33 Comments

1. NFL, NBA, NHL:

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Oct 25, 2009 - 11:55 pm 2. Pajamas Media » Fact-Checking the New York Times on Iran and Nukes:

[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]

Oct 26, 2009 - 2:31 am 3. David P:

While the USA pursues it’s policy of appeasement, Iran is preparing for war, purchasing and acquiring WMD’s for the impending showdown.

Oct 26, 2009 - 2:41 am 4. rob:

the indian bomb didn’t appear overnight. their detonation 35 years ago was the final step in a long process of preparation, so india’s quest for the atomic bomb began many years prior.

Oct 26, 2009 - 3:08 am 5. SAF:

The NYT long ago stopped reporting the news as opposed to advancing an agenda.

Its clear to me why the Russians want a military showdown in the Middle East, makes their oil so much more valuable.

The Chinese I don’t get. Why would they want a more powerful Russia?

Oct 26, 2009 - 5:29 am 6. Cybergeezer:

FACT CHECK THE NEW YORK TIMES?
Puleease! What poor soul has this dreadful job? There’s so much decent, factual “news” out there to read; Why would anyone read that rag of innuendo, slander, and gossip? Pajamas Media has better comments than the Times has editorials.

Oct 26, 2009 - 5:53 am 7. Steve:

Obama’s toothless strategy is likely to result in an arms race in the middle east making the region less stable. What an idiot.

Oct 26, 2009 - 7:17 am 8. Now and Then:

Why isn’t Fox News showing all the GOOD things happening in Afghanistan? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy nooooooooooooot?

Oct 26, 2009 - 7:28 am 9. ScottR:

#7:
“Why isn’t Fox News showing all the GOOD things happening in Afghanistan? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy nooooooooooooot?”

What kind of non sequitur BS is this??

Do EVER have anything of substance to contribute? Really, you should be banned as the waste of bandwidth troll that you are.

I believe I speak for many here when I state that we are willing to give you bragging rights over at the Lefty sites (“Waaa, Waaa, McCarthyism!!”) just to get rid of you here.

Oct 26, 2009 - 7:45 am 10. Mike K:

There is reason to believe that the Russians are, in fact, playing a major role in building the Iran bomb, which makes Obama’s attempts to enroll them in sanctions even more ludicrous. If possible, that is.

Oct 26, 2009 - 7:50 am 11. NOBS:

What would you do if you were Iran? Surrounded by nuclear states and constant barking from US (which actually has dropped nuclear bombs on cities full of innocent people) and Israel. They have the right to defend themselves. This article is lame and ignorant. I guess anyone with a funny hat is a reporter now. I hope Iran test it’s first nuclear explosion soon.

Oct 26, 2009 - 12:58 pm 12. JFF:

There was a time when NYT had good writers and one had to work hard to “read” the agenda behind the news. Not any more! They have figured out that most people are so busy or so uninformed that …. well, a sucker is born every etc, etc, etc. Trying to fact check NYT is like fact checking Cheney or his daughter. Remember, they create new realities and by the time you have caught up with the last one they move to the next one. NYT is just a con job by the neocons. It is used to sell an aggressive hegemonic stance, both inside and outside the US, to the “average” liberal. FOX is the overt version of NYT. Don’t waste time with NYT.

Oct 26, 2009 - 2:25 pm 13. nisky:

Hey NOBS of No.11, some other nuclear states doesn’t dream of wiping other state, and they don’t have some crazy belief, like the second coming of the hidin emam what ever that is, and if you mean Heroshima and Nagasaki, we didn’t start that s**t we just finished it, so if Iran would like to start something like that, then they should bring it on. And we’ll see happen.

Oct 26, 2009 - 2:40 pm 14. glenn:

Lost in all this is the fact that Iran, or any of the other Muslim countries run by madmen, only needs three weapons and for all intents and purposes Israel is history. At that point the issue is what % of the Israeli nuclear arsenal survives and gets delivered (and where). Think about it.

Oct 26, 2009 - 2:47 pm 15. Ruvy:

Comments #11 and #12 each, in their own way, make important points – though the writers of the comments do not bring them out themselves – giving me that opportunity….

