Iran caught cheating by building covert enrichment facility

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Alan

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With Iran, 'The Cuban Missile Crisis in Slow Motion'
Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who is one of America’s leading security strategists, likes to speak of the U.S.-Iranian nuclear confrontation as “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.” Well, on Friday morning, that slow-mo process started moving a little faster, as President Obama issued a stark warning about a secret Iranian project that poses a “direct challenge” to the international order.

World leaders used language this morning that described a dangerous ladder of escalation ahead. Obama said Iran will be “held accountable” for its actions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that unless Iran changes its nuclear stance by December, harsher sanctions will be imposed. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, normally no Churchill, said there was “no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

Allison’s Cuban analogy may strike some people as alarmist, but it seems more and more apt to me. The United States and its allies have caught Iran cheating, again, on International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards -- this time by building a second undeclared enrichment facility in a mountain near Qom. It was an Iranian effort to gain leverage, reminiscent of Moscow’s moves in Cuba in 1962 as described by Allison in his classic book, “Essence of Decision.”


The Iranians outed their covert project in a lame, obtuse letter to the IAEA last Monday. But they must have suspected that the U.S., which has covertly monitored this breakout since the Bush administration, was about to blow the whistle.

A senior Obama administration official described the enrichment facility as a “hardened” facility, built to withstand attack, which has been under construction for several years. Constructing this mountain fortress was a significant Iranian move, since if it had remained undiscovered, it would have allowed them to keep pushing toward bomb production even if the Natanz enrichment site were taken out in a bombing attack or closed through negotiations. Basically, it gave them the ability to cheat.

So why didn’t the Obama administration lay down an even stronger marker in response to this breakout -- by threatening, say, to intercept ships at sea that it believed were carrying parts for the Iranian nuclear program?

The answer, explained the senior official in a telephone interview, is that the U.S. wants to preserve consensus among its allies for much harsher sanctions, even as it heads toward a face-to-face negotiating meeting with the Iranians on Oct. 1.The U.S. has privately communicated with the Iranians in recent days that it wants those talks to go forward, the senior official said.

Obama’s consensus-building seems to be working: The U.S. briefed top Russian officials this week on the intelligence about the Iranian covert enrichment site. “They are now much more prone to join us” in backing tough sanctions if Iran doesn’t back down, the senior official said. “They have been bamboozled by the Iranians. They’re pretty mad.”

If the negotiations fail and Iran makes a further breakout toward weapons capability, “we could always escalate,” says the senior administration official. It’s hard to see how this one will end short of military confrontation if the Iranians don’t start bargaining for real.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/with_iran_the_cuban_missile_cr.html

Seems Obama's appeasement policy has blown up in his face :o
 
A nation may enrich uranium. it doesn't mean that they are looking for nuclear weapons. The West want it to mean that so they have the next demon alongside Terrorism that they can declare war on.

Obama’s Hell-Ride to War on Iran
Faced with the uncomfortable and politically unacceptable reality that there exists no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, confirmed by his own intelligence community, President Obama has taken a page from the book of his predecessors FDR, LBJ, GWB, and so on: he simply made something really scary-sounding up to justify his push toward war.

This time it is the artificially manufactured hype around an Iranian uranium enrichment facility that is under construction. Keep in mind that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran, under Article IV of said treaty, has every right to enrich uranium to its heart’s content. The treaty clearly states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”

Iran has, dutifully and ahead of required schedule, notified the International Atomic Energy Agency, tasked with monitoring adherence to the NPT, of its intent to bring this enrichment facility online in approximately 18 months. But where there is no smoking gun, lighter fluid must be ignited: to undercut the Five Plus One talks with Iran scheduled to begin on October first, the Obama administration has invented indignation over discovery of this plant while at the same time holding to the story that the US Intelligence Community has known about this facility, which Obama says is “inconsistent with a peaceful (nuclear) program,” since 2006. As one administration official stated regarding the upcoming talks in light of his “discovery”: “Everybody’s been asking, ‘Where’s our leverage?’ Well, now we just got that leverage.” And right in the nick of time!

But hang on a minute: the US Intelligence Community has known since 2006 that Iran is building a facility to manufacture nuclear weapons but still in 2007 allowed a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran to conclude with “high confidence” that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program? Considering the discrepancy, one could be forgiven for concluding that either deception or incompetence is the order of the day in our enormously expensive Intelligence Community.

