Dec 05 2006
Iran And Polonium-210
One angle which has not been explored sufficiently is that of Iran and Polonium-210. It was reported back in Feb 2004 that Iran has produced Polonium as part of their nuclear production efforts:
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (AFP) — Iran produced and experimented with polonium — used in the timing of nuclear explosions — some time ago, but says it was not used for such purposes, The Washington Post said Tuesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency will include Iran’s experimentation with polonium in a report to be submitted this week at the United Nations, two people familiar with the report told the daily.
Iran has submitted to IAEA inspections to show the world it does not have nuclear weapons ambitions, but its dabbling with polonium coupled with the IAEA’s discovery of components for an advanced uranium-enrichment centrifuge have raised serious doubts about Tehran’s forthrightness.
Iran has acknowledged the experiments with polonium but has offered an explanation involving another of polonium’s possible uses, including power generation.
The IAEA has left the issue “hanging there,” one person familiar with the matter told the Post.
He said the experiments took place “some time ago,” the daily added.
Polonium has some industrial purposes, but in combination with beryllium it can be used to ensure the chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion begins at the right time.
More here with the clear implication that where you find large amounts of Polonium you may find a nuclear weapon. As we all now know Polonium has very limited use in the general commercial market due to its toxicity. So let’s assume the reports that the Russian production of Polonium has been suspended for two years now and all inventories and exports have been accounted for. That would make the Iranians a plausible secondary source. Let’s connect some dots between Russia and Iran’s nuclear program:
Russia and Iran have signed an agreement for Moscow to supply fuel to Iran’s new nuclear reactor in Bushehr.
Under the deal Iran has to return spent nuclear fuel rods from the reactor, which was designed and built by Russia.
The clause is a safeguard meant to banish fears that Iran might misuse the rods to build nuclear weapons, a concern of the US, Israel and others.
The agreement sets out a time-frame for delivery of the fuel, but officials said the dates would be kept secret.
This kind of arrangement is what many on the left might like to see with Iran as opposed to the Bush administration’s efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program. It was hoped this arrangement would avoid Iran having some of the materials to make a nuclear bomb. But it doesn’t appear to address by products that could be made like Polonium-210. And now one more dot for consideration: The Chechen’s:
Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces.
Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards’ Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Tehran, the Sunday Telegraph cited Western intelligence reports.
In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.
The paper noted that this information would not “go down well in Moscow, which regards itself as a close ally of the Iranian regime.â€
This angle deserves a lot more analysis and may explain why the UK’s AWE initially determined that it was a Russian reactor that created the Polonium-210. Maybe it was just a Russian designed reactor located someplace else.
CP, heh.
All polonium is pretty much “fresh out of the reactor” because it has such a short half life that it gets old.
Bill Roggio went from the US to Fallujah in 72 hours. I believe you can go from Basra to London in less time.
Actually, and I will not go into it in detail here, there is a way to trace nuclear materials to its production source. Let’s just say it is a required feature.
AJStrata
Also note reactors are not the only production method. You can use particle accelerators.
AJStrata
“Polonium is a very rare element (its abundance in the Earth’s crust is about one part in 1015) that occurs in nature as a radioactive decay product of uranium, thorium, and actinium.”
I believe PO produced in different reactors in different countries with different components will “fingerprint” differently.
I just don’t think this PO was produced in Iran.
I think it was produced in Russia, and a lot of Russian governmental operatives (ex KGB/FSB or current) are involved.
Besides, there is no reason for the polonium itself to take a route from Iraq, maybe that is just the communications channel to the Iranians. The polonium could go from Tehran to Dubai to London for all anyone knows. I would, however, check movements of people from that security company between London and Iraq. Possibly the payroll run?
“believe PO produced in different reactors in different countries with different components will “fingerprint†differently.”
You may believe whatever you wish but all that is interesting in the manufacture of polonium are neutrons and a neutron is a neutron. They don’t even have an accent.
Again, some clues can be learned from the impurities such as where the bismuth came from and where it might have been processed to refine the polonium out but that is about it.
If I handed you two neutrons you wouldn’t be able to tell where they came from. It is like two electrons or two protons. They are all the same.
I CAN look at nuclear fuel and tell where it came from with a good degree of certainty, though. But polonium is different. It doesn’t come from ore, it is made artificially.