Comment #11 makes the point that any régime in Tehran will want to have nukes. What the commenter misses is that what makes the Islamic Republic so dangerous as a possessor of these nukes is its stated willingness to destroy Israel.

This leads to comment #12, which drives home the point of the pointlessness of Israel waiting to be attacked. We must strike first – with our own nukes – to behead the beast in Tehran and Qom. We cannot afford for the Persians to be able to get nukes and use them – they most assuredly will. They’ve already done one missile assault on us in 2006.

Oct 26, 2009 - 3:25 pm 16. Fen:

Obama: “Sssh! We’re busy negotiating for the promise of future negotiations!”

Oct 26, 2009 - 9:47 pm 17. bgates:

Why isn’t Fox News showing all the GOOD things happening in Afghanistan?

If I worked for Fox News I’d be wary of leaving the country, lest Fearless Leader declare me to be Not a Real Citizen as well as Not a Real Journalist and deny me reentry.

What would you do if you were Iran?

The head of the Iranian government, you mean? Lock up and/or execute most of the people I knew in government, probably, since I think most of them are evil and dangerous, and then call for a Constitutional convention to generate a new government to replace the theocracy. Cut off Hezbollah. Stop hanging people for being gay. Stop raping women to get around the Islamic prohibition on executing virgins. Try to arrange a meeting with Netanyahu in Paris or Geneva.

At some point during all this, as #13-15 say, it would become clear to the world that the kind of state I envisioned for Iran would not be much more threatening as a nuclear power than France. Unfortunately, if I were the head of the Iranian government and did all those things, I would fall to a counterrevolution, I’d get zero support from the current American administration, and I would be executed, after which my executioners would be hailed by Obama as the legitimate government of Iran and the rest of you would be right back here.

Oct 26, 2009 - 11:16 pm 18. Paul Danish:

“They are acutely aware of the fact that the clock is ticking: While talks continue, Iran is steadily enriching more uranium, the fuel it would need if it ever decided to sprint for the bomb, much as Israel and India did 30 years ago, followed by Pakistan and North Korea.” — NYT

The dates are not the only factual problem with this piece, nor even the most important. Evidently the reporter never took Nuclear Weapons 101.

Atom bombs can be made in two ways, from highly enriched uranium or from plutonium. The Hiroshima bomb was made from highly enriched uranium. The Nagasaki bomb was made from plutonium.

During WW2 the U.S. pursued both kinds of bomb, because each technology had major uncertainties associated with it. In the case of the uranium bomb, there was a high level of certainty that it could be made to explode, but there was major uncertainty as to whether a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium could be produced in a timely manner. In the case of the plutonium bomb, there was little doubt that sufficient plutonium could be produced, but there was a high degree of uncertainty that it could be made to explode.

In the end, both worked. Once the enrichment problem was solved, the Hiroshima bomb was built and dropped without a test. A plutonium bomb was tested north of Alamogordo, New Mexico a few weeks before one was dropped on Nagasaki.

Chances are that Pakistan chose to pursue the uranium route because it is easier to build a uranium bomb than a plutonium one.

Israel, however, appears to have pursued the plutonium route. It has been known for decades that it has a nuclear reactor (at Dimona)that is thought capable of making enough plutonium for 5 to 10 bombs a year, but there have been no reports of a major uranium enrichment project in Israel. The Times reporter, however, seems to think Israel followed the enriched uranium route to the bomb. This point could have been easily checked.

This is important for several reasons.

Israel probably took the plutonium route because it wanted a substantial nuclear arsenal, one capable of deterring not only the Arab world, but the late Soviet Union. It could acquire sufficient plutonium for producing such an arsenal (scores of bombs, possibly hundreds) a lot more quickly and economically by producing plutonium than it could by enriching uranium.

Designing a workable plutonium weapon would have been a challenge for it, but a lot less of a challenge than it was for the U.S. in 1945. That’s because, unlike the Manhattan Project physicists, the Israelis would have known in advance that a plutonium bomb would work — and that the general principle behind it was implosion.

Today, the Iranians know the same thing about plutonium weaponry, and probably a lot more.

