Iran Rapidly Pursuing Nuclear Capability

[pinniped]

Iran Rapidly Pursuing Nuclear Capability-

Three-month investigation by The Times suggests that Tehran’s commercial program masks steady progress on weapons capability.

By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer

VIENNA — After more than a decade of working behind layers of front companies and in hidden laboratories, Iran appears to be in the late stages of developing the capacity to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran insists that like many countries it is only building commercial nuclear reactors to generate electricity for homes and factories. "Iran's efforts in the field of nuclear technology are focused on civilian application and nothing else," President Mohammad Khatami said on state television in February. "This is the legitimate right of the Iranian people."

But a three-month investigation by The Times — drawing on previously secret reports, international officials, independent experts, Iranian exiles and intelligence sources in Europe and the Middle East — uncovered strong evidence that Iran's commercial program masks a plan to become the world's next nuclear power. The country has been engaged in a pattern of clandestine activity that has concealed weapons work from international inspectors. Technology and scientists from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have propelled Iran's nuclear program much closer to producing a bomb than Iraq ever was.

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A nuclear-armed Iran would present the United States with a difficult political and military equation. Iran would be the first avowed enemy of Israel to possess a nuclear bomb and the first nuclear-armed country labeled by the administration as a state sponsor of international terrorism.

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more:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nuke4aug04,1,7536926.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Does Iran have much oil and do the people need liberation?

[cherryperry]

1. Oh, no!

and I was in a pretty good mood, too

just leave it to reality to rear its ugly head!

re your questions: I don't know and no, they don't

:nuke: :scared:

[Herschel]

2. A hostile country developing nuclear weapons

is not to be taken lightly.

[Randi_Listener]

3. Too late....

Korea already has them.

[punpirate]

6. Sorry to be blunt...

... but the same can be said for Israel. Except that Israel already has many more than they can reasonably use.

I trust Ariel Sharon with nuclear weapons only slightly less than I do George Bush with same.

Cheers.

[Resistance Is Futile]

4. Someone got the right message from the 'liberation' of Iraq

Iran has a lot of oil (and gas) that Cheney would find useful in the hands of Haliburton. Further, it's unlikle that Wolfowitz and Perle would not see some appeal to getting rid of another Islamic country in the name of greater Israel. Given the dynamic in Washington and the fact that enemy troops have conquored their way to two of Iran's borders, Iran would be insane not to accelerate its nuclear weapons program.

A nuclear-armed Iran would help restore some degree of balance in the region and is a desirable outcome in the greater scheme of things.

[salin]

5. Same script... 11 months later.

Is anyone surprised?

And yes - as is stated elsewhere - what about the Nuke program that HAS evolved while we played cowboy on an "IMMINENT THREAT" that is now discussed as a "WMD PROGRAM".

Important note: I guess the spin maestros feeding the press have the script altered just a bit - now that they have sold - after the fact - that a weapons program rather than weapons fits the bills as ground for pre-emptive war... they frame this story in that context.