Iran hiding Nuclear Facility

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Strongbow

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Obama: Iran must open secret nuclear facility

By BEN FELLER and GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writers Ben Feller And

George Jahn, Associated Press Writers – 8 mins ago

PITTSBURGH – President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain will demand Friday that Iran open to international inspectors a secret nuclear facility it has tried to hide from the world for years, a senior White House official told The Associated Press.

The three leaders — Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — will open the G-20 economic summit with their demand that Tehran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the facility for producing nuclear fuel, officials said.

Iran has kept the facility, 100 miles southwest of Tehran, hidden from weapons inspectors, but the U.S. has long known of its existence, the official said. Obama decided to go public with the revelation after Iran learned that Western intelligence agencies were aware of the project.

The officials spoke on grounds of anonymity because Obama's announcement was still pending.

Meanwhile, a diplomat in Vienna and another European government official told The Associated Press on Friday that Tehran has informed the IAEA of a previously undeclared uranium enriching facility.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was confidential, said Iran revealed its existence in a letter sent Monday to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the atomic energy agency.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made no mention of the facility this week while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, but said that his country had fully cooperated with international nuclear inspectors.

Administration officials said the disclosure would make it easier to make the case for imposing sanctions if Iran blocks inspections or refuses to quit its nuclear program.

Iran is under three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment at what had been its single known enrichment plant, which is being monitored by the IAEA.

The officials in Europe said Iran's letter contained no details about the location of the second facility, when — or if — it had started operations or the type and number of centrifuges it was running.

But one of the officials, who had access to a review of Western intelligence on the issue, said it was about 100 miles southwest of Tehran and was the site of 3,000 centrifuges that could be operational by next year.

Iranian semiofficial new agency ISNA on Friday confirmed reports on the country's second enrichment plant.

Iranian officials had previously acknowledged having only one plant — which is under IAEA monitoring — and had denied allegations of undeclared nuclear activities.


An August IAEA report said Iran had set up more than 8,000 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium at its underground facility outside the southern city of Natanz. The report said that only about 4,600 centrifuges were fully active.

Iran says it has the right to enrich uranium for a nationwide chain of nuclear reactors. But because enrichment can also produce weapons-grade uranium, the international community fears Tehran will make fissile material for nuclear warheads.

The revelation of a secret plant further hinders the chances of progress in scheduled Oct. 1 talks between Iran and six world powers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090925/ap_on_go_pr_wh/g20_summit_obama_iran

Yet, some people here believe Iran has been fully cooperating with the IAEA.
 
Really? Maybe you're mistaking the concept of wanting proof not hunches for "believing Iran has been fully cooperating".

I know it's a strange concept :coocoo:


Plenty of evidence has been out there that Iran is not cooperating, the question is, will liberals dream up a way to dismiss this latest piece of evidence.
 
They had a lot of "evidence" that Iraq had WMDs too. Remember that?

Hard, provable evidence has been found by waiting & investigating. Now this situation can be handled appropriately as opposed to just going in guns a-blazin'.
 
Plenty of evidence has been out there that Iran is not cooperating, the question is, will liberals dream up a way to dismiss this latest piece of evidence.

Do conservatives have more to offer than "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"?
 
They had a lot of "evidence" that Iraq had WMDs too. Remember that?

Yep, they sure did. Saddam used WMD over 150,000 times while he was the leader of Iraq. You'd have to go back to World War I to find another leader that used WMD that many times, and even then, I don't think they could top it. Thousands of Iranian troops were killed and injured by Iraqi Chemical weapons. Thousands of Kurds were also killed and injured by Iraqi WMD.

US forces found Iraqi WMD shells mixed in with stock piles of conventional shells in both Kuwait and southern Iraq during and after the first Gulf War.

Then there is the long list of WMD found by United Nations inspectors from 1991 through 1996, until Saddam made it impossible for them to do anything and ultimately took actions that forced them out of the country and would not let them back in for years.

While no WMD was found after the second Gulf War, production related facilities were found that were in violation of the 1991 Gulf War ceacefire agreement, and multiple UN resolutions. In addition, Saddam never accounted for the following missing stocks UN Inspectors said that he had: 500 tons of mustard gas, 500 tons of sarin gas, several thousand liters of Anthrax, and thousands of artillery shells that could be used with WMD. Saddam agreed to verifiably disarm of all WMD which meant accounting for his entire stockpile for the United Nations. He never did this.

Hard, provable evidence has been found by waiting & investigating. Now this situation can be handled appropriately as opposed to just going in guns a-blazin'.