“there is a way to trace nuclear materials to its production source. Let’s just say it is a required feature.”
True, *if* you are operating within the law and *if* you are talking about something that comes from an ore. Polonium is different because it comes from bismuth … the same material as in your pepto-bismol. There are no restrictions on mining and transport on bismuth as far as I know. If you don’t add a tracer to it, all you do is bombard it with neutrons and “presto” polonium.
or maybe this is disinformation designed to create a wedge between
Russia and Iran?
Carol_Herman
The reason Bush so cosy with the Saudi royals is because if we withdrew all our airfields and military the Wahhabists would take over the country. We do not want the largest producer of oil in the world to become an Islamic state. They actually had nothing to do with 9/11 just some of their citizens were involved. The Wahhabists again. Some of the royals are contributing money to the terrorists for their own reasons. I really wonder about their intelligence in doing this. They have to be cutting their own throats.
But this whole role Bush is playing is diplomacyto keep the royals in power. If it wasn’t for this I would say let them sink or swim on their own because they allowed the Wahhabists to grow in huge numbers and hate America to protect themselves.
One thing is certain. America pulls out of the Mideast or America
backs off its marked tilt to Israel. The Lobby of Mearsheimer and Walt, however, will not relinquish dominance quietly, being peopled
by intransigent paranoids.
All speculation aside, where is the trail back to Iran?
Airplanes found to have PO exposure to and from Russia/London – Check.
Russia found to have produced PO – Check
MI5 and 6 in Russia investigating – Check
Russian KGB/FSB agents exposed – Check
Iran locations exposed – No.
Airplanes to/from Iran/London exposed to PO – No.
MI5 and 6 in Iran investigating – No.
I’m not getting the link to Iran other than speculated links from Litvinenko to Chechnya to Iran to PO production in 2004.
Ooooh. The Jooos are bad brigade is back.
InstaPundit is linking to “how this case is getting weird.” To an NRO article that points to Scaramella being KGB. And, that Litvenenko had once said Prodi was also KGB.
The Jooos? Perhaps, the Italians! You just never know these days, what lurks in the background.
But while Robert Gates seems to have “early access” to confirmation, thru the “Majority Weighted” lame duck senate; this case is getting high positioning. Now that Glenn Reynolds is also posting “curious links.”
As far as I’m concerned, this case is “good for the Jews.”
Why not? The russians aren’t really Jewish! Alll they carry on them are the exit papers provided during Gorby’s “thaw.” In Israel, herself, the russian mafia is to be feared. And, uses typical KGB terror, when one group fights another. Even the police are involved.
So IF there are good guys? Why not Jews? And, if the bad guys got fooled, blowing this story wide open; where’s the downside?
And, IF the Italians got fooled? Even better! Sgrena and the #1 Italain spy, whose brains were blown out, after dropping off the bag money to “free” Sgrena from captivity; whee she then turned around and said her captures were wonderful …
Why wouldn’t there be good guys?
True. No one will ever really know. Missions that are impossible play well on TV. But no one lives to talk about this stuff.
As a matter of fact, I read somewhere, that in CIA headquarters there are “honors” to those whom we will never know. Whose work is buried in silence.
I’m all for stealth in our crazy world. Plus, how the blog world has sites that hone in on the juicy bits.
