foxhound
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2007
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 0
Salaam....
ref:Iran nuclear weapon is further off, Israel says - Telegraph
Iran nuclear weapon is further off, Israel says
Iran no longer has the capability to create a nuclear weapon on its own, Israel's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday, in a new assessment that would seem to make military action less likely in the near future.
Iranian missile testing - although Israel think Iran no longer has the nuclear capabilities.
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent 5:30PM GMT 29 Dec 2010
The new view lengthens considerably previous time frames of about a year, and suggests the programme has been seriously damaged by sabotage, sanctions or both. It lends weight to the theory that a highly sophisticated computer worm called Stuxnet was inserted successfully last year into Iran's uranium enrichment programme.
A report by a former United Nations weapons inspector last week said the worm might have forced the replacement of 1,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at Iran's main facility.
Moshe Yaalon, the deputy prime minister, said western pressure would force Iran to consider whether its nuclear programme was worth pursuing. "I believe that this effort will grow, and will include areas beyond sanctions, to convince the Iranian regime that, effectively, it must choose between continuing to seek nuclear capability and surviving," he told Israeli radio. "I don't know if it will happen in 2011 or in 2012, but we are talking in terms of the next three years."
He did not refer specifically to claims that Stuxnet damaged the Iranian programme, but he said it was clear it had encountered "difficulties".
"These difficulties postpone the timeline, of course," he said. "Thus we cannot talk about a 'point of no return'. Iran does not currently have the ability to make a nuclear bomb on its own. I hope it won't succeed at all and that the Western world's effort will ultimately deny Iran a nuclear capability."
Iran has accused Israel and its western allies of responsibility for the murders of two Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran this year.
Earlier this year, Iran began enriching uranium from 3.5 per cent suitable for nuclear power to 20 per cent, saying it was for a medical facility.
From 20 per cent, it is a relatively simple step to increase concentration to 90 per cent, the level necessary for a nuclear weapon.
Iran claims it has no interest in developing a nuclear weapon, and some analysts say the country will stop short of doing so, hoping that the presence of a "breakout" capability would be enough to give Iran the extra regional clout it seeks.
However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted last month that the enrichment process had been hit by a virus, without naming it. Computer virus analysts say Stuxnet was so complex it was probably written by a "state actor" rather than an amateur hacker.
The new report, written for the Institute of Science and International Security by a team including David Albright, its director and a former UN weapons inspector, found a link between the worm and the frequency at which Iran's centrifuges spin.
The worm contained a code setting the speed at 1064 Hertz the correct notional speed and increasing it suddenly to 1410, at which point the centrifuges would "tear apart". It noted that the number of centrifuges operating at Iran's Natanz facility fell by about 1,000 not long after the start point of the worm.
ref:Iran nuclear weapon is further off, Israel says - Telegraph
Iran nuclear weapon is further off, Israel says
Iran no longer has the capability to create a nuclear weapon on its own, Israel's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday, in a new assessment that would seem to make military action less likely in the near future.
Iranian missile testing - although Israel think Iran no longer has the nuclear capabilities.
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent 5:30PM GMT 29 Dec 2010
The new view lengthens considerably previous time frames of about a year, and suggests the programme has been seriously damaged by sabotage, sanctions or both. It lends weight to the theory that a highly sophisticated computer worm called Stuxnet was inserted successfully last year into Iran's uranium enrichment programme.
A report by a former United Nations weapons inspector last week said the worm might have forced the replacement of 1,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at Iran's main facility.
Moshe Yaalon, the deputy prime minister, said western pressure would force Iran to consider whether its nuclear programme was worth pursuing. "I believe that this effort will grow, and will include areas beyond sanctions, to convince the Iranian regime that, effectively, it must choose between continuing to seek nuclear capability and surviving," he told Israeli radio. "I don't know if it will happen in 2011 or in 2012, but we are talking in terms of the next three years."
He did not refer specifically to claims that Stuxnet damaged the Iranian programme, but he said it was clear it had encountered "difficulties".
"These difficulties postpone the timeline, of course," he said. "Thus we cannot talk about a 'point of no return'. Iran does not currently have the ability to make a nuclear bomb on its own. I hope it won't succeed at all and that the Western world's effort will ultimately deny Iran a nuclear capability."
Iran has accused Israel and its western allies of responsibility for the murders of two Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran this year.
Earlier this year, Iran began enriching uranium from 3.5 per cent suitable for nuclear power to 20 per cent, saying it was for a medical facility.
From 20 per cent, it is a relatively simple step to increase concentration to 90 per cent, the level necessary for a nuclear weapon.
Iran claims it has no interest in developing a nuclear weapon, and some analysts say the country will stop short of doing so, hoping that the presence of a "breakout" capability would be enough to give Iran the extra regional clout it seeks.
However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted last month that the enrichment process had been hit by a virus, without naming it. Computer virus analysts say Stuxnet was so complex it was probably written by a "state actor" rather than an amateur hacker.
The new report, written for the Institute of Science and International Security by a team including David Albright, its director and a former UN weapons inspector, found a link between the worm and the frequency at which Iran's centrifuges spin.
The worm contained a code setting the speed at 1064 Hertz the correct notional speed and increasing it suddenly to 1410, at which point the centrifuges would "tear apart". It noted that the number of centrifuges operating at Iran's Natanz facility fell by about 1,000 not long after the start point of the worm.
