Added: 28. September 2009
Nuclear reactors
Paul Craig Roberts: Hypocrisy in Pittsburgh – More Lies, More Deceptions
Iran has not invaded another country for over 200 years!
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Paul Craig Roberts
The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting’s main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost-town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 swat cops from all over the US.”
This is “freedom and democracy” at work. The leaders of the G-20 countries, which account for 85% of the world’s income, cannot meet in an American city without 12,000 cops outfitted like the emperor’s storm troopers in Star Wars. And the US government complains about Iran.
The US government’s complaints about Iran have reached a new level of shrillness. On September 25 Obama declared: “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow.” The heads of America’s British, French, and German puppet states added their two cents worth, giving the government of Iran three months to meet the “international community’s demands” to give up its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty to nuclear energy. In case you don’t know, the term “international community” is shorthand for the US, Israel, and Europe, a handful of arrogant and rich countries that oppress the rest of the world.
Who is breaking the rules? Iran or the United States?
Iran is insisting that the US government abide by the non-proliferation treaty that the US originated and pushed and that Iran signed. But the US government, which is currently engaged in three wars of aggression and has occupying troops in a number of other countries, insists that Iran, which is invading and occupying no country, cannot be trusted with nuclear energy capability, because the capability might in the future lead to nuclear weapon capability, like Israel’s, India’s, and Pakistan’s–all non-signatories to the nuclear proliferation treaty, countries that, unlike Iran, have never submitted to IAEA inspections. Indeed, at this very moment the Israeli government is screaming and yelling “anti-semite” to the suggestion that Israel submit to IAEA inspections. Iran has submitted to the IAEA inspections for years.
In keeping with its obligations under the treaty, on September 21 Iran disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it is constructing another nuclear facility. The British prime minister Gordon Brown confused Iran’s disclosure with “serial deception,” and declared, “We will not let this matter rest.”
What matter? Why does Gordon Brown think that Iran’s disclosure to the IAEA is a deception. Does the moronic UK prime minister mean that Iran is claiming to be constructing a plant but is not, and thus by claiming one is deceiving the world?
Not to be outdone in idiocy, out of Obama’s mouth jumped Orwellian doublespeak: “The Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”
The incongruity blows the mind. Here is Obama, with troops engaged in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan demanding that a peaceful nation at war with no one demonstrate “its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”
It is the US government and its NATO puppet states, and militarist Israel, of course, that need to be held accountable to international law. Under international law the US, its NATO puppets, and Israel are war criminal governments. There is no doubt about it. The record is totally clear. The US, Israel, and the NATO puppet states have committed military aggression exactly as did Germany’s Third Reich, and they have murdered large numbers of civilians. Following the Fuhrer’s script, “the great democratic republics” have justified these acts of lawlessness with lies and deceptions.
Read morePaul Craig Roberts: Hypocrisy in Pittsburgh – More Lies, More Deceptions
Bush reportedly rejected Israeli plea to raid Iran
President George W. Bush gives a thumbs up as he boards Air Force One, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran’s main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported.
Israel’s request was for specialized bunker-busting bombs that it wanted for an attack that tentatively involved flying over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located, the Times reported Saturday in its online edition. The White House deflected requests for the bombs and flyover but said it would improve intelligence-sharing with Israel on covert U.S. efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
The covert efforts, which began in early 2008, involved plans to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad and undermine electrical systems and other networks on which Iran relies, the Times said, citing interviews with current and former U.S. officials, outside experts and international nuclear inspectors who spoke on condition of anonymity. The covert program will be handed off to President-elect Barack Obama, who will deciding whether to continue it.
According to the Times, Bush decided against an overt attack based on input from top administration officials such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who believed that doing so would likely prove ineffective and could ignite a broader Middle East war.
Israel made the push for permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran following its anger over a U.S. intelligence assessment in late 2007 that concluded Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier. Israel sought to rebut the report, providing evidence to U.S. intelligence officials that they said indicated the Iranians were still working on a weapon.
