States with nuclear weapons, Iran Nuke prog & Israel mock ad

[Constabul Profile]

Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance

At the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States hoped to maintain a monopoly on its new weapon, but the secrets for making nuclear weapons soon spread. Four years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device. The United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964) followed. Seeking to prevent the nuclear weapon ranks from expanding further, the United States and other like-minded states negotiated the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. In the decades since, several states have abandoned nuclear weapons programs, but others have defied the NPT. India, Israel, and Pakistan have never signed the treaty and possess nuclear arsenals. Iraq initiated a secret nuclear program under Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 and has tested nuclear devices since that time. Iran and Libya have pursued secret nuclear activities in violation of the treaty’s terms, and Syria is suspected of doing the same. Still, nuclear nonproliferation successes outnumber failures and dire forecasts decades ago that the world would be home to dozens of states armed with nuclear weapons have not come to pass.


Nuclear-Weapon States:

The nuclear-weapon states (NWS) are the five states—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States—officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons by the NPT. Although the treaty legitimizes these states’ nuclear arsenals, it also establishes that they are not supposed to build and maintain such weapons in perpetuity. Article VI of the treaty holds that each state-party is to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” In 2000, the five NWS committed themselves to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” But for now, the five continue to retain the bulk of their nuclear forces. Because of the secretive nature with which most governments treat information about their nuclear arsenals, most of the figures below are best estimates of each nuclear-weapon state’s nuclear holdings, including both strategic warheads and lower-yield devices referred to as tactical weapons.

China: About 240 total warheads.

France: Fewer than 300 operational warheads.

Russia: Approximately 1,566 operational strategic warheads [1], approximately 2,000 operational tactical warheads, and approximately 7,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads.

United Kingdom: Fewer than 160 deployed strategic warheads, total stockpile of up to 225.

United States: Approximately 5,113 active and inactive [2] nuclear warheads and approximately 3,500 warheads retired and awaiting dismantlement. The 5,113 active and inactive nuclear warhead stockpile includes 1,790 deployed strategic warheads [1], approximately 500 operational tactical weapons, and approximately 2,645 inactive warheads.

Non-NPT Nuclear Weapons Possessors:

Three states—India, Israel, and Pakistan—never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons. Claiming its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes, India first tested a nuclear explosive device in 1974. That test spurred Pakistan to ramp up work on its secret nuclear weapons program. India and Pakistan both publicly demonstrated their nuclear weapon capabilities with a round of tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998. Israel has not publicly conducted a nuclear test, does not admit to or deny having nuclear weapons, and states that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nevertheless, Israel is universally believed to possess nuclear arms. The following arsenal estimates are based on the amount of fissile material—highly enriched uranium and plutonium—that each of the states is estimated to have produced. Fissile material is the key element for making nuclear weapons. India and Israel are believed to use plutonium in their weapons, while Pakistan is thought to use highly enriched uranium.

India: Up to 100 nuclear warheads.
Israel: Between 75 to 200 nuclear warheads.
Pakistan: Between 70 to 90 nuclear warheads.

States of Immediate Proliferation Concern:

Iran is pursuing an uranium enrichment program and other projects that could provide it with the capability to produce bomb-grade fissile material and develop nuclear weapons within the next several years. In contrast, North Korea has the material to produce a small number of nuclear weapons, announced its withdrawal from the NPT, and tested nuclear devices. Uncertainty persists about how many additional nuclear devices North Korea has assembled beyond those it has tested. In September 2005, Pyongyang “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”

Iran: No known weapons or sufficient fissile material stockpiles to build weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the institution charged with verifying that states are not illicitly building nuclear weapons, concluded in 2003 that Iran had undertaken covert nuclear activities to establish the capacity to indigenously produce fissile material. The IAEA is continuing its investigation and monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear program.

North Korea: Has separated enough plutonium for up to 12 nuclear warheads.

Syria: In September 2007, Israel conducted an airstrike on what U.S. officials have alleged was the construction site of a nuclear research reactor similar to North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. Intelligence officials briefed members of congress on the airstrike eight months later in April 2008, discussing the evidence leading to their judgment that the site was an undeclared nuclear reactor. While the extent of Syrian-North Korean nuclear cooperation is unclear, it is believed to have begun in 1997. Subsequent IAEA investigations into the U.S. claims uncovered traces of undeclared man-made uranium particles at both the site of the destroyed facility and Syria’s declared research reactor. Syria has failed to provide adequate cooperation to the IAEA in order to clarify the nature of the destroyed facility and procurement efforts that could be related to a nuclear program.




States That Had Nuclear Weapons or Nuclear Weapons Programs at One Time:

Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, but returned them to Russia and joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states. South Africa secretly developed and dismantled a small number of nuclear warheads and also joined the NPT in 1991. Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but was forced to verifiably dismantle it under the supervision of UN inspectors. The U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein definitively ended his regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Libya voluntarily renounced its secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan also shelved nuclear weapons programs.


ENDNOTE

1. On Sept. 1, 2011 the United States and Russia issued the first data exchange under New START, sharing the numbers of deployed nuclear warheads and New START-accountable delivery systems held by each country. The data from that exchange was made public in a Dec. 1 State Department fact sheet.

2. On May 3, 2010, the United States Department of Defense released for the first time the total number of nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile. The Defense Department includes in this stockpile active warheads which are operational and deployed or ready to be deployed, and inactive warheads which are maintained "in a non-operational status, and have their tritium bottle removed."

Sources: Arms Control Association, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Central Intelligence Agency, Congressional Research Service, Federation of American Scientists, Institute for Science and International Security, International Atomic Energy Agency, Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Department of State.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/N ... whohaswhat

More info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_st ... ar_weapons

Iran's Nuclear Program
Updated: Feb. 3, 2012

Iran’s nuclear program is one of the most polarizing issues in one of the world’s most volatile regions. While American and European officials believe Tehran is planning to build nuclear weapons, Iran’s leadership says that its goal in developing a nuclear program is to generate electricity without dipping into the oil supply it prefers to sell abroad, and to provide fuel for medical reactors.

But a United Nations report released in November 2011 challenged that claim. The International Atomic Energy Agency released a trove of evidence that they said makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way. The report said the I.A.E.A. had amassed “over a thousand pages” of documents, presumably leaked out of Iran, showing “research, development and testing activities” on a range of technologies that would only be useful in designing a nuclear weapon.

The report offered no estimate of how long it would take for Iran to be able to produce a nuclear weapon. But it laid out the case that Iran had moved far beyond the blackboard to create computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009, and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers. The report said that starting in 2000, the Iranians constructed a vessel to conduct those tests, which was not shown to inspectors who visited the site five years later.

The report, the harshest judgment that U.N. weapons inspectors had ever issued in their decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program, rekindled a debate among the Western allies and Israel about whether increased diplomatic pressure, sanctions, sabotage or military action could stop Iran’s program.

Efforts to Impose Sanctions

On Nov. 22, the United States and other major Western powers took significant steps to cut Iran off from the international financial system, announcing coordinated sanctions aimed at its central bank and commercial banks. The measures tightened the vise on Iran but fell short of a blanket cutoff. In addition, the United States also imposed sanctions on companies involved in Iran’s nuclear industry, as well as on its petrochemical and oil industries, adding to existing measures that seek to weaken the Iranian government by depriving it of its ability to refine gasoline or invest in its petroleum industry.

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In retaliation, Tehran issued a blunt warning in late December that it would block the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit point, if Western powers attempted to impose an embargo on Iranian petroleum exports. If Iran were to follow through with its blockade threat, the impact would be immediate: Energy analysts say the price of oil would start to soar and could rise 50 percent or more within days.

Both the Defense Department and the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, made statements that suggested American warships would stop the Iranians if necessary.

On Dec. 31, President Obama signed new sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s oil exports. On Jan. 3, 2012, Iran’s military sharpened its tone by saying that an American aircraft carrier that had left the Persian Gulf just days before through the strait should not return. Iran did not say what action it would take if the carrier were to re-enter the Persian Gulf. The United States dismissed Iran’s threats to close the strait, saying that the deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region would continue.

On Jan. 12, 2012, pressure on Iran mounted, with the United States saying it was determined to isolate the country’s central bank, and three of Iran’s largest oil customers — Japan, South Korea and China — getting assurances that Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers would help make up any gap in supplies if they curtailed oil purchases from Iran. The same day, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration was relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz was a “red line” that would provoke an American response, according to U.S. government officials.

Seeking to lower the tone of increasingly nervous discourse as powers maneuvered to intensify sanctions against Iran, Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel said on Jan. 18 that any decision on attacking Iran because of its nuclear program was “very far off.” At the same time, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia renewed his country’s aversion to sanctions and military threats against Tehran.

