2007 – A Year of Decision in the Middle East that will affect the World – PART 2
IRANIAN NUCLEAR BOMB BEHIND SCHEDULE
January 8, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
This is the second in a series of BLOGS on the year 2007 as a Year of Decision for Israel on the Iranian Nuclear Threat. The major question of the series is simply “What is Israel going to do about it?
” How Israel handles this problem, has, is, and will continue to, cause the world to hold its breath.
As you know by now, my guesstimate for the time of an attack against Israel will occur on some day during the time period 2008 to 2012. I suspect the events of 2007 may well determine how early or late it will occur in this time frame.
The current estimate for Iran to have a nuclear bomb assembled is 2010, but testing it, then fitting it for a missile head, then test firing it on a missile, is likely to not be completed until 2012.
In future BLOGS in this series I will be discussing the pros and cons of what different scenarios would favor the likelihood or unlikelihood of Israel going after the Iranian nuclear complex, which is scattered across the country on top of and beneath its topography.
Yaakov Katz, an excellent journalist, has an outstanding analysis of the pros and cons Israel faces in “to launch or not to launch,” from which I will draw in this and future BLOGS. It appears in the Jerusalem Post, and is titled “Decision Time.”
Begin Excerpt 2 from Jerusalem Post
Decision Time
BY YAAKOV KATZ, THE JERUSALEM POST
STATUS REPORT
Iran has built at least two dozen suspected nuclear facilities and, according to recent revelations, intends to produce fissile materials on two parallel tracks: the uranium track and the plutonium track.
Using the excuse of a plan to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, Iran is building uranium enrichment capabilities with gas centrifuges in Natanz.
According to latest assessments by Western intelligence sources, it has encountered “serious” obstacles on its way to crossing the nuclear threshold and obtaining independent research and development capabilities. These obstacles have pushed back predictions regarding the point when Iran would obtain these capabilities, with Western sources now claiming Iran will cross the technological threshold only in late 2007.
Despite the setbacks in the enrichment of uranium – a critical step in the development of a nuclear bomb – Ahmadinejad last month announced plans to build 60,000 additional centrifuges, leading Western sources to believe that it is only a matter of time before Iran overcomes the technological obstacles.
(Pakistan encountered similar difficulties in its nuclear program but eventually overcame them.)
Experts speculate that the enrichment difficulties Iran is encountering at its plant at Natanz could be behind its second track – the construction of a heavy-water production facility near the town of Arak to produce plutonium.
Israeli observers note that Iran is also building – in the same location – a “research reactor” which will probably be used for irradiating uranium and later separation of plutonium from the irradiated rods.
According to nuclear experts, Iran would need 3,000 working centrifuges to successfully enrich uranium, and Ahmadinejad has announced plans to immediately begin installing these centrifuges in defiance of last month’s UN Security Council decision to impose sanctions.
At the moment at Natanz, Iran has two working cascades – each consisting of 164 centrifuges – with which it claimed in April to have enriched uranium to 3.5 percent. For a bomb, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent or SQ, a nuclear technical term for Significant Quantity.
Once Iran completes the construction of the centrifuges and masters the technology, it will still take another year to reach SQ and then another two years to assemble a nuclear device, putting current assessments for when Iran will have a nuclear weapon at 2010.
Teheran initially had planned to activate 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, but failed, and then increase this to 54,000. Iranian officials say that would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as that being built by Russia and nearing completion at Bushehr.
Iran is also working to upgrade the type of centrifuge it has been using at Natanz. The National Council of Resistance revealed at a press conference in August that Iran was secretly produc
ing P2 centrifuges in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
P2 centrifuges are second-generation and, according to nuclear experts, are “better and more effective” in enriching uranium.
End Excerpt 2 from Jerusalem Post
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