The Geopolitics Of The Dubai Debt Crisis: It's Iran vs. The United States

U.N. report: Iran nuke site apt for bombs, not power

VIENNA (AP) — The United Nations says Iran is preparing to start up a uranium-enrichment site that was revealed only recently and which scientists suggest is too small for nuclear power purposes but suitable for making nuclear bombs.

In a report Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the site hidden in a mountainside in Qom appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year.

A senior international official familiar with the IAEA's work in Iran said that amount would be too little to fuel a nuclear power plant. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information he was citing was confidential.

Others agreed.

"It won't (even) be able to produce a reactor's worth of fuel in 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientists.

Iranian construction of the secret site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 start-up, according to the IAEA report.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the report "underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations."

The IAEA has accused Iran of possibly violating an international treaty it signed regarding nuclear programs by not telling the U.N. of the site in Qom.

Iran has another nuclear program in Natanz, where it has been enriching uranium with centrifuges under IAEA monitoring. Centrifuge machines can convert uranium gas into fuel for reactors for electricity or into fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The report stated that enrichment at Natanz had stagnated. The official suggested that experts previously working at Natanz could be preoccupied with putting the finishing touches on the Qom site, known as Fordo.

The restricted document, which was obtained by the Associated Press, also noted that "for well over a year," Iran had stonewalled IAEA efforts to investigate allegations that it actively worked on a nuclear weapons program.

Unless Tehran has a change of heart, the agency "will not be in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities," the report said.

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Israeli commandos seize ship 'carrying arms to Hezbollah'

Israel's navy has intercepted a ship carrying 500 tonnes of Iranian weapons intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli military has said.

The Israeli navy intercepted a ship heading for Syria and seized an unprecedented 500-ton haul of weapons from Iran intended for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, the army said.
“This is the largest cache of smuggled weapons ever to be seized by Israel,” an army spokeswoman, Avital Leibovitz, said in a phone interview today. “The cache includes thousands of rockets as well as hand grenades and mortar shells.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, rejected Israel’s allegations during a joint press conference in Tehran today, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.

As the World grows impatient Iran speeds up uranium extraction

Iran appears to be speeding up extraction of uranium ore at its Gchine mine site, a move that could intensify Western suspicions that the Middle Eastern state intends to build a nuclear bomb, Bloomberg reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 3), the Global Security Newswire reported. The report coincides with growing impatience on the P5+1 members about Iran's reticence with regard to proposals to ease concerns over its nuclear program and firmly stated that Israel and the international community would never agree to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed today his worries about Tehran's failure to reply to the international proposal.

They are not answering us. So what are we supposed to do. To wait? Yes, we are waiting but not till the end of the world. I am worried because the situation remains tense. And at the same time the replies have not come (...) which is a bad sign for a new meeting in Geneva. Tehran's silence is incomprehensible.

Kouchner's statement dovetailed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's who said that Iran must be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Zero tolerance needs to be shown when there is a risk of weapons of mass destruction falling, for example, into the hands of Iran and threatening our security. Iran needs to be aware of this, Iran knows our offer but Iran also knows where we draw a line. A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist is not acceptable.

The United States has said that a nuclear fuel plan offered to Iran will not be changed after Tehran called for the UN-brokered deal to be reviewed.
While the talks stall, suspicions are growing that Iran is merely buying time to advance its military nuclear program.