On Jan. 23, the 27 nations of the European Union increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by agreeing to ban oil imports. Under the deal, E.U. members agreed not to sign new oil contracts with Iran and to end existing ones by July 1, according to a statement from European foreign ministers. The embargo will cover imports of crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemical products. It will also cover the export of key equipment and technology for the sector. The assets of the Iranian central bank within the E.U. will be frozen with limited exemptions to permit the continuation of legitimate trade.

On Feb. 2, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved a new regimen of anti-Iran sanctions that would for the first time threaten to punish the global financial telecommunications network that nearly all banks rely on to conduct their daily business. Expulsion from the network — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as Swift — would deny to Iran many billions of dollars in revenue from abroad that is routinely routed into its domestic banking system.

On Feb. 3, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed to retaliate over oil sanctions and threats of military action by the West to stop Iran’s nuclear program, warning that the United States in particular would face severe damage to its interests if any strike were carried out against its nuclear sites.

The pointed remarks by Mr. Khamenei were the most public response by him to mounting tension between Western powers and Iran. They came amid increasing concern among American officials that Israel may soon strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. In early February, The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta believed there was a “strong likelihood” that Israel would strike Iran in April, May or June.

Ready for Talks or Just Buying Time?

The previous round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program broke down over a year ago in Turkey after Iran presented conditions considered unacceptable to the West.

But in January 2012, amid the tough economic sanctions adopted by the United States and Europe, Iran signaled readiness to resume talks with the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain, but its terms for resuming the talks were not clear.

On Jan. 18, the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that the country was ready to resume talks. During a visit to Turkey, he said negotiations were under way about the site and date, and that the talks “will most probably be held in Istanbul.”

On Jan. 26, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly declared his readiness for nuclear talks. According to the Associated Press, Mr. Ahmadinejad told students in the southern city of Kerman that he is ready for negotiations, but he said that the new sanctions would not force Iran to give in to demands by the Western powers to end its nuclear enrichment program.

Some Western diplomats have viewed Iran’s latest public offers of negotiations as an effort to buy time, allowing the country to enrich more uranium as talks get under way. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statements did not appear to coincide with any official diplomatic response, European officials said.

Deepening Fury Over a Nuclear Scientist’s Death

On Jan. 11, as tensions increased over Iran’s nuclear program and belligerence toward the West mounted, Iran reported that an Iranian nuclear scientist died in what was termed a “terrorist bomb blast” in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist attached a magnetic explosive device to the scientist’s car. It was the fourth such attack reported in two years and, as after the previous incidents, Iranian officials indicated that they believed the United States and Israel were responsible.

The next day, Iran expressed deepening fury at Israel and the United States over the scientist’s death, and signaled that its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps might carry out revenge assassinations.

News of the killing dominated Iran’s state-run news media, which were filled with vitriolic denunciations both of Israel, seen in Iran as the main suspect in his death, and the United States, where top officials have gone out of their way to issue strongly worded denials of responsibility.

Israeli officials, who regard Iran as their country’s main enemy, have not categorically denied any role in the killing, which came against a backdrop of growing pressure on Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

A Second Uranium Enrichment Site

Also in January 2012, Iran’s top nuclear official announced defiantly that the country was on the verge of starting production at its second major uranium enrichment site. The new facility is buried deep underground on a well-defended military site and is considered far more resistant to airstrikes than the existing enrichment site at Natanz, limiting what Israeli officials, in particular, consider an important deterrent to Iran’s nuclear aims

The opening of the plant does not significantly affect estimates of how long it could take Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, if that is its true intention. The new facility has been inspected regularly, and unless the Iranians barred inspectors or managed to deceive them, any effort to produce uranium at bomb-grade levels would most likely be detected. American officials have estimated that they would have six months to a year to react, if needed, before the enrichment was completed.

But if it came to that, satellite photographs showed that the new plant is surrounded by anti-aircraft guns, and the mountainous setting was designed to make a bombing campaign nearly impossible.

The C.I.A., according to current and former officials, has repeatedly tried to derail Iran’s uranium enrichment program by covert means, including introducing sabotaged parts into Iran’s supply chain.

In addition, the agency is believed to have encouraged some Iranian nuclear scientists to defect, an effort that came to light in 2010 when a scientist, Shahram Amiri, who had come to the United States, claimed to have been kidnapped by the C.I.A. and returned to Iran. (Press reports say he has since been arrested and tried for treason.) A former deputy defense minister, Ali-Reza Asgari, disappeared while visiting Turkey in 2006 and is widely believed to have defected, possibly to the United States.

