Jan 31 2006
Iranian Bravado Backed Ny Nuke?
My biggest concern about the Iranian bravado has been it is a dumb game to play if they did not yet have a nuclear warhead of some kind. They saw how bluffing the US worked for Saddam. The Mullah’s may be mad – but they are not stupid. Now some are saying what I suspected and feared:
Rafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type. “Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map,” repeating it in various versions. His efforts at denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were slaughtered prove that there is method in Ahmadinejad’s madness. “Don’t treat him like a madman,” Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz recently cautioned.
Eitan’s assessment of the situation is especially important because of his extensive intelligence experience in Israel’s struggle for its existence, even before its establishment in 1948. Eitan was among those that laid the operational foundations for the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Mossad.
…
Eitan told me: “I am convinced that the Iranians already have at least one or two nuclear devices. They have been operating centrifuges for a number of years now, they have natural uranium, and who on earth believes the Iranians when they say that they have closed down one facility or another? You would have to be an idiot or terribly na ve to believe them.”Eitan says that this view was bolstered by conversations he held with various experts from abroad who came to the Herzliya Conference – that Iran already has a an atom bomb. What should concern not only Israel but Europe too, continues Eitan, is the fact that the Iranians have acquired cruise missiles with a 3,000-kilometer range. They tried to purchase nine missiles of this kind in Ukraine from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union, but Russia thwarted part of the deal and Iran received three or four such missiles.
This game of chicken is getting very dangerous. My guess is this will be a main topic of the SOTU if the Iranian threat is real or near to real.
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Defense & Foreign Affairs/International Strategic Studies Association
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis
January 24, 2006 Tuesday
The Nuclear Question
It is possible that Iran could reach proof of concept test stage for its military nuclear program within the time frame forecast; ie: by March 17, 2006. However, how such a test is undertaken will tell, in reality, the level of credibility of the clerics’ nuclear threat. If the test is an actual underground explosion, for example, it would highlight the reality that the clerics are attempting to make a statement to domestic and general audiences around the world, not to prove, scientifically, the capability. Such proof can be achieved without detonation, by demonstrating the viability of the triggers, and using computer simulation from that point onwards. However, such a demonstration lacks psychological impact at a political level.
It is possible, if a live weapon is used, that this could be one of the eight or more warheads now in the hands of the Pasdaran Air Force. At least three were acquired from Kazakhstan in December 1991.
In February 2002, Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, the monthly print journal and sister–journal to GIS, an article by Senior Editor Yossef Bodansky reported: “By the end of 1991, Iran had all (or virtually all) the components needed to make three operational nuclear weapons: aerial bombs and/or surface–to–surface missile (SSM) warheads. Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy has learned from highly–reliable sources that the weapons were assembled from parts bought in the ex– Soviet Muslim republics. These weapons can become operational as early as February to April 1992. Tehran is committed to providing Syria with a nuclear umbrella before June 1992.” [The text of that report is carried in the Iran Special Reports section of GIS.]
The weapons obtained from Kazakhstan were two nuclear warheads and one aerial nuclear bomb. As well, in April 1992–1993, Iran purchased FOUR more warheads for SCUD–type SSMs which were upgraded in the DPRK. Since that time, Iran acquired a reported four nuclear weapons from Ukraine, and additional warheads from the DPRK (North Korea). In fact, there is also evidence that Iran may have acquired up to six warheads from Ukraine, delivered via Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It is understood that the indigenous production focuses around designs which are essentially the same, or similar to, those of Pakistan. An actual detonation of an Iranian weapon would disclose to sensors much about the type of weapon and the origins of the fissionable materials used in its construction.
SBD
How long will it take before one of Al Queda’s flavors winds up with one or more of these weapons?