Russia to boost staff at Iran’s nuclear power plant
Related articles: Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran
So how will Russia react if Israel attacks Iran?
Russia definitely has NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
________________________________________________________________________
MOSCOW, Nov 28 (Reuters) – The Russian state company building Iran’s first atomic power station said on Friday it would increase personnel at the plant by at least 25 percent as it readies to start up the nuclear reactor.
Under a $1 billion construction contract, Russia has already made deliveries of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran.
“The nuclear power station at Bushehr is entering a new phase. Atomstroyexport is increasing its efforts to bring more personnel to work on the station,” the Russian contractor said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.
“The main technology for the station has already been installed, so the construction work is being concluded while the activisation work is getting under way,” Atromstroyexport said.
This new phase of the project — which involves readying the nuclear reactor for start up — requires that staff be increased to more than 2000 workers from the current 1600, it said.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Sergei Kiriyenko, was quoted on Thursday by state Russian media as saying that the Bushehr plant would be completed in 2009.
Read moreRussia to boost staff at Iran’s nuclear power plant
Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
£13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry
Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.
The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’
Russia may push forward with S-300 sales to Iran
MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russia may proceed with plans to sell advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran under a secret contract believed to have been signed in 2005, a Russian analyst said on Monday. (Russian mobile surface-to-air missile systems – Image gallery)
Commenting on an article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper saying Russia is using the plans as a bargaining chip in its standoff with America, Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said: “In the current situation, when the U.S. and the West in general are stubbornly gearing toward a confrontation with Russia after the events in South Ossetia, the implementation of a lucrative contract on the deliveries of S-300 [air defense systems] to Iran looks like a logical step.”
US to Iran: You have two weeks
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
Washington says Tehran has two weeks to decide between suspending its uranium enrichment program and facing ‘further isolation’.
In a Saturday statement, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said time has come for Tehran to choose between confrontation and meeting Western demands over its enrichment program.
“We hope the Iranian people understand that their leaders need to make a choice between cooperation, which would bring benefits to all, and confrontation, which can only lead to further isolation,” said McCormack.
Iran does not intend to wipe out Israel, says Ahmadinejad
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Israel is disintegrating on its own and Iran will not take any act of aggression against it.
“Israel is an illegal regime,” said President Ahmadinejad in a Tuesday press conference after a D8 summit in Kuala Lumpur.
“The regime will disintegrate on its own. Since Zionists can no longer sustain themselves, they have been forced to draw attention away from their present situation by blaming Iran,” he added.
President Ahmadinejad said that the Islamic Republic has never waged war against any nation and does not intend to do so, adding that Israel is not an exception to this policy.
“Iran has no plans to attack Israel,” he said in response to a question about whether the Islamic Republic intended to destroy Israel and to wipe out the Jewish people.
The Iranian president expounded that Jewish people amicably live in the Islamic Republic, are free to practice their religion, and despite being a small minority have a representative in the Iranian Parliament.
President Ahmadinejad asserted that the Israeli regime thrives on ‘invading and threatening’ regional countries. He reaffirmed that Iranians are fully prepared to defend their territorial integrity and will deliver a crushing response to invaders.
Read moreIran does not intend to wipe out Israel, says Ahmadinejad
Israeli jets using Iraq’s airspace?
The US has allowed Israeli jets to use US airbases in Iraq and fly over Iraqi airspace for a likely attack against Iran, Iraqi media say.
It is more than a month that some Israeli planes belonging to Israeli air force use the US military bases in Iraq to land and take off, Iraqi Nahrainnet news network said Wednesday, quoting informed sources close to Iraq’s Defense Ministry.
The activities and traffic of warplanes- especially at nights- has lately increased in the US air bases in Nasiriya southeast of Baghdad and Haditha a city in the western Iraq province of Al Anbar, the Iraqi residents and sources said.
They said the US fighters, cargo planes, helicopters and unmanned planes have intensified their flights in the last three weeks.