Iran’s Reaction to the U.N. Report

Angered by the release of the U.N. report in November 2011, Iran’s leaders sought to cast it as an American fabrication. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran led the verbal assault on the report, saying it had been orchestrated by Iran’s enemies, principally the United States, which he said had dictated the report’s findings.

The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, added his voice to the country’s bellicose backlash, warning any potential military attackers that they would face a “strong slap and iron fist.”

The comments escalated Iran’s portrayal of itself as the victim of a campaign to foment “Iranophobia” mounted by corrupt foreign states. But the remarks also appeared to reflect growing concern in the Iranian hierarchy that Israel and possibly the United States might use the report as a justification to bomb sites in Iran suspected of harboring facilities for the development of nuclear weapons.

In a continuing display of displeasure at being rebuked by the U.N., Iran boycotted a meeting at the Vienna headquarters of the I.A.E.A. on Nov. 21. Iran was one of 97 countries invited to the meeting, which was held to discuss nuclear issues relating to the Middle East.

The apparent boycott seemed to widen the already yawning gap between Iran and outside powers, including the United States, seeking to defuse the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.

A month before the U.N. report was released, Mr. Obama pressed U.N. inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran was designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. The president’s push was part of a larger American effort to further isolate and increase pressure on Iran after accusing it of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

The Obama Response

After years of conflict between Iran and President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama spent his first years in office trying to engage Iran diplomatically, only to see Tehran back away from a tentative agreement to ship some uranium out of the country for enrichment.

On Sept. 9, 2009, American intelligence agencies concluded that Iran had created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House said that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.

In late September 2009, Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, revealed the existence of a secret underground plant near Qom. American officials said they had been tracking the project for years, but that the president decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered that the secrecy surrounding the project had been breached.

Talks were then held between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Germany, and led by the European Union‘s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. At the talks, Iran agreed in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing, a step that would have bought more time for negotiations by reducing the amount of potential bomb-making material in Iran’s hands for up to a year.

The news raised a tumult in Iran, with conservative politicians arguing that the West could not be trusted to return the uranium. Shortly after the accord was announced, Iran began raising objections and backtracking. On Oct. 29, Iran told the U.N.’s chief nuclear inspector that it was rejecting the deal.

A 2010 Report Raises Questions

In February 2010, the United Nations’ nuclear inspectors declared for the first time that they had extensive evidence of “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran’s military to develop a nuclear warhead, an unusually strongly worded conclusion likely to accelerate Iran’s confrontation with the United States and other Western countries.

The report, the first under the new director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, also concluded that the nation’s weapons-related activity apparently continued “beyond 2004.”

Following the agency’s announcement, Russia said that it was “very alarmed” by Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate with the I.A.E.A. And in late March, a Russian official disclosed that Russian and Chinese envoys had pressed Iran’s government to accept a United Nations plan on uranium enrichment during meetings in Tehran earlier in the month but that Iran had refused, leaving “less and less room for diplomatic maneuvering.”

Questions of Iran’s sincerity were again raised by its announcement on May 17 of an agreement negotiated by Turkey and Brazil that could offer a short-term solution to its ongoing nuclear standoff with the West, or prove to be a tactic aimed at derailing efforts to bring new sanctions against Tehran.

The deal called for Iran to ship 2,640 pounds of low enriched uranium to Turkey, where it would be stored. In exchange, after one year, Iran would have the right to receive about 265 pounds of material enriched to 20 percent from Russia and France.

The next day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that a deal had been struck with other major powers, including Russia and China, to impose new sanctions on Iran, a sharp repudiation of the agreement between Iran and Turkey.

A New Round of Sanctions

In June 2010, after months of lobbying by the Obama administration and Europe, the U.N. Security council voted to impose a new round of sanctions on Iran, the fourth such move. But the measures did little to overcome widespread doubts that they — or even the additional steps pledged by American and European officials — would accomplish the Council’s longstanding goal: halting Iran’s production of nuclear fuel.

The new resolution, hailed by President Obama as delivering “the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government,” took months to negotiate and major concessions by American officials, but still failed to carry the symbolic weight of a unanimous decision. Twelve of the 15 nations on the council voted for the measure, while Turkey and Brazil voted against it and Lebanon abstained.

After the Obama administration imposed additional sanctions on more than a dozen Iranian companies and individuals with links to the country’s nuclear and missile programs, the European Union followed suit with what it called “inevitable” new measures against Tehran.

The main thrust of the sanctions is against military purchases, trade and financial transactions carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which controls the nuclear program and has taken a more central role in running the country and the economy.

