Iranian Nuke Hype - Commentary by Jim Dean, Heritage TV

Jim Dean, Heritage TV producer/host

Jim Dean is the producer of Heritage TV and a member of Georgia Heritage Council. He is a member of the Military Order of World Wars and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

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Iranian Nuke Hype – Commentary by Jim Dean

Dear Folks,

The weekends 'Intel breakthrough' seemed a bit hyped in terms of it's being a discovery. The site has been under obvious surveillance for several years as these out in the wide open desert locations are prime satellite photo territory.

With all the talk about attacking Iran for years now and improved bunker busting bomb development it was no surprise to me that Iran would want to be building deeper, more fortified facilities, and some redundancy into their program. You could easily make a case of it being a reaction to our own NeoCon crazies running around after the initial Iraq invasion saying that 'Iran and Syria are next'.

But this extra centrifuge capacity was really hyped in the news as they know it's something that the public does not understand well.

I was fortunate to have run into a retired, 40 years in the business, nuclear weapons engineer living in Decatur a month ago. In preparation of doing some deep background nuclear technology/weapons interviews with him I have been reading some of this published work, plus done a couple of phone interviews.

In short he told me that this first step of centrifuging that is needed for nuclear power was being massively hyped in the media. In particular, the claim of drawing a straight line from the number of centrifuges to how long they would have a bomb was pure fantasy. He explained to me that the next couple of steps are extremely more difficult technically, not only in the design but in the work flow itself.

Additionally, our 'sniffers' could easily detect their moving up to the second step and he told me we could also detect the movement of the lower enriched material. He said there was not a shred of evidence that the Iranians knew could to do the second step yet. His knowledge is of course not the last word on this but it made me notice that the media has not really covered the actual process involved to weaponize uranium. We just get the estimates. And you notice that the Israelis are always much shorter than the professional nuclear people, yet the shorter times seem to get the most repetition in the media.

So my guess is that the hoopla this weekend was just a pre-negotiating tactic to ramp up pressure to get more international support for tougher sanctions. Russia was already onboard via the deal that was made to not deliver their new missile defense system to Iran. Remember the phony 'hijacked by pirates' ship and Netanyahu's private trip to Moscow? And soon after that came the announcement of the Eastern European missile shield restrategizing.

That also seemed hyped to me as we don't have the money for it now anyway. Plus we don't have the missile ships to really do the plan B shorter range strategy, which I agree is a better use of our money for the flexibility involved in deployment.

I always thought it was a bargaining chip effort. These triangular behind-the-scenes talks with the Russians and Israelis had been going on a while. Russia put the resolution in play as they had been holding up their delivery of the new air defense missiles while these negotiations were going on. When they put them on the ship it speeded up the process. The Israelis had to promise they would not launch a strike. We shall see.

Gates played his card on their being 'no military option' that would do nothing more than delay the process. I cannot imagine our taking the risk to attack (or allow Israel to) until the Iranians were well into stage two of the enrichment as the destruction then would do a lot more damage to their program. The loss of personnel is as important as facility destruction.

But an attack would also release a lot more dangerous nuclear material into the atmosphere. Don't forget that our crazy Vice President Cheney was pushing for tactical nukes to be used in the early planning for any strikes on the facilities. The military people were horrified as they knew that would spread the fallout all over (not so much from the nukes themselves but the material in the facilities). From what I heard this did not seem to bother the VP very much.

But allow me to place a bet here. If they do bomb, I can assure you they will want to be careful which way the wind is blowing. But it must blow somewhere and any of the countries downstream are going to be very unhappy cowboys and would probably go into overdrive on fomenting more anti-American terrorism.

It is a very dangerous game being played here. It reminds me of pre WWI and WWII where one mis-step and off we go.

