Well Slap My Ass And Call Me Shirley
Who could have possibly seen this coming
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.
The very existence of the technology, known as a “two-point implosion” device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as “breathtaking” and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
…The agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation “appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran”.
Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. “It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material,” said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.
James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: “It’s remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five … To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising.”
No, it speaks of very deep pockets.
Oh, and the complete failure of will, vigilance and any semblance of realistic thinking by the Western World.
Military Thingies, Politics, World Stuff | Mr. Bingley | 
November 6, 2009 1:24 pm
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LOSE ElBaradei. Soonest. We don’t need a blind watch-dog.
Feh. Lose the whole damn blind, toothless, legless and brainless UN.
The whole body is a bad and hyper-expensive joke.
The atomic bomb was invented by the US in 1945.It’s now 64 years
later,and the bomb isn’t that
hard to make anymore.
The missile technology to deploy it is the worst danger,
Iran could probably have bought a nuke from the former
Soviet Union for a hundred million in the 1990s.
But, the Clinton Presidency
sold all of our Technology to
the Chinese for a book deal-
and a Fabian Society attaboy-
we are now left with nothing,but rusted vehicles
and Hannibal’s elephants..
“…has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.”
I think we’re well past “diplomatic” solutions.