Israel has 'eight days' to hit Iran nuclear site: US envoy

[air marshal]

Israel has ‘eight days’ to hit Iran nuclear site
Tuesday, 17 Aug, 2010

WASHINGTON: Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians.

“Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they're in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it,” Bolton told Fox Business Network.

“So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days.”

Absent an Israeli strike, Bolton said, “Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor.”

But when asked whether he expected Israel to actually launch strikes against Iran within the next eight days, Bolton was skeptical.

“I don’t think so, I’m afraid that they’ve lost this opportunity,” he said.

The controversial former envoy to the United Nations criticized Russia’s role in the development of the plant, saying “the Russians are, as they often do, playing both sides against the middle.”

“The idea of being able to stick a thumb in America’s eye always figures prominently in Moscow,” he added.

Iran dismissed the possibilities of such an attack from its arch-foes.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that “these threats of attacks had become repetitive and lost their meaning.”

“According to international law, installations which have real fuel cannot be attacked because of the humanitarian consequences,” he told reporters at a news conference in Tehran.

Iranian officials say Iran has stepped up defensive measures at the Bushehr plant to protect it from any attacks.

Russia has been building the Bushehr plant since the mid-1990s but the project was marred by delays, and the issue is hugely sensitive amid Tehran’s standoff with the West and Israel over its nuclear ambitions.

The UN Security Council hit Tehran with a fourth set of sanctions on June 9 over its nuclear programme, and the United States and European Union followed up with tougher punitive measures targeting Iran's banking and energy sectors.

The Bushehr project was first launched by the late shah in the 1970s using contractors from German firm Siemens. But it was shelved when he was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It was revived after the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, as Iran’s new supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his first president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, backed the project.

In 1995, Iran won the support of Russia which agreed to finish building the plant and fuel it.

DAWN.COM | World | Israel has ?eight days? to hit Iran nuclear site

 

[PakSher]

If Israel uses a nuclear weapon that will be the end of Israel. Nethanyahoo will be cutting ny back yard and polishing my shoes, while I beat him with the same shoe over and over again.

 

[Pasban]

Pasban i am wondering how do you feel about Ahmadinejad and the current administration ?

I am at neither end of the spectrum. I trail between depending on individual issues, within which I vary again. For instance, take the case of the high amount of corruption (including governmental) within Iran, I'm heavily critical on it's handling and its extent. Some or most of the scoundrels who squander the tax-payers wealth sit inside comfortable offices which they don't deserve. The thieves also transcend to Iran's construction industry, which is very important to Iran, at the expense of the ordinary citizen. Sepah ("rev. guard") and its organs are no exception to this rule. I could rant on. There are numerous other issues as well such as the domestic job market, wastage and etc. There is no purpose to talk about them on a non-Iranian forum. It serves no use that way. Ahmadinejad, for his part, promised to answer this but I see him as faltering. It could be said that he isn't the exact person to blame as he has to work within a set system as well but it is a responsibility he holds nonetheless and the system itself needs much reform and management. Now, reform will come to Iran, but only at a pace Iranians choose for themselves, which will be slow but that is how Iran functions. An outside stimulus only serves to further delay it. That being said, there is no best form of government, the best governments are those who are most adaptive to changing circumstance. Times are dynamic in Iran. The government needs to be the same. As for Ahmadinejad in particular with respect to foreign relations, he isn't a natural politician, diplomat or an orator-- his words can often be and are poorly calculated. As such, I wish he'd talk less and what remains of this talk be better put to issues which really necessitate them.

 

[Luftwaffe]

Jigs regardless of israelis dominating the war and after the vivid destruction of Iran, those chemicals once contaminate israeli waters and lands previously worthy of cultivation, jewish state would be at loss heavily. No water no life.

There is always strategy involved in the war, Iran already has the plans to restrict jewish state's life after its own destruction.
Hell my wild thoughts take me to height of imagination Iranians purchasing a single nuke to annihilate the opponent similarly, could it become reality, the hell it can.

 

[CAPTAIN AMERICA]

Jigs regardless of israelis dominating the war and after the vivid destruction of Iran, those chemicals once contaminate israeli waters and lands previously worthy of cultivation, jewish state would be at loss heavily. No water no life.

There is always strategy involved in the war, Iran already has the plans to restrict jewish state's life after its own destruction.
Hell my wild thoughts take me to height of imagination Iranians purchasing a single nuke to annihilate the opponent similarly, could it become reality, the hell it can.

On November 7, 2007 U.S. President George Bush said: "If you want to see World War Three, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon." Second time he's brought up WWIII in three weeks.

What was bush talking about, and I think one of the main reasons behind the Iraq war. I think there was a real fear that Saddam and sons were psychopaths that would cause Israel to exercise its Samson Option.

In case you haven't heard about it, it's called Israel's "Samson Option." The narrow definition that Israel supporters want us to believe is that Israel would merely nuke the country whose convention or nuclear attack did massive damage. It would nuke the heck out of it, but would only nuke that country.

From Seymour Hersh's best selling book "The Samson Option", quoting former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: "We are much more important than (Americans) think. We can take the middle east with us whenever we go." And quoting a “former Israeli govt official” with “first hand knowledge of his government’s nuclear weapons program”: “We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.”
Two high profile Israel supporters - professors yet! - have written particularly chilling comments: Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem stated: "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’...We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."

CAROL MOORE REPORT: Bush Makes Israel's "Samson Option" Threat Against Russia

Some sources say Israel has some 400 nuclear weapons, that some are Nutron Bombs,, that could destroy all life in large areas, that some are large enought to be considered dooms day weapons. I would expect there are enough to make the entire middle east highly radioactive, if not much of the rest of the world.

The Jews are not like the Iranians, when they say something they can deliver.

 

[Dr sim]

dont you guys think Iran must be stopped from getting a nuclear weapon after the kind of comments Iran's president made against Israel.
I guess israel like anyother country has every right to defend herself as a nation.i m sure the situation would not have been this bad if Ahmdijenad used his head and did not make proactive statements like wiping israel off world's map.

 

[CAPTAIN AMERICA]

The article heading seems so misleading. It appears as if USA is threatening Israel to strike or suffer some consequences....

Unless I missed it they left out this part.

However, the sharp-tongued former diplomat noted that Israel was unlikely going to act, chiefly because there are numerous other nuclear sites that would also need to be attacked. Israel would have to hit them all at once, since launching multiple attacks over the course of several days or weeks would be far more difficult

Read more: Ex-UN envoy John Bolton: Israel should attack Iranian nuclear plant now, before it's too late

 

[Luftwaffe]

capcho amrika..The Jews are not like the Iranians, when they say something they can deliver.

God said and delivered upon them too. heh they never learn.
congratulations so this proves they want be doomed once more as bible repeats..

Even if Iran has nukes, they won't be the first to use it. A serious bet.

 

[no_name]

If Iran have chemical weapons to retaliate they might just decide to give some of it to hezbollah who have plenty of rockets, too numerous for Israel to defend against with arrow system. Israel is researching into laser defense systems.

 

[Luftwaffe]

No matter how high tech israel goes, there will be large civilian causalities of war.

 

[anon45]

This sight itself is monitored by Russians isn't it? Wouldn't that make this outrage purely manufactured?

Israel would not need to hit this site because it is not a site where Iran could potentially develop nuclear potential.

The Russians also have no reason to want iran to get nuclear weapons and many reasons to prevent it.

 

[500]

Bolton is American Ahmadinejad. Talks lots of nonsense.

 

[lioneern]

I think Iran has already possessed couple of nuclear warheads

 

[Break the Silence]

This news is of 16th august originally, So Only 4 days left now..