far be it for me to introduce facts into the UNSC, but it still has not been demonstrated that the Republic of Iran has a nuclear weapon development program.

Now I hope we are not going to use the Chaney/Rumsfield "logic" of "since we can't prove it false, it must be true."

Let's just let the IAEA and INTEL do its thing.

We don't need another "slam dunk: we need careful and methodical analysis dealing with facts not fears. :nope:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...005961,00.html


Interesting..

well fat chance on any of the original five giving up nuclear weapons.
The concept of "it is OK for us to have em but you can't" will be harder and harder for other nations to accept, I am afraid".

Imagine a circumstance where only China, Russia, England, France were able to have nuclear weapons. How would that make us feel? pretty vulnerable and uncomfortable right?

Why would we not assume that other nations would also feel vulnerable and uncomfortable when some nations have em and theirs can't?

Can we really blame countries like Israel, North Korea, India, and Pakistan from wanting to develop their own nuclear weapons? Naturally we don't like them having nukes (it is always better to be the few having em) but can we blame them for wanting em?

Can we really be justified by our expressed fear about one of "those" countries using a nuclear weapons when out of the ten nations with nukes (I include RSA) only one of them has ever used them?:oops:

A very difficult and complex issue.

As soon as the first weapons were created, they were used. Do you think that will happen if Iran develops them?

Wouldn't uranium enrichment kind of point to that?

Ya need enriched uranium for power generation too, AFAIK.

Were the first users religous nut cases that thought a country should be wiped from the face of the earth? Could it be presumed that they also would use it again if they used it once?

Only in small qauntities. They are doing a lot more then is needed for any reactor so what would the extra be used for?

That statement is worth examining. Many different interpretations exist. check
In answer to your question, no. I was examining SKybird's statement rather than sitcking up for Iran.
That's possible.

Actually you will need much more enriched Uranium for a reactor than for a nuclear weapon.

The amount of Uranium in reactors are in the tens of Tons and Uranium in weapons in the 10's of Kilos.

The amount is not the defining factor, but the enrichment factor. Light water reactors need about 3.5% (depending on the design) Uranium weapons need enrichment in excess of 92%. There are some power reactors that require enriched Uranium close to 90% but they are pretty rare and specialized power reactors.

So far there has not been any evidence that the Iranians have enriched any appreciable quantity of Uranium to anywhere near 90%.

So the concern is not how much Uranium the Iranians are enriching but to what enrichment factor if we want to determine whether they are deviating from a power reactor to a weapon development effort.

Oh come on!. Everyone knows Iran needs Nuclear power to provide electric service to the people of Iran.

After all it is not like Iran has a lot of oil reserves. :88)

Do you think the sanctions will work? Or do you think we should take direct action to stop them if they continue? Or perhaps, let them do whatever they want and hope for the best?

how come in the 1970's, when the shah was our puppy dog, we did not object to his plan to build 20 nuclear reactors in Iran. Of course back then, we (the US) were going to get the contract to build them.

I guess if we get the contract to build them, it is ok, but if the Russians get the contract it is wrong. :hmm:

Makes $en$e I gue$$

Quote:
Iran has demonstrated a capability possessed by only about ten countries. Because of the characteristics of gas centrifuges, the Iranian facility could be used for the production of low enriched uranium for civil purposes or highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, depending on the decision of the Iranian government.

Iran's small-scale enrichment used 164 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas to increase its proportion of the isotope needed for the nuclear fission at the heart of a nuclear reactor or a bomb.
Saeedi said Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at its facility in the central town of Natanz by late 2006, then expand to 54,000 centrifuges, though he did not say when.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/_photos...ium_levels.gif

If I had to give a wild guess I'd have to look at our puppy dog then compared to who's running the dog pound now. I also seem to remember Iran being offered the ingredients a few times in order to build civilian reactors.