The US military officials have imposed severe security measures around the bases, they said.
They said some aircraft suspected to be Israeli warplanes coming from Jordan, have landed in the US controlled al-Assad airbase near Haditha.
It is believed that these activities are parts of a joint Israeli-US training, preparation and coordination to launch an air raid against Iran’s nuclear plants.
Israel has conducted a military drill under the supervision of top US military commanders over the Mediterranean Sea from May 28 to June 12, using more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters, along with helicopters and refueling tanks which many consider as a possible rehearsal for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israel hints at readiness to strike Iran
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s defense minister has hinted at readiness to attack Iran, saying his country “proved in the past that it won’t hesitate to act when its vital security interests are at stake.”
But Ehud Barak added “the reactions of (Israel’s) enemies need to be taken into consideration as well.”
Related articles and videos:
– Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
– Ron Paul: I hear members of Congress saying “if we could only nuke Iran”
– Ron Paul: Nancy Pelosi pulled Iran bill on orders of Israel
– Ex-weapons inspector says Iran not pursuing nukes, but U.S. will attack before ‘09
– Senate report exposes key role of the Israel lobby in fomenting war with Iran
– A Declaration of U.S. Independence from Israel
– And the winner is … the Israel lobby
– America Is the Rogue Nation
– Ron Paul: This coming crisis is bigger than the world has ever experienced
– US Congress approves Israel aid increase
Tensions with Iran intensified after Tehran launched war games and long-range missile tests this week, warning Tel Aviv would be “set on fire” if Israel attacks Iran over its nuclear program.
Israel suspects Iran is building nuclear weapons. Iran denies that, but its president has often said Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
In 1981, Israel bombed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. Israel also hit a suspected nuclear facility in Syria in September.
July 10, 2008
Source: Breitbart.com
How Israel Is creating the war on Iran
Related articles:
– Ron Paul: Nancy Pelosi pulled Iran bill on orders of Israel
– Ex-weapons inspector says Iran not pursuing nukes, but U.S. will attack before ‘09
– Senate report exposes key role of the Israel lobby in fomenting war with Iran
– A Declaration of U.S. Independence from Israel
– And the winner is … the Israel lobby
– US Congress approves Israel aid increase
Jews in Palestine stirring up War
Shaul Mofaz, Israeli Minister of Defense:
“On the same US trip, Mr. Mofaz told a pro-Israeli lobby group that a nuclear Iran was “intolerable.” “The implicit message of his statements was that if the Iranian nuclear program is not stopped in the next number of months, Israel will have to take action of its own – perhaps even to attack – to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into Iranian hands,” analyst Amir Rappaport wrote in the Ma’ariv newspaper.” (Nicole Gaouette ‘Israel: Iran is now danger No. 1′); “In November, Israeli media reported that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, on a trip to Washington, told US officials that “under no circumstances would Israel be able to abide by nuclear weapons in Iranian possession.”
” Israeli Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz, affirmed that in view of Teheran’s nuclear plans, Tel Aviv should “not count on diplomatic negotiations but prepare other solutions”.” (James Petras ‘Israel’s War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs’). A month later, “Israel’s defense minister hinted Saturday that the Jewish state is preparing for military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but said international diplomacy must be the first course of action. “Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing,” Shaul Mofaz said.” (Talk of military action in Iran standoff’); “And Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz went further, speaking directly to Iran’s president: “I address you as someone who leads his country with an ideology of hate, terror, and anti-Semitism. I suggest you look at history and see what happened to others who tried to wipe out the Jewish people. … Israel is not prepared to accept the nuclear arming of Iran, and it must prepare to defend itself, with all that implies.” ” (Quoted in Patrick J Buchanan ‘Bush’s Dilemma: Iran vs. Israel’); “Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was asked whether Israel was ready to use military action if the Security Council proved unable to act against what Israel and the West believe is a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program. “My answer to this question is that the state of Israel has the right give all the security that is needed to the people in Israel. We have to defend ourselves,” Mofaz told Reuters after a meeting with his German counterpart Franz Josef Jung.” (Louis Charbonneau ‘Israel will have to Act on Iran if UN Can’t’).
