Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 31 March 2005

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Johann
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Post by Johann »

Sunil,

In Iraq's case they didnt really need Pakistani help because they simply hired three German centrifuge experts who had left MAN Technologie on bad terms. The Iraqis had access to far more sophisticated designs than Pakistan and were moving on to carbon-fibre rotors and tubes. The Iraqi weaponisation designs found dont match CHIC-4 either. The Iraqis had their own procurement and finance networks, but there were certain deals for which they were forced to use the Pakistani infrastructure. For example the Iraqis wanted ~100 tonnes of maraging steel. That went through a Pakistani middleman and BCCI to an Austrian company that had previously fulfilled KRL orders.

I doubt the Bush administration has any information even hinting at Pakistani nuclear related to Syria, because if that was the case the would be hammering them with it for all they are worth. Syria is considered one of the two major remaining obstacles in remaking a Middle East peaceful and safe for Israel, and therefore the United States.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Sunil wrote:I think the khan network/nuclear blackmarket did the following

1) Centrifuge tech to

a) Iran,
b) DPRK,
c) Libya,
d) Syria (?)
e) Iraq (?)
f) KSA (?)
g) Egypt (?)

(?) indicates I am unsure about this part.

2) U-235 based bomb design (Chin-3/4) to all of the above or anyone else who wanted it.

3) Unknown nuclear knowhow to Al Qaida and other anti-US, anti-Israel groups. Quite possibly relating to the production of dirty bombs or low yeild Pu devices that are compact.

4) Pu ref technology to (?)

I am coming to the view that (1) and (2) were approved by the USG - and even quite possibly carried out on behalf of USG as they represented old, ineffective technology that would actually slow the progress of any program and cause nations to spend resources buying basically useless junk. I agree with the view that the Iranians and the Libyans realised it. I am not sure who else understood this. This lends credence to the idea that the Khan network was not seen as a significant threat to the USG until Sept 11 2001. Before 1989, I suspect that the Khan network was believed to supply things only for the Pakistani program but things changed after transfers to Iran were detected.

(3) and (4) are however most likely outside of any unwritten agreements with the USG or any other US security bodies. These actions were carried out on behalf of PRC or even possibly with a purely Pan Islamist agenda. I feel that Pakistani Puref tech mostly comes from PRC. As with the missile transfers to Syria, Iran etc... Pakistan and DPRK are serving as proxies for puref transfers from PRC to other nations. It remains to be seen if the Puref routes are exposed.


Sunil

I think even Saudi Arabia guessed that Pak had nothing substancial to sell long time back.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Gerard wrote:Dunno how credible this is.
No access to full article.

U.S. Intel: Plutonium sent by N. Korea this year makes Iran direct threat

U.S. intelligence officials have told President Bush news that has left him stunned: Iran has completed all of the elements required for an atomic bomb. The intelligence information asserted that North Korea this year transferred components to Iran to assemble a plutonium-based nuclear warhead. The components were believed to have originated in Pakistan.
ramana wrote:If they had read these threads they would have found that Umraojaan and Sunil had replied to my question "Why did Iran turn in the TSP?" The answer was "The TSP transfer was a scam and TSP would have told uncle to get into GOAT good books and uncle would have run with it. Instead Iran told the IAEA which needs a credibility revival. Besides by turning in the TSP on the centrifuges the real Pu program could be kept under wraps."

I think Uncle knew all along about the Pu program but couldnt find the origins. Hence they blamed the two Indians hoping to smoke the real proliferators. The dubious thing was Pu enrichment and separation is even more tricky not to mention the reaction is not simple stuff. So the key to the Iran thing was outside sources of the entire weapon cycle.

This story now unmasks the real 'axis of evil' circle- China->TSP->Noko->others while uncle was chasing GOATs.

I have been saying since 1998 on BR that Pakistan Uranium enrichment tech cannot enrich Uranium to weapon grade. USA was actively encouraging nations to go the wrong way. Post GW-2 this strategy has changed and enlarged to trap the nations.

Libya saw it and called truce. Iran is actually trying to protect its Pu weapon programme. While Pu thingie may be more difficult but it is possible while centrigfuge tech is a dead end. Even North Korea is on Pu band wagon. While Pakistan is also on the same track.


I think that North Korea and Iran are trying to build a bomb with reactor grade Pu while Pakistan is trying with weapon grade uranium. China may be helping in co-ordinating and provide silent help when these nations hit a road block.
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Post by Johann »

I doubt its a bluff - the Iranians have invested in industrial level facilities at Natanz, and that has been after a long period of work on centrifuges. Natanz has a capacity for 50,000 centrifuges and the Iranians show no hint of interest in bargaining it away.

Iran has said that it will put the previously secret reactor at Arak under IAEA safeguards. Of course they could do what the North Koreans did - withdraw from the NPT, and reprocess the fuel, but that would definitely invite Israeli action, and present a much easier target than the centrifuges. Reactors and reprocessing plants cant be as easily relocated.

As for the G-2 centrifuges, while URENCO has developed several far more advanced generations in the years since, the G-2 was in fact used in commercial operations to produce LEU.

It is not the quickest way to produce weapons grade uranium, but enriching to 5% (LEU) is actually the hardest part. How quickly they progress depends on variables like the number of centrifuges, operating efficiency, how the cascades are organised, etc. There's nothing unrealistic about being able to produce enough weapons grade material in a few years, particularly if the Iranians pursue it on the scale they have described.
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Post by Umrao »

Iran has said that it will put the previously secret reactor at Arak under IAEA safeguards. Of course they could do what the North Koreans did - withdraw from the NPT, and reprocess the fuel, but that would definitely invite Israeli action, and present a much easier target than the centrifuges. Reactors and reprocessing plants cant be as easily relocated.
yet another joke.

As if Israel had talked to this analyst and said we are gonna act. That almost makes them super human. In adition, as if there wont be adverse repurcussions of such a unilateral act.