It is 2002 all over again, but worse: this time a good chunk of the antiwar movement will have been sidelined over its fatally wrong-headed decision to sign on with the pied pipers of the war party over the Iranian elections in June. By “going Green” (going pro-opposition instead of remaining neutral) much of the antiwar movement has been effectively silenced, its side-taking giving voice to one of the war party’s most critical claims: “any government that will cheat as horrifically as it did on these elections will certainly cheat on its IAEA reporting obligations.” No further proof needed. It is a refrain we have heard time and time again since June: “you mean you are going to believe them about their nuclear program? A regime that would cheat like that in its elections?” Antiwar movement: largely silenced. Credible proof of outcome-changing fraud: none. Coming cost in death and destruction: priceless.
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They were not caught they revealed it to the IAEA... inaccurate.
 
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Alan said:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/with_iran_the_cuban_missile_cr.html

Seems Obama's appeasement policy has blown up in his face :o
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It's interesting to note how reputable military commentators are calling the intellect and the tact of withdrawing from the European BMD project especially on the anniversary of WW2 commencement and the fact that Russians are glorifying old Stalin so much nowadays -
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6637878.html

While withdrawing from this, the Americans have said they will be putting short and medium range missiles in Central Europe after all -
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hA7WoPVXcxw-GOHPKT-2IO6KwnCA

Who knows what Obama is thinking......? "We're not putting missiles but we are putting missiles."
 
Ho hum , the usual crowd supporting Irans intention to get nukes.
Israel needs to strike and she needs to strike now.
No more ***** footing - do the job properly this time.
 
Those sneaky lil Iranians, the pranksters of the Middle East! :D Surely a homicidal madman with a couple of nukes is no threat to anybody???
 
Obama cannot afford a war with Iran. It is much larger than Iraq and his soldiers won't be welcomed with open arms.
 
maybe someone else is busy with a nuclear programme and it only helps their cause that Iran is being targeted as all eyes are on them now?
 
One step closer to War. The sooner they sort out the damn Iranians the better. They are a major threat to peace in the Middle East and its time for some serious sanctions.
 
Reminds me so much of the BS spoken before the invasion of Iraq. I read the end of the world will start in the middle east, i highly doubt the US are that stupid to think they can attack Iran.


Ho hum , the usual crowd supporting Irans intention to get nukes.
Israel needs to strike and she needs to strike now.
No more ***** footing - do the job properly this time.


I personally think if Iran gets a bomb they should just nuke Israel, get it done with fast, the US is over committed and Israel is an easy target. Then the US can nuke iran and basically your 2 shyte stirrers in the middle east get wiped out and the end of the world can commence :D.
 
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killadoob said:
I personally think if Iran gets a bomb they should just nuke Israel, get it done with fast, the US is over committed and Israel is an easy target. Then the US can nuke iran and basically your 2 shyte stirrers in the middle east get wiped out and the end of the world can commence :D.
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No Muslim country will nuke Israel, it's the holyland so it's holy to Muslims too, that would be like nuking the vatican if you're catholic.

Israel really is a paradox, it favours one religion in a land holy to 3 major religions, it's supposed to be the holy land. :rolleyes:
 
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Why Iran confessed to secret nuclear site built inside mountain

Why Iran confessed to secret nuclear site built inside mountain

At first it was one of many suspicious sites but forensic gathering of intelligence by the west eventually forced Iran to come clean


It is not clear how western intelligence came to the conclusion that the Qom plant was big enough for 3,000 centrifuges.

The number is important. It is far too many for a pilot plant, which is what Iran claims it is building. That normally consists of a single "cascade" of 164 centrifuges, (and in any case there is already a pilot plant in Natanz). On the other hand, 3,000 centrifuges are not nearly enough for a civilian power programme. They can produce between one and two metric tonnes of low enriched uranium a year. That is not enough to fuel a power station, which normally requires more than 50,000 centrifuges. But 3,000 is more than enough uranium, if enriched further, to make a nuclear warhead every 12 months
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Monkey-boy president of the Islamic Republic of Iran EXPOSED.
 
BrandonH said:
Israel gets attacked quite often so obviously it will be involved in wars.
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Yes but no government attacks it. It receives a rocket or two from terrorsits and then proceeds to level lebanon. They have a right to defend themselves ofcourse but that response was way outa proportion. also, iran did not attack isreal
 
conezone said:
Yes but no government attacks it. It receives a rocket or two from terrorsits and then proceeds to level lebanon. They have a right to defend themselves ofcourse but that response was way outa proportion. also, iran did not attack isreal
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Israel has the right to choose how to respond.

For instance if I wake to find someone attacking me in my own house I would prefer to blow his head off with a shotgun instead of trying to reason with him.
 
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