Irans nuclear material...

[Blue Meanie]

Looks like the UN watchdog have filed their report about the material Iran is using for it's nuclear power program. Apparently it is 3.7% (of summit or other!), and weapons grade require 90%. So that sort of puts that one to sleep as to the nuclear weapons program. Anyone more in the know care to have a say?

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=68938&sec...

[Fivepercent]

Blue Meanie said:

Looks like the UN watchdog have filed their report about the material Iran is using for it's nuclear power program. Apparently it is 3.7% (of summit or other!), and weapons grade require 90%. So that sort of puts that one to sleep as to the nuclear weapons program. Anyone more in the know care to have a say?

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=68938&sec...

The inspectors said that Saddam had nothing. And we still invaded.

[Muntu]

Your Iranian website missed a bit of the story out

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleea...

[Blue Meanie]

Muntu said:

Your Iranian website missed a bit of the story out

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleea...

Hence why I asked if anyone else knew anything... Hence not making any statements as to my opinion...

[Driller]

When the US invaded Iraq this last time, I passionately believed that Saddam had WMD and that it wasn't about the oil. Now I realise it was all about the oil and gaining a foothold in the Middle East. They spouted propoganda invented to justify it all.

I truly believe that the same is true with this whole Iran nuclear weapons thing.

[ewenm]

It does smack of the boy who cried wolf to me. Which is a sad state to be in.

[Blue Meanie]

Just thinking, (possibly with tin hat on), that it;s funny how the moment something positive comes out, another story comes out that seems utterly negative... I must just be a sceptic.

[Simpo Two]

Fivepercent said:

The inspectors said that Saddam had nothing. And we still invaded.

Not quite - the inspectors couldn't FIND anything and suspected Saddam of hiding it as he kept on boasting.

Driller said:

When the US invaded Iraq this last time, I passionately believed that Saddam had WMD and that it wasn't about the oil. Now I realise it was all about the oil...

If it was, what's the problem? As the West (which includes you and me) is discovering, the price of oil hits us all and currently our knackers are in the vice. A secure supply of oil - not at the whims of sadistic foreign powers - is rather essential.

Oil is perfectly good thing to fight for, as is food and water.

[Scraggles]

people still believe the yanks went to war for anything other than the cheap oil they hoped to get ?

[Twit]

Simpo Two said:

Oil is perfectly good thing to fight for, as is food and water.

Maybe it was in the middle ages but I hope we have moved a bit beyond that now. The Iraq invasion was based on a flimsy at best argument and there is even less to justify any action in Iran. I was utterly against the invasion of Iraq, and protested against it, I would do the same with any Iranian action.

As a complete aside, Iran as a country is amazing and its people are the friendliest I have ever met. If more people, especially politicians, actually went there and saw the place and the people themselves then they would possibly learn something.

Edited by Twit on Sunday 14th September 23:16

[Blue Meanie]

Simpo Two said:

Fivepercent said:

If it was, what's the problem? As the West (which includes you and me) is discovering, the price of oil hits us all and currently our knackers are in the vice. A secure supply of oil - not at the whims of sadistic foreign powers - is rather essential.

Oil is perfectly good thing to fight for, as is food and water.

What was the price we payed before the war, compared to after?

[RobDickinson]

Blue Meanie said:

Anyone more in the know care to have a say?

You cant make a nuke without the materiel. You get the materiel from processing that 3.7% to 90%, thats partialy what the argument is about (centrifuges etc), but the first question is why a country with such huge energy reserves is messing with nuclear in the first place ay.

[peterpeter]

Twit said:

Simpo Two said:

Oil is perfectly good thing to fight for, as is food and water.

Maybe it was in the middle ages but I hope we have moved a bit beyond that now. The Iraq invasion was based on a flimsy at best argument and there is even less to justify any action in Iran. I was utterly against the invasion of Iraq, and protested against it, I would do the same with any Iranian action.

As a complete aside, Iran as a country is amazing and its people are the friendliest I have ever met. If more people, especially politicians, actually went there and saw the place and the people themselves then they would possibly learn something.

Edited by Twit on Sunday 14th September 23:16

dont bother.

he is a fool. Simpo logic= Why try to create good relationships with countries for trade when you can go to war instead? especially if you can kill a few darkies at the same time. At least he gets to jerk off over the military hardware on the 10 o'clock news.

Oh, and he loves Bush and Blair's bottoms.

[Blue Meanie]

RobDickinson said:

Blue Meanie said:

Anyone more in the know care to have a say?

You cant make a nuke without the materiel. You get the materiel from processing that 3.7% to 90%, thats partialy what the argument is about (centrifuges etc), but the first question is why a country with such huge energy reserves is messing with nuclear in the first place ay.