The Israelis more smarter than that, they will make unkil do the dirty work, that way they can have their cake and eat it too.

too many jokes for one day I say.
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Post by Sunil »

Hi Johann,

Saddam may have had other sources for designs and materials. I do not doubt that. However after he was refused assistance by India, like Gaddafi, Saddam too turned to Pakistan.

I am intrigued by this comment that the Iraqi weaponization designs did not match CHIC-4. I was under the impression that the designs made public by "defectors" were fakes planted either by Saddam's people or ... shall we say.. Chalabi-types. This left only one candidate for a real weapon that was in the market. Unless that is there are more U-235 designs available perhaps some by Khaled Nickov and associates of the Trunin group? I always thought those were allegedly all reactor grade Pu device designs- it never occured to me that they could be U-235 also.

The word Syria is on everyone's lips in the nuclear blackmarket watchers community. The thoughts apparently crystalized when the Syrians began purchasing the super scuds from DPRK.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Johann wrote:I doubt its a bluff - the Iranians have invested in industrial level facilities at Natanz, and that has been after a long period of work on centrifuges. Natanz has a capacity for 50,000 centrifuges and the Iranians show no hint of interest in bargaining it away.

There is no evidence that Centrifuges can get weapon grade uranium. And what is the source that iranians have 50,000 centrifuges??


centrifuges will produce LeU which will ultimately be used to produce Pu.

If you look at the language of some reports carefully they say - Iran will have the "knowledge" to produce weapons in six months but the weapon availibility date is put at around 2010-12.


Western analysts have always built up a bogey of Pak bombs and am still waiting for Tim to come on board and say XYZ NGO says that Pak has 1000 bombs
Last edited by Raj Malhotra on 04 Jun 2005 14:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by anil ambani »

There is no evidence that Centrifuges can get weapon grade uranium. and what is the source that iranians have 50,000 centrifuges??

Enrichment

The aim of enrichment is to increase the proportion of fissile uranium-235 atoms within uranium.

For uranium to work in a nuclear reactor it must be enriched to contain 2-3% uranium-235. Weapons-grade uranium must contain 90% or more u-235.
A common enrichment method is a gas centrifuge, where uranium hexafluoride gas is spun in a cylindrical chamber at high speeds. This causes the slightly denser isotope u-238 to separate from the lighter u-235.

The dense u-238 is drawn towards the bottom of the chamber and extracted; the lighter u-235 clusters near the centre and is collected.

The enriched u-235 is then fed into another centrifuge. The process is repeated many times through a chain of centrifuges known as a cascade.

Hence thousands of centrifuges are required ( cascade ) to enrich the uranium to fissile strength buddy.

Someone has to go to N Korean school!
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

anil ambani wrote:
There is no evidence that Centrifuges can get weapon grade uranium. and what is the source that iranians have 50,000 centrifuges??

Enrichment

The aim of enrichment is to increase the proportion of fissile uranium-235 atoms within uranium.

For uranium to work in a nuclear reactor it must be enriched to contain 2-3% uranium-235. Weapons-grade uranium must contain 90% or more u-235.
A common enrichment method is a gas centrifuge, where uranium hexafluoride gas is spun in a cylindrical chamber at high speeds. This causes the slightly denser isotope u-238 to separate from the lighter u-235.

The dense u-238 is drawn towards the bottom of the chamber and extracted; the lighter u-235 clusters near the centre and is collected.

The enriched u-235 is then fed into another centrifuge. The process is repeated many times through a chain of centrifuges known as a cascade.

Hence thousands of centrifuges are required ( cascade ) to enrich the uranium to fissile strength buddy.

Someone has to go to N Korean school!
I am sure in theory one can extract U-235 from pee also but can Pakis do it?
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Post by Gerard »

This is why AQK is a national hero. He stole the Dutch Centrifuge technology.

Pakistan has been working on this for decades. They have no need for LEU or MEU (for light water Civilian Power or Naval reactors respectively). Their centrifuges (latest model is called P2 by IAEA) are built to produce HEU (weapon grade).

Note that India has two enrichment facilities. The larger one is presumed to be making MEU (for the ATV reactor). The smaller one at BARC probably makes weapon material (the HEU used in the secondary of the hydrogen bomb).
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Post by Arun_S »

The smaller one at BARC probably makes weapon material (the HEU used in the secondary of the hydrogen bomb).
Second stage spark plug can be any fissile material, U235 or Pu
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Post by Gerard »

HEU seems to be preferred for secondaries (for casing along with spark plug).

Some designs (such as the W87 warhead used in the MX Peacekeeper) are upgradable by adding HEU rings to the secondary casing (giving 300kT - 475kT)

Quite popular in the US arsenal

Analysis of Nuclear posture review
~7,800 intact warheads;
+
~5,000 stored plutonium "primary" and HEU "secondary" components that could be reassembled into weapons
Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons

Uranium and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
The high HEU to plutonium ratio is remarkable since the nuclear weapons programs in some countries were initially focused on plutonium and the HEU production capacity was added at a later time only. While HEU can be used in implosion type primaries, the high inventory of military HEU in the nuclear weapon states suggest additional explanations:

Gun-type weapons: Only HEU (and not plutonium) can be used in the simple, but inefficient, gun-type design. Nevertheless, even the gun-type method apparently allows weapon designs that are much more compact and lighter than the first gun-type device (Little Boy, Mk–I), which contained 62 kg of HEU and weighed approx. 4,000 kg. For instance, the W33 warhead, an artillery shell developed in the 1950's, had a total weight of approx. 100 kg only. Especially the U.S. army was interested in these robust small diameter warheads and promoted the production and use of HEU for gun-type weapons. As a consequence, several gun-type weapons were designed early in the nuclear weapons age and kept in the active U.S. stockpile until the 1980's.

