Quote:
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Originally Posted by Skybird
Oh my God, doomsday is just one day ahead, the sky is falling, we must strike immediately, or we all will be lost...!!! (compare to 2003: "The memo shows that Iraq now has the capability to equip a missile with biological or nuclear material and strike london with only 35 minutes prewarning")
Quote:
Iran said it had operated 164 centrifuges, creating the cascade required to achieve "industrial output" of enriched uranium.
But the process would only create the low-level enrichment needed for nuclear fuel.
Iran would need thousands of centrifuges to create the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons.
Experts say Iran is years away from having a nuclear bomb.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4902178.stm
So they have mastered one more step in a longer chain of technical developement, what a surprise. The material they can create by that (so far we only have their word for that, btw.) IS NOT sufficient to build nuclear bombs with it. It is the type of material needed in nuclear powerplants. If they currently can produce even the quantities needed for powerplants - this news does not say, it only says they now know how to do it, and that they have tested successfully their setup. doing something in an experiemntal lab, and doing it so that it produces industrial quantities is seme0thing different. Without doubt they will get there - and still would be years away from producing material that could be sued in weapons technology. An Uran-bomb or even a plutonium bomb needs further refinement of this material. There is no indication whatever that they still are not years away from acchieving that. Months before that would be the right time to give the military a prewarning. Today - probably would be years too early.
I still wait to learn how a military strike could be successful, btw. So far, noone has lined out a plan which chances for failure does not dominate it's chances for success. Players may be satisfied by that. Politicians and militaries should not.
What I say on this? Keep a sharp eye on them, but currently no need to become hysterical. The time to strike - is not now. |
Words of sanity there Sky. The only slight quibble I have was the "35 minutes" thing. The claim in the September, 2002 dossier and to what PM Blair mentioned in his headline grabbing speech to the House of Commons was that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so. As it turned out, it was revealed later at the Hutton inquiry that the infamous "45 minute claim" wasn't as credible as had originally been thought. It was claimed to have come from a high ranking Iraqi officer within Saddams command structure. In fact internal Foreign Office documents released at the Hutton Inquiry showed that this was not the case and that the information was based on hearsay information and second hand in nature. Later Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, said of the claim: "That was said on the basis of security service information - a single source, it wasn't corroborated."
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"In a Christian context, sexuality is traditionally seen as a consequence of the Fall, but for Muslims, it is an anticipation of paradise. So I can say, I think, that I was validly converted to Islam by a teenage French Jewish nudist." Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter)
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