Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran within 2 months

Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran in
two months

DEBKAfile: An Iranian official postulates first US military action
against Iran in two months

January 31, 2007, 11:59 AM (GMT+02:00)

The first commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsein Rezai,
estimated in recent conversations with Western sources that the US
would not start out with a large-scale attack but only pinpointed
military raids against RG bases in Iran. The opposition Mujaheddin al
Khalq are reportedly being trained to take part in these operations,
which would probably escalate as Iran began retaliating to the
American strikes.

"AirRaid Mach 2.5" wrote in message
oups.com...
Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran in
two months

Isn't it interesting how this stuff just "comes up" around election time in
Iran....

* PLONK *

"Mike Dennis" wrote in message
...

"AirRaid Mach 2.5" wrote in message
oups.com...
Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran in
two months

Isn't it interesting how this stuff just "comes up" around election time
in
Iran....

* PLONK *



yeah, bush's saber rattling has no effect on his comments.
every day the whitehouse makes new accusations. of course they have "proof"
that they can't share for security reasons. and the whitehouse wouldn't lie
now would it.

On Jan 31, 7:20 pm, "Ray O'Hara" wrote:
"Mike Dennis" wrote in message

...



"AirRaid Mach 2.5" wrote in message
roups.com...
Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran in
two months

Isn't it interesting how this stuff just "comes up" around election time
in
Iran....

* PLONK *

yeah, bush's saber rattling has no effect on his comments.
every day the whitehouse makes new accusations. of course they have "proof"
that they can't share for security reasons. and the whitehouse wouldn't lie
now would it.

What proof are you talking about? I have heard no accusation of proof
that Iran is building nuclear weapons. I've seen estimates that they
could get from where they are now with their nuclear programs to a
deliverable weapon in a pretty short period of time, but I've seen
nobody claim to have evidence that they are activly working on it.

However, there are clear facts that...

1. Iran's leadership would like to annhilate Israel. This is not
speculation. Various Iranian leaders, including the current President,
have said it many times, and re-confirm it whenever they are asked.

2. Iran is building nuclear mining, processing, enrichment, and
reactor facilities. Again, Iran makes no denial that this is taking
place. They claim that it is for peaceful power generation purposes,
not for creating weapons. Now, anybody who wants to can look into what
is required to prepare uranium for a nuclear power plant, and see that
many of the things that Iran is doing with their uranium (again, fully
in the open), is not necessary unless you are making weapons. I also
like their repeated states of "Even if we WERE making nuclear weapons,
we have a right to do that if we want to. Israel, India, Pakestan, and
others have them, what gives anyone the right to say we can't have
them as well".

3. Iran is building, and testing, long range ballistic delivery
systems. They have announced the capabilities of these systems to the
worrld and put out a press release each time they conduct a test. No
secret stuff here either.

So without the benefit of ANY sensiitive intel, you have clear
pointers to a potential threat.

An analagy.

-A guy tells you seriously, that he wants to kill one of your
neighbors.
-The next day you see him entering a gun shop.

Sure, maybe he went in there to get change, or maybe he just wants an
air pistol for shooting crows. Maybe they refused to sell him a gun,
or maybe he just bought a gun with no ammo so he could be threatening,
but maybe he actually plans to follow through with what he said he
wanted to do.

In article .com,
(Airyx) wrote:

Now, anybody who wants to can look into what is required to prepare
uranium for a nuclear power plant, and see that many of the things
that Iran is doing with their uranium (again, fully in the open),
is not necessary unless you are making weapons.

Can you be specific about these activities? You /do/ need to enrich
uranium for a pressurised-water reactor: it won't go critical with
natural uranium.

You can make a reactor that will run on natural uranium with either
high-purity graphite or heavy water as moderators, but they aren't that
good for power generation. All the USA's commercial nuclear power
plants, and most of the rest of the not-ex-Soviet-Union world's ones are
PWRs, because that's easier to build and run and quite effective.

This is why the sharp division between civilian and military nuclear
technology that people try to draw is illusory. To run civilian power
plants in a cost-effective manner you need to make large quantities of
low-enriched uranium. If you can do that, you also have the technology
to make highly enriched uranium.

Since this point is somewhat technical and politically inconvenient,
media reporting on the subject tends to be unreliable.

--
John Dallman, , HTML mail is treated as probable spam.

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 21:35 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(John Dallman) wrote:

In article .com,
(Airyx) wrote:

Now, anybody who wants to can look into what is required to prepare
uranium for a nuclear power plant, and see that many of the things
that Iran is doing with their uranium (again, fully in the open),
is not necessary unless you are making weapons.

Can you be specific about these activities? You /do/ need to enrich
uranium for a pressurised-water reactor: it won't go critical with
natural uranium.

You can make a reactor that will run on natural uranium with either
high-purity graphite or heavy water as moderators, but they aren't that
good for power generation. All the USA's commercial nuclear power
plants, and most of the rest of the not-ex-Soviet-Union world's ones are
PWRs, because that's easier to build and run and quite effective.

This is why the sharp division between civilian and military nuclear
technology that people try to draw is illusory. To run civilian power
plants in a cost-effective manner you need to make large quantities of
low-enriched uranium. If you can do that, you also have the technology
to make highly enriched uranium.

Since this point is somewhat technical and politically inconvenient,
media reporting on the subject tends to be unreliable.

Ontario Power Generation would be interested in your comments as
they show clearly the impossibility of generating the 45
tera-watt hours they made last year (they own two other stations
but lease them to private companies who sell back the power, not
included in the 45).

They use CANDU technology, a heavy water reactor. Unfortunately a
by-product is plutonium. This has been an embarassment in the
past.

Peter Skelton

On Feb 1, 3:35 pm, (John Dallman) wrote:
In article .com,

(Airyx) wrote:
Now, anybody who wants to can look into what is required to prepare
uranium for a nuclear power plant, and see that many of the things
that Iran is doing with their uranium (again, fully in the open),
is not necessary unless you are making weapons.

Can you be specific about these activities? You /do/ need to enrich
uranium for a pressurised-water reactor: it won't go critical with
natural uranium.

You can make a reactor that will run on natural uranium with either
high-purity graphite or heavy water as moderators, but they aren't that
good for power generation. All the USA's commercial nuclear power
plants, and most of the rest of the not-ex-Soviet-Union world's ones are
PWRs, because that's easier to build and run and quite effective.

This is why the sharp division between civilian and military nuclear
technology that people try to draw is illusory. To run civilian power
plants in a cost-effective manner you need to make large quantities of
low-enriched uranium. If you can do that, you also have the technology
to make highly enriched uranium.

Since this point is somewhat technical and politically inconvenient,
media reporting on the subject tends to be unreliable.

That's part of the rub, isn't it. Many of the things you need to do
to produce fuel for a nuclear power plant are also things that you
would need to do to create nuclear weapons. There is, however, a
differenciation point in a couple of areas.

It is my understanding that there is a diminishing economic return
once you enrich uranium past a certain point. Anything beyond that is
spending more money on the enrichment process than you can expect to
get in return for power. IAEA inspectors have been shown enrichment
processes that go far beyond this point.

In addition, Iran has been processing plutonium, even though none of
their reactors are designed for plutonium.

"AirRaid Mach 2.5" wrote in
oups.com:

Iranian official expects first U.S. military action against Iran in
two months

DEBKAfile: An Iranian official postulates first US military action
against Iran in two months

The question is when though.
It could be 0400Z Thursday.
Or 1700Z three weeks from last Tuesday.
The Iranians won't know until it happens
at which point it all becomes moot.

IBM