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Schrodinger's Dog
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Is Iran really that big a threat? Posturing and playground politics.
I have the link for this but since you need to be a subscriber to NS magazine there's little point in putting up the URL, so here's the article in full.
My question is if the US knows that Iran has very little real ability to enrich Uranium enough to make nukes, what sort of political game is this and should we bo so quick to jump to conclusions based on the Bush propaganda machine?
Is Iran any sort of real threat, and more importantly will Iran ever be a serious threat, it claims it's enriching Uranium for peaceful use, and it seems currently that's all it can do? Are we talking about what ifs and maybes? Is this poker politics? Or more aptly perhaps playground politics?
Oh yeah? Well my dads bigger'n your dad.
New Scientist
Iran's nukes - more politics than reality
29 April 2006
RSS Feed IRAN'S President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called it a "historic" breakthrough. His scientists, he claimed on 11 April, had completed the nuclear fuel cycle by enriching uranium for nuclear power plants. Western leaders warned that Iran had taken another dangerous step towards acquiring nuclear weapons and that it must be stopped.
But both sides are guilty of exaggeration and "vacuous political posturing", argues a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington DC think tank.
In natural uranium, the proportion of the fissile isotope U-235 is about 0.7 per cent. To fuel nuclear power stations, the proportion of U-235 has to be boosted by enrichment. This is done by using cascades of centrifuges to spin hot uranium hexafluoride gas and separate U-235 from its heavier cousin, U-238. Most of the world's 440 reactors use uranium enriched to between 2 and 5 per cent.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has historically supported the right of nations to develop enrichment technology for civilian use. All Iran did, according to Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, was to use 164 centrifuges to enrich uranium to 3.5 per cent. Given Iran's expertise this was not a surprise, and no more than what many nations already do.
I have the link for this but since you need to be a subscriber to NS magazine there's little point in putting up the URL, so here's the article in full.
My question is if the US knows that Iran has very little real ability to enrich Uranium enough to make nukes, what sort of political game is this and should we bo so quick to jump to conclusions based on the Bush propaganda machine?
Is Iran any sort of real threat, and more importantly will Iran ever be a serious threat, it claims it's enriching Uranium for peaceful use, and it seems currently that's all it can do? Are we talking about what ifs and maybes? Is this poker politics? Or more aptly perhaps playground politics?
Oh yeah? Well my dads bigger'n your dad.
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