Why then, are the Iranians pursuing a uranium weapon rather than a plutonium one?

I suspect the answer is that they are in fact pursuing both, and that the main thrust of the Iranian program is to produce plutonium bombs — and that while the Iranian uranium enrichment program may produce a working bomb, it’s main thrust is merely a step along the way to the plutonium bomb.

This is a point that has apparently not occurred to the Times reporter, or hardly anyone else who has written about the Iranian enrichment program for that matter, but the facts are hiding in plain sight.

Lets review: Natural uranium consists of two main isotopes, U-235 and U-238. U-235 is the isotope used for making the bomb, because it is fissionable; if enough of it is brought together, a chain reaction ensues that produces a lot of heat. If enough of it is brought together very quickly, an explosion ensues a a city disappears.

U-238, on the other hand, is stable; you can pile up tons of it, and nothing will happen.

However, if you pile up enough natural uranium, there is a sufficient amount of U-235 in it that a self-sustaining chain reaction occurs. This is what Enrico Fermi did in late 1942 at the University of Chicago, to prove that a nuclear weapon was theoretically possible.

However, the percentage of U-235 in natural uranium is only 0.6 percent, far too low to be turned into a bomb. In order to build a uranium bomb, you need uranium in which the U-235 content has been concentrated (enriched) to 96 percent. Since natural uranium is 99 percent plus U-238 and 0.6 percent U-235, and since U-235 and U-238 are chemically identical, the enrichment process — more accurately the isotope separation process — requires an enormous investment in resources and energy, as evidenced by the Iranian centrifuge arrays. (The U.S. used a different enrichment technology to build the Hiroshima bomb, but it too took an enormous investment in resources and energy. The enrichment took place at Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The way around this is to build a plutonium bomb. However, and this is important, the path to the plutonium bomb begins with uranium.

As mentioned previously, if enough natural uranium is piled up, a self-sustaining chain reaction begins in the U-235. However, some of the neutrons from this reaction strike the U-238 atoms — and turn them into plutonium. Since plutonium is chemically different than uranium, it can be separated by chemical means, which is a lot easier and quicker than doing isotope separation. This is the path the U.S. took to the Nagasaki bomb. (The nuclear piles, as the early reactors were called, and the plutonium separation works were at Hanford, Washington.)

During WW2, natural uranium was used in the reactors in which plutonium was produced. Today, most nuclear reactors use slightly enriched uranium, uranium enriched to 3.5 to 5 percent U-235, which is more suitable to electric power production — but which can also produce a lot more plutonium in the process.

Iran has enriched a quantity of uranium to at least 3.5 percent U-235, which is not enough for a bomb, but is quite adequate for use in the big nuclear power plant that Russia has built for it. All of the concern about the Iranian program has focused on the possibility of the Iranians further enriching this reactor-grade uranium to bomb grade — the “sprint to the bomb” that the Times reporter imagines. But if it chooses to use it as fuel in its power plant, it will produce plutonium as it is producing electricity. (Alternatively, it might have been contemplating shipping that slightly enriched uranium to the clandestine reactor the Syrians were building in the desert that the Israelis destroyed in 2007 for plutonium production.)

If the foregoing is the case, the Iranian sprint to the bomb may be a lot closer to the finish line than anyone contemplates, because they will not have to enrich the uranium they have any further — and their nuclear weapons program may be much more ambitious and sophisticated than is commonly assumed.

To be sure, the Russians are supposed to supply and control the fuel for the Iranian nuclear plant, but they obviously wouldn’t control any fuel the Iranians produced and chose to use in it.

And chances are they wouldn’t object to its use; the Russians and the Chinese are pretty insouciant (to put it charitably) about anti-American rogue states going nuclear. At any rate, they haven’t objected to the Iranians’ producing reactor grade uranium; under the circumstances they aren’t going to object to the Iranians using it.

It is worth recalling that the U.S. spent years negotiating with North Korea to get it to shut down its plutonium producing nuclear reactors, only to be stunned to learn the North Koreans had a clandestine enrichment program underway.

With the Iranians, there’s compelling evidence that it is just the opposite. The west has spent years anguishing over its uranium enrichment program, while ignoring the possibility that it has a plutonium program underway.