The United States had sought broader measures against Iran’s banks, insurance industry and other trade, but China and Russia were adamant that the sanctions not affect Iran’s day-to-day economy.

In late November, a trove of diplomatic documents obtained by Wikileaks showed deep concern among Iran’s neighbors over its nuclear program and revealed that American officials believed Tehran had obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow. It also provided a detailed look at how President Obama had assembled support for tough sanctions that had eluded President George W. Bush.

In January 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that international sanctions had slowed Iran’s nuclear program, and the restrictions seem to have disrupted sectors of the economy, particularly banking and export-related industries.

The Mysterious Stuxnet Worm

Also in January 2011, the retired leader of Israel’s intelligence agency said Iran could not develop a bomb before 2015, an assessment most American officials agreed with. The biggest single factor seems to have been a computer virus — the so-called Stuxnet worm — that is believed to have destroyed one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Stuxnet turned up in industrial programs around the world in mid-2009. But experts dissecting it soon determined that it had been precisely calibrated in a way that would send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control, adding to suspicions that it was meant to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.

It appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

After its spread, intelligence officials began to talk of setbacks in Iran’s program that could delay the day it is able to produce a nuclear weapon (a goal Iran denies having).

Many mysteries remain, chief among them was who constructed Stuxnet, which appears to have several authors on several continents. But the digital trail is littered with intriguing bits of evidence, many of which suggest that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.

In August 2011, intelligence officials said Iran was moving its most sensitive nuclear fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it was less vulnerable to attack from the air and, the Iranians hoped, to cyberattacks like the Stuxnet worm.

The Bush Response

The United Nations Security Council voted in December 2006 to impose sanctions on Iran for failing to heed calls for a suspension. In Washington, administration hawks, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, were reported to favor consideration of more aggressive measures, including possible air strikes, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed for more diplomacy.

President George W. Bush sided with Ms. Rice, but declared that the United States would not negotiate directly with Iran until it suspended the nuclear research program. Months of inconclusive talks about talks followed.

The situation was muddied in December 2007 when American intelligence agencies issued a new National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that the weapons portion of the Iranian nuclear program remained on hold. That document said that Iran would probably be able to produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015, while cautioning that there was no evidence that the Iranian government had decided to do so, contradicting the assessment made in 2005. The estimates given by American military officials in April 2010 are roughly in line with the 2007 estimate. But in June, in the run up to a Security Council vote on sanctions, American officials made clear to their diplomatic counterparts that they now think that Iran has revived elements of its program to design nuclear weapons that the 2007 assessment concluded had gone dormant.

The Role of Israel

In 2008, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

The White House denied Israel’s request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Iran’s announcement in February 2010 that it would begin enriching its stockpile of uranium drew a furious response from Israel, which has said it would regard an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told European diplomats that the sanctions needed to progress quickly.

In November 2011, Israel tested what experts said was a long-range ballistic missile, firing it out to sea from an Air Force base just south of Tel Aviv. The test came after nearly a week of reports and speculation in the Israeli news media about whether the country’s prime minister and defense minister had decided to attack Iran’s nuclear complexes.

A Nuclear ‘Trigger’

Starting in early 2008, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly accused Iran of dragging its feet in addressing “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program. Tehran has declared that all of the evidence gathered by the agency — mostly from the intelligence agencies of member countries, and some from its own inspectors — are fabrications.

An I.A.E.A. report issued in February 2011 listed seven outstanding questions about work Iran apparently conducted on warhead design. The documents in the hands of the agency raise questions about work on how to turn uranium into bomb fuel, how to cast conventional explosives in a shape that can trigger a nuclear blast, how to make detonators, generate neutrons to spur a chain reaction, measure detonation waves and make nose-cones for missiles.

The May report gave new details for all seven of the categories of allegations. The disclosure about the atomic trigger centered on a rare material — uranium deuteride, a form of the element made with deuterium, or heavy hydrogen. Nuclear experts say China and Pakistan appear to have used the material as a kind of atomic sparkplug.

The report said it had asked Iran about evidence of “experiments involving the explosive compression of uranium deuteride to produce a short burst of neutrons” — the speeding particles that split atoms in two in a surge of nuclear energy. In a bomb, an initial burst of neutrons is needed to help initiate a rapid chain reaction.

Harold M. Agnew, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, said the compression of uranium deuteride suggested work on an atomic trigger.

