should be rightly criticised for not providing evidence of a weapons programme in Iran," he added. The United States accused Saddam Hussein of reviving Iraq's dismantled atomic weapons programme after UN inspectors were forced out in 1998, but no evidence was found to support this. This was one of the main justifications for the Iraq war. While the IAEA report shows that Iran has been changing its story regarding its research in potentially weapons-related technology, analysts and diplomats close to the IAEA said it contained no "smoking gun" that Iran is working on an atom bomb. Mr Rohani said the IAEA had only minor questions related to Iran's nuclear programme. "This report shows that Iran's nuclear case is approaching the end and there are no more important issues," he said. hipakistan.com