Finally, there is one further set of facts that the Times has never contemplated, let alone checked. They involve the arithmetic of uranium enrichment.

If a ton of natural uranium is to be enriched from 0.6 percent U-235 to 1.2 percent U-235, you have to remove and discard approximately 1,000 lbs of U-238. To further enrich it to 2.4 percent, you would have to remove another 500 lbs of U-238 from the initially enriched material. Going up to 4.8 percent would require removing only an additional 250 lbs of U-238, and so on. The point is that if Iran has enriched Uranium to “only” reactor grade of 3.5 percent, it has already done most of the heavy lifting toward the production of weapons grade uranium. The final steps are big percentage jumps, but involve relatively little energy expenditure compared to the initial ones. And they would not require too many additional centrifuges. Maybe about as many as might reasonably be installed at the smaller, recently announced Qom enrichment facility, for instance.

Oct 27, 2009 - 2:32 am 19. PhillipB:

Iran has continued to threaten world peace and stability, not just in the Middle East. A nuclearized Iran threatens Saudi Arabia, destabilizes the entire region, threatens the US and its key allies abroad not to mention Europe as a whole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Totx7J1nf8U&feature=channel

Oct 27, 2009 - 3:07 am 20. Robin Goodfellow:

The shocking thing about the politics of negotiated forced nuclear non-proliferation is the degree to which it flies in the face of history. There are several examples of successful clandestine nuclear programs throughout history (including America’s) and even within the recent past (North Korea). Moreover, all of the examples of countries that have given up nuclear weapons technology fall into two categories. The largest category represents countries that have voluntarily given up nuclear weapons of their own volition, absent external pressure (several former Soviet republics, South Africa). The other category represents countries that have had their nuclear programs forcefully stopped by violence (Ba’athist Iraq, on several occasions) or gave them up due to fear of invasion (Syria).

In no case has a running nuclear weapons program been stopped by negotiation alone.

Oct 27, 2009 - 4:13 am 21. ScottR:

How to address your post which is a morally relativistic argument of staggering mendacity?

First – the US atomic bombing of Japan: Sadly, it appears to be standard operating procedure today to look at events like this (Dresden comes to mind as well), in isolation and to ignore the tenor of the times. What was inconceivable in 1939 was approached as a matter of course by 1945, given all that had gone before.

It counts for nothing in your world that the Japanese nation was the aggressor Word War II, does it? Or, that a conventional invasion of the mainland WOULD HAVE resulted in thousands of Allied casualties and millions of Japanese.

On a nuclear Iran: You sir need to decide whose side you are on here and stop the dishonest pretending that a nuclear Iran is somehow the flipside of nuclear Israel. Is it really necessary to explain to you that one is a theocratic dictatorship and the other a parliamentary democracy subject to all of the checks and balances that system of government entails?

Oct 27, 2009 - 8:03 am 22. ScottR:

My post was in regard to Post #11 by NOBS. I clicked on the link to his website and found that it is a collection of links to every conspiracy from the past 100 years with a healthy collection of anti-Israel articles thrown in.

So, just another nut job wailing about “hidden hands” and the JOOOOS!! Frightening and sad at the same time.

Excuse me as I need a shower.

Oct 27, 2009 - 8:10 am 23. Cinabar:

I have often wondered what motivation Russia has in helping Iran become nuclear. Theoretically, Iran could be as much a threat to Russia as they would to Middle Eastern countries (and Europe after perfecting longer-range missiles). One possible scenario could be an Iran-Russia alliance that would virtually corner the market on the world’s largest known oil reserves. Iran could control the south flank with Mid-East leaders kowtowing to avoid conflict with Russia controlling distribution of oil to Europe. Couple that with Chavez adding his support? This tripartite alliance could be economically formidable. On paper an unlikely alliance due to cultural and political reasons, stranger things have happened as reference Molotov-Ribbentrop.

Oct 27, 2009 - 10:57 am 24. Boyd:

“Nuclear weapons are, alas, one thing on which all the mullah/thugs agree.”