High-yield fission weapons: Pure fission weapons, designed to have a very high yield of up to 500 kt (TNT), required unusually high quantities of fissile material. Apparently, HEU was preferred for this purpose because the pre-detonation probability of corresponding plutonium quantities was high even when advanced implosion technologies were used. The interest in high-yield fission weapons decreased only when the feasibility of thermonuclear weapons had been confirmed in October 1952.

Thermonuclear weapons: In the thermonuclear stage (i.e. the secondary) of a nuclear weapon, significant quantities of uranium are placed next to the fusion fuel. This component is usually called the "pusher." When high energy neutrons emerge from the deuterium-tritium fusion reactions, the uranium is fissioned and contributes significantly to the total yield of the weapon. Even though natural uranium can be used for this purpose, HEU is the preferred material due to its higher fission probability.Apparently, weapons designers shifted from natural uranium to HEU when the latter became available in sufficient quantities in the 1980's.

In addition to these weapons applications, HEU is used to fuel military naval and civilian research reactors. Around 4 metric tonnes of HEU are currently used per year to fuel naval (mostly U.S. and Russian) reactors. The inventory of HEU in the civilian sector is small compared to the current military stockpiles: it has been estimated at approx. 20 metric tonnes, which is still enough material for some 1,000 nuclear weapons. Although the number of HEU-fueled research reactors in the world is decreasing, the remaining facilities, still operated in more than 20 different countries, require a total of approximately one metric tonne of fresh HEU per year.
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Post by anil ambani »

Gerard wrote:
Note that India has two enrichment facilities. The larger one is presumed to be making MEU (for the ATV reactor). The smaller one at BARC probably makes weapon material (the HEU used in the secondary of the hydrogen bomb).
In 1997, Nuclear Fuel reported that the DAE was preparing to build and install new improved rotor assemblies at the plant due to unspecified operational difficulties (these new rotor assemblies may have been based on experimental work at BARC that centered on supercritical centrifuges). Indian officials have claimed that the facility has been earmarked to provide 30-45 percent enriched uranium for reactors aboard future Indian nuclear submarines.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/ ... _2475.html

The current generation of Urenco centrifuges comprise an ultra-light, thin-walled tube made from specialty metals and composite materials, containing a cylindrical rotor - also made from composite materials - which spins at an incredibly high velocity in a vacuum, on almost frictionless (magnetic) bearings.

In first-generation centrifuges, the rotors were made of aluminum and the bearings were not frictionless. Hence they were relatively low-efficiency machines - incapable of operating at high velocities - which translates into many more centrifuges being required in the cascade. Thousands of them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/scien ... &position=

A good washing machine spins about 15 revolutions per second. The Russians - to have any hope of exploiting the minute differences in the masses of U-235 and U-238 in order to separate the nearly identical substances - needed centrifuges that spun about 100 times as fast, near the speed of sound.


According to a Western enrichment expert, the first Urenco centrifuge designs Pakistan built were probably based on two first-generation prototype centrifuges designed by Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland (UCN), the Dutch partner in the trilateral Urenco consortium. These machines, the CNOR and SNOR, featured aluminum rotors, connected by bellows. The bellows act to reduce vibrations caused by resonant frequencies at certain operating speeds. Rotors that spin faster than the first of these frequencies are called supercritical. Bellows in supercritical machines allow for longer centrifuges, and thus, more separation of uranium, but they are considered difficult to master. CNOR and SNOR machines have an estimated separative capacity of 2 to 5 separative work units (a standard measure) per year. Intelligence reports on the activities of Pakistani agents in the Netherlands in the 1970s concluded in 1980 that a small number of CNOR and SNOR machines were "spinning somewhere in Pakistan."(6) Other sources report that Pakistan had trouble getting these machines to work on a large scale and started replacing them with more reliable machines based on two German Urenco designs, the G-1 and G-2. First-generation centrifuges were also being replaced by improved production models at the UCN plant at Almelo during the early and mid-1970s. Dutch intelligence believes that Pakistan obtained design information for the newer centrifuges in part through Khan's efforts-in 1974 UCN asked him to translate classified design documents for the German centrifuges. According to the statement of a senior German official, Pakistani agents obtained centrifuge components and design information in Germany as well.

http://www.atoomspionage.com/koning.htm


Image A bank of centrifuges at a Urenco plant

New Laser processes

Laser enrichment processes have been the focus of interest for some time. They are a possible third-generation technology promising lower energy inputs, lower capital costs and lower tails assays, hence significant economic advantages. None of these processes is yet ready for commercial use, though one is well advanced.

Development of the Atomic Vapour Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS, and the French SILVA) began in the 1970s. In 1985 the US Government backed it as the new technology to replace its gaseous diffusion plants as they reached the end of their economic lives early in the 21st century. However, after some US$ 2 billion in R&D, it was abandoned in USA in favour of SILEX, a molecular process. French work on SILVA has now ceased.

Atomic vapour processes work on the principle of photo-ionisation, whereby a powerful laser is used to ionise particular atoms present in a vapour of uranium metal. (An electron can be ejected from an atom by light of a certain frequency. The laser techniques for uranium use frequencies which are tuned to ionise a U-235 atom but not a U-238 atom.) The positively-charged U-235 ions are then attracted to a negatively-charged plate and collected. Atomic laser techniques may also separate plutonium isotopes.

The main molecular processes which have been researched work on a principle of photo-dissociation of UF6 to solid UF5, using tuned laser radiation as above. Any process using UF6 fits more readily within the conventional fuel cycle than the atomic process.

The only remaining laser process on the world stage is SILEX, an Australian development which is molecular and utilises UF6. In 1996 USEC secured the rights to evaluate and develop SILEX for uranium (it is also useable for silicon and other elements) but relinquished these in 2003. The SILEX process is now at prototype stage with Silex Systems near Sydney and applications to silicon and zirconium are also being developed.
http://www.silex.com.au/

Above road is less travelled as far as india is concerned.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

My information after talking to some engineering experts is that for "third world nations" stealing a design is very different from "executing" the design.