"Never before have so few been in a position to make fools, maniacs or criminals of so many." ---H.G. Wells, from The Shape of Things to Come, 1933

But worst of all is the pro Israeli hypsters on the talk shows claiming with absolute certainty that if the Iranians get a nuke they will use it right away on Israel. It was a disgrace to not see one news anchor challenge them on this silliness. Iran knows it is totally vulnerable to a massive counter strike, and despite the propaganda they are not crazy. Iran's only benefit in having a nukes is as a deterrent from a massive conventional attack. Israel of course does not want them to have a deterrent. This obvious little gem never finds its way into the public discussion as it would bring up the discussion of Israel's nukes, not to mention its chemical and bio WMD stockpiles, which by the way are offensive weapons and admitted so.

The mantra line of 'wipe Israel off the map' was a calculated mistranslation that was revealed shortly after the statement. What he really said/meant was ending the Zionist apartheid state politically...similar to what was done in South Africa. This was pointed out to the media at the time but they never retracted the initial misinterpretation, which gets trotted out as part of herding the public on a regular basis.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire (1694-1778)

My objection to the hype is that if they have a good case, why do they have to hype it? Is it to distract from the pass we gave Pakistan for all their nuclear proliferation...more than everybody else put together. Is it to divert attention from the French helping the Zionists to start their nuclear program right after the '48 war? Is it to hide the nuclear help we gave them? And how about the Germans who built and sold the three cruise missile subs to Israel, one which is in the India ocean and can reach Moscow? And where did Israel get the money to build these subs?...from the US taxpayer?

And what if our own declassified Intel has shown for decades that Israel has complete conventional military superiority over any and all adversaries for defensive purposes? Their cruise missile subs are strategically offensive platforms and this has been kept from the American public along with much of the rest of the real history here. What is it they fear from the American public that we get the smoke and mirrors routine on these critical national security issues?

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media." --Noam Chomsky

Jim Dean is the producer of Heritage TV and a member of the Georgia Heritage Council. He is a member of the Military Order of World Wars and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Scott Ritter Video

Keeping Iran Honest

by Scott Ritter, 9/25/09

It was very much a moment of high drama. Barack Obama, fresh from his history-making stint hosting the UN security council, took a break from his duties at the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh to announce the existence of a secret, undeclared nuclear facility in Iran which was inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear programme, underscoring the president's conclusion that "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow".

Obama, backed by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, threatened tough sanctions against Iran if it did not fully comply with its obligations concerning the international monitoring of its nuclear programme, which at the present time is being defined by the US, Britain and France as requiring an immediate suspension of all nuclear-enrichment activity.

The facility in question, said to be located on a secret Iranian military installation outside of the holy city of Qom and capable of housing up to 3,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium, had been monitored by the intelligence services of the US and other nations for some time. But it wasn't until Monday that the IAEA found out about its existence, based not on any intelligence "scoop" provided by the US, but rather Iran's own voluntary declaration. Iran's actions forced the hand of the US, leading to Obama's hurried press conference Friday morning.

Beware politically motivated hype. While on the surface, Obama's dramatic intervention seemed sound, the devil is always in the details. The "rules" Iran is accused of breaking are not vague, but rather spelled out in clear terms. In accordance with Article 42 of Iran's Safeguards Agreement, and Code 3.1 of the General Part of the Subsidiary Arrangements (also known as the "additional protocol") to that agreement, Iran is obliged to inform the IAEA of any decision to construct a facility which would house operational centrifuges, and to provide preliminary design information about that facility, even if nuclear material had not been introduced. This would initiate a process of complementary access and design verification inspections by the IAEA.

This agreement was signed by Iran in December 2004. However, since the "additional protocol" has not been ratified by the Iranian parliament, and as such is not legally binding, Iran had viewed its implementation as being voluntary, and as such agreed to comply with these new measures as a confidence building measure more so than a mandated obligation.

In March 2007, Iran suspended the implementation of the modified text of Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part concerning the early provisions of design information. As such, Iran was reverting back to its legally-binding requirements of the original safeguards agreement, which did not require early declaration of nuclear-capable facilities prior to the introduction of nuclear material.

While this action is understandably vexing for the IAEA and those member states who are desirous of full transparency on the part of Iran, one cannot speak in absolute terms about Iran violating its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So when Obama announced that "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow", he is technically and legally wrong.

