DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./IRAN: THE UNITED STATES IS NOT INTERESTED IN ATTACKING IRAN, BESIDES THEY ARE AT LEAST 4 YRS AWAY FROM MANUFACTURING A NUKE

US not interested in attacking Iran: Fallon; ‘Tehran 4 years from N-bomb’

LONDON (Agencies): Iran’s nuclear program is facing such severe technical difficulties that it could take four years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb and eight years to deploy an operational nuclear weapon, experts said Tuesday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement on April 9 that uranium enrichment on an “industrial scale” had begun was “misleading” and the time-scale for success is likely to be longer than early estimates suggested, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. “It is very difficult to enrich uranium. It calls for several different scientific and engineering disciplines”, Norman Dombey, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Sussex University, in southern England, told the paper. “Iran hasn’t yet shown that it has mastered the problem”, he said.

Iran’s underground facility in Natanz has space for 3,000 centrifuges, the devices used to enrich uranium. Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that only 1,312 have been installed so far. Once all 3,000 are in place, the machines must be fitted together to form 18 cascades. Then technicians must introduce uranium in the form of gas into the centrifuges. The machines must then spin at 1,500 revolutions per second to separate out the uranium-235, the fissile material capable of producing the chain reaction unleashed by a nuclear bomb, but the smallest particle of dust, even a fingerprint, can disrupt enrichment, the daily said. Iran will have to spin all the centrifuges inside a vacuum without any interruption for a period of about one year. If any machine breaks down, or if dust enters the system or if the power supply is lost, the process must halt and start again, it added.

Professor Dombey estimates that Iran will need about two years simply to master the process of running centrifuges. Then, making allowances for interruptions caused by breakdowns, it could take another two years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb. “At the moment, their program doesn’t constitute a threat. It would constitute a threat if they were enriching substantial amounts to more than five percent and they’re not”, he said.“In fact they’re not enriching anything very much. This talk about industrial scale enrichment is misleading”. Despite Ahmadinejad’s public threat to wipe it from the map, Israel also plays down the progress that Iran has made. Last Sunday, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said “Iran is far from attaining the technology threshold and this country is not close to getting it, contrary to statements by its leadership”.

Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Authority, has said that Iran may be eight years away from a having an operational nuclear weapons system.Gary Samore, Vice-President of the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said “Washington feels it has time to play out the diplomatic hand because Iran is having trouble solving technical problems with its centrifuge machines”. “The belief in Western intelligence circles is that a large portion of these machines are likely to break if Iran attempts to operate them at the high speeds necessary for enrichment”. Meanwhile, the United States is not seeking conflict with Iran and would prefer dialogue to resolve the escalating tension over Tehran’s nuclear progamme, the new chief of US Central Command said on Tuesday.

“I am not interested in planning to attack Iran. I am very interested in trying to get the Iranians to come and start engaging in a meaningful dialogue,” Admiral William J. Fallon told reporters in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He said Tehran should talk to the world and “particularly this (Gulf) region about the future and the role they (Iranians) may play, that I hope would be constructive rather than unhelpful and destabilising.” Fallon was chosen in January to succeed retiring General John Abizaid as head of Central Command, overseeing US forces from North Africa to Central Asia. He took over in March. He was responding to questions about the US military’s readiness to attack Iran without using its bases in Gulf Arab states after repeated statements by key US allies in the region pledging not to be part of any offensive.

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Pertinent Links:

1) US not interested in attacking Iran: Fallon; ‘Tehran 4 years from N-bomb’