The coalition tried to work with Saddam on the issue for 12 years but Saddam was unwilling to comply with the UN resolutions. Everything short of military invasion to remove Saddam was tried and failed. The military invasion of Iraq in 2003 was actually long overdue, and succeeded in achieving its goals of verifiably disarming Saddam, where inspections, sanctions, and limited military air strikes had failed.
 
it does seem as if the US has lost a ton of credibility after the Iraq WMD debacle.

Thats only the case for those who are ignorant of Iraq's history with WMD prior to 2003, forget what inspectors did find in Iraq after 2003 that was a violation of the 1991 ceacefire agreement as well as the fact that Saddam still, failed to account for stocks of WMD that had led to operation Desert Fox launched by Bill Clinton in December 1998.
 
when we actually look what's going on here, we see a huge victory by Obama, and more evidence of his incredibly deft handling of international policy, as well as giving us a textbook case of how you prove that a leader is lying that only highlights the incredible failures of the Bush administration. how pathetic and foolish they look now after the chess game Obama has played against Ahmadinejad:



September 26, 2009
Leaders Warn Iran Over Nuclear Site

By DAVID E. SANGER and HELENE COOPER
PITTSBURGH — President Obama and leaders of Britain and France accused Iran on Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years.

Appearing before reporters in Pittsburgh, Mr. Obama said that the Iranian nuclear program “represents a direct challenge to the basic foundation of the nonproliferation regime.” President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, appearing beside Mr. Obama, said that Iran had a deadline of two months to comply with international demands or face increased sanctions.

“The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, standing on the other side of Mr. Obama. “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

The extraordinary and hastily arranged joint appearance by the three leaders — and Mr. Obama said that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had asked him to convey that she stood with them as well — adds urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambition to build a nuclear weapons capacity. The three men demanded that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to disclose the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the complex. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

In a statement from its headquarters in Vienna on Friday, the atomic agency confirmed that it had been told on Monday by Iran that “a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country.” The agency said it had requested more information about the plant and access to it as soon as possible. “The agency also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility,” the statement said.

On Friday, ISNA, an Iranian news agency, quoted an “informed source” as confirming the existence of the second uranium-enrichment site, describing it as similar to Iran’s known enrichment facility at Natanz.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said nothing about the plant during his visit this week to the United Nations, where he repeated his contention that Iran had cooperated fully with inspectors and that allegations of a nuclear weapons program are fabrications.

The newly discovered enrichment plant is not yet in operation, American officials said, but could be by next year.

Mr. Obama’s announcement will probably overshadow much of the meeting of the Group of 20, whose leaders have gathered to plan the next steps in combating the global financial crisis. Instead, here and during the opening of the United Nations in New York, senior officials from several of the countries were pulled aside for briefings on the new intelligence and for strategy sessions about the first direct talks with Iran in 30 years — set for Thursday — that will include the United States.

American officials said they expected the announcement to make it easier to build a case for international sanctions if Iran blocked inspectors or refused to halt its nuclear program.

“They have cheated three times,” one senior administration official with access to the intelligence said of the Iranians late on Thursday evening. “And they have now been caught three times.”

The official was referring to information unearthed by an Iranian dissident group that led to the discovery of the underground plant at Natanz in 2002, and evidence developed two years ago — after Iran’s computer networks were pierced by American intelligence agencies — that the country had secretly sought to design a nuclear warhead. American officials believe that effort was halted in late 2003.

After months of talking about the need for engagement, Mr. Obama appears to have made a leap toward viewing tough new sanctions against Iran as an inevitability. He avoided President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations this week, despite his having said repeatedly that he would seek dialogue with Iranian leaders. Instead, Mr. Obama spent much of his time in New York pressing the case, particularly to Russia and China, for sterner Security Council measures to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

For years, American intelligence officials have searched for a site where Iran could enrich uranium in secret, far from the inspectors who now regularly monitor activity at Natanz. A highly classified Bush-era intelligence report identifies more than a dozen suspected nuclear sites around the country — some for building centrifuges and other equipment, others for designing weapons or testing explosives.

Administration officials could not immediately say if the new site, built inside a mountain near the ancient city of Qum, one of the holiest Shiite cities in the Middle East, is on that list.

American officials said late Thursday that they believe the plant was designed to hold about 3,000 centrifuges, which enrich uranium for nuclear power plants — or, with additional enrichment, for bombs. That would be enough centrifuges to manufacture about one bomb’s worth of material a year, though it is unclear whether any of the centrifuges have been installed or turned on.

The I.A.E.A. statement said Iran had told the agency the new plant would enrich uranium to a level of 5 percent —high enough for nuclear fuel, but not nearly enough to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb. Iran assured the agency in its letter that “further complementary information will be provided in an appropriate and due time,” the I.A.E.A. said.

However, Mr. Obama said on Friday, “The size and type of the facility is inconsistent with that of a peaceful facility.”

