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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Iran slams IAEA's handling of issues | |
| 2009-03-05 | |
| Iran's IAEA ambassador, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, inveighed against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for passing a politically-motivated judgment on the country's uranium enrichment so far. "Unfortunately, the UN nuclear watchdog's statutory obligations have clearly gone astray," said Soltaniyeh in Wednesday a meeting of the UN nuclear monitor's 35-nation board of governors. "The agency was founded with a declared goal of promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but we see now that safeguard efforts and world politics have unfortunately outstripped its true objectives," he added. Soltaniyeh went on to criticize recent IAEA reports for providing what he called "a rather obscure and intransigent" glimpse into Tehran's nuclear activities. He called for a new atmosphere within the agency, one that includes negotiations on "equal footing" and "justice" as the main solution to the international standoff over Tehran's uranium enrichment. According to Soltaniyeh, the UN nuclear monitor's constantly-shifting position on Iran shows that it is torn between an ongoing challenge between "justice and injustice." His claims come only a day after the sextet of Britain, France, Russia, China, the US and Germany invited Tehran for direct engagements over its nuclear program. "(We) urge Iran to take this opportunity for engagement with us and thereby maximize opportunities for a negotiated way forward," said the French IAEA governor, Olivier Caron, while voicing "serious concerns." The UN nuclear monitor said in its latest report on Iran's nuclear program that the country has so far enriched 1,010 kg (2,226 lb) of uranium hexafluoride to a low level. A number of Western analysts -- such as David Albright at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security -- have construed the IAEA report as a sign that Iran has reached the 'break-out capability' to use the material for a single weapon. However, Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, dismissed such a notion, saying that Iran's uranium stockpile would still have to be further enriched to bomb grade. "And the basic truth bears repeating, that having a stockpile of enriched uranium is not the same as having a bomb," he said.
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 How about the Boy Scout who built a working nuclear reactor in his backyard to get a "Nuclear" merit badge, it worked, he did, The Nuclear watchdogs panicked and removed it. As I recall, he used Radium from old watch dials. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-03-05 13:10 |
| #1 In the late seventies there was an engineer student who designed an A-bomb as a project at university. According to experts it was a perfectly working design provided he had had access to enough enriched uranium. Just remind that he was a student and he did it alone: if you have enough plutonium or enriched uranium building a bomb is easy. |
| Posted by: JFM 2009-03-05 05:27 |