This is apart from the fact that my understanding is that centrifuge tech cannot enrich weapons to "weapon grade" and note - highly enriched uranium is not necessarily weapon grade.


also the "weapon grade" uranium is also of multi levels of enrichment and with various types of contaminations which influence the weapon design and weapon "weight" exponentially.
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Post by Gerard »

There are news reports of letters and emails between AQK and a former european colleague where he literally begs for help in executing the design. He needed to know how various parts were fabricated, what steps were required etc.
Recall the Malaysian company involved in the scandal? They had advanced machining capability and provided many parts for AQK.


From the first link below
Because Pakistan encountered difficulties building and operating centrifuges, it installed considerably more machines than it has successfully operated. In 1986, Kahuta was reported to have 14,000 centrifuges (see June 1987 Bulletin). U.S. officials confirmed that Pakistan might have built that many, but they estimated that only about 1,000 were actually in operation. One official added that Pakistan's centrifuge "junk pile is sizable."
As for centrifuge technology, it is capable of enriching HEU to weapon grade.

from the last link below
Although the pilot plant is relatively small, if finished, it could produce about 10 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium a year, depending on the "tails assay" (the fraction of uranium 235 lost to waste) and the manner in which the centrifuges are organized into cascades. Because centrifuges are flexible, even if the cascades are arranged to produce only low-enriched uranium, weapon-grade uranium can be produced by "batch recycling"--sending the end product back into the feed point of the cascade over again until the desired level of enrichment is reached.
Pakistan's bomb: Out of the closet
In 1984, A.Q. Khan announced that Kahuta was producing low-enriched uranium, but would not enrich uranium above the five percent level. However, U.S. intelligence concluded by mid-1986 that Kahuta was producing highly enriched, weapon-grade uranium.
Kahuta Khan Research Laboratories
Operating at full capacity, Kahuta is estimated to have the potential to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for as many as 3 to 6 weapons each year.
Russia: Uranium Enrichment
The Soviet Union used or experimented with all principal uranium enrichment technologies, including gaseous diffusion, centrifuges, laser isotope separation, and calutrons. Initially it relied on gaseous diffusion technology for the production of weapons-grade uranium, but subsequently shifted to gas centrifuge technology, and in 1997 Russia began installation of a new generation of centrifuge machines. Although the Soviet Union stopped production of highly enriched uranium for weapons by 1989, 10 gas centrifuge plants may still be in operation at four sites in Russia.
...
These facilities, with the exception of the Angarsk Combine, were involved in the production of weapons-grade HEU during the Soviet period
A bomb for the Ummah

The centrifuge connection
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Post by kgoan »

I was going through some stuff and found this quote that was so reminiscent of what we were discussing on the first two pages of this thread that; I reckon it's worth quoting here even if it is a bit of topic:
'What went wrong was we fitted bin Laden and al-Qaeda into existing paradigms of terrorism and terrorist organisation,' said one former CIA official. 'But that doesn't work. He is something entirely different, entirely new.'

What security experts are now realising is that al-Qaeda is neither a traditional hierarchic organisation with a leader, deputies and a cell structure, nor merely an association of vaguely like-minded, loosely affiliated individuals. It is both, and neither at the same time.

. . .

And this is the key: al-Qaeda does not act as a commander, it acts as a facilitator, a coordinator, putting together disparate elements - some in Afghanistan, some in the target country, some in other locations entirely - who together can pull off an operation.
That's a quote from an article by Jason Burke in the Observer on Sep 16 2001.

The point is, that the paragraph in bold is in a nutshell, the essence of the Pak nuke proliferation network as well.

But I'm willing to bet that other than crazies like us on BR, no one else is gonna be to bothered about the "coincidental" similarities between the OBL/AQ terrorism networks and the Xerox/PakArmy nuke proliferation networks.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Gerad

I am not going to fight a "refer to links" war. The half baked info or even motivated info of various NGOs means nothing.

Iran with Pak help since 1992 and with way more money and industrial infrastructure is stated to get its bombs (if at all) only in 2012 which is 20 year time line.


With pak it would mean mid nineties and then it was reported that pak has shifted to LeU atleast till 1996.

Till a production plant in more open society like USA or EU produces Weapon grade uranium by centrifuges in adequate quantities and it is officially acknowledged, I will remain skeptical.


Look at the interest of USA in planning for a "dirty bomb" explosion in a city (why not full scale nuke if pak dis-integrates) I know you are going to refer to Al Keeda;

but my theory is that USA homeland security is planning to face a pak dirty nuke if TSP dis-integrates.
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Post by Johann »

Sunil,

What is known of Iraqi weaponisation comes from UNSCOM inspectors findings after September 1991, and subsequent admissions by the Iraqis within the nuclear programme.

An operational design had not been finalised. The most developed design was for a contingency device that would have used fuel recovered from the French and Russian reactors fuel. The Iraqis had systematically collected almost every conceivable open source publication, but what was known of the design from project progress reports to the Iraqi military-industrial leadership and interviews did not seem to resemble CHIC-4 particularly closely. Of course the Iraqis told the UN that they could not find the engineering drawings and other such detailed documentation, so that would have been a limitation in making any rigorous comparison. The Iraqi goal was something that would fit on an Al-Husayn, whose payload dimensions are quite a bit more restrictive than the DF-2A and the No-Dong.

As far as Syria goes, the their 'Scud-Cs' are believed by the Israelis and others to be tipped with nerve agent warheads. It is believable that Syria might have considered an offer from Khan, but again if there was any real evidence of a Syrian programme the headlines would look somewhat different.

