Hidden nuclear drawings found in Iran

[igloo]

U.N. INSPECTION

Hidden nuclear drawings found in Iran

U.N. inspectors find blueprints of high-tech equipment used to enrich uranium. The discovery renews U.S. suspicions of a covert nuclear program.

BY SONNI EFRON AND DOUGLAS FRANTZ

Los Angeles Times Service

WASHINGTON - U.N. inspectors have discovered that Iran hid blueprints for a powerful device to enrich uranium in an apparent breach of Tehran's promise last year to disclose all of its nuclear activities, officials in Austria and Washington said Thursday.

The discovery of the concealed blueprints for a centrifuge, which can be used to enrich uranium for civilian reactors or nuclear bombs, raised questions about whether Tehran also has bought designs for a nuclear weapon from black market sources, the officials said.

Even if bomb blueprints are not found, Washington will discuss with its allies whether to ask the International Atomic Energy Agency -- the U.N. nuclear watchdog -- to refer Iran's nuclear activities to the United Nations Security Council for debate, U.S. officials said. Washington has not yet decided whether to advocate international sanctions against Iran and will await a report from the IAEA next week before deciding what course to take, they said.

''This is the smoking gun,'' said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. ``They lied -- again.''

`BASED ON SUSPICION'

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program has been strictly for civilian purposes. But Gregg Sullivan, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, said that American ''policy and our sentiments are based on suspicion'' of the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Although the IAEA declared last year that Iran must make a complete declaration of all its nuclear activities, the United States thinks Iran continues to operate a secret effort to build nuclear weapons. John Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of State for arms control, renewed the accusation Thursday at a security conference in Berlin.

''There's no doubt in our mind that Iran continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program,'' Bolton said.

Independent analysts said the finding of a newer type of gas centrifuge design, called a G-2, was significant evidence of Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. Discovery of the blueprints was first reported Thursday in The Financial Times.

NEW TECHNOLOGY

The G-2 centrifuge is a new model that can enrich bomb-quality uranium in half the time as the first-generation centrifuges that Iran previously admitted to having, Sokolski said in a telephone interview from London.

''This is like saying I prohibited you from having any motorized vehicles, and you declared your motor scooter, and I discovered you had a Ferrari,'' Sokolski said.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency found the G-2 centrifuge design in Iran while comparing material that Tehran purchased to goods that Libya acquired from a ''rogue'' proliferation network, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, a prominent Pakistani scientist, has admitted helping supply nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf last week but his network's activities remain under investigation.

[smcx04]

wow....how bout this: why dont we go over there, blow some shit up, kill some people and add couple more bases in the Middle East to our resume.....

oh and did I forget....while we're at it why dont we liberate them and let them benefit from the capitalistic way of life

[marksimons]

so they found blueprints. whoop de doo.

I belive that rumsfeld (or cheney, I forget which) was on the board of a company that sold a nuclear reactor to north korea...

what do you say to that igloo?

oooh it was for research... or ooh.. they were on our side... no... wait... they weren't... and never have been...

perhaps it's that the people running america are as corrupt and misguided as any fundamentalist muslim country, or communist dictatorship, except they're white, wear crosses and have had the luxury of the illusion of a free and fair press when in fact that is far from the case...

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by marksimons

so they found blueprints. whoop de doo.

I belive that rumsfeld (or cheney, I forget which) was on the board of a company that sold a nuclear reactor to north korea...

Proof please?

[Drunk]

Originally posted by mr mahs

Proof please?

Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB. So it is true, although it was Clinton who pushed for the sale in order to appease Pyongyang, a policy which this administration fortunately stopped.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by Drunk

Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB. So it is true, although it was Clinton who pushed for the sale in order to appease Pyongyang, a policy which this administration fortunately stopped.

Thanx Drunk,

I decided to do my own research on the subject and came up with this that lead me to believe the same thing and proves Mark is a hateful windbag..

"Today, ABB says it no longer has any involvement with the North Korean power plants, due to come on line in 2007 and 2008".

The "2007-2008" and "Power plants" jogged my memory of the Clinton agreement that N.Korea backed out of.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by smcx04

wow....how bout this: why dont we go over there, blow some shit up, kill some people and add couple more bases in the Middle East to our resume.....

oh and did I forget....while we're at it why dont we liberate them and let them benefit from the capitalistic way of life

Look at Kuwait? If you need a good exampole of capitalism bringing stabilty to region and the people of the land Kuwait is a

a great example.

