Really, really bad if he’s willing to have his State Department put out this kind of garbage as propaganda:
Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says (Update1)
April 12 (Bloomberg) — Iran, which is defying United Nations Security Council demands to cease its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days if it goes ahead with plans to install thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz plant, a U.S. State Department official said.
“Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges,” Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. “Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.”
This is complete an utter bullshit, folks. Iran doesn’t have 50,000 centrifuges, much less the knowledge or capability to connect them in the technically complex manner needed to produce sufficient quantities of bomb grade uranium. At most Iran has 160-180 workable centrifuges, far less than needed to produce significant quantities of enriched uranium for bombs. Nor does Iran yet have the technical knowhow to produce nuclear warheads for it’s missiles. But don’t take my word for it:
Continued below the fold . . .
MOSCOW, April 12 (RIA Novosti) – Iran’s announcement that it has joined the world’s nuclear club is a bluff and a political PR move, an expert at a Russian think tank said Wednesday.
“The announcement that Iran can produce nuclear fuel is largely a bluff,” said Vladimir Yevseyev, a senior researcher at the Moscow-based Center for Global Security. “What they [Iranian leaders] said about successfully completing the full nuclear cycle in laboratory conditions should not be viewed as a confirmation that the country could launch full-scale production of nuclear fuel.” […]
The Russian expert said that during the latest experiment Iran had managed to produce only a small amount of low-enriched uranium.
“Iran is talking about completing a full nuclear cycle, but actually it has not gone that far because the full cycle includes plutonium separation in addition to uranium enrichment, and the country has made only a few initial steps in this sphere,” Yevseyev said, adding that it could take Iran at least three years to accumulate enough high-enriched uranium to create a nuclear weapon.
The expert also said Iran could not be considered a member of the world’s nuclear club because the country had not yet conducted a single nuclear test.
“Therefore, I regard all such statements merely as a bluff – political PR moves designed to apply pressure on the West, and ensure a better negotiating position,” he said.
And this, from Juan Cole:
. . . [T]he fact is that all President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday was that it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent, using a bank of 180 centrifuges hooked up so that they “cascade.”
The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.
In other words, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker is blowing smoke out his ass when he claims Iran could have a bomb in 16 days. This is extremely dangerous rhetoric to be coming from a Senior Government Official. Indeed, this is by far the most chilling thing I’ve read on this entire phony Iran crisis, because it tells us just how anxious Bush is to generate public support for the military option.
It’s also consistent with the Bush administration’s refusal to consider bilateral talks with Iran to negotiate a settlement of this “crisis” and with Bush’s refusal to accept the deal Iran proposed back in 2003 regarding the Iranian nuclear program. One can not have a diplomatic track when one party refuses to negotiate with the other party, but that is just what the Bush administration is paradoxically claiming.
If anything, this should convince any remaining doubters of the accuracy of Seymour Hersh’s reporting. You don’t make baseless and reckless charges like these . . .
Iran could have nukes in 16 days!
. . . unless you have already ginned up the war machine for an attack on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure. This is part of a a blatant and amoral disinformation campaign on the part of the Bushites. Please, Democratic Party Leaders, do not be taken in by their fear mongering, nor let your voices in opposition to this insane war policy be silenced.
Speak out now. Time is growing short.
After reading this I cannot help but shudder and think back to this diary at the orange place from yesterday morning.
Iran attack in the next “2 weeks?” by Florida Democrat
Me too.
Every time you think they couldn’t act anymore crazy they just keep upping the ante.
And of course, all the talk about hitting Iran as being ‘wild speculation’ came before these revelations that Iran can magically conjure a nuclear weapon within 16 DAYS!!
Sixteen days! Impossible!! Even w/my extremely limited knowledge of science, I know that is impossible.
Steven, this is all coming together now! And domestic policy is also being implemented that will speed this up.
The media have picked right up on the drumbeat and Iraq has faded into the background.
Our media is crap and has been for a very long time. Ever since the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated, in fact.
But wait, there remains a “Fair and Balanced” news channel for us to watch and trust without question! Who needs a Fairness Doctrine when it’s in their tagline?