It isn’t just them. I’d have to do some digging but I recall a poll of the general population and a vast majority of the population also feels they have a right to pursue nuclear technology. I believe it is a mistake of the West to think that Iranian dislike for the mullas necessarily translates to being any less nationalistic than the next country.

Oct 27, 2009 - 11:34 am 25. Rick Moran:

#18 Paul:

Thanks for the excellent primer. A couple of minor quibbles:

1. The Russian built reactor at Bushehr is set to be switched on by the end of the year. It will still take some months to create enough plutonium for one bomb. The real question is who will take possession of the spent fuel rods? The chances of Iran getting their hands on those rods is pretty slim since the IAEA will no doubt want to keep an eagle eye on them.

2. I am not worried about the uranium stash at Natanz. The IAEA has been allowed to inspect that amount constantly and have a high level of confidence that it couldn’t be spirited away to complete its enrichment to bomb grade levels – unless Iran kicked the inspectors out and then all bets are off. The point being, the Iranians can afford to appear generous with their LEU at Natanz because it was never going to be used to make a bomb in the first place.

3. How close are they to either the HEU or plutonium bomb? Got to still be a year at least given the technical hurdles that would have to be overcome with an implosion device. It is a serious challenge to any program to be able to focus the explosives with such a high tolerance of timing and accuracy. Some of the parts are extremely hard to get such as those sophisticated detonators that we intercepted going to Iraq a few years before Saddam was ousted. Not saying it can’t eventually be done but I think our intel guys were right when they said Iranians would have the capability between 2011 and 2015.

Oct 27, 2009 - 1:25 pm 26. Hans Moleman:

Several things become clearer every day.

First, Iran is playing its diplomatic stalling game with masterful finesse. They have been at the table for years with the Europeans, and now with us. Feeble sanctions are enacted, and then flouted by various nations. And in the background, the steady hum of thousands of gas centrifuges, both in Qom and Natanz, creating the stuff of Iran’s dream: the Jew-liquidating Final Solution: the Mullah Of All Bombs.

Second, Russia and China are not displeased with Iran’s challenge to the West, and will not impede it in any way. But, to avoid burning all bridges to the West, Russia and China will continue to play tag-team in threatening to veto any UN Security Council action, swapping the good-cop/bad-cop roles from time to time. They know that the present US administration will not consider military pressure on Iran without a UN mandate. Russia and China are Iran’s insurance policy against any possible UN action. With their backing, Iran fears no sanctions, and has zero incentive to negotiate in good faith.

As our president receives worldwide acclaim (or at least Norway-wide) for his policy of appeasing Iran’s “legitimate concerns” in endless “good-faith” negotiations, one cannot avoid comparison with the last comparable exercise in appeasement of dictators, some seventy years ago.

There is every reason to believe that the same mistakes are being made today by our president. Unwillingness to face unpleasant facts is a matter of pride with him.

Appeasement didn’t work for Chamberlain and it won’t work now.

[Flashback: Bullwinkle: “Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” Rocky: “That trick never works.” Bullwinkle: “This time for sure.” Bullwinkle (after trick fails): “I gotta get a new hat.”]

Oct 27, 2009 - 1:46 pm 27. billrowe:

On comment #18: you can pile up as much natural uranium as you want, it cannot generate a self sustaining nuclear chain reaction. The Chicago pile experiment referenced interspersed graphite within the “pile” of natural uranium, which allows a sustained reaction. You can also do hte same with so-called “heavy” water, which is the gasis of the Canadian CANDU commercial reactors. You can use either natural uranium reactor concept to generate plutonium for potential weapons use. Iran is constructing a heavy water reactor for medical isotope production which also produces plutonium; I think it is due to startup in a few years.Just wanted to clear up some technical details.

But, so what? Yes, Iran has accumulated the technological know how to do practically anything commercial or weapons related in the nuclear field—with the requisite inclination, dedicated resources and time. AS far as I am concerned we all need an Iranian limited nuclear weapon capability to deter the apartheid Israel and its patsy the US from continuuing their illegal imperialistic, immoral policies in the mideast. I am not worried about Iran using their bomb except as a defensive deterrent. But a strong Iran will be able to strongly support those anti-Israel anti-US immoral policies in the mid-east. This is what really worries Israel and the patsy US.

