Iran's proposed nuclear plant: electricity generation or weapons grade

[Morbius]

I won't accuse you of dishonesty, as you did me, as I try not to be as rude as you are on this forum and so I will allow it is your genuine inability to understand these simple points that leads you to spout nonsense.

I do take exception to you claiming I have invented facts as that is a quintessential example of transference.

Art,

You just did it again above. You ASSERT violations - but NEVER CITE anything.

Give me an example of where you think [ term used loosely ] that the US violated the NPT.
I'll show you that the USA abided by the concrete terms of the NPT - it just didn't abide by
"your interprestion" of the NPT. But your interpretation is not authoritative nor definitive.

Like the braindead "nuclear abolitionists" - you "spin" the interpetation to your own liking - and
make assertions based on that.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[Art]

Art,

I can't refrain any longer - you are just PLAIN STUPID!

The concern was NOT over the sensitive technology - the computer chips and optics would have
never survived the reentry - you blithering MORON!

The concern was that many tons of mass were going to come raining down on the surface of the planet

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Could you explain to a moron why if the optics and chips were going to be vaporised on re-entry why the rest of the satellite wasn't? Despite the intelligence sensitive equipment being for the most part in the most protected core of the satellite especially as glass has a melting point nearly 300 - 500 degrees C greater than steel. I'd really like to see you vaporising a piece of coal wrapped in paper whilst leaving the paper intact.

you know, I find there are two kinds of stupid in the world.

Those that know they are stupid and try to improve themselves and those that are so stupid they actually think they are clever and everybody else is stupid.

You can normally spot the latter because they tend to add imperious looking signatures to the rubbish they spout vainly hoping this will compensate for their shockingly poor content and perilously low IQ.

NPT Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The treaty came into force in 1970, it is now 2008. Has the US and the other nuclear elite fulfilled their obligations? Only an idiot would claim they have.

 

[Morbius]

For example it was you who misinformed another poster that Iran was in violation of the NPT because it did not allow open-ended, unchecked inspections. I am simply tidying up behind you redressing your errors.

Art,

Iran's LACK of transparency was one of the key reasons cited by the IAEA when it REPORTED
Iran to the Security Council for VIOLATION of the NPT:

Courtesy of the Center for Defense Information's International Security Law Project:

http://www.cdi.org/news/law/iran-iaea-020206.cfm

Delays in referral have, in the past, been accompanied by diplomatic efforts spearheaded by the EU-3,
Britain, France and Germany, including the 2004 Paris Agreement calling for greater Iranian transparency,
and under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, but which Iran now is breaching.


http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-27-voa57.cfm

Courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists:

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RS21592.pdf

Courtesy of the Institute for Science and International Security:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/irannptviolations.pdf

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[Cyrus]

This is a great debate, don't lock it!

 

[Morbius]

you know, I find there are two kinds of stupid in the world.

Those that know they are stupid and try to improve themselves and those that are so stupid they actually think they are clever and everybody else is stupid.

You can normally spot the latter because they tend to add imperious looking signatures to the rubbish they spout vainly hoping this will compensate for their perilously low IQ.

NPT Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Art,

That is the early wording of Article VI - but you need to go to the proceedings of 5 year conferences
of the NPT signatories to get their interpretation! The NPT signatories at their 5 year conferences
have stated that the time for complete nuclear disarmament IS NOT at hand.

Article VI remains a goal for the future - but is NOT a current requirement.

Do you have enough intellect to know the differrence between a "goal" and a "requirement"?

As far as my signature - that is provided automatically by my Linux system working with the
bulletin board software. My home Linux machine contains the same ".signature" file as the
Linux computer that I have at work. That's a convenience. My .signature file contains my
name and title "Physicist" and there are two additional lines that contain my employer's name.
However, the Forum software evidently only captures the first two lines. I don't see why my
name and title should be of any concern in this discussion.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[Pyrrhus]

This is a great debate, don't lock it!

