Russia plans to start up Iran nuclear plant in 2009
By Reuters
Tags: Russia, Iran, Nuclear
Russia plans to start up a nuclear reactor at Iran's Bushehr plant by the end of the year, the head of Russia's state nuclear corporation said on Thursday.
The move is likely to stoke fears over Iran's suspected intention to build atomic weapons. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.
Israel has expressed concern about the Bushehr plant and said last year that Iran could have a nuclear bomb by 2010.
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The plant is situated on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran. It is Iran's first nuclear power plant.
Russia agreed in 1995 to build the plant on the site of an earlier project begun in the 1970s by German firm Siemens. The Siemens project was disrupted by Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
The details of the contract are state secrets in Russia but its value is said to be around $1 billion.
Analysts say Iran could become a key issue in relations between President Dmitry Medvedev and new United States President Barack Obama, who said last month that America was prepared to talk to Tehran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly said Moscow does not want Iran to be armed with nuclear weapons but that Russia sees no evidence Tehran is seeking to build atomic bombs.
This month, world powers, meeting for the first time on Iran since Obama took office, urged Iran to comply fully with UN demands, which include a halt to uranium enrichment and opening up to a UN nuclear watchdog investigation.
Atomstroyexport, a part of Russia's state owned nuclear holding, is building the plant.
The firm said in November it would increase personnel at the plant by a least 25 percent as it prepared to the reactor for start up. Rosatom Chief Sergei Kiriyenko said he would visit the plant at the end of February.
Russia started delivery of nuclear fuel to the plant in late 2007 and deliveries were completed last year. Russia and Washington agree importing fuel makes unnecessary Iran's own plutonium enrichment project - the main point of Western concerns.
The launch of the Bushehr plant's nuclear reactor has frequently been delayed, ever since work began in the 1970s.
Russian and Iranian officials have given different dates for the start-up and the two sides had a row in 2007 over what Moscow said were major payment delays.
Russian nuclear officials say the plant cannot be used to build nuclear weapons. Russia has tried to push Tehran to be more open about its nuclear program but has warned the West against pushing Iran's leaders into a corner.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061938.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Iran nuke study pulls military option off the table
Last update - 16:16 04/12/2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930783.html
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
Iran nuke study pulls military option off the table
By Shmuel Rosner and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: U.S., Iran
While the U.S. intelligence services should be given credit for trying to correct their mistake, they failed to explain how they reached their new conclusions regarding Iran's nuclear program.
WASHINGTON - "An intelligence consensus is difficult to challenge with new data," wrote Judge Richard Posner in his book "Preventing Surprise Attack," which deals with the necessary reforms in American intelligence services post-9/11.
Intelligence officers, like anyone else, "are reluctant to change their minds" and admit they made a mistake or were caught by surprise. So the U.S. intelligence services should be given credit for trying to correct their mistake. Meanwhile, it should be remembered that correcting a mistake with another mistake makes it all the more difficult to change one's mind the next time.
Israel's ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, spent the weekend warning about Iran's nuclear program. Meanwhile, Israel knew about the report that was to be released, but Meridor warned in no uncertain terms that "time is running out." Either way, the official report blew up in his face: Time is not running out, the Iranians are not making progress, and Israel may come to be seen as a panic-stricken rabbit. (Click here to read the report)
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The debate surrounding this report's conclusions will be substantial, and many will assume that its authors have failed in gathering or interpreting the intelligence out there. A psychological interpretation will also be thrown into the pot, discounting the conclusions. The same intelligence that warned of Saddam Hussein's non-conventional arsenal is now making the opposite, deadly error in relation to Iran. The Americans will find themselves surprised like they did when they learned of the Indian and Pakistani bombs.
Professionals will now argue passionately, continuing the debates between Israel's assessment (an Iranian bomb in 2009-2010) and the American one (a bomb in 2012-2013).
The Americans failed to explain Monday how they reached their new conclusions. As such, the general public will find it difficult to decide who is right. Maybe in the future, when there suddenly really is a bomb in play, or maybe not a decision on this can be final. Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence has adopted the "most severe" approach, but the American decision maker is only affected by the Americans writing the assessment.
It does not really matter. However successful or flawed this report may be, there is a new, dramatic reality, in all aspects of the struggle against the Iranian bomb: The military option, American or Israeli, is off the table, indefinitely.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930783.html
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
Iran nuke study pulls military option off the table
By Shmuel Rosner and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: U.S., Iran
While the U.S. intelligence services should be given credit for trying to correct their mistake, they failed to explain how they reached their new conclusions regarding Iran's nuclear program.
WASHINGTON - "An intelligence consensus is difficult to challenge with new data," wrote Judge Richard Posner in his book "Preventing Surprise Attack," which deals with the necessary reforms in American intelligence services post-9/11.
Intelligence officers, like anyone else, "are reluctant to change their minds" and admit they made a mistake or were caught by surprise. So the U.S. intelligence services should be given credit for trying to correct their mistake. Meanwhile, it should be remembered that correcting a mistake with another mistake makes it all the more difficult to change one's mind the next time.
Israel's ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, spent the weekend warning about Iran's nuclear program. Meanwhile, Israel knew about the report that was to be released, but Meridor warned in no uncertain terms that "time is running out." Either way, the official report blew up in his face: Time is not running out, the Iranians are not making progress, and Israel may come to be seen as a panic-stricken rabbit. (Click here to read the report)
Advertisement
The debate surrounding this report's conclusions will be substantial, and many will assume that its authors have failed in gathering or interpreting the intelligence out there. A psychological interpretation will also be thrown into the pot, discounting the conclusions. The same intelligence that warned of Saddam Hussein's non-conventional arsenal is now making the opposite, deadly error in relation to Iran. The Americans will find themselves surprised like they did when they learned of the Indian and Pakistani bombs.
Professionals will now argue passionately, continuing the debates between Israel's assessment (an Iranian bomb in 2009-2010) and the American one (a bomb in 2012-2013).
The Americans failed to explain Monday how they reached their new conclusions. As such, the general public will find it difficult to decide who is right. Maybe in the future, when there suddenly really is a bomb in play, or maybe not a decision on this can be final. Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence has adopted the "most severe" approach, but the American decision maker is only affected by the Americans writing the assessment.
It does not really matter. However successful or flawed this report may be, there is a new, dramatic reality, in all aspects of the struggle against the Iranian bomb: The military option, American or Israeli, is off the table, indefinitely.
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