[siceone]

Judt for arguments sake the peopel of iran are trying themselve and have been making vrey good progress toward a free democratic society up until now. this only show's that the Ayahtollahs and the gaurdian don't care about they people it's just more evidence of thier desire to spit in the face of the workd comunity.

it's like you don't even care, First you want the UN to be the end all be all and they when they find something you don't like you say oh who cares..

[marksimons]

I don't know whether they've stopped now, but he was lobbying for it...

and even if they've stopped involvement it sounds like they desinged it...

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Mr Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m (£125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration.

The reactor deal was part of President Bill Clinton's policy of persuading the North Korean regime to positively engage with the west.

The sale of the nuclear technology was a high-profile contract. ABB's then chief executive, Goran Lindahl, visited North Korea in November 1999 to announce ABB's "wide-ranging, long-term cooperation agreement" with the communist government.

The company also opened an office in the country's capital, Pyongyang, and the deal was signed a year later in 2000. Despite this, Mr Rumsfeld's office said that the de fence secretary did not "recall it being brought before the board at any time".

In a statement to the American magazine Newsweek, his spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said that there "was no vote on this". A spokesman for ABB told the Guardian yesterday that "board members were informed about the project which would deliver systems and equipment for light water reactors".

Just months after Mr Rumsfeld took office, President George Bush ended the policy of engagement and negotiation pursued by Mr Clinton, saying he did not trust North Korea, and pulled the plug on diplomacy. Pyongyang warned that it would respond by building nuclear missiles. A review of American policy was announced and the bilateral confidence building steps, key to Mr Clinton's policy of detente, halted.

By January 2002, the Bush administration had placed North Korea in the "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and Iran. If there was any doubt about how the White House felt about North Korea this was dispelled by Mr Bush, who told the Washington Post last year: "I loathe [North Korea's leader] Kim Jong-il."

The success of campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have enhanced the status of Mr Rumsfeld in Washington. Two years after leaving ABB, Mr Rumsfeld now considers North Korea a "terrorist regime _ teetering on the verge of collapse" and which is on the verge of becoming a proliferator of nuclear weapons. During a bout of diplomatic activity over Christmas he warned that the US could fight two wars at once - a reference to the forthcoming conflict with Iraq. After Baghdad fell, Mr Rumsfeld said Pyongyang should draw the "appropriate lesson".

Critics of the administration's bellicose language on North Korea say that the problem was not that Mr Rumsfeld supported the Clinton-inspired diplomacy and the ABB deal but that he did not "speak up against it". "One could draw the conclusion that economic and personal interests took precedent over non-proliferation," said Steve LaMontagne, an analyst with the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington.

Many members of the Bush administration are on record as opposing Mr Clinton's plans, saying that weapons-grade nuclear material could be extracted from the type of light water reactors that ABB sold. Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and the state department's number two diplomat, Richard Armitage, both opposed the deal as did the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, whose campaign Mr Rumsfeld ran and where he also acted as defence adviser.

One unnamed ABB board director told Fortune magazine that Mr Rumsfeld was involved in lobbying his hawkish friends on behalf of ABB.

The Clinton package sought to defuse tensions on the Ko rean peninsula by offering supplies of oil and new light water nuclear reactors in return for access by inspectors to Pyongyang's atomic facilities and a dismantling of its heavy water reactors which produce weapons grade plutonium. Light water reactors are known as "proliferation-resistant" but, in the words of one expert, they are not "proliferation-proof".

The type of reactors involved in the ABB deal produce plutonium which needs refining before it can be weaponised. One US congressman and critic of the North Korean regime described the reactors as "nuclear bomb factories".

North Korea expelled the inspectors last year and withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in January at about the same time that the Bush administration authorised $3.5m to keep ABB's reactor project going.

North Korea is thought to have offered to scrap its nuclear facilities and missile pro gramme and to allow international nuclear inspectors into the country. But Pyongyang demanded that security guarantees and aid from the US must come first.

Mr Bush now insists that he will only negotiate a new deal with Pyongyang after the nuclear programme is scrapped. Washington believes that offering inducements would reward Pyongyang's "blackmail" and encourage other "rogue" states to develop weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,952289,00.html

[mr mahs]

Dude did you eat paint chips as a kid?

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.

The key word is LIGHT WATER REACTOR....

This was brokered in a deal in hope they would abandon their ambitions for a nuclear weapon.. Those LIGHT WATER REACTORS cannot produce highly enriched uranium crucial for building a NUKE.... capeesh?