You bet! And putting fairness in their tagline frees up their coverage for a whole lot of other doctrines!
Maybe it’s just my ego, but there is no media except us!
Iran… “16 days”
But how many minutes or hours would it take for a nuke to make it to either of the coasts from a country which already has nukes?
How I wish these fuckers would just chill for a minute with the fearmongering.
time is relative to him… 16 days could be 16 years, or 16,000 years to us mortals… ; )
Except in Bush’s religion to save sombody you have to nuke them real good first.
Kill people so they will be saved…that is all this administration is about. Look at what is going on with Medicare D(isaster). Well, if gwb does start nuking, you think there will be some after effects in this country? And then, those who aren’t rich enough to survive will be the first to go, as more and more emergency budget cuts will be made. It’s gonna get really bad.
On the plus side, it might solve our “immigration” problem.
<snark>
Because people are generally so ignorant and so emotional about everything having to do with uranium, yellowcake, centrifuges, enrichment, plutonium production, bomb triggers, etc., etc. the administration can make ridiculous claims and get away with it.
Bush got people to believe that yellowcake from Niger could be coming at us in nuclear weapons practically overnight. DOE and IAEA scientists knew that Iraq had had tons of yellowcake since before the first Gulf War and hadn’t done a thing with it.
It takes a HUGE infrastructure to build an atomic bomb. Enrichment is a slow process.
I am guessing the Iranians have enriched only a tiny amount of uranium–just enough to say that they did it. If in fact they even managed to make any.
Well, this Administration has never let little things like facts and science and bloggers and Democratic leaders get in their way.
The only real solution to this is to get rid of this Administration.
To just add one additional detail:
it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent
This enrichment figure is typical of nuclear fuel, not weapons-grade uranium.
Good point. They have nothing approaching the technology to make bomb grade uranium, much less a large enough quantity of it to make even one bomb. All they have accomplished is the first little baby step.
As long as the American people accept the premise that obtaining and possessing weapons is, like self-defense, a privilege that can be bestowed or witheld only by the US, it is not necessary for Bush or any other regime figure to have such a great desire, or make a tremendous effort to attack Iran or any other country or countries.
The above-mentioned and similar deeply held cultural beliefs on the part of the maintsteam US population make it unecessary to do anything more than inform the public that the target nation, in this case, Iran, has disobeyed America, has a government that Washington does not approve of, and that the target nation does not approve of Washington.
Thus, to oppose such an attack contradicts cherished cultural norms, and establishes the opposer as one who does not support the troops, or the war on terror, and is in fact “against” the US, and with the terrorists, terrorists being anyone who opposes or resists US policies, which include attacking other countries.
It is an unwholesome circle dance that few will wish to join.
Plain and simple, people disobey and the admin feels it necessary to punish! Again, this is like Medicare D(isater)–if one looks at the demographics, the populations most hurt by Medciare D(isaster) usually vote democratic.
As you said, it is a cultural thing that has been brought by too many in this country–those that would rather shop till they drop, that is.
But consider this: When most of those few who DO oppose the invasion of other nations base their opposition on that other nation not having this or that weapon, well, (just insert other stuff that I say all the time here) 😀
Well, this is the other important question: what right does the US have to respond to any “threat”?
I’m not an international lawyer, but my understanding is that Iran is in technical violation of the NPT by not allowing inspections, but has not yet crossed the line from “peaceful” use to military technology (the Islamic Republic News Agency makes a big deal of emphasizing peaceful uses). So they are not in violation of any of the key provisions of the NPT. So at present, there is legally nothing to be responded to militarily. (Iran’s motivation in all this is admittedly murky, to say the least, but that is not the main issue here and now.)
Furthermore, it is down to the UNSC to determine whether Iran is in violation of the NPT and to resolve on an appropriate action – not the White House. And the other SC members do not see any need for military action at this time.
So Bush is usurping the prerogatives of an organization he has systematically undermined to assert a principle of international law (and we all know how highly they regard international law).