Raj,

No one said that Iran has 50,000 centrifuges. However, during talks with the EU3 the Iranians have said that is how many they plan to build and install at Natanz over the next 5-10 years. There are numerous media references, none of which have been contradicted by Iran. In fact the Iranians have just asked the EU3 for permission to go ahead and build a 3,000 centrifuge block. The 50,000 figure is consistant with the estimated size of the underground halls at the site, and the very large investments Iran has made in to becoming self-sufficient in centrifuge mass-production (a goal they are expected to reach this year).

There is plenty of reference material available to allow you to compare the number of separative work units to enrich natural uranium to 5%, and from 5 to 90/95+% You might find the answers surprising.

The Iranians have experimented and modified the original G-2 design provided by the Pakistanis. There is a more efficient design, as well as a four rotor design that is estimated at 3 SWU.

Spinster,

Of course the Israelis first choice is to get the rest of the world to keep the bomb out of the Ayatollah's hands. But they have also made it clear that they consider the Islamic Republic an existential threat and will not settle for failure or inaction. One does not require a personal line to Sharon to know that. All you have to do read is their public statements, for example when the chief of military intelligence spoke to the Knesset, or when Sharon spoke on the anniversary of the UN partition vote. As for capabilities, there's nothing superhuman required. Hitting the reactor at Arak (not that far from Tehran) is certainly within their capabilities. However Iranians are far too smart to make the reactor an easy target by breaking safeguards unless they were really desperate. The centrifuge enrichment programme with its huge infrastructure spread over multiple, sometimes underground sites, and its position in the NPT's gray areas seem to be their first bet.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Johann wrote:Sunil,



Raj,

No one said that Iran has 50,000 centrifuges. However, during talks with the EU3 the Iranians have said that is how many they plan to build and install at Natanz over the next 5-10 years. There are numerous media references, none of which have been contradicted by Iran. In fact the Iranians have just asked the EU3 for permission to go ahead and build a 3,000 centrifuge block. The 50,000 figure is consistant with the estimated size of the underground halls at the site, and the very large investments Iran has made in to becoming self-sufficient in centrifuge mass-production (a goal they are expected to reach this year).

There is plenty of reference material available to allow you to compare the number of separative work units to enrich natural uranium to 5%, and from 5 to 90/95+% You might find the answers surprising.

The Iranians have experimented and modified the original G-2 design provided by the Pakistanis. There is a more efficient design, as well as a four rotor design that is estimated at 3 SWU.
Dear J

I am not terribly interested if US bombs shit out of Iran on any pretext. But what I am really interested in is that Iran progress is more open to scrutiny and this gives a glimpse in Pak abilities.

So Iran started with centrifuges in 1992 with lot of help, money and infrastructure. and is still taking baby steps towards to the bomb
(your analysis also give 5-10 years)

Pak started with the Queer Khan and no industrial infrastruture. It had to even smuggle basic material and magnets in mid ninties.

RGandhi backed off from bombing Kahuta because the intelligence reports were that it was not the source of pak nukes.


My theory Pak returned chinese nukes to china under US threats to china post 9/11. while pak LeU and HeU (not weapon grade) is under US protection
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Post by Alok_N »

Raj Malhotra wrote:
My theory Pak returned chinese nukes to china under US threats to china post 9/11. while pak LeU and HeU (not weapon grade) is under US protection
I realize that you are speculating, but could you elaborate a bit? Several people have talked about chinese Pu-weapons being the ones detonated in 1998. It is highly plausible ...

But, I have not heard definitive claims that AQK failed to make weapons-grade HEU. Are you basing that on anything else besides the fact (and I agree with this) that packees being packees could not even enrich butter out of milk, let alone 235 out of 238?
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Post by Alok_N »

continuing further ... this is very interesting:
Raj Malhotra wrote: RGandhi backed off from bombing Kahuta because the intelligence reports were that it was not the source of pak nukes.
this would make a lot of sense ... it also explains why noboy seems to be overly concerned about AQK's transfers of centrifuges ... that is, if they were useless toys onlee.
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Post by Umrao »

Raj is basically saying that Xerox Khan is con man, smuggler par excellence and nothing else. Which is obvious to even a blind man .

Uncle winked at PRC and made PRC give both the bomb and the delivery vehicle via NoKo during the alte 1980s. He also winked t the con activities of Kahn because uncle could never imagine the blow back to mainland and now is paranoid about a dirty bomb. Hence the frantic activity of trying to stop Iran and NoKO.
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Post by Alok_N »

Umrao wrote:
Uncle ... now is paranoid about a dirty bomb. Hence the frantic activity of trying to stop Iran and NoKO.
I had once posted my assessment of the damage potential of a dirty bomb but deleted my posts on admin advice ... suffice it to say that I find it difficult to swallow that that is the main concern regarding Iran and NoKo ...

so, as Raj says, and you implicitly agree (?), if Unkil has cajoled TSP into returning the dragon's gifts, what is the real problem here? Are NoKo's nukes also dragon's gifts or are they indeed based on their own Pu from reactors?

Is it possible that Iran has gotten some gifts as well? They are following the same pattern as TSP, i.e., sitting on gifts but pretening to spin centrifuges and predicting that they will have a weapon in a couple of years.

Is it possible that the gifts were relocated from TSP to Iran under the dragon's orders?

I guess I have too many questions.
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Post by Gerard »

Raj Malhotra wrote:Gerad
I am not going to fight a "refer to links" war. The half baked info or even motivated info of various NGOs means nothing.
No problem. No need for war.