[marksimons]

Light water reactors are known as "proliferation-resistant" but, in the words of one expert, they are not "proliferation-proof"

One US congressman and critic of the North Korean regime described the reactors as "nuclear bomb factories"

[pattbateman]

simons you know who i picture you as?

anyone ever watch the real world paris????

that one gay dude that never really talked and he was from ireland or someshit

thats the dude i picture everytime i read one of simons google supplied rants

a little, tiny, frail,douche bag!!!!!!

[djxeno]

thas wassup, I hope Iran gets nuclear weapons.

[mrmatas2277]

Originally posted by pattbateman

simons you know who i picture you as?

anyone ever watch the real world paris????

that one gay dude that never really talked and he was from ireland or someshit

thats the dude i picture everytime i read one of simons google supplied rants

a little, tiny, frail,douche bag!!!!!!

i picture him as a Normalnoises..but with an accent...

[cintron]

Originally posted by djxeno

thas wassup, I hope Iran gets nuclear weapons.

yeah so that the highly disciplined and gentle people over there can use that power responsibly:rolleyes:

you dont give a gun to a 10 year old do you?

[djxeno]

Originally posted by cintron

yeah so that the highly disciplined and gentle people over there can use that power responsibly:rolleyes:

yeah, they can just follow the U.S. as a role model. that way they can launch pre-emptive strikes based on "darn good intelligence"

i doubt the nukes will be in 10 year old's hands.

[mrmatas2277]

Originally posted by djxeno

yeah, they can just follow the U.S. as a role model.

i knew u were going to come back with that one...

[pattbateman]

my friend came here from iran 10 years ago

he was supposedly very well off (thats what i am told)

and him and his whole family that are here now beleive that iran is a radical state and the mullahs that control the state are way to radical

and he tells me that the majority of the people in iran love the wests culture and the western people

he said if i went over there with him i would be treated like a king

and he said a revolution will soon take place when all these old radical ultra-conservative religious leaders are outta power

[cintron]

at least with the US, i'm not worried that any pre-emptive strikes might include those Nukes....

or that one of those nukes might end up going POP on our shores.

Bad idea for a country to control nukes when their whole government runs on the tradition of pishkesh... or baksheesh or heung y'au or whatever you call greasing palms these days.

[djxeno]

Originally posted by cintron

at least with the US, i'm not worried that any pre-emptive strikes might include those Nukes....

or that one of those nukes might end up going POP on our shores.

Bad idea for a country to control nukes when their whole government runs on the tradition of pishkesh... or baksheesh or heung y'au or whatever you call greasing palms these days.

lol...

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by djxeno

thas wassup, I hope Iran gets nuclear weapons.

So they can send all your cousins in the middle east to the paradise on a monster MARTYDOM operation???

I could sit here and try to convince you that the minute Iran has a nuke they will drop it on Isreal but you won't believe it even when it is on paper as a direct qoute.......

If Iran and Isreal have a nuclear exchange,the world will never be the same you do realise that right?

[pattbateman]

that would be fucking insane

i would hope we would not send a nuclear attack against iran?

i mean as much as people here like the jews they really do nothing for us, in all honesty

i mean i would hope that the jews would drop a bomb in iran right after that but we shouldnt get involved nuclearly

[djxeno]

Originally posted by mr mahs

So they can send all your cousins in the middle east to the paradise on a monster MARTYDOM operation???

I could sit here and try to convince you that the minute Iran has a nuke they will drop it on Isreal but you won't believe it even when it is on paper as a direct qoute.......

If Iran and Isreal have a nuclear exchange,the world will never be the same you do realise that right?

weak...........very weak...........Israel shouldn't have nukes either.....if you don't want Iran to have nukes.....all the countries in the middle east should dismantle there nuclear programs, including israel.

[djxeno]

Originally posted by pattbateman

that would be fucking insane

i would hope we would not send a nuclear attack against iran?

i mean as much as people here like the jews they really do nothing for us, in all honesty

i agree

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by djxeno

weak...........very weak...........Israel shouldn't have nukes either.....if you don't want Iran to have nukes.....all the countries in the middle east should dismantle there nuclear programs, including israel.

I agree... Isreal should disarm and they should be protected by our and their own missile defense system just in case the IRANIANS get cute....

If the regimes in the middle east like Syria, Iran and other radical nations are replaced then Isreal can disarm. The big diffrence between Iran's and Isreal's nuclear ambitions are deterance for the latter and hopes for annihalation of Isreal for Iran..