VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has installed many more uranium enrichment machines in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources said on Thursday, potentially paving the way for a significant expansion of work the West fears is ultimately aimed at making nuclear bombs.
Iran denies allegations it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. But its refusal to curb its nuclear enrichment program has prompted tough Western sanctions and has heightened speculation that Israel may attack its atomic sites.
In a possible sign of further Iranian defiance in the face of such pressure, several sources said Iran had put in place additional enrichment centrifuges in its Fordow facility, buried deep inside a mountain to protect it against enemy strikes.
One source suggested hundreds of machines had been installed.
In another development likely to worry the West, they said satellite imagery indicated Iran had covered a building at a military site which U.N. inspectors want to visit with a brightly-colored, tent-like structure.
Western diplomats have said they believe Iran is cleansing the Parchin site to remove any evidence of illicit nuclear activity at a place where the U.N. nuclear watchdog suspects it has conducted tests that had a military dimension.
Covering the building in question - which is believed to house a steel chamber for explosives experiments - may allow Iran to carry out sanitization or other work there which would not be seen via satellite pictures.
One Western envoy said that the suspected clean-up at Parchin was "intensifying" and that this made it doubtful that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would uncover any hard evidence there, even if they were allowed to go.
"Given the extent of the clean-up, it is indeed unlikely the agency, if it ever gets access, would find anything at Parchin," the diplomat said.
There was no immediate comment from Iran's mission to the Vienna-based U.N. atomic agency. It has previously dismissed the allegations about Parchin, which it says is a conventional military facility, as "ridiculous".
NEW NUCLEAR TALKS
The IAEA will press Iran again in talks on Friday for access to Parchin as part of its long-stalled probe into suspected nuclear weapons research in the Islamic state, even though it concedes that the alleged sanitization would hamper its probe.
The meeting, the first since previous discussions ended in failure in June, takes place after an upsurge in rhetoric from Israeli politicians this month suggesting Israel might attack Iran ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
The talks are separate from Tehran's negotiations with world powers that have made little headway since they resumed in April after a 15-month hiatus, but the focus on suspicions about Iran's nuclear ambitions mean they are closely linked.
^Once NATO withdrawals from Afghanistan I guarantee that the rhetoric of this kind is going to drop down enormously. We may eventually see the US lift sanctions on Iran.
More warmongering from the BBC which assumes Iran is already in the process of weaponizing despite tons of evidence to the contrary. It doesn't even mention how close specifically Iran is to nuclear weapons and only cites that fact it has the potential to. So does Japan, South Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan, Myramar, etc if they ever felt threatened enough.
David Sanger on Iran's nuclear programme
^Fine, but if South Korea and Japan feel threatened enough by the North which has nuclear weapons they will build them to self-defense. Iran does support terrorism and buys some things on the black market already for its nuclear energy program. If they were accelerating through this their uranium enrichment would be detectable and at a higher concentration than it is now. If Iran was interested in attacking Israel why not just do it with a dirty bomb, biological agent, or something else? They can get a suitcase nuke from North Korea I'm sure.
Thing I don't get is how the hell does Iran threaten the US. Does anybody in the US believe Iran has the capability to launch a missile in Iran all the way to New York.
The sad thing about Iran is compared to some of countries in the middle east the people there are actually "more secular" then alot of radicals in other countries in that area that America has ties with. Going there and carpet bombing the area will only turn those people who have a chance to become great Pro-Americian Middle Easters into people who view America negatively.
So, as much as I am against military action against Iran, I understand the level of interest.
Iran doesnt threaten the U.S. Not with nukes anyway. They would most likely try to hurt us by sponsoring terrorist attacks or by cutting off the Straits of Hormuz, crippling our oil supply.Thing I don't get is how the hell does Iran threaten the US. Does anybody in the US believe Iran has the capability to launch a missile in Iran all the way to New York.
The sad thing about Iran is compared to some of countries in the middle east the people there are actually "more secular" then alot of radicals in other countries in that area that America has ties with. Going there and carpet bombing the area will only turn those people who have a chance to become great Pro-Americian Middle Easters into people who view America negatively.
The rallying around the Iranian regime in the event of an American or Israeli attack on the Iranian facilities is one of the big negatives against attacking. Let's face it, there is no good solution to this situation. The best we can hope for is that the Iranian nuke program is peaceful, but we can never know that for sure.
Thing I don't get is how the hell does Iran threaten the US. Does anybody in the US believe Iran has the capability to launch a missile in Iran all the way to New York.
The sad thing about Iran is compared to some of countries in the middle east the people there are actually "more secular" then alot of radicals in other countries in that area that America has ties with. Going there and carpet bombing the area will only turn those people who have a chance to become great Pro-Americian Middle Easters into people who view America negatively. It sort of reminds me of Iraq, why go and bomb a country that for the most part hated Osama Bin Laden just as much as us, that's counter productive(expect for the military industrial complex)
I think we should pull all aid being sent to the Middle East....let's try that....
Here is an idea take 50B of the 70B the government gave Israel and buy oil from Iran under the condition they do certain things. Money talks and it's a better bang for our bucks.
It's sort of sad that Obama giving 70B to Israel is not even commented on by the Republicans as wasteful spending, yet I can't go a day without hearing the name Solyndra(which is pennies on the dollar compared to that 70B)
Because there would be an uproar from Jewish and Evangelical groups about money being taken from Israel and given to Iran. Besides, how do we know that the Iranians will follow through on the conditions? What if we give them the money and they give us the finger?