Mr. Obama was first briefed on Iran’s project before he became president, as part of the detailed intelligence reports provided by the then-director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. Mr. Obama has received updated intelligence on it “several times,” one senior aide said Thursday evening.

In advance of Friday morning’s announcement, Mr. Obama sent top intelligence officials to brief the atomic agency’s chief inspector, Olli Heinonen. Other American diplomats and intelligence officials shared their findings with China, Russia and Germany, all important players in the negotiations with Iran.

Earlier this week, Mr. Obama’s discussions with President Hu Jintao of China on Tuesday and his meeting with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Wednesday focused largely on Iran, administration officials said. During his meeting with Mr. Medvedev in particular, Mr. Obama pressed his case, expressing pessimism that talks scheduled for next week with the Iranians over the nuclear issue would yield much progress, administration officials said.

“The president made clear that while he was willing to engage, he was also clear-eyed about the prospects of that engagement,” a senior administration official said.

Mr. Obama had, by that point, made a giant step toward getting Russia more amenable to the idea of sanctions against Iran — something Moscow does not like — by announcing last week that he was replacing President George W. Bush’s missile defense with a version less threatening to Moscow. That issue, one administration official said, completely changed the dynamic during Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Medvedev.

While it is unclear whether Mr. Obama briefed Mr. Medvedev about the Qum facility during that meeting at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the two leaders nonetheless emerged with Mr. Medvedev promising, for the first time publicly, that Russia would be amenable to tougher sanctions.

One administration official said that the United States was hoping that with Russia agreeing to tougher sanctions, China would follow. Mr. Obama is planning to visit Beijing and Shanghai in early November, just around the same time that a sanctions resolution is expected to be introduced at the Security Council.



now we see the deeper strategy behind scrapping the silly missile defense in Eastern Europe as Tehran is further isolated.

maybe, just maybe, Obama really can save the US from the absolute disaster of the Bush years.

it remains to be seen, but this is an extraordinary start.
 
Yep, they sure did. Saddam used WMD over 150,000 times while he was the leader of Iraq. You'd have to go back to World War I to find another leader that used WMD that many times, and even then, I don't think they could top it. Thousands of Iranian troops were killed and injured by Iraqi Chemical weapons. Thousands of Kurds were also killed and injured by Iraqi WMD.

US forces found Iraqi WMD shells mixed in with stock piles of conventional shells in both Kuwait and southern Iraq during and after the first Gulf War.

Then there is the long list of WMD found by United Nations inspectors from 1991 through 1996, until Saddam made it impossible for them to do anything and ultimately took actions that forced them out of the country and would not let them back in for years.

While no WMD was found after the second Gulf War, production related facilities were found that were in violation of the 1991 Gulf War ceacefire agreement, and multiple UN resolutions. In addition, Saddam never accounted for the following missing stocks UN Inspectors said that he had: 500 tons of mustard gas, 500 tons of sarin gas, several thousand liters of Anthrax, and thousands of artillery shells that could be used with WMD. Saddam agreed to verifiably disarm of all WMD which meant accounting for his entire stockpile for the United Nations. He never did this.



The coalition tried to work with Saddam on the issue for 12 years but Saddam was unwilling to comply with the UN resolutions. Everything short of military invasion to remove Saddam was tried and failed. The military invasion of Iraq in 2003 was actually long overdue, and succeeded in achieving its goals of verifiably disarming Saddam, where inspections, sanctions, and limited military air strikes had failed.

We heard all these arguments from 2001 through, I dunno, 2006, and they are just as flimsy now as they were then. There were no WMDs. They had no proof of WMDs - the closest they could muster was Colin Powell holding a picture of some trailers. The only person that thinks they've found WMDs since is Rush LImbaugh. Even W doesn't claim to have found them.
 
My vote goes for keeping our nose out of Iran's affairs, as well as all the other mid-east countries. That's what got us in all this terrorist shit to begin with.

B-B-But what about Israel?!?!?

Fuck em. They can take care of themselves. What have they ever done for us except cause us problems?
 
We heard all these arguments from 2001 through, I dunno, 2006, and they are just as flimsy now as they were then. There were no WMDs.

Really, so why are there mass graves of Kurdish citizens who were killed by such chemicals? Again, if you take the time to do some research, you'll find plenty of information on Saddam and his use, and possession of WMD's. US attempts to inspect and dismantle Saddam's WMD, the use of sanctions and weapons embargo, diplomatic pressure, and as well as military force goes all the way back to 1991. Your under the illusion that all this started in 2001. I didn't.

