TEHRAN - Iran has moved some of its centrifuges to an underground uranium enrichment site that offers better protection from possible airstrikes, the country’s vice president said yesterday....
Iran has been enriching uranium to less than 5 percent for years, but it began to further enrich its stockpile to nearly 20 percent as of February 2010, saying it needs the higher grade material to produce fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients.
See: Iran's Isotopes
How would you feel towards someone who told you your relative is denied treatment for cancer?
Weapons-grade uranium is usually about 90 percent enriched.
And Iran is NOWHERE NEAR IT!
Iran’s higher-grade enrichment efforts are of concern to the West because uranium at 20 percent enrichment can be converted into fissile material for a nuclear warhead much more quickly than that at 3.5 percent.
When the machines aren't breaking down.
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Related:
Ads by Google
Yeah, that is who is bringing me my news every morning.
Is it any wonder I'm sick of the s***?
"Iran allows UN inspector to visit nuclear fuel facility; Centrifuges kick plutonium work into higher gear" August 24, 2011|By George Jahn, Associated Press
VIENNA - Iran has allowed a top UN atomic inspector access to a site where it is developing advanced centrifuges that can be used to make nuclear fuel and to arm warheads, diplomats said yesterday.
Of course, Iran is not doing that second thing but that didn't stop the agenda-pushing media from implying it.
The diplomats said that Herman Nackaerts, deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also was allowed to tour Iran’s heavy water production plant for the first time. Heavy water reactors - like the research unit being built by Iran - produce plutonium which, along with enriched uranium, can be used for the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Doesn't mean it will be; it just can.
A senior diplomat familiar with the visit described the Iranian move as significant in demonstrating openness after years of stonewalling the UN agency’s requests for greater access to restricted nuclear activities....
Translation: Iran is attempting to FORESTALL the ATTACK we ALL SEE COMING!
Before Nackaerts’s five-day visit, which ended Saturday, the agency was forced to rely on satellite imagery in concluding that the heavy water production plant was in operation. One of the diplomats said Nackaerts was able to confirm this on his visit.
And yet this is the first I've read of it.
Both the diplomat and a counterpart from a different IAEA member nation asked for anonymity because their information was privileged.
That means an Israeli.
Since Iran’s secret nuclear activities were unveiled in 2003, concerns have grown that it may be using the cover of a peaceful program to develop weapons capability.
Oh, like what Israel did at Dimona?
Yeah, Israel ACTUALLY HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS and it doesn't seem to raise much of a fuss. Nor does the fact that they, India, and Pakistan (our alleged allies all) have not signed the non-proliferation treaty and Iran has.
Iran denies that, saying its activities are geared only toward research and producing nuclear fuel.
I'll bet but is the next word in the MSM piece of slop.
But because both enrichment and a running heavy water reactor can produce warhead material, international fear has grown as Tehran defies UN resolutions demanding a stop to both programs.
Iran’s work on advanced centrifuges has heightened worries because, once operational, they will be able to enrich at up to three times the speed of its present model.
To date, the IAEA has no knowledge of Iran making weapons-grade uranium.
I'll bet but is the next word in the MSM piece of slop.
But any speed-up in enrichment would increase its supply of low-enriched material more quickly - and also speed up conversion into high-enriched, weapons grade uranium, should Iran choose to go that route.
Meaning they have NOT GONE THAT ROUTE!
In its last report in May, the agency said that Tehran has stockpiled more than four tons of low-enriched uranium. That would be enough for nearly three nuclear warheads if enriched to levels above 90 percent.
Can be, could be, but, if, sigh, sigh, SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iran also is increasingly focused on higher enrichment to 20 percent - a level that can be turned into weapons-grade uranium much more quickly than Iran’s 3.5 percent low-enriched uranium.
Note the MEDICAL NEED is OMITTED HERE!
The diplomats said that Nackaerts also visited Iran’s underground enrichment site at Fordow which offers better protection from possible airstrikes than its present facility and which is currently being outfitted with centrifuges.
On Monday, Victoria Nuland, US State Department spokeswoman, said Iran’s recent enrichment moves are increasingly suspicions.
And on SUSPICION ALONE we will have to.... PREEMPT?
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Related:
Tehran says Iran ready to resume nuclear talks
Man sentenced in Iran missile parts case
The corporate media have been given their orders to throw the focus back on to Iran.
Here is a recap of what they are trying to make you forget.
1. Last Spring, Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state and Washington's chief nuclear arms negotiator, asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel refused.
2. The United Nations passed a resolution calling on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections. Israel refused.
3. The IAEA asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections. Israel refused.
4. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed.
5. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities.
6. Contrary to face-saving claims, it appears that the US and Israel were both caught off guard by Iran's announcement of a planned underground (to avoid being bombed) enrichment facility. The reasoning is simple. Had the US or Israel announced the existence of he new facility before Iran's notified the IAEA, it would have put Iran on the defensive. As it is now, the US and Israel seem to be playing catch up, casting doubt on the veracity of Israel's claims to "know" that Iran is a nuclear threat.
7. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons.
8. In 1986, Mordachai Vanunu blew the whistle and provided photographs showing Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons factory underneath the reactor at Dimona.
9. Israel made the same accusations against Iraq that it is making against Iran, leading up to Israel's bombing of the power station at Osirik. Following the invasion of 2003, international experts examined the ruins of the power station at Osirik and found no evidence of a clandestine weapons factory in the rubble.
10. The United Nations has just released the Goldstone Report, a scathing report which accuses Israel of 37 specific war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza earlier this year. Israel has denounced the report as "Anti-Semitic (even though Judge Goldstone is himself Jewish), and the United States will block the report from being referred to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, thereby making the US Government an accessory after-the-fact.
