Ahmadinejad's Announcement Was Misleading - Iran's Nuclear Programme Facing Severe Difficulties

Iran's nuclear programme is apparently facing severe technical difficulties. Experts now say that it could take four years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's April 9th announcement that uranium enrichment on an "industrial scale" had begun was "misleading" and the time-scale for success is likely to be longer than early estimates suggested. Ahmadinejad was simply grandstanding, not that it is any surprise.

"It's very difficult to enrich uranium," said Norman Dombey, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at Sussex University. "It calls for several different scientific and engineering disciplines. Iran hasn't yet shown that it has mastered the problem."

Dombey estimates that Iran will need about two years simply to master the process of running centrifuges. Then, making allowances for interruptions caused by breakdowns, it could take another two years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb. "At the moment, their programme doesn't constitute a threat. It would constitute a threat if they were enriching substantial amounts to more than five per cent and they're not. In fact they're not enriching anything very much. This talk about industrial scale enrichment is misleading."

The programme may not constitute a threat at the moment but what will happen 4 years down the road when it does? We should be counting our blessings that the Iranian President was exaggerating their capabilities and find a way to prevent Iran's programme from EVER becoming a threat. Once it does it may be too late. Unfortunately what will most likely happen is that our government along with the UN with impose sanctions and discuss why Iran should stop the enrichment of uranium. Four years down the line they will have the technology and no doubt will have built a bomb. There will then be discussions as to why they were not stopped and what should have been done. The result? Iran will have become an even greater and more deadly threat.

President of Iran Proudly Announces"We Have Joined the Nuclear Club" and Threatens the West

A year ago, Iran announced that it had produced enriched uranium for the first time. Unfortunately today they have come a long way from that first announcement.

At the ceremony at the Natanz nuclear facility Monday Ahmadinejad said, "With great honour, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale." This announcement has heightened fears that Tehran aims to produce warheads, not energy.

Iran announced in February that it had set up two cascades of 164 centrifuges each at Natanz. It said it planned to have 3,000 centrifuges by the end of March. The United Nations has repeatedly demanded Iran halt its uranium enrichment programme. Previously Iran was only known to have 328 centrifuges, machines which purify uranium, in operation. But now officials say that Tehran has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges thus vastly expanding its nuclear programme . David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector, said 3,000 centrifuges would be enough to build a nuclear warhead within a year.

Iran claims it wants the fuel to generate electricity so it is able export more of its oil and gas. But the West fears, with good reason, it will bring Tehran closer to building atomic bombs. Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a nuclear warhead. Iran maintains its nuclear programme is purely peaceful. However, when referring to the UN increasing sanctions Ahmadinejad said,'Don't do something that will make this great nation reconsider its policies," a clear threat to the west.


Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator with the West, said at Natanz on Monday that Iran had begun injecting gas into many of the centrifuges. He did not specifying a number. The most sensitive areas at Natanz, deep underground, are thought to be halls that can hold up to 50,000 centrifuges. Mr Larijani also warned that Iran would have no choice but to review its membership of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if further pressure was applied by the West over its nuclear programme.

Iran's clear defiance of the UN sanctions shows the ineffectiveness of the resolutions. Ahmadinejad is a terrorist who, will very soon possess the capability of nuclear warheads. Iran has already supplied Iraq with the bombs killing our soldiers. They attack our sailors and marines in international waters and hold them hostage. Their children, the future of Iran, are celebrating in the streets chanting "Death to Britain, Death to America", and receiving text messages congratulating them. And we really believe that Iran, if they are allowed to continue with the enrichment of uranium, will not develop nuclear warheads? Once they have nuclear warheads it will be too late. They will at best use the threat of them to achieve their goals and at worst we will have a nuclear war. Iran should never have been allowed to progress this far but now that they have this facility needs to be destroyed. As history has shown, sanctions and diplomacy do not work with terrorists, and it is most certainly terrorists we are dealing with.