There are many ways to interpret Iran's decision of March 2007, especially in light of today's revelations. It should be underscored that what the Qom facility Obama is referring to is not a nuclear weapons plant, but simply a nuclear enrichment plant similar to that found at the declared (and inspected) facility in Natanz.

The Qom plant, if current descriptions are accurate, cannot manufacture the basic feed-stock (uranium hexaflouride, or UF6) used in the centrifuge-based enrichment process. It is simply another plant in which the UF6 can be enriched.

Why is this distinction important? Because the IAEA has underscored, again and again, that it has a full accounting of Iran's nuclear material stockpile. There has been no diversion of nuclear material to the Qom plant (since it is under construction). The existence of the alleged enrichment plant at Qom in no way changes the nuclear material balance inside Iran today.

Simply put, Iran is no closer to producing a hypothetical nuclear weapon today than it was prior to Obama's announcement concerning the Qom facility.

One could make the argument that the existence of this new plant provides Iran with a "breakout" capability to produce highly-enriched uranium that could be used in the manufacture of a nuclear bomb at some later date. The size of the Qom facility, alleged to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, is not ideal for large-scale enrichment activity needed to produce the significant quantities of low-enriched uranium Iran would need to power its planned nuclear power reactors. As such, one could claim that its only real purpose is to rapidly cycle low-enriched uranium stocks into highly-enriched uranium usable in a nuclear weapon. The fact that the Qom facility is said to be located on an Iranian military installation only reinforces this type of thinking.

But this interpretation would still require the diversion of significant nuclear material away from the oversight of IAEA inspectors, something that would be almost immediately evident. Any meaningful diversion of nuclear material would be an immediate cause for alarm, and would trigger robust international reaction, most probably inclusive of military action against the totality of Iran's known nuclear infrastructure.

Likewise, the 3,000 centrifuges at the Qom facility, even when starting with 5% enriched uranium stocks, would have to operate for months before being able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single nuclear device. Frankly speaking, this does not constitute a viable "breakout" capability.

Iran has, in its declaration of the Qom enrichment facility to the IAEA on 21 September, described it as a "pilot plant". Given that Iran already has a "pilot enrichment plant" in operation at its declared facility in Natanz, this obvious duplication of effort points to either a parallel military-run nuclear enrichment programme intended for more nefarious purposes, or more likely, an attempt on the part of Iran to provide for strategic depth and survivability of its nuclear programme in the face of repeated threats on the part of the US and Israel to bomb its nuclear infrastructure.

Never forget that sports odds makers were laying 2:1 odds that either Israel or the US would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities by March 2007. Since leaving office, former vice-president Dick Cheney has acknowledged that he was pushing heavily for a military attack against Iran during the time of the Bush administration. And the level of rhetoric coming from Israel concerning its plans to launch a pre-emptive military strike against Iran have been alarming.

While Obama may have sent conciliatory signals to Iran concerning the possibility of rapprochement in the aftermath of his election in November 2008, this was not the environment faced by Iran when it made the decision to withdraw from its commitment to declare any new nuclear facility under construction. The need to create a mechanism of economic survival in the face of the real threat of either US or Israeli military action is probably the most likely explanation behind the Qom facility. Iran's declaration of this facility to the IAEA, which predates Obama's announcement by several days, is probably a recognition on the part of Iran that this duplication of effort is no longer representative of sound policy on its part.

In any event, the facility is now out of the shadows, and will soon be subjected to a vast range of IAEA inspections, making any speculation about Iran's nuclear intentions moot. Moreover, Iran, in declaring this facility, has to know that because it has allegedly placed operational centrifuges in the Qom plant (even if no nuclear material has been introduced), there will be a need to provide the IAEA with full access to Iran's centrifuge manufacturing capability, so that a material balance can be acquired for these items as well.

Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the "Qom declaration".

Calls for "crippling" sanctions on Iran by Obama and Brown are certainly not the most productive policy options available to these two world leaders. Both have indicated a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran's action, in declaring the existence of the Qom facility, has created a window of opportunity for doing just that, and should be fully exploited within the framework of IAEA negotiations and inspections, and not more bluster and threats form the leaders of the western world.