Per the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement, Iraq had to verifiably disarm of all WMD and account for every part of its WMD program. The United Nations inspectors, not the Bush administration, declared in December 1998 that Saddam had failed to account for his entire WMD program and they were the ones that listed 500 pounds of mustard gas, 500 pounds of sarin gas, thousands of liters of Anthrax as well as artillery shells that could disperse such chemicals. Saddam never accounted for such items. It does not matter what the United States was able to find after they removed the regime. Accountibility and compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions is what mattered. Its a fact that the weapons existed at one time, where they are now or what happened to them to this day remains unknown.

This was not something that was cooked up by the Bush administration and anyone informed about Iraq and WMD's would know that.

The only person that thinks they've found WMDs since is Rush LImbaugh. Even W doesn't claim to have found them.

If you carefully read what I posted, you'll find that I did not claim they found WMD's in Iraq after the invasion and removal of Saddam either!

They did find production related facilities(not WMD's) that violated the Gulf War Ceacefire agreement and had remained hidden while Saddam was in power.
 
My vote goes for keeping our nose out of Iran's affairs, as well as all the other mid-east countries. That's what got us in all this terrorist shit to begin with.

B-B-But what about Israel?!?!?

Fuck em. They can take care of themselves. What have they ever done for us except cause us problems?

Good post. Agreed.
 
when we actually look what's going on here, we see a huge victory by Obama, and more evidence of his incredibly deft handling of international policy, as well as giving us a textbook case of how you prove that a leader is lying that only highlights the incredible failures of the Bush administration. how pathetic and foolish they look now after the chess game Obama has played against Ahmadinejad:

Sorry, but the intelligence work on this occured during the Bush administration. The reason Obama went public with the information was because the Iranians had just found out that we knew about it and were attempting to declare it publically. Obama went public with the information before they did.

When it comes to Iran, there are not to many differences between Bush and Obama administration policies, although certain Obama administration chauvinist would like to paint a different picture.


now we see the deeper strategy behind scrapping the silly missile defense in Eastern Europe as Tehran is further isolated.

There is nothing silly about missile defense. There are US and coalition troops, Saudi and Israeli citizens who are alive today because of missile defense.

In addition, Obama's reason for not going ahead with the specific missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was because of new intelligence information showing that Iranian production and development had refocused away from long range missile develoment toward short range and medium range missile development.

There efforts under way to bolster US and allied missile defenses in middle east and Persian Gulf against short range and medium range ballistic missiles, but you probably think that is "silly".

maybe, just maybe, Obama really can save the US from the absolute disaster of the Bush years.

Now that is something silly. About as silly as the Russian claim that a few radars and intercepter missiles placed in Poland and the Czech Republic posed a threat to Russia.
 
Plenty of evidence has been out there that Iran is not cooperating, the question is, will liberals dream up a way to dismiss this latest piece of evidence.



The people of Iran are very proud of their country and government. What they have achieved while the West constantly attempts to thwart them is impressive.
 
Good post. Agreed.


what is really amusing to me is when people talk about bombing Iran and we need to send in troops and they are terrorists and all that bullshit, and yet most of them probably couldnt point to Iran on a map if their life depended on it, let alone know their basic history from the 50's or so.
 
Actually, I'm trying to say that it was all over by 2001.

If your claiming that Iraq was not in violation of 17 UN security council resolutions passed under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations in 2001, you would be incorrect.

I know what happened before that. And we took care of it in 1991. There was no reason to go back.

Really, well I have some shocking news for you. Take a look at this video from December 16, 1998.

YouTube - President Clinton orders attack on Iraq

The hard fact is, that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat, once and for all, is with a new Iraqi government. A government ready to live in peace with its neighbors. A government that respects the rights of its people.

President Bill Clinton

December 16, 1998




"All taken care of in 1991"? I don't think so.
 
2 questions:

Why are the Alphabet Media surprised about any of this?

How long will Israel wait to pounce?

<>
 
So why were they there? As scenic attractions?

Well, since you don't know, they were to be placed there to defend against the threat of long range Iranian Ballistic missiles. The United States also has systems in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey which defend against short range and medium range ballistic missiles that could threaten those countries.

But none of these systems threaten the country with the largest ballistic missile force in the world, Russia.
 
Never said I agreed with that action either. But I will say that an airstrike and an all out invasion are two very different things.

I was just pointing out that the issue which you mysteriously claim was resolved in 1991 was not. Bill Clinton's administration was also involved in other military actions against Iraq besides Desert Fox.

Iraq was NOT in compliance with any of the 17 UN Security Council resolutions in March 2003, and that is the chief reason why the invasion and Saddam's removal were justified.
 
I suppose the US government would just stand idly by in the event of a revolution by disaffected elements?

The United States did stand idly by this past summer as they did not want to give the Iranian government a scape goat to focus people's attention on.

But none of that should matter anyway's since the "Iranian people love their government".
 
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