How about one link. Just one reference from anywhere where it is claimed that centrifuges cannot enrich Uranium to weapon grade?
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Post by anil ambani »

I am not going to fight a "refer to links" war. The half baked info or even motivated info of various NGOs means nothing.
The centrifuges are pretty much autonomous when doing their job, spinning at 500 meters per second of frantic pace, putting angular spin to skyrocket where gravity is accelerated.
The gas centrifuge process has been widely used in Europe for about 30 years to enrich uranium for the commercial nuclear power market. The process uses a large number of rotating cylinders interconnected to form cascades. The UF6 gas is placed in the cylinder and rotated at a high speed. The rotation creates a strong centrifugal force that draws the heavier gas molecules (containing the U-238) toward the outside of the cylinder, while the lighter gas molecules (containing the U-235) tend to collect closer to the center. The stream that is slightly enriched in U-235 is withdrawn and fed into the next higher stage, while the slightly depleted stream is recycled back into the next lower stage. Significantly more U-235 enrichment can be obtained from a single gas centrifuge stage than from a single gaseous diffusion stage.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Gerard wrote:
Raj Malhotra wrote:Gerad
I am not going to fight a "refer to links" war. The half baked info or even motivated info of various NGOs means nothing.
No problem. No need for war.

How about one link. Just one reference from anywhere where it is claimed that centrifuges cannot enrich Uranium to weapon grade?
For the purpose of this discussion I am basing my inference on the behavior of Libya and Iran. the suspected inability of indians to use centrifuges to get very HeU let alone weapon grade.

My discussions with people ( in non-nuclear) field but with good engineering background, am not liberty to put forth.

pls move forth on the assumption that I have no link (in fact not even bothered to look for a link) that says centrifuges cannot enrich uranium to weapon grade.


though i find interesting that if some body called Al Shit puts up a website and says that centrifuges cannot enrich uranium to weapon grade then it will satisfy you.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Alok_N wrote:
Raj Malhotra wrote:
My theory Pak returned chinese nukes to china under US threats to china post 9/11. while pak LeU and HeU (not weapon grade) is under US protection
I realize that you are speculating, but could you elaborate a bit? Several people have talked about chinese Pu-weapons being the ones detonated in 1998. It is highly plausible ...

But, I have not heard definitive claims that AQK failed to make weapons-grade HEU. Are you basing that on anything else besides the fact (and I agree with this) that packees being packees could not even enrich butter out of milk, let alone 235 out of 238?

Alok I have given the basis of my assumptions in a disjointed form in various replies here.

Though if IIRC the book "critical mass" said Pak had around 1 and half nuke in 1991. I have lost my copy, can somebody again look it up.


also no other theory fits the facts as we see them. If libya and iran can buy nuke tech for a couple of hundred million dollars then what stopped SA, Kuwait, UAE and all the tin pot dictators??

I say libya was duped while Iran is using it as a stepping stone on the nuclear learning curve.

NK gets centrifuges, beats its chest that they have nukes and uncle says I dont believe you.


It was well discussed in BR that there was some imp movement to china after 9/11, everybody thinks that pak is keeping its nukes in safe custody. my theory is that chinese nukes were being returned. IIRC Uncle in those times said that the "source" nation would be held responsible for any use of WMD.
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Post by Alok_N »

Raj Malhotra wrote:
Alok I have given the basis of my assumptions in a disjointed form in various replies here.

Though if IIRC the book "critical mass" said Pak had around 1 and half nuke in 1991. I have lost my copy, can somebody again look it up.
let me try to understand ... where did this 1.5 nukes come from? Also, if you ae claiming that centrifuges are too inefficient to produce weapons grade HEU, then the question is where does weapons grade HEU come from? Diffusion processes are well-known to be even less efficient than the centrifugal process.
also no other theory fits the facts as we see them. If libya and iran can buy nuke tech for a couple of hundred million dollars then what stopped SA, Kuwait, UAE and all the tin pot dictators??
transfer of nuke tech is not necessarily a money thing ... it is based on strategic considerations ... hence, it is very likely that TSP, Iran and NoKo were chosen to counter India, Israel and Japan respectively ... now, which country in the world would wanna do that?

I say libya was duped while Iran is using it as a stepping stone on the nuclear learning curve.
learning curve towards what? according to you the learning curve of centrifuge tech leads to a dead end, no?
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Post by Johann »

Raj,

I think one of the basic technical assumptions in your post that has led to disagreement is regarding weapons grade uranium. Uranium is generally considered weapons grade if U-235 content has been to enriched to above 90%. Another cut-off, using different design requirements is 93.3% These are thing you can confirm for yourself from a number of sources. Again, I suggest that you look for yourself to compare the work of enriching natural uranium to 5% versus from 5 to 90+%. The answer is not intuitive.

Those numbers are not absolute either. The average level of enrichment for the gun type weapon dropped on Hiroshima was 80%, although there are of course trade-offs in size, weight, design and yield.

The difference between the Iranian and Pakistani programmes is the product of different goals and different approaches. A perfect example is the difference between the 'Ghauri' and Shahab-3 missile programmes. Both derive from the North Korean No-Dong, but the Iranians have taken much longer to reach the serial production phase because of many problems, including test failures. This isnt because the Pakistanis are any cleverer, but because the a)the Iranians wanted to modify the design to improve performance and b) wanted to be able to domestically produce the components and materials required, and had to master quality issues. The Shahhab-3s succesful launches dont make 'Ghauri' an illusion.

Similarly, Iranian goals for their nuclear weapon programme and thus their enrichment programmes seem much more ambitious than those set by Pakistan, possibly because they see themselves as facing more enemies than Pakistan. Kahuta's size and the G-2's design are not ideal to produce a large stockpile quickly, but how large did Pakistan's deterrent have to be?
Pakistan's principal goal was a kind of existential deterrence against India, while Iran would have to deter Israel, the US and potentially the Arab countries and Pakistan. Hence Iran's interest in building a *much* larger enrichment capability than other 'rogue' states, and a purely domestic supply chain. The Ayatollahs came to accept international isolation as the 'normal' state after *both* superpowers backed Iraq in the war, and essentially cooperated to block the export of the Iranian revolution. They were far more psychologically prepared than Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, etc, for the changes that came at end of the cold war. Iran has set higher goals in all of its weapons programmes than other 'rogues' because it has more resources (financial, intellectual and physical), more self-confidence, less urgency, and greater pessimism (or perhaps realism) about its position in the world.

