So is there any truth to this? Should we be worried? Well clearly there are some more complex political games going on but the short answer is... yes. The long answer is a bit involved. First we need to clear up this three stages business.
By this Mr Netanyahu means three phases of enrichment. We all know that you need radioactive type stuff to make a nuclear bomb, but the thing is you can't just dig it out of the ground and stick a fuse in it. In its natural form Uranium just don't have enough juice, you got to enrich it. And by this we mean increase the concentration of a certain part of it (called U-235).
Natural Uranium has about 0.75% U-235 in it. In the first stage of enrichment you increase this to approx. 5%. In the second phase you take it up to 20% and in the third and final stage you would want to take it up to about 85% enrichment. That is called highly enriched Uranium and you need about 56 kg of it to make a bomb, that's exactly the size of the bomb America dropped on Hiroshima.[1]
So where is Iran at? Well according to the International Atomic Energy Agency[2] they have loads of the 5% enriched stuff, but that's used in nuclear power stations so you can't really complain about that. They have about 190 Kg of the 20% enriched stuff, but that can also be used in some experimental power stations. However you can get about 1 kg of highly enriched (weapons grade) stuff from 5 kg of the 20% stuff so they could potentially make about 40 kg of it pretty easily, remember you only need 56 kg to make a bomb.[3]
So in summary, Iran does seem to have the capability to produce weapons grade uranium and could move to the final stage of enrichment fairly rapidly. They also continue to hamper and obstruct monitors from the UN and generally behave in a less than open manner. However it always pays to take what Israel says with a pinch of salt. Iran and Israel are deep into political gamesmanship and all may not be as it seems. For instance there is a very real possibility that Israel is simply trying to coerce the US into sponsoring military action against its regional rival, and that the threat to the wider world simply does not exist.
References:
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235
[2] iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-37.pdf
[3] world-nuclear.org/info/inf28.html
This article was brought to you by Richard Hamilton of Whole Story News.
Ever wondered if your news provider is telling you everything? Whole Story News is a website that gives you all the information and differing views.
http://www.wholestorynews.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment