Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Iran has documents that serve no purpose other than the construction of a nuclear weapon

... and for some reason the Russians insist that though they will agree to refer Iran to the Security Council, they remind Iran that this won't yield any immediate results. Gee. Thanks Russia.

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said in a report Tuesday that Iran obtained documents and drawings on the black market that serve no other purpose than to make an atomic warhead. Tehran warned of an "end of diplomacy" if plans to refer it to the U.N. Security Council are carried out.

[...] While diplomats familiar with the agency probe into Iran's nuclear program, speaking anonymously, said at the time that the papers apparently were instructions on how to mold highly enriched uranium into the core of warheads, the agency itself refused to make a judgment on what possible uses such casts would have.

In the brief report obtained Tuesday, however, the agency said bluntly that the 15 pages of text and drawings showing how to cast fissile uranium into metal was "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components."


And again the world breathes a simultaneous, "Oh shit." Can we nip this in the bud already? I would like to think Michael Ledeen is wrong and that our intelligence is good enough to get all their reactors, but I just can't. While our intelligence has improved by leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds from the useless pile of crap that it was under Clinton, doesn't necessarily translate into hard intel. I don't know though that we can wait for Israel to be the courageous country that acts alone... again in preventing a totalitarian regime from getting nukes. Can a popular uprising with vigorous US support succeed? Only if it gets crackin' already...