Iran needs to continue its technological advancement and give the “west” the polite diplomatic middle-finger salute.

Iran would be stupif to transfer their low enriched stockpile out of the country on the “promise” to receive 20% enriched uranium fuel back for its Tehran research reactor. I can guarantee the west will hold the delivery hostage to some new illegal demands. At best Iran should agree only to transfer the uranium in stages as the enriched fuel is received; and only enough low enriched fuel to make the new fuel. The “west” openly states its goal is to have Iran forego its enrichment— so only an idiot would trust them.

Oct 27, 2009 - 2:16 pm 28. A. N. Pierson:

Mr. Simon must be complimented that he is taken seriously enough by the insane culture of the mullahs that they would bother to send one of their hacks like #27 to comment here. I wonder what they would say about this:

http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons

Oct 27, 2009 - 2:31 pm 29. narciso:

Interesting but what about Isfahan or Arak or any other number of facilities. The Paks
only had Kahuta, and look how quickly they
developed the bomb. The Iranians have the
know how of Khan, Russian scientists, et al. How long did it take the US to build a bomb
and they had to start from scratch

Oct 27, 2009 - 7:00 pm 30. myth buster:

18. #27 is right, you need a graphite or heavy water moderator in order to cause natural uranium to go critical, but Iran has a heavy water reactor. Worse, a heavy water reactor can be refueled on the fly, which is perfect for mass producing weapons grade plutonium for a clandestine nuclear weapons program. They need between 6-10 kg of Pu-239 to make an implosion device, and a 1 GW heavy water reactor could produce that much Pu-239 in about two months.

BTW, there’s no such thing as a 100 level nuclear engineering course. The introductory nuclear course is 200 level.

Oct 27, 2009 - 8:41 pm 31. Mike_K:

I think the Russians look with equanimity on the possibility of nuclear war in the middle east. It would poison the oil fields for a century and their own oil would increase in value immensely. You should read Tony Cordesman’s analysis of an Iran-Israel nuclear exchange. It is here. The short version is 600,000 Israeli deaths and 28 million Iranian deaths but it would be the end of middle east oil production. It would be the end of Iran, as well but the mullahs might not see that as a catastrophe. Russia might actually consider that a net positive. We know that many of the Soviets thought they could win a nuclear war.

Oct 28, 2009 - 5:38 am 32. ScottR:

#27. billrowe:
“AS far as I am concerned we all need an Iranian limited nuclear weapon capability to deter the apartheid Israel and its patsy the US from continuuing their illegal imperialistic, immoral policies in the mideast.”

And that is all you need to know folks. billrowe is either:
- an Iranian agent provocateur
- an anti-Semitic kook
- another western culture loathing Lefty

Wherever he falls on the irrational US/Israel hating spectrum he cannot be reasoned with so responding to him is pointless.

Oct 28, 2009 - 6:41 am 33. Paul Danish:

#27 and #30

Graphite and Heavy Water aren’t necessary to cause natural uranium to go critical. Quite the contrary. They are neutron absorbers that are used to prevent a runway reaction.

The Chicago pile achieved the first sustained chain reaction when the graphite control rods were withdrawn, and the reaction was stopped when they were reinserted.

#27 I think you may be confusing natural uranium with U-238. Natural uranium has U-235 in it (about 0.6 percent), which is fissile. If enough of it is brought together a chain reaction will ensue by virtue of the presence of the U-235. Pure U-238, what is left over after enrichment, will not produce a chain reaction, no no matter how large the pile.

You may have heard about the radioactive nature of “depleted uranium” used in alloyed tank armor and armor-piercing anti-tank rounds. This is because while depleted-uranium is mostly U-238, it still contains a small amount of U-235 and other fissile uranium isotopes.

#27 Your execrable views on Israel aside, you should think long and hard about the implications for the safety of United States of Iran getting nuclear weapons. The Iranians have made chanting “death to America” part of the Friday worship services at the University of Tehran. They’ve been doing it for 30 years. I think you should entertain the possibility that they mean it.

Oct 28, 2009 - 2:32 pm

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