Why werent centrifuges used in the West to produce uranium for weapons programmes? The technology was not adequately developed in the 1940s and 50s when the investments in production capability were made, and requirements were relatively low. By 1964 British and American weapons grade uranium production essentially ended - there was enough in the stockpiles.
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Post by Umrao »

The more important question for the experts here is to exercise the question

'Why are nations wanting to go Nuclear'
'
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Post by ramana »

Alok_N, HEU is too complicated to set off. All enrichment programs in advanced nations is to get a mantle for a two stage weapon.

Has any one considered that these madly whirring centrifuges are a modern version of the perfect Islamic icons- the whirling dervishes of the Mahadi who also produced a lot of smoke and dust in late 19th century
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Post by Gerard »

Raj Malhotra wrote:though i find interesting that if some body called Al Shit puts up a website and says that centrifuges cannot enrich uranium to weapon grade then it will satisfy you.
I didn't say that would satisfy me.
Al Shit or El Gobar etc would have no credibility.

I was just curious as to where you got this peculiar idea that centrifuges can't do the enrichment to weapon grade. Everything I've read on them says otherwise.

Granted, I don't know squat about Uranium enrichment...
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Post by Sunil »

Hi,

Johann thanks for the clarifications.

The consensus emerging from this thread appears to be:

1) The U-235 route provides the user with a low quality device or a dirty bomb. It is difficult to make a really good bomb with that stuff unless you really put your mind to it.

2) The Pakistanis knew this when they exported the U-235 stuff under their Islamic-Bhai-Bhai routine (whirling dervishes as Ramana puts it) but the Iranians are pragmatic enough to know that they should trust no one and probably went their own way. The same is true to some extent of the Iraqis and less successfully the Libyans.

It may be possible to use a dirty bomb/low yeild device as an existential deterrent but this kind of policy presents a grave provocation in the post 9-11 world. I think this is the take-home from regime change ops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Someone once remarked that our cousins, have a "terribly strategic political culture". If I can understand this much sitting on chair here... the boys in Tehran who participated in all this can probably see this in a much more nuanced way. The pitfalls of an overly provocative strategy will be obvious to them.

Pillai,

(in to paraphrase COAS Gen. Sundarji's comment to ACM S. K. Mehra, wrt to the IAF's Mi-25 ground attack helo sqn...)

"I say Pillai... I hear you people have a lot of enriched Uranium lying around... iska tum log karte kya ho?"
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Post by Leonard »

.....

A single centrifuge might produce about 30 grams of HEU per year, about the equivalent of five Separative Work Unit (SWU). As as a general rule of thumb, a cascade of 850 to 1,000 centrifuges, each 1.5 meters long, operating continuously at 400 m/sec, would be able to produce about 20-25 kilograms of HEU in a year, enough for one weapon. One such bomb would require about 6,000 SWU.

[Note --- Each BUM need ~ 36 Kg HEU]

A typical centrifuge facility appears to have a capacity of 10-20 SWU/meter square, and to consume in the range of 40-50 kWh per SWU. A facility capable of producing one bomb per year would thus require about 600 square meters of floor space, and consume in the range of about 100 kWe.

With current technology, a single gas centrifuge is capable of about 4 separative work unit [SWU] annually, while advanced gas centrifuge machines can operate at a level of up to perhaps 40 SWUs annually. Separative Work Unit (SWU) is a complex unit which is a function of the amount of uranium processed and the degree to which it is enriched, ie the extent of increase in the concentration of the U-235 isotope relative to the remainder. The unit is strictly: Kilogram Separative Work Unit, and it measures the quantity of separative work (indicative of energy used in enrichment) when feed and product quantities are expressed in kilograms. The effort expended in separating a mass F of feed of assay xf into a mass P of product assay xp and waste of mass W and assay xw is expressed in terms of the number of separative work units needed, given by the expression SWU = WV(xw) + PV(xp) - FV(xf), where V(x) is the "value function," defined as V(x) = (1 - 2x) ln((1 - x)/x).

A kilogram of LEU requires roughly 11 kilograms U as feedstock for the enrichment process and about 7 separative work units (SWUs) of enrichment services. To produce one kilogram of uranium enriched to 3.5% U-235 requires 4.3 SWU if the plant is operated at a tails assay 0.30%, or 4.8 SWU if the tails assay is 0.25% (thereby requiring only 7.0 kg instead of 7.8 kg of natural U feed).

An implosion weapon using U235 would require about 20 kg of 90% U235. Roughly 176 kg of natural uranium would be required per kg of HEU product, and about 230 SWU per kg of HEU, thus requiring a total of about 4,600 SWU per weapon. To enrich natural uranium for one gun-type uranium bomb would requires roughly 14,000 SWUs. Thus, producing one HEU weapon in a year would require between 1,100 to perhaps 3,500 centrifuges.

About 100-120,000 SWU is required to enrich the annual fuel loading for a typical 1000 MWe light water reactor. A 20,000 kg-SWU per year centrifuge plant would fit within a typical factory building and would consume only 600 kW electrical power. The power consumption of a plant using laser isotope separation would be a factor of three smaller.

Enrichment costs are related to electrical energy used. The gaseous diffusion process consumes some 2400 kWh per SWU, while gas centrifuge plants require only about 60 kWh/SWU. At a tails assay of 0.30% U-235 in the enrichment plant, 4.3 SWU per kg of 3.5% enriched product is required, at 50 kWh/SWU for the modern centrifuge plant or up to 2400 kWh/SWU for the older gaseous diffusion plant.

The electrical consumption of a gas centrifuge facility is much less than that of a gaseous diffusion plant. Consequently, a centrifuge plant will not have the easily identified electrical and cooling systems typically required by a gaseous diffusion plant. Typically, about 100 kilowatt-hours are required per separative work unit [SWU], and each centrifuge can produce between 1 and 2 SWU per year.