Hahaha, hey bro!. I am following this discussion, too.

I think Morbius should get out of the Nuclear Engineering forum more often.

 

[Morbius]

Could you explain to a moron why if the optics and chips were going to be vaporised on re-entry why the rest of the satellite wasn't?

Art,

Because MORON - I NEVER SAID that the chips and optics were going to be "vaporized"

Both heat and impact would make the chips and optics useless.

They were going to be heated to a level in which the chips would not retain their information;
and the ultra-fine polished lenses would NOT retain their ultra-fine polish. Therefore, the
recovery of coding from the chips or highly polished lenses was not at issue.

But I did NOT say "vaporized". They would be damaged - and hence useless - but NOT
vaporized. We would still have TONS of mass raining down on to the surface.

If there had been people and homes under Skylab - they could have been killed or injured.

This is the typical "strawman" argument. I said the chips and optics "would not survive"
and you infer this means "vaporized". Just as you misread the NPT Treaty - you MISREAD
my postings and "spin" them to your own uses.

I abhor such intellectual DISHONESTY and STUPIDITY

Deal with my words as I have written them - NOT as you would have liked them to be written.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[Morbius]

Hahaha, hey bro!. I am following this discussion, too.

I think Morbius should get out of the Nuclear Engineering forum more often.

Cycovenom,

I think I'll go back to the Nuclear Engineering forum - I don't like dealing with people
who "think" with their politics instead of their brains.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[Count Iblis]

...under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, but which Iran now is breaching.

This is symptomatic of the attitude of the West. Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment temporarily while negotiations with the EU-3 were going on. Iran made it clear numerous times during that period that they would never agree to a permanent suspension of enrichement. They were negotiating about measures to reassure the West that their nuclear program was not for weapons. The suspension was a temporary confidence building measure.

Then in the spring of 2005, the EU-3 was supposed to come up with a proposal. They didn't. Iran then asked the EU-3 when they were going to coime up with the proposals. The EU-3 said that it would take untoil the summer. After a lot of footdragging (presumably this involved the US Neo-Cons making modifications to the EU-3 plans, taking out any proposals that wpould allow Iran to have an enrichment capability no matter how well scritinized etc. etc. , the EU-3 came up with their now infamous "incentives" offer under which Iran has to sign away their right to process their own uranium.

The moment that final proposal was made, the negotiations were over. Iran could either accept it or not accept it (they didn't accept it). But what should have been clear to anyone was that Iran was no longer bound by any agreement to suspend uranium enrichment.

If Iran were breaching something by enriching uranium at that point, then that could only be the case if Iran would already have agreed to permanently suspend enrichment, because the negotiations failed and still the US and Britain were saying that Iran is in breach of an agreement. But if that were true, then any negotiations about suspension were redundant. So, that's a contradiction.


We then have to ask why you can have an official statement in 2005 by the US and British governments saying that:

...under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, but which Iran now is breaching.

CLearly this illogical statement was meant for to mislead the US and British public who mostly don't follow this issue closely. The message they remember is that their government is saying that "Iran is in breach of some treaty regarding nuclear matters". And "nuclear" sounds scary. Then we all know about Ahmadinejad who said that the Israeli state will crumble which is deliberately mistranslated as "Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map".


So, it is very clear that the US and British governments have been telling lies to mislead the public.

 

[Art]

Art,

Because MORON - I NEVER SAID that the chips and optics were going to be "vaporized"

Both heat and impact would make the chips and optics useless.

They were going to be heated to a level in which the chips would not retain their information;
and the ultra-fine polished lenses would NOT retain their ultra-fine polish. Therefore, the
recovery of coding from the chips or highly polished lenses was not at issue.

But I did NOT say "vaporized". They would be damaged - and hence useless - but NOT
vaporized. We would still have TONS of mass raining down on to the surface.

If there had been people and homes under Skylab - they could have been killed or injured.