The agency’s disclosure about Iran’s alleged use of uranium deuteride also suggests another possible connection between Tehran’s program and Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani engineer who sold nuclear information.

A famous photograph of Dr. Khan, whom Pakistan has released from house arrest in Islamabad, shows him in front of the schematic diagram of an atom bomb on a blackboard. A pointer to the bomb’s center is labeled uranium deuteride.

The May report also gave fresh charges on the design of missile warheads. Documentary evidence, it said, suggested that Iran had conducted “studies involving the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab-3 missile and replace it with a spherical nuclear payload.”

The Shahab-3 is one of Iran’s deadliest weapons, standing 56 feet tall. In parades, Iran has draped them with banners reading, “Wipe Israel off the map.”

Iran’s Nuclear History

Iran’s first nuclear program began in the 1960s under the shah. It made little progress, and was abandoned after the 1979 revolution, which brought to power the hard-line Islamic regime. In the mid-1990s, a new effort began, raising suspicions in Washington and elsewhere. Iran insisted that it was living up to its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but in 2002, an exile group obtained documents revealing a clandestine program. Faced with the likelihood of international sanctions, the government of Mohammad Khatami agreed in 2003 to suspend work on uranium enrichment and allow a stepped-up level of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency while continuing negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.

In August 2005, Mr. Khatami, a relative moderate, was succeeded as president by Mr. Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative. The following January, Iran announced that it would resume enrichment work, leading the three European nations to break off their long-running talks. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium, but the atomic energy association called for the program to be halted until questions about the earlier, secret program were resolved.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/inte ... index.html

Lot of additional links via the link above

Israeli Ad Mocks Iran's Nuclear Program, Mystery Explosions



The Israeli government had nothing to do with the ad.

Samsung had nothing to do with the ad.

Video link
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video/israeli-ad-mocks-iran-nukes-15530788

But an ad for an Israeli cable company featuring cross-dressing Mossad agents who blow up an Iranian nuclear facility using a Samsung tablet has caused a furor in both Iran and Israel. Iran has threatened to ban the sale of Samsung tablets and the commercial itself has now disappeared from Israeli television.

The ad, produced by the HOT cable company, features cast members from the Israeli comedy series "Asfur" dressed head-to-toe as Muslim women to infiltrate Iran. Wearing chadors and clutching purses, the four spies walk past missiles and giant portraits of religious leaders and into the city of Isfahan -- the site of a uranium conversion facility and a mysterious explosion in November 2011. As they arrive, one of the travelers smears sunscreen on his face. When his companions look puzzled, he says, "Don't you know how much radiation there is here?"

The spies then meet a jaded undercover Mossad agent waiting at an outdoor café and looking at his Samsung Galaxy tablet. He tells them that watching on-demand episodes of their comedy series on the tablet has helped him kill time during the two months he's been in Isfahan conducting surveillance.

"Nuclear reactor or no nuclear reactor, I'm not missing 'Asfur,'" he tells them. He and his wife received the Galaxy for free after subscribing to HOT.

"What is that application?" the comedian with the sunscreened face asks, and then presses the screen. A fireball explodes at the nuclear facility behind them. His companions appear shocked. "What?" he shrugs. "Just another mysterious explosion in Iran."

Since 2007, Iran has experienced a series of unexplained explosions that have caused the deaths of numerous nuclear scientists and untold damage to the country's nuclear and long-range missile programs. Iran's nuclear program was also hit by the Stuxnet computer worm, a cyberattack widely believed to have been launched by Western intelligence agencies. The virus reportedly sabotaged centrifuges at a uranium-enrichment facility. Iran has blamed the attacks on the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. The U.S. and the U.K. have denied any involvement in the attacks, while the Israelis have not commented.

The ad ends with an Israeli slang reference that is also a jab at Iran's most revered leader. One of the comedians slaps a bug on his neck and says, "Ick! Khomeini!" According to the Jerusalem Post, Israelis believe that a particularly pesky beetle was introduced to Israel by a traveler from Iran in 1979, around the time the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power.

Israelis have also been known to dress in disguises, including drag, during covert operations. Former prime minister Ehud Barak, now Israel's defense minister, famously dressed as a woman while a member of an elite commando unit during a 1973 raid on Beirut that killed three PLO commanders.

The Israeli government declined to comment on the HOT ad. The cable company had stopped airing the ad as of Monday and also pulled it from the internet, though YouTube versions still exist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ad-mockin ... d=15530867

[Mrmcnuggets Profile]

well the commercial was pretty funny, ill give them that.