If I wasn’t so scared I would savor the irony.
regarding the NPT, inspections, and whatnot.
But since the US-created UN is essentially an International Seal of Approval department, unfortunately there is no real international body that could be brought to bear against the US, no matter what it does.
Nor is there any real indication that the US can be contained, or would be responsive to diplomacy, even if there were such a body.
In the final analysis, the fate of the US has been placed in the hands of its victims, both those currently under attack, and those who now decide how long to meekly wait until their child’s name is called, until they hear the buzz of the bombers over their own city…
Actually, Iran has signed the additional safeguards protocols and there is no bar to IAEA inspectors having physical access to the various nuclear facilities that Iran has declared – these are also monitored by IAEA installed cameras. Iran is actually in compliance with its obligations under the NNPT, but there are some issues regarding prior concealment of activities that are still to be resolved; the problem is that the IAEA, and various foreign intelligence agencies, have been unable to locate a “secret” Iranian programme – the US asserts the existence of such as an article of faith, but the balance of probabilities is that the declared facilities are the sum of Iran’s programme.
Iran agreed with the EU-3 to voluntarily suspend enrichment activities in 2004; the EU-3 was supposed to come up with a deal that would satisfy the Iranians, but was unable to do so ( this is largely because the US refuses to get involved in any formal negotiating tracks with Iran ).
The UNSC has asked Iran to terminate its resumed enrichment activities by 28th April – but the request has no legal force. El Baradei will submit a further report to the UNSC at the end of this month, and we’ll see where things go from there.
According to MSNBC, US intelligence says they’re 5-10 years from being able to produce a single bomb, more or less in keeping with what Cole says.
I can’t wait to see how quickly the Krauthammers of this world pick up on the 16 day meme.
He’s been chosen to Lead, and history will be his judge…
It will not be kind.
He’s just making sure the prophecy is fulfilled.
Insanity, by any definition, on a scale that I cannot fathom.
Peace
There’s a MoveOn petition here that you can sign if you are so inclined.
It’s hardly a secret that any country with enough bucks can buy all the weapons-grade uranium/plutonium it wants on the black market. Iran would be truly idiotic to go DIY when it all it has to do is go shopping. As long as there’s nuclear power, there will be enough plutonium in spent fuel to build weapons. You wouldn’t start with yellowcake.
Saying “Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges. Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.”
Is like me saying “I went to graduate school with the goal of saving the world. Now that I have saved the world, I can go on to save the other planets.”
Stephen Rademaker, you are a travesty of a mockery of a sham. Job placement courtesy of Cronies ‘R’ Us.
Didn’t intend to hijack your diary, but, I just had too many things going thru my head. (In light of the collateral damage diary.)
This whole thing is just getting scarier by the day!
OK, I’m done freaking out now!
I’ve got a wierd sense of humor.
hate it when i do that!
On DailyKos, a recent frontpage post by Georgia10 asked “So why is the military option still on the table?”
I chimed in, in the comments, with my idea…
…your thoughts?
Note the neat slippage of meanings between the State Department official and the headline:
…That is, they plan to have 50,000 centrifuges, and might eventually build them, and by using them (someday) they could make the materials for a weapon in 16 days. This gets summarized by Bloomberg as:
…which sounds like “If they decide to go ahead, they could have a weapon in 16 days” — forgetting the delay to build the centrifuges and then to convert the product into a bomb. Bloomberg then turns this into the screaming headline:
…that is to say, they could have a bomb later this month.
And State can claim that the original statement, if carefully read, was — in the narrowest, literal sense — true. Good job.
Not what I’d count as truth, though: truth is what communicates an understanding of the facts, not what can later be defended against the accusation of being a lie.
What a great summation techno…too bad the MSM can’t do this. You’ve simply and logically debunked the increasingly drumbeat for war with Iran yet once again the MSM is following along..they learned not one damn thing from the whole drumbeat for Iraq war debacle they perpetrated on the general public.
How does Iran get the parts for 1000’s of centrifuges with AQ Khan out of action and targetted nuclear sanctions of the type that killed Saddam’s program?