A non-proliferation expert at the US State Department says that Iran's plan to
install new generation centrifuges in its Natanz nuclear facility is a
potential game changer.
The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m “centrifuge
machines ...will be used” to populate a new “unit” — a technical term
for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.
It
gave no timeframe. A senior diplomat familiar with the issue said work
had not started, adding that it would take weeks, if not months, to have
the new machines running once technicians started putting them in. He
demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge confidential
information.
Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert and
former senior official at the U.S. State Department, described the
planned upgrade as a potential “game-changer.”
“If thousands of
the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able
to produce a weapon’s worth of fissile material will significantly
shorten,” said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic
Studies.
“This won’t change the several months it would take to
make actual weapons out of the fissile material or the two years or more
that it would take to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile,
so there is no need to start beating the war drums,” he said. “But it
will certainly escalate concerns.”
What could go wrong?
Are they Siemens centrifuges being put in? Generation IR2m - is that Siemens?
ReplyDeleteAnybody in Israel who has been participating in the Obama Green $lu$h train robbery (Pres. Peres, et al) should pay attention to the Green $lu$h bonus, plus the 20+ year access to a premier U.S. nuclear weapons development and management site that Siemens has been given by the Obama Green $lu$hies. I'd say that between Israeli govt/corporate people accepting $bils of your own Green $lu$h awards from the Obama Posse (and for what in return? That level of $$ is not "no-strings-attached" in the U.S. way of doing things), combined with people who could speak out and disengage from the Obama Green $lu$h buy-off... but are silent and going along? Looks like a suicide pact. But congratulation on the fun you'll have while it lasts.
NNSA Awards Contract for Largest Federal Wind Farm to Siemens Government Technologies, Inc.
http://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/pressreleases/windfarm011513