The specific energy consumption is 2300-3000 kWh/SWU for Gaseous Diffusion, versus 100-300 kWh/SWU for gas centrifuge. The number of stages required to produce LEU is about 30 times larger in the diffusion plant than in the centrifuge plant. The corresponding equilibrium time is significantly longer in diffusion plants (months) as compared to centrifuge plants (hours). This effect, more intensive when the diffusion plant processes Uranium with higher enrichments, makes difficult and time consuming any significant change of the modus operandi of a gaseous diffusion plant. The large in-process inventory in the diffusion plant (a few tons in a small-scale diffusion plant) indicates the importance of closing the Uranium balance in this facility. On the other hand, for centrifuge plants, the small equilibrium time, small in-process inventory and the flexibility to change the cascade design (parallel to series) determine the importance of verifying that the plant is operating as declared.

....

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro ... rifuge.htm


Now Terroristan according to the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs has 40 Chinese Phatakas ....


By Rough Estimates Min 1200 Centrifuges are Needed for 1 BUM per Year ...

Worst Case Knowing Terroristan Technology Prowess more Likely 3500 Centrifuges were really used per BUM ....


What would be the estimate of Centrifuges needed by TSP if the Centrifuge Method Worked Reasonably Well ???

What would be Cost per Centrifuge ???

What would be Overhead Operating Costs per Centrifuge ???
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

Alok_N wrote:
Raj Malhotra wrote:
Alok I have given the basis of my assumptions in a disjointed form in various replies here.

Though if IIRC the book "critical mass" said Pak had around 1 and half nuke in 1991. I have lost my copy, can somebody again look it up.
let me try to understand ... where did this 1.5 nukes come from? Also, if you ae claiming that centrifuges are too inefficient to produce weapons grade HEU, then the question is where does weapons grade HEU come from? Diffusion processes are well-known to be even less efficient than the centrifugal process.


My guess - China
also no other theory fits the facts as we see them. If libya and iran can buy nuke tech for a couple of hundred million dollars then what stopped SA, Kuwait, UAE and all the tin pot dictators??
transfer of nuke tech is not necessarily a money thing ... it is based on strategic considerations ... hence, it is very likely that TSP, Iran and NoKo were chosen to counter India, Israel and Japan respectively ... now, which country in the world would wanna do that?

why would not SA fit this criteria?

I say libya was duped while Iran is using it as a stepping stone on the nuclear learning curve.
learning curve towards what? according to you the learning curve of centrifuge tech leads to a dead end, no?
Learning curve for ultimately producing fuel for Iranian reactors
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

I am not saying that theoretically centrifuges cannot produce weapon grade uranium, I AM saying “Pakistani” centrifuges cannot produce “appreciable quantities of weapon grade uranium to make a nuke”. So they may have lot of LeU and the enrichment can be anything from 0.00001 percent to xyz.

I AM also saying that reference to Pakistan centrifuges in various reports in public media is widely (by many thousand %) overinflated and so is their working hours, efficiency, extraction ability, and wastage.

Take for instance the above statement about Iran having a “hall” for 50,000 centrifuges. So having a hall is equivalent to what? On similar analogy Indians also use the JNU stadium to store thousands football sized anti-material galaxy busting tricobombs.

Also as the enrichment % changes then as I said it has exponential effect on the bomb size, design and off course the weapon platform and its range
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Post by Arun_S »

Raj Malhotra: For sure your understaning of people behaviour and logic makes a convincing case irrespective of technical psyop that most of us techies often cling to.

After our conversation on the subject and descerning relevent news items that have emerged, and irrespective of my technical leanings. It has started to sink in. All I can say is that Unkil has indeed cast its hypnotic web that has lead amatures astray in understanding this aspect of nuclear jinn.

Kudos, for making a water tight case.
Last edited by Arun_S on 09 Jun 2005 01:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Raju »

As the pakis themselves claimed...they were super-fast in mating nukes to warheads which is usually enough to send a few bells ringing in any thinking mind. Then recently came a weird news-item that the Chinese had demanded to be returned back a few/all Hatf-IV series missiles because of changes made to its circuitry etc and the pakis duely complied. Was this due to unkil pressure on Chinese resulting on their taking back the missile nukes.

Having that mess sorted out unkil just has had to bother bout 'dirty bombs' because that is what the centrifuges are capable of churning out onlee. In that context RM's thesis makes eminent sense. A Q Khan thus is just another victim trapped in a 'hypnotic web' only and as such is of no consequence. He was just wittingly/unwittingly used as a paki bait for weeding out other aspirant nations.
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Post by Alok_N »

Arun_S wrote:Raj Malhotra: For sure your understaning of people behaviour and logic makes a convincing case irrespective of technical psyop that most of us techies often cling to.
Arun, I am slow on the take if the psyops is too obtuse. So far, the only relevant answer I have seen is from Ramana who points out that all HEU programs are geared towards fabricating shells for fusion devices.

My questions are:

1. What are the diffusive enrichment programs geared for? Are they for reactors or for fusion mantles? Why is a less efficient progam pursued if all it does is duplicate the centrifuge effort?

2. How was the HEU for original gun-type fission weapons extracted?

I would appreciate answers with 90% content and 10% sarcasm onlee.
Last edited by Alok_N on 08 Jun 2005 21:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Alok_N »

Raj Malhotra wrote:
Alok_N wrote:
transfer of nuke tech is not necessarily a money thing ... it is based on strategic considerations ... hence, it is very likely that TSP, Iran and NoKo were chosen to counter India, Israel and Japan respectively ... now, which country in the world would wanna do that?
why would not SA fit this criteria?
SA is in the american sphere of influence. Iran is not. Hence, Iran is the pawn that suits the dragon/ruskies most.
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