11. Recently revealed documents prove not only that Israel has nuclear weapos, but actually tried to sell some to Apartheid South Africa. Who else Israel approached to sell nuclear weapons remains an unasked question.
12. In 1965, Israel stole over 200-600 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from the United States.
13. Declassified documents from the former South African regime prove not only that
Israel has had nuclear weapons for decades, but has tried to sell them to other countries!
We all need to be Joe Wilson right now. We need to stand up and scream, "LIAR!" at every politician and every talking media moron that is pushing this war in Iran. And we need to keep doing it until they get the message that we will not be deceived any more.
Israel wants to send your kids off to die in Iran, and YOU are the only one that can stop them.
Please forward this comment to your social networks." -- Wake the Flock Up
And no sooner does he say it than....
"EU slaps sanctions on Iran force accused of enabling Assad; France leads bid at UN against Syria crackdown" by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press / August 25, 2011
BEIRUT - The European Union imposed sanctions yesterday on the elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, saying the Quds Force is providing equipment and other support to help Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, crush the five-month-old uprising against him.
Related(?): EU Angered as Iran Allows Access to IAEA Inspectors
I think so, yeah.
The sanctions broadened the international pressure on Syria by targeting its key ally Iran, which the United States and other nations have accused of aiding the crackdown....
This is how the West intends to draw Iran into the Third World War.
Iran has offered unwavering support for Damascus, and there has been speculation it is providing funds to cushion Assad’s government as it burns through the $17 billion in foreign reserves that was on hand at the start of the uprising....
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Related: Iran is Next Target
Also see:
"Clair George, 81; CIA spymaster caught up in Iran-Contra affair" by Douglas Martin, New York Times / August 25, 2011
NEW YORK - Clair E. George, a consummate spymaster who moved the chess pieces in the CIA’s clandestine games of intrigue before being convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, died Aug. 11 in Bethesda, Md. He was 81....
Before Mr. George was sentenced, President George H.W. Bush granted a full and unconditional pardon to him and five other Iran-Contra defendants.
As the CIA’s deputy director of operations for three years of the Reagan administration, the third-highest post in the spy agency, Mr. George was responsible for cloak-and-dagger activities worldwide. He reached this pinnacle after three decades of working as a spy around the world, specializing in recruiting foreign agents to spy on their own countries for the United States.
The Washington Post Magazine in 1992 quoted a colleague as calling Mr. George “a top-notch street man’’ who operated in the less desirable posts of the world. He worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He was the CIA’s station chief in Beirut when civil war erupted there in 1975. He then volunteered to replace the Athens station chief, who had just been assassinated by terrorists.
Bob Woodward, in his 1987 book, “Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987,’’ said veteran spies regarded Mr. George as “an old warhorse symbol of the CIA at its best and proudest.’’
In the Post, Richard Viets, a Foreign Service officer who was in India at the same time as Mr. George and who went on to become an ambassador, said Mr. George had the perfect personality for the agency. “He exudes trust and friendliness,’’ he said, “but in fact is duplicitous as hell.’’
Mr. George’s loyalty to the CIA, however, was unshakable - and ultimately wrecked his career. He was convicted in 1992 of lying to congressional committees and a grand jury to keep from disclosing what he knew about the agency’s participation in the Reagan administration’s illegal scheme to sell arms to Iran and divert profits from the sales to help the Contra rebels in Nicaragua....
As the U.S. was also funding and providing intelligence to Saddam Hussein's Iraq to fight Iran.
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Yeah, somehow that, the shooting down of the Iranian airplane, Operation Ajax, and all the other covert crap we have thrown against Iran the last 42 years is missing from the discussion.
Iran: Mossad had role in assassination
Didn't expect to find that in the Globe, didja?
And if the nukes don't convince you to wage war, Amerikans, maybe this will:
"Iran sentences 2 Americans to 8 years in prison" August 21, 2011|By Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press
TEHRAN - Two American men arrested more than two years ago while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border have been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges that include espionage, state TV reported yesterday, a sharp blow to hopes that their release was imminent.
The announcement seemed to send a hard-line message from Iran’s judiciary - which answers directly to the ruling clerics - weeks after the country’s foreign minister suggested that the trial of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal could clear the way for their freedom.
It also was likely to raise speculation about Iran using the Americans as political bargaining chips and could bring added tensions to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s expected visit to New York next month for the annual General Assembly at the United Nations.
Almost as if they were.... hostages?
Related: Iran Intramural
Looks like he is on the way out himself. So much for the next Hitler.
Authorities did not immediately confirm the report and made no further comment - although it was carried on Iran’s highly controlled state media, which is frequently used to make high-profile announcements....
I'm reading one now.
The Americans, whose final court hearing was three weeks ago, deny the charges and say they were only hiking in a scenic and largely peaceful area of northern Iraq near the porous border....
That is such a weak, lame-ass excuse.
They were warned by the locals not to go that way, and had GPS systems with them.
Iran insists that its judiciary is independent from political currents, but Iranian officials have used the detained Americans to draw attention to alleged mistreatment of Iranians in US prisons and others who were held by US forces in Iraq.
Just like AmeriKa uses frame-up, patsy plots of terror?
The report on the sentences came just two days after President Obama made his most direct call for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who remains among Iran’s closest Mideast allies.
The hikers’ case has added to tensions between the United States and Iran that were already high over other issues, including Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
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Also see:
Occupation Iraq: Iranians Capture AmeriKan Spies
Iran Recognizes AmeriKan Reporters
Spies Playing Reporter
A Quick Hike Through Iran
Iran Releases CIA Spy
As far as I am concerned, if you make the paper you are CIA.
