Oh, yeah, that nuclear Iran thing
Fox News reports the European Union nations have decided that they need to pile on more sanctions in regards to Iran and their nuclear program that seems to have not been influenced greatly by previous sanctions. A European satellite provide has cut off several Iranian stations from their programming list as a result of earlier sanctions, followed by complaints from Iranian state broadcasters.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU member countries, meeting in Luxembourg, said Iran was “acting in flagrant violation of its international obligations” and was still refusing to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency to address international concerns.
Well, they won’t get much help from the US if we take Joe Biden’s line in the sand last week during the debate as a policy statement from the Obama Administration. The Wall Street Journal in an article sent to us by Veritas Omnia Vincit wrote this weekend that Joe Biden isn’t all that worried about Iran’s uranium enrichment program, but rather their missile program;
“When my friend [Paul Ryan] talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20% up. Then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point.”
“Let’s all calm down a little bit here,” Mr. Biden said a few minutes later.
In other words, Iran may have made progress toward enriching enough uranium to sufficient strength to build a bomb in the past four years, but that’s immaterial. Based on the Vice President’s intelligence, Iran isn’t close to getting the trigger mechanism, missiles and all the other things needed to deploy a weapon. So don’t worry.
I’d remind Bite-Me that Iran always has a delivery system that can reach Israel – the other nuclear state in the region and Iran’s main enemy. But I guess that’s all regional. A nuclear exchange between those two wouldn’t have any effect on us, would it? The last time terrorists attacked us they used commercial jets. I guess they don’t have any commercial jets in Iran, do they, Joe?
So don’t worry, EU, the Obama/Biden Administration will have your back, well, once Iran crosses the newest line in the sand.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
“Based on the Vice President’s intelligence, Iran isn’t close to getting the trigger mechanism…”
But that Libya thing? “The intelligence community let us down.”
Keep talkin’, Joe.
From “The Back Channel – Dispatches from Washington to the Middle East” Aug. 30, 2012 — As of August 2012, Iran has produced almost 190 KG of 20% enriched uranium since it began the higher level enrichment work in early 2011, the report says. However, Iran has converted over half of that total amount — about 98 KG — for use in fuel plates for a medical reactor, thus leaving only about 91 KG available that could be higher enriched to weapons grade. That represents almost no net gain in its 20% stockpile since May, arms control analysts noted. “Although Iran has enriched additional uranium to almost 20%–a level that could be more quickly turned into weapons material–Tehran has converted much of this material to reactor fuel,” the Arms Control Association wrote in an analysis of the new IAEA report Thursday. “Thus Iran’s available stockpile of 20% enriched uranium (91 kg) is essentially unchanged from May.” It would take about 200 KG of 20% enriched uranium to be higher enriched to “weapons grade’–90% purity —to make enough fissile material for one nuclear bomb. However, Iran is unlikely to “break out” without enough fissile material to make two or more bombs, many arms control experts believe. Even if Iran may accumulate 200 KG of 20% enriched uranium, “this is only the first step to a nuclear weapon capability,” the Arms Control Association analysis continues. In addition, Iran would still need “time to produce the nuclear device itself (likely several months), which it has never done before, and then develop and probably explosively test a warhead that could fit on a ballistic missile, which would take still more time.” What to make of the fact that there has been no net growth in Iran’s 20% stockpile since May? Is Iran demonstrating tacit restraint on the sensitive 20% front even while doubling the number of centrifuges installed, if not operating, at Fordo, to signal potential for further expanding enrichment? Is it some sort of signal from Iran towards potential flexibility on the 20% front? (Former Iran nuclear negotiators Syed Hossein Mousavian has, for… Read more »
WND, not exactly liberal MSM, says there appear to be some signs that sanctions are working, and Teheran will allow inspections in exchange for loosening sanctions… http://tinyurl.com/9tjtnqe
I’m not worried. I’m fairly certain Romney will win this election (he is really starting to surge in the polls). Once he is in office I highly doubt he will waste any time before committing troops, targeted missile strikes, and an aerial bombardment campaign. The liberals will be back to whining about timelines and withdrawal dates and the generals will be getting as many soldiers as they can ask for. It wouldn’t surprise me if he took a much stronger hand in Syria as well.
The Iranians already have a missile that can strike much of Europe.
What morons like Slow Joe fail to grasp, or, more likely, willfully ignore, is that Iran, Syria and North Korea are tag team members in the nuclear experiment. They have all been helping eachother out through this entire process.
It is fully possible that Iran’s program is also being used to deter attention from North Korea where work continues on “their” nuclear program. North Korea has also been able to flight test the missile designs that Iran would use for “its” own warheads. Syria also had a program partially underway until the Israelis took it out, but was considered to be doing its part of the program through supplying both scientific teams as well as much-needed cash.
The real worry, however, for both Israel and the rest of Western Civilization, is that these terrorist states will deliver one or more warheads by sea. Packed in a shipping container that is laundered through several hands before it reaches it’s final port of entry, it can be offloaded on to a truck and taken anywhere they want to employ it.
Since when is a suitcase hard to make? I was doing a lot of hollering at the TV when Smilin’ Joe was going on about delivery systems during the debate. The Davy Crockett was certainly man-portable.
The news tonight is that IF the administration learns from its ongoing investigation that terrorists were behind the embassy attacks and killings, THEN some of their leadership may be targeted. Wow, what a ballsy and timely response! I wonder if obama and Joe the WonderPlug will personally lead a mission.
“Joe the WonderPlug”? BwaHaHaHaHa….
And @6, shipping containers, 20ft, 40ft, 48ft and 53ft are available in the hundreds of thousands and, as an added bonus, can hold all the shielding necessary for the nuke.
Exactly, UpNorth. Who needs a missle? Shipping container is certainly one way. A guy driving something in a jeep overland to park…well…pretty much anywhere *cough*Isreal*cough* could do the same thing. What I was going after, and I think AW1 Tim was as well, is….who needs a missle?
That’s right. Unfortunately, with 90% of the world’s commerce traveling by sea, there’s an almost unlimited number of ways to get warheads/weapons into whatever country you want to. From there, your basic Uhaul or Ryder delivery truck will get it easily to the target site.
Unfortunately, it ain’t that hard to do. Like thad says: “So easy, a caveman could do it!”
Guys, guys — a small town in Brazil was abandoned and buried because children found medical cesium, which is deadly to touch and fatal if ingested or inhaled, in a garbage dump near their homes. They played with that lethal blue powder, they ate it, they inhaled it, and they died from it. Just a little medical-quality cesium for X-ray machines, thrown out in a garbage dump.
You don’t even have to be a caveman. You could be a Streets & San worker anywhere. No one ever looks at them.
While watching the debate I was shocked to hear Biden say that. It seems really stupid that Biden would think in ballistic missile terms, the whole idea behind unconventional warfare is that it’s….unconventional thus jetliners become conveyance devices, humans become bomb carrier systems, roadside ditches become locations for weapon system deployments.
An enemy with nothing but time to think about how to reach you, will eventually stumble across a method similar to those you have all presented. While I am not a fan of the current administration, I was at least thinking that Biden was sharp enough to understand the diversity of options available to our enemies with weapons grade material. Even non-weapon grade material as EX points out carries its own inherent risks. This current administration really has to go, they have zero appreciation for the intelligence community to the point where the POTUS doesn’t attend briefings as Poetrooper pointed out yesterday. And they clearly don’t grasp the insidious nature of our current enemies, it is increasingly obvious that our current administration does not have the characteristics of the people I want leading the nation.