This is the typical "strawman" argument. I said the chips and optics "would not survive"
and you infer this means "vaporized". Just as you misread the NPT Treaty - you MISREAD
my postings and "spin" them to your own uses.

I abhor such intellectual DISHONESTY and STUPIDITY

Deal with my words as I have written them - NOT as you would have liked them to be written.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Dr Strangelove err Greenman - Are you really so daft you thought I meant someone would just pick them up, plug them in and use them

This may astonish you but even damaged components would yield very valuable design information. Far more valuable than any transient information the chips contained. As a simple example an examination of the lens even if broken would allow someone to a) copy them and b) know to what resolution the spy satellite can 'see' and so if a moron can see why the US gov't would want to make sure this satellite was completely destroyed whilst a genius like you can't... well doesn't this tell you something??

Methinks you have been standing too close to one of your reactors for too long

 

[Art]

Art,

Iran's LACK of transparency was one of the key reasons cited by the IAEA when it REPORTED
Iran to the Security Council for VIOLATION of the NPT:

The IAEA's impartiality has been seriously compromised through pressure from the US both indirectly through general political pressure on it's trading partners and directly by threatening to take action against Iran itself if the IAEA didn't do it's bidding. The US even tried to have IAEA Director Mohammad El Baradei fired since which he's been very supportive of whatever he is told to support.

As I've already stated Iran is being measured against it's non-compliance with the additional protocol. You know, that one the US refuses to comply with.. Yes the very same one Iran was voluntarily working to until they were told they still weren't going to be allowed to pursue their legal right to enrich uranium.

To put things in perspective Iran fell foul of the IAEA because in 1991 it failed to report the importation of 0.13 kilograms of effective uranium. This came to light in 2003 when Iran itself declared the material to the IAEA claiming they had misinterpreted a clause in the safeguards agreement back in 1991 which they thought meant only effective uranium imports of 1 kilogram or more needed to be reported. Art 95 of the safeguards agreement required advance notice to be issued of all imports of effective uranium greater than 1 kg. The IAEA informed Iran the advance notice was an additional requirement and that all nuclear imports should have been reported. The IAEA also complained that Iran had not reported subsequent work done on this material. Iran's defence was the US's 'illegal' embargo, in operation since the overthrow of the US appointed dictator the Shah, had prevented them from accessing equipment through regular channels and had forced them to procure supplies instead from back channel sources which they could hardly then report without burning their source.

All the nonsense about undeclared additional facilities etc are just that - nonsense. Under the general safeguards agreement operating at the time Iran was under no obligation to declare any facility until 180 days before the receipt of nuclear material into it and under no obligation ever to declare heavy water production facilities. As neither of the plants in question at that time had any nuclear material this was a total red herring thrown out to the media to suggest Iran was in breach of the NPT with a 'secret' program. Never-the-less Iran did in 2003 sign the amended safeguard agreement and since then has reported all new facilities at the design stage.

It was at this point Iran also agreed, as a so called confidence building measure, to work voluntarily to the provisions of the additional protocol. They continued to do so until sanctions were imposed, although even now they still allow the IAEA greater access than the general safeguards agreement calls for.

Here's a copy of a letter sent by the IAEA to the Republican Chairman of the House of Representatives which whilst largely self-serving also debunks some of the more outrageous claims being made about Iran;

The Honourable Peter Hoekstra
Chairman
U.S. House of Representatives
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
H-405 The Caitol
Washington, DC 20515
U.S.A.

2006-09-12

Sir,

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Staff Report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy, date 23 August 2006, entitled “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States”, contains some erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information.

The caption under the photograph of the Natanz site on page 9 of the report states that “ Iran is currently enriching uranium to weapons grade using a 164-machine centrifuge cascade”. In this regard, please be informed that information about the uranium enrichment work being carried out at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP_ at Natanz, including the 3.6% enrichment level that had been achieved by Iran, was provided to the IAEA Board of Governors by the Director General in April 2006 (see GOV/2006/27. paragraph 31). The description of this enrichment level as “weapons grade” is incorrect, since the term “weapons-grade” is commonly used to refer to uranium enriched to the order of 60% or more in the isotope of uranium-235. The Director General’s April 2006 report, as well as all of his other reports on the implementation of the safeguards in Ira, are posted on the IAEA’s website at http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran .

The first bullet on page 10 states that “ Iran had covertly produced the short-lived radioactive element polonium-210 (Po-210), a substance with two known uses; a neutron source for a nuclear weapon and satellite batteries”. The use of the phrase “covertly produced” is misleading because the production of Po-210 is not required to be reported by Iran to the IAEA under the NPT safeguards agreement concluded between Iran and the IAEA (published in IAEA document INFCIRC/214). (Regarding the production of Po-210, please refer to the report provided to the Board of Governors by the Director General in November 2004 (GOV/2004/83, paragraph 80)).

Furthermore, the IAEA Secretariat takes strong exception to the incorrect and misleading assertion in the Staff Report’s second full paragraph of page 13 that the Director General of the IAEA decided to “remove” Mr. Charlier, a senior safeguards inspector of the IAEA, for “allegedly raising concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program and concluding that the purposed of Iran’s nuclear programme is to construct weapons”. In addition, the report contains an outrageous and dishonest suggestion that such removal might have been for “not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy baring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program”.

In this regard, please be advised that all safeguards agreements concluded between a State and the IAEA in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons require the IAEA to secure acceptance by the State of the designation of IAEA safeguards inspectors, before such inspectors may be sent to the State on inspection (INFCIRC/153 (Corr.), paragraphs 9 and 85). Under such agreements, each State has the right to object to the designation of any safeguards inspector, and to request the withdrawal of the designation of an inspector, at any time, for that State (http:www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs). Accordingly, Iran’s request to the Director General to withdraw the designation of Mr. Charlier authorizing him to carry out safeguards inspection in Iran, was based on paragraph (a)(i) of Article 9 and paragraph (d) of Article 85 of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement. I should also like to note here that Iran has accepted the designation of more than 200 Agency safeguards inspectors, which number is similar to that accepted by the majority of non-nuclear-weapon States that have concluded safeguards agreements pursuant to the NPT.

Finally, it is regrettable that the Staff Report did not take into account the views of the United Nations Security Council, as expressed in resolution 1996 (2006), which inter alia, “commends and encourages the Director General fo the IAEA and its secretariat for the ongoing professional and impartial efforts to resolve all remaining outstanding issues in Iran within the framework of the Agency”.

While it is unfortunate that the authors of the Staff Report did not consult with the IAEA Secretariat to verify the correctness of the above referenced information, the IAEA Secretariat stands ready to assist your Committee in correcting the erroneous and misleading information contained in the report.

Yours

Vilmos Cserveny
Director
Office of External Relations and Policy Coordination

 

[mheslep]

... and it's failure to dismantle it's nuclear arsenal...

A good article by Britain's former foreign secretary Robin Cook
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2005/05/27_cook_americas-broken-promises.htm ...

The US has indeed been dismantling its nuclear arsenal, declining now to less than a 1/3 of the cold war peak. The Bush administration has continued the process with further reduction plans, announcing unilaterally that the 2004 levels would be cut in half by 2012.

The 2012 stockpile of 5,000+ warheads represent a significant reduction from the 24,000 warhead stockpile of the 1980s (and the all-time high of 32,000 warheads in 1966)

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/05/estimates_of_us_nuclear_weapon.php

I fail to see how this could in any way be seen as a failure to comply with the 'undertakes to pursue' disarmament language of the NPT's article VI.

 

[Evo]

It is ok to attack a person's argument or opinion, but personal attacks are not allowed. I have not had time to moderate this thread today, so it is closed until I have time to do so.