Uzi Arad, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy:
“Iran has a clandestine nuclear program that is very ambitious,” says Uzi Arad, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzilya. “That country thinks big and fast and … poses a threat that is very real. Should it acquire nuclear weapons or even come close, it would completely alter the Middle East. It’s a very ominous threat.” (Nicole Gaouette ‘Israel: Iran is now danger No. 1′)
Meir Dagan, director of Mossad:
“Meir Dagan, director of Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad, told a parliamentary committee this month that Iran posed an “existential threat” to Israel, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. He reportedly assured committee members that Israel could deal with this threat.” (Nicole Gaouette ‘Israel: Iran is now danger No. 1′)
Iran ready to strike at Israel’s nuclear heart
Iran has moved ballistic missiles into launch positions, with Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant among the possible targets, defence sources said last week.
The movement of Shahab-3B missiles, which have an estimated range of more than 1,250 miles, followed a large-scale exercise earlier this month in which the Israeli air force flew en masse over the Mediterranean in an apparent rehearsal for a threatened attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Israel believes Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons.
The sources said Iran was preparing to retaliate for any onslaught by firing missiles at Dimona, where Israel’s own nuclear weapons are believed to be made.
Major-General Mohammad Jafari, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, told a Tehran daily: “This country [Israel] is completely within the range of the Islamic Republic’s missiles. Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime – despite all its abilities – cannot confront it.”
Top US commander briefed on IDF’s four-front strategy in potential Iran war context
Top US commander Adm. Michael Mullen sees for himself
The visiting Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, carried out a guided tour of Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the weekend. It was led by the IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and OCs Northern and Southern Commands, Maj. Gens. Eisenkott and Galant.
He was briefed on IDF tactics in a war on all these potential flashpoints in the context of a comprehensive conflict with Iran and then held long conversations with defense minister Ehud Barak and Ashkenazi.
DEBKAfile‘s military sources report that it is very unusual for the top American commander to carry out a close, on-the-spot study of Israel’s potential war fronts. It was prompted on the one hand by skepticism in parts of the US high command of Israel’s ability to simultaneously strike Iran’s nuclear installations and fight off attacks from three borders while, at the same time, Adm. Mullen showed he was open to persuasion that the IDF’s prospective tactics and war plans were workable.
Military circles in Washington, commenting on the large-scale air maneuver Israel carried out with Greece earlier in June, have opined that 100 warplanes are not enough for the Israel Air Force to destroy all of Iran’s secret nuclear sites; more than 1,000 would be needed. Israel military tacticians in contact with US commanders have countered that, while Iran’s secret nuclear locations are scattered and buried deep, still, every chain has weak links and is therefore vulnerable.
The tough threats issued by Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Mohamed Ali Jafari on Saturday, June 28, were prompted by the Adm. Mullen’s Israeli border tour, word of which was flashed to Tehran by Syrian-Iranian observation posts inside Syrian and Lebanese borders.
(The Sunday Times added that Iran moved its ballistic Shihab-3 missiles into launch positions, with Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant among its possible targets.)
Saturday, DEBKAfile reported:
The IRGC chief, Mohammad Ali Jafari issued Tehran’s toughest and most explicit threats yet in response to recent reports of Israeli preparations to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.
Hinting at an American attack, he said: “If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region , definitely the scope will reach the oil issue.”
After this action (of imposing controls on the Gulf waterway), the oil price will rise very considerably,” he said.
Read moreTop US commander briefed on IDF’s four-front strategy in potential Iran war context
America Is the Rogue Nation
One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.
It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, “You naughty boys, you.”
Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.
Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about 70 million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the U.S. ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers).
More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal.
Iran’s conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and 10 amphibious ships.
It’s been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran’s forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I’ve heard is pretty snazzy.
So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I’d have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I’d have to promote you to idiot.
Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied down in both countries.
For some years now, I’ve worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England – arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw.
The British never dreamed that the “little yellow people” could come ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink the pride of the British fleet, but they did both.
I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How’d you like to be the president who has to tell the American people that we’ve lost a carrier for the first time since World War II?
Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don’t know, but they will respond.
In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe?
Turkey, Syria eye nuclear energy cooperation: agency
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey and Syria are considering setting up a joint energy company and could build joint nuclear power plants for electricity, Syria’s oil minister was quoted as saying on Friday.
Turkey’s state-run Antolian agency quoted Oil Minister Sufian Alao as saying that the two countries will announce the establishment of a joint energy company in the coming days, which could explore for oil in Turkey, Syria and in third countries.
“We could also enter into cooperation in the nuclear field. I spoke to (Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler) Mr. Guler on cooperation. In the future we could found joint nuclear power plants for electricity production,” he was quoted as saying.
Washington released intelligence in April which it said showed Syria secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help. Damascus, a U.S. foe and ally of Iran, denies any covert nuclear activity and has said it would cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the allegations.
Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, is already under pressure from Washington because of its natural gas cooperation with Iran, whose secretive uranium enrichment program has been under scrutiny since 2003.
The general director of Turkish state energy firm TPAO, Mehmet Uysal, was also quoted as saying the two countries had decided to set up a joint energy company and that a deal could be signed by the end of the year, but did not mention cooperation on nuclear energy.
(So what now? Bomb them all? -The Infinite Unknown)
Fri Jun 13, 10:57 AM ET
Source: Reuters
Israel to attack Iran unless enrichment stops: minister
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s deputies said on Friday.
“If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
“Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” said the former army chief who has also been defense minister.
It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert’s government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end.
(If Israel attacks Iran then Israel has intentionally started World War III.
Prepare yourself NOW: “Solution” – The Infinite Unknown)
Read moreIsrael to attack Iran unless enrichment stops: minister
MI6 chief visits Mossad for talks on Iran’s nuclear threat
THE head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, is to visit Israel later this month as Britain forges closer links with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Iran’s nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda in an intelligence-sharing process described by Israeli officials as a “strategic dialogue”. It is building on long-standing cooperation between MI6 and Mossad, both of which have extensive spy networks in the Middle East.
Scarlett, 59, is likley to be briefed by Meir Dagan, 63, the head of Mossad, on Israel’s latest information about the Iranian nuclear programme. It is understood that Israel has made a breakthrough in intelligence-gathering within Iran.
There is mounting concern in Israel that Iran’s nuclear capability may be far more advanced than was recognised in a declassified assessment by the US National Intelligence Estimate last December, which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development programme in 2003 in response to international pressure.
One source claimed the new information was on a par with intelligence that led Israel to discover and then destroy a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria last September.
Israeli officials believe the US will revise its analysis of Iran’s programme. “We expect the Americans to amend their report soon,” a high-ranking military officer said last week.
Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, briefed Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the foreign secretary, on Israel’s findings during talks on the Middle East in London last week. Israeli intelligence officers, en route from Washington where they had been outlining their latest information to American officials, joined Livni for the briefing.
It is thought that if Israel were considering military action against Iran over its nuclear programme, it would want to ensure it had diplomatic support in London and Washington because of the danger of triggering a wider Middle East conflict.
“We’re doing a lot of things about Iran,” Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, said last week. “We say we shouldn’t rule out any option. Not ruling out options means action, but the worst thing to do at the moment is to talk [about it].” Whitehall officials said Scarlett’s visit was “routine”.
May 4, 2008
Uzi Mahnaimi
Source: The Times
Drought could close nuclear power plants
Southeast water shortage a factor in huge cooling requirements
LAKE NORMAN, N.C. – Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.
Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn’t result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region’s utilities could be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.
Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.
“Water is the nuclear industry’s Achilles’ heel,” said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. “You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants.” He added: “This is becoming a crisis.”