Iran to allow IAEA visit Parchin military site - ISNA

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Iran said it will give the U.N. nuclear watchdog access to its Parchin military complex, ISNA news agency reported Tuesday, a site where the agency believes Tehran pursued high explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report last year said that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, to conduct explosives tests that are "strong indicators" of efforts to develop an atom bomb.

The IAEA requested access to Parchin during high-level talks in Tehran in February, but the Iranian side did not grant it.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/06/uk-iran-nuclear-parchin-idUKTRE8250BH20120306

[bananas]

1. A miitary site? But I was told by that nuclear energy has nothing to do with nuclear weapons?

Apparently I was lied to.

[FarCenter]

3. It probably has more to do with anti-armor weapons

Shaped charges of high explosives are used to "assemble" the critical mass of nuclear material in order to trigger a nuclear bomb.

However, shaped charges are also used in anti-armor missiles and artillery shells. Iran probably has a very intense research activity on how to design and manufacture armor penetrating explosive warheads. The current designs use a two-stage shaped charge to first detonate the explosive in the reactive armor and then send a second penetrator through the armor.

Current designs would include the Russian Kornet anti-tank missile capable of pentrating 1200 milimeters of armor at a range of up to 5 kilometers. Syria has these, and Iran is probably trying to replicate and locally manufacture them.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/kornet/

My recollection is that there are even missiles that can be launched over a tank formation that release a group of shaped charge warheads that then fire molten metal penetrators down through the lighter top armor of tanks.

[Lasher]

2. This all seems eerily familiar.

It almost seems like I'm watching a movie I've seen before.

[EX500rider]

4. Gosh me too...

North Korea comes to mind.....stall for time, interfere with inspections and move it all to deep bunkers...

Whats the point of deep bunkers for the production if it's all for your one very easily bombed above ground nuclear power plant?

[Lasher]

5. The reality of North Korea is quite different from the Bush administration's fiction about Iraq.

North Korea didn't stall for time. They admitted they had centrifuges and fuel rods that could be processed into plutonium. Thanks to an agreement brokered by the Clinton administration, the rods were locked in a storage facility under the monitoring of international weapons-inspectors. The North Koreans did not interfere with or otherwise hinder the activities of these inspectors.

North Korea renewed its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, thereby ensuring they would not develop nuclear weapons. In exchange, the United States, with financial backing from South Korea and Japan, would provide two light-water nuclear reactors for electricity (explicitly allowed under the NPT), a huge supply of fuel oil, and a pledge not to invade North Korea.

The accord also specified that, upon delivery of the first light-water reactor (the target date was 2003), intrusive inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear sites would begin. After the second reactor arrived, North Korea would ship its fuel rods out of the country. It would essentially give up the ability to build nuclear weapons.

Initially, North Korea kept to its side of the bargain. The same cannot be said of our side. Seoul suspended its share of energy assistance in 1996. But as Clinton left the White House, the stage was set for diplomatic progress - and, in the meantime, the fuel rods remained under lock and key. Then along came the bumbling Bush, who made clear he would not pick up where Clinton left off. Diplomacy from Washington was replaced by hostility and a lack of interest in the Korean peninsula.

Predictibly, in October 2003 the North Koreans announced they had reprocessed all 8,000 of their fuel rods and solved the technical problems of converting the plutonium into nuclear bombs. Bush's failure to make a deal, while the fuel rods were still locked up, constitutes one of the great diplomatic blunders of our time.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html

[EX500rider]

6. "North Korea renewed its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty..."

If by that you mean actually had a secret parallel undeclared uranium program going at the same time then sure..

The 1994 agreement was strictly a political propaganda piece by the DPRK to produce a 'diplomatic victory'. Unlike the later 6 Party Talks under GWBush, the agreement was strictly between the DPRK and the US. As the 1994 agreement lacked provisions for verification, monitoring, enforcement, and a schedule for implementation it could be argue that no one has, or even could, have violated it. The agreements (there are more than one) that the 6 Party Talks produced are incrementally better (as in better than the nothing in the 1994 accords), primarily because the involvement of China in the talks has gotten even them disgusted with the DPRK behavior.

As for the various reasons that the DPRK gave for violating the 1994 agreement, the failure to build the LWR to supply power to replace the electric output from their plutonium breeder is my favorite. The start of construction was repeatedly delayed over financing because the DPRK insisted that all payments had to be handled through them, and was only settled in their favor when they threatened to withdraw from the agreement. Then less than a year after construction started the contractor shutdown and left the site because of non-payment after the DPRK essentially stole the money supplied by the US for the payroll, and then demanded more money besides. Then the DPRK used the stopped project as an excuse to void the agreement. Now that's chutzpah!

[Lasher]

8. This looks familiar too.

From the mission statement of the right wing neocon website that you copied but did not link:

As in any other debate, if you have posted from another website, the quality of your argument is enhanced when you reference that website, rather than just cutting and pasting. Other posters can then look up the website themselves, and determine the nature of your source material – and the strength or weakness of your post.

http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/rulesofuse.asp

Even if you are WarNerd (as I suspect you might be), the author of the reply that you copied in this 2009 thread, it was poor form to have omitted your warmonger source.

[Gruntled Old Man]

7. Not enough for the Neocons

They want WAR, dammit! (As long as neither they or their loved ones don't do the fighting.)