Gee.. Possibly because they don't want to be reliant on oil? Does Iran have much refinery capabilities? I am aware you need to get 3.7 to 90%, but having material at 3.7% does not prove they are making, or plan to make nukes. Seems to be a 2+2=5 situation.

[eharding]

peterpeter said:

Twit said:

Simpo Two said:

Oil is perfectly good thing to fight for, as is food and water.

Maybe it was in the middle ages but I hope we have moved a bit beyond that now. The Iraq invasion was based on a flimsy at best argument and there is even less to justify any action in Iran. I was utterly against the invasion of Iraq, and protested against it, I would do the same with any Iranian action.

As a complete aside, Iran as a country is amazing and its people are the friendliest I have ever met. If more people, especially politicians, actually went there and saw the place and the people themselves then they would possibly learn something.

Edited by Twit on Sunday 14th September 23:16

dont bother.

he is a fool. Simpo logic= Why try to create good relationships with countries for trade when you can go to war instead? especially if you can kill a few darkies at the same time. At least he gets to jerk off over the military hardware on the 10 o'clock news.

Oh, and he loves Bush and Blair's bottoms.

You and Simpo....you are, in fact, married...aren't you. Go on, admit it.

[Jimbeaux]

Scraggles said:

people still believe the yanks went to war for anything other than the cheap oil they hoped to get ?

If that is what we went for we would have it, we would not be "hoping" to have it. Next theory.

[RobDickinson]

Jimbeaux said:

Scraggles said:

people still believe the yanks went to war for anything other than the cheap oil they hoped to get ?

If that is what we went for we would have it, we would not be "hoping" to have it. Next theory.

It wasnt about cheap oil for you, now.

it was about US having oil, cheap, in the next 10-20-30 years.

[neilr]

It was never about cheap oil, it was about oil (mostly) and a military foothold in the ME. The winners, as a result of having huge oil prices, (in case no ones noticed) are the huge oil companies and their (usually political) cronies.

These criminals are getting very rich and are mainly the scum involved in the Bush-Cheney oil and gs junta. Our troops and their civilian populations are dying everyday so these immoral scum can make massive profits from the whole thing. It was never about cheap oil.

I wonder how things will shap up for Iran in the long term?



..........no wait I think i've figured it out.

[drivin_me_nuts]

neilr said:

It was never about cheap oil, it was about oil (mostly) and a military foothold in the ME. The winners, as a result of having huge oil prices, (in case no ones noticed) are the huge oil companies and their (usually political) cronies.

These criminals are getting very rich and are mainly the scum involved in the Bush-Cheney oil and gs junta. Our troops and their civilian populations are dying everyday so these immoral scum can make massive profits from the whole thing. It was never about cheap oil.

I wonder how things will shap up for Iran in the long term?



..........no wait I think i've figured it out.

Errr. big bangs, hot flashes and lots of blackened bodies. What happens then in the cities and the skies of the major cities of Europe and the US.. big bangs, hot flashes and lots more blackened bodies. Oh deep joy.

[ninja-lewis]

There are three main stages to producing nuclear weapons: designing and manufacturing the weapon; gathering fissile material; and developing a viable delivery mechanism.

The latter is pretty easy as most of the development of ballistic missiles is shared with space projects. At a very basic level, you could even load the weapon into a truck and drive it to the target.

Designing isn't too difficult either: a decent Physics graduate should be able to put together a viable design in a short time using only publicly available information. Manufacturing is fairly straightforward if your country has precision engineering experience.

Gathering sufficent fissile material is the biggest and most time consuming stumbling block. You either need lots of centrifuges or lots of time to enrich Uranium-235 from it's natural <1% to the >85% weapon-grade required for nuclear weapon (nuclear energy only requires <20%).

Just to create a small number (need to build more than 1 unless you don't want to test the design or don't mind losing your entire nuclear capability in one go) of devices in the low-kiloton range requires a lot of material to start with. Once they can obtain sufficient weapons-grade uranium-235, all they have to do is come up with a design and method to deliver it, which as I mentioned above, are the easier parts.

That's why it's in Iran's interests to delay suspending their enrichment programme and why the rest of world is trying to get them to suspend it as soon as possible. Since once they have obtain sufficient weapons-grade Uranium-235, they can establish an explicit weapons programme and quickly develop an operational nuclear weapon capability. Once they have that, it'll be very difficult if not impossible to encourage them to disarm.

This could dangerously change the balance of power in the Middle East (not including Israel, the US or other outsiders), leading to a new arms race as other ME states (Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egyp in particular) develop their own nuclear weapons to counter Iran's capability.