Here is a computer generated translation of an article in today’s La Stampa-It indicates how deeply involved Scaramella thinks the KGB was/is in Italian politics and the kind of evidence he had:
“of the commission inquiry parliamentarian from London it announces: “They are in possession of recordings…†Litvinenko, Scaramella in tv “I have the video on the politicians†The former collaborator of the Mitrokhin inquired from the power of attorney of Naples for illicit smaltimento of refusals. Perquisiti houses and offices Naples, the search in the offices of Scaramella NAPLES – From London to Naples: the case of Mario Scaramella continues to lead a discussion. The former adviser of the Mitrokhin Commission is inquired also within an inquiry lead from the Power of attorney of Naples for a turn of refusals smaltiti in irregular way. In its guarantee information confronts turns out emitted one. According to the accusation, Scaramella would have entrusted not dangerous special refusals to society not titolate for their management. In the afternoon the judiciary police of the Power of attorney of Naples had placed seals to its Neapolitan office, in the center of the Ecpp, Environmental Crime Protection Program, in via Foria, 178. The seizure had been ordered with provision of urgency for crimes acclimatizes them from the Power of attorney of Naples. The inquiry of the Power of attorney, ambient section, would have left at the beginnig of the slid summer. Always nelol’ambito of the same inquiry it has been also listened, like person informed from the facts, a collaborator of Russian nationality that resides to Naples from some years. A.G., technician acclimatize them, are thought from the enquirers person of confidence of Mario Scaramella, in the within of the carried out activities in the Ecpp. But the day has been characterized above all from the declarations of Scaramella that, in telephone link from London dov’ is ricoverato, has told to the transmission “door Door†that “they have perquisito my house, my offices, the rooms of my relativesâ€. And it announces, contrariamento to how much had supported hardly 24 hours before (“I do not have documents secrets. The papers of which I have spoken are already in possession of the Parliamentâ€), of being in possession of new material. The reference is – it emphasizes – “to the videoregistrazioni of Litvinenko that regard Italian politiciansâ€. The former adviser of senator of Fi Paul Guzzanti asserts that for that that she regards the material in its possession “not is only deposited how much in Mitrokhin commission. There are all the documents that I have collected in three years of job, between which some many fortsâ€. It is spoken also about Italian politicians? The former adviser of the Mitrokhin says: “the mandate of the commission was to acquire tests of the ties between Moscow and leaves political Italians, of the illicit financings and espionage. I – it concludes – they are occupied to me just of these tiesâ€. Scaramella says of having “video, audiocassette and documents written in one’s own handwriting from former agents of the Kgbâ€, ribadendo that “how much product for the Mitrokhin is ended in commission†but other not connected documents Ҡto its mandate have been deposit to you. Intato the last medical bulletin of the British Agency for the protection of the public health, supports that Scaramella “is well†and “does not introduce the symptoms of poisoning†from cancellations. It has reported a new bulletin. (5 Decembers 2006) http://www.repubblica.it/2006/12/sezioni/esteri/caso-litvinenko/scaramella-controlli/scaramella-controlli.html
Barbara, trust me on this. The Saudis are about 25,000 princes strong. And, none of them have done a day’s work in their lives!
Now, they did say “they’ll protect the sunnis in Iraq.” You believe that? I think half the sunni population has already fled.
Then the saudis just said that they “won’t let lebanon become another iraq.”
Beats me WHY we even refer to Wahhabi’s as if they didn’t use OIL MONEY to destroy Islam; many mosques at a time. And, no one ever handed them a bill for 9/11. Their fingerprints are all over those events. (So is the way the Bush Family Dynasty is “loyal” to the Saudis.) When there is no longer CAUSE.
Whatever. Opinions, I’m sure, are all over the map. And, now? I’m reading the books that are surprising my ass off. Ron Suskind’s book of his “talks” with Paul O’Neill. THE PRICE OF LOYALTY. And, now? Bob Woodward’s 3rd book on this Bush presidency: STATE OF DENIAL.
Sometimes, I learn a lot by reading the critics.
And, sometimes I just stay puzzled that after Bush #41 got tossed from office, Dubya, without sufficient gravitas, landed inside the White House.
But that’s the GOP for ya! General Douglas MacArthur? In 1948, the GOP nomination went to John Dewey. So he could lose a 2nd time.
How empty is the current suit? About as empty as Warren Harding.
Enlightened,
I think you would have to agree that what is being reported is a small fraction of what is being looked at.
I am just speculating on where the Polonium could come from if the Russians are correct (and the IAEA should and may back them up).
AJ – Oh absolutely – I mentioned in the previous thread there is no way law enforcement has put all their cards on the table. This story started out so small and (no pun intended) has blossomed into a highly disturbing story.
I love to speculate (there goes my CSI hat again), but to this point in time, I just am not getting an Iran “feeling”.
For some reason I feel Putin is in this up to his dirty neck. Just a hunch really.
That fact that Luguvoi may have brought the stuff from Moscow to London does not in the least rule out the possiblity that the stuff came orginally from Iran but I am puzzled by the friendliness of Berezovsky the exile and Lugovoi et al who still lived and worked happily and safely and richly in Moscow – there had to be an important reason that Berezovsky tusted Lugovoi enough to let him in his office…what were they up to?