DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - THE WEST/IRAN: A REACTOR WILL NOT WORK WITHOUT FUEL

Inside intel / Without fuel, the reactor won't work
By Yossi Melman

A few days ago Iran announced that it would once again allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit the nuclear facility at Araq where a reactor with a 40-megawatt output is being set up. While Iran claims the reactor is designed for research purposes only, several experts have rejected this claim with contempt. Prof. Uzi Even, a former Knesset member who worked at the Dimona nuclear reactor, says that for research purposes only, all that is needed is a small reactor with a power of two megawatts, like the one at Nahal Soreq, which the U.S. gave to Israel in 1960. On the other hand, a 40-megawatt reactor cannot be used for producing electricity - to do so, one needs a reactor with at least 10 times the power. To facilitate understanding: According to past official publications of the governments of Israel and France, the reactor in Dimona has a power of 24 megawatts, and according to foreign publications, Israel has increased that power to 75 megawatts.

Prof. Even estimates that a reactor powered by 20 megawatts can produce one nuclear bomb a year. This means that, theoretically, the reactor in Araq could produce two such bombs every year. The problem is that there is no reactor yet. U.S. and IAEA estimates predict that construction of the reactor at Araq, which will operate on heavy water and will produce plutonium, will be completed only in six to seven years. So what would the IAEA inspectors actually inspect in Araq? They would examine the heavy-water facility the Iranians have put up at the site. Although the facility is supposed to serve the reactor, nuclear experts are finding it difficult to explain why Iran had to build it before the reactor is constructed. "There is no logic to this; I don't understand it," one Israeli nuclear expert said. All this merely adds to the mystery surrounding Iran's nuclear plans.

All kinds of rumors have spread as a result of the fog disseminated by Iran over the nuclear issue. An example is a recent headline in an edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, which said that an Iranian defector, General Ali Reza Asgari (who is apparently being held by the United States), had reported that Iran is trying to achieve production of atomic weapons by secretly enriching uranium through laser beams. But this report has been met with skepticism on the part of scientists.

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1) Inside intel / Without fuel, the reactor won't work