Iran nuke program resumes next week
Uranium enrichment follows breakdown of negotiations between Tehran,
Europe
Posted: April 30, 2005
10:33 p.m. Eastern
2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Iran said today it is likely to resume uranium enrichment-related
activities next week, following a breakdown in negotiations between
the Shiite regime and the European Union.
Tehran's announcement came after yesterday's talks in London with
European negotiators yielded no results. France, Britain and Germany,
acting on behalf of the 25-nation European Union, were seeking
guarantees from Iran that it will not use its nuclear program to make
weapons.
Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani was quoted as saying
Tehran expects to restart enrichment activities injecting uranium gas
into centrifuges at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan.
"It's unlikely that uranium enrichment ... which takes place in
Natanz, will be resumed, but it's likely that some activities at
Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility will restart next week," Rowhani
said today.
The central cities of Natanz and Isfahan house the heart of Iran's
nuclear program. The Isfahan conversion facility reprocesses uranium
ore concentrate into gas, which is then taken to Natanz and fed into
the centrifuges for enrichment.
Washington agreed to support the EU effort but signaled that Iran,
which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month labeled an
"outpost of tyranny," should quickly accept it or face harsh Security
Council sanctions.
The breakdown in talks between Iran and Europe puts Tehran's nuclear
program back in the international spotlight and is likely to force
Washington to react.
There is increasing concern within the administration and Congress
over Iran's missile program, which has been determined by a commission
of U.S. scientists to pose a serious threat to U.S. security.
A report first published in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a weekly,
online, premium, intelligence newsletter affiliated with WND, revealed
last week that Iran has been seriously considering an unconventional
pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S.
An Iranian military journal publicly floated the idea of launching an
electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the U.S.
Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior
staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States
from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's
subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.
In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars,"
the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic
infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high
above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees.
"Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt
the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the
article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's
military high command through disruption of communications, you will,
in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's
industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend
themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will
disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able
to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot."
WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not
only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing
ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's
technical infrastructure. The report was published first in Joseph
Farah's G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter by
WND's founder.
Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of
their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles
were fired from ships.
"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give
Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the
United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some
prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3
medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small
enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule
out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism
might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack
against the United States."
Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, said yesterday that
such an attack – by Iran or some other actor – could cripple the U.S.
by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards
controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems,
communications and food and water supplies.
"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It
could be weeks, months or even years."
EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at
altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the earth's surface. The
explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of
electromagnetic pulses that interact with the earth's atmosphere and
the earth's magnetic field.
"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the
nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the earth's horizon,
potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so
simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Wood. "For
example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers
over the central United States would cover, with its primary
electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and
parts of Canada and Mexico."
The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that
EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold
American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the
defeat of U.S. military forces.
"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and
deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of
damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems
upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically
including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on
systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics
could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the
American nation."
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