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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| US briefs on alleged Iranian nuclear warhead work - diplomats |
| 2005-10-09 |
| The United States has briefed key nations on intelligence that it says shows Iranian atomic weapons work, namely research on getting a missile warhead to explode at an altitude that would maximize the blast of a nuclear explosion, diplomats and analysts told AFP. However, a non-Western diplomat said the US briefing, carried out in various capitals ahead of a meeting in September of the UN atomic watchdog, "looks plausible but there is no hard evidence," namely direct proof of a nuclear warhead project. Iran says its nuclear program is a strictly peaceful effort to develop atomic power in order to generate electricity and rejects US charges that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. A diplomat close to the Vienna-based watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that setting a warhead explosion at such a height, which is about 600 metres (yards), the same altitude at which the Hiroshima atomic bomb was detonated, would make sense only for nuclear weapons. Chemical, biological or conventional weapons need to detonate closer to the ground in order to be effective. The intelligence does not indicate whether the weapon the warhead is to hold is nuclear but the United States still considers the data the most important information it has on Iran, diplomats said. The intelligence, the existence of which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in March, contains diagnostic test information on putting a package, a so-called black box, inside the cone of the medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missile, a diplomat told AFP. It consists of extensive Farsi-language computer files and reports. US officials are confident the data is genuine, diplomats said, even though some analysts have criticized it as unreliable since it is believed to come from only one source. Rest at link. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #2 We absolutely, postively must have layered missile shields around both Iran and North Korea yesterday. Any *and every* missile launched from either country with hostile ballistics must be covered. At some point, we may have to issue an ultimatum. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-09 20:53 |
| #1 The only "hard evidence" that will work for these folks is the one that goes boom and blows them away. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-10-09 20:13 |