swissaustrian
12-25-2011, 08:32 AM
Precious information for discussions with neocons about Iran´s nuclear program and the concept of BLOWBACK.
It was Uncle Sam who first gave Iran nuclear equipment
A nuclear reactor was sold to Iran as part of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program. But even then the US had concerns about what might happen if the Shah fell to 'domestic dissidents.'
For all the recent uproar over Iran's nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States.
In 1967, under the "Atoms for Peace" program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold the Shah of Iran's government a 5-megawatt, light-water type research reactor. This small dome-shaped structure, located in the Tehran suburbs, was the foundation of Iran's nuclear program. It remains at the center of the controversy over Iranian intentions, even today.
That is because Iran says it needs more fuel for the reactor, which it insists it uses for basic research, and to produce medical isotopes. And the Tehran Research Reactor runs on uranium that is some 20 percent U-235 – an enrichment level higher than that currently produced by Iran's Natanz enrichment facility.
Now Iran has agreed in principle to send most of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad, so that some other country – most likely Russia – can produce this more-highly enriched fuel for them. In any case, that is what US and European officials say occurred at this week's meeting between Iran and six western powers.
Such a move would consume some two-thirds of Iran's existing stockpile of 3,200 pounds of low-enriched uranium.
The Shah of Iran was a US ally. But even so, the US had qualms about providing him with nuclear technology. The worries were very like those of today: officials thought it possible that Iran would build on nuclear power programs to develop nuclear weapons technology.
A 1974 Defense Department memorandum, recently declassified and posted on-line by the National Security Archive, noted that stability in Iran depended heavily on the Shah's personality. Should he fall, "domestic dissidents or foreign terrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear materials stored in Iran for use in bombs".
Iran planned to obtain up to 20 large nuclear reactors in the next several decades, the memo noted. These might produce large quantities of material that could be converted for bomb use.
"An aggressive successor to the Shah might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establish Iran's complete military dominance of the region," noted the memo.
In 1978, President Carter and the Shah struck a deal that would have sent eight US-made light-water reactors to Iran, pending Congressional approval. A year later, the Iranian revolution forced the Shah from power and the deal fell apart.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2009/1002/p04s01-usfp.html
The following article puts Iran into a broader perspective:
I cut out some parts of this article, because it´s pretty long. You can read the complete article here. It has been published in two parts:
Part 1 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-061209atoms-day1-story,0,2034260.htmlstory
Part 2 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-061209atoms-day2-story,0,492356.htmlstory
Part 1: An atomic threat made in America
How the U.S. spread bomb-grade fuel worldwide — and failed to get it back. First of two parts.
...
For a time, in a misguided Cold War program called Atoms for Peace, the U.S. actually supplied this material--highly enriched uranium, a key component of nuclear weapons. The Soviets followed suit.
...
For a quarter-century, as the U.S. struggled to persuade friends and enemies alike to return the uranium in exchange for safer material, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago led the effort.
His undertaking, one that spanned six continents, mirrors America's troubled quest to reverse a mistaken policy that imperils the world to this day.
...
Romania is but one example in a world that reverberates from the fallout of the United States' Cold War folly known as Atoms for Peace, a program that distributed highly enriched uranium around the world.
That uranium was intended solely to be used as fuel in civilian research reactors. But it is potent enough to make nuclear bombs and can be found everywhere from Romania, now a crossroads for nuclear smuggling, to an Iranian research reactor at the center of that nation's controversial nuclear program.
Three dozen other nations also obtained highly enriched uranium from the U.S.
...
Even since 9/11, though, the worldwide mission to retrieve this uranium repeatedly has fallen short. Now, through exclusive access to the government archive chronicling the effort, the complete story behind that failure can be pieced together for the first time.
...
Atoms for Peace. Unveiled by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, the program promised to share some U.S. nuclear technology with foreign nations that vowed to forgo atomic weapons.
"It was the grand bargain," said Ellie Busick, who helped oversee non-proliferation efforts at the State Department in the 1980s and '90s. "We were way ahead in building bombs, but we were not naive enough to think that nobody could ever do this but us."
The Soviets started sharing nuclear technology, too, and a Cold War chess match ensued, with the two superpowers and a few other nations supplying uranium and dozens of nuclear research reactors to their allies. U.S. reactors, for instance, went to Iran, Pakistan and Colombia; Soviet reactors to Libya, Bulgaria and North Korea.
Romania, a Soviet satellite courted by the Americans, got two reactors: one from the U.S., another from the Russians.
Reactors became the equivalent of international status symbols; church groups funded some to win overseas converts. U.S. firms vied for lucrative contracts, and Argonne became the heart of Atoms for Peace research, building foreign-bound reactors dubbed Argonauts.
...
Suddenly, the U.S. wanted its most valuable nuclear material back.
One of its first attempts played out 10 months later, in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War. Two federal nuclear engineers volunteered for a daring raid in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The mission: rescue bombmaking plutonium from a research reactor supplied by the U.S.
With sniper fire crackling around them, the engineers sneaked inside the reactor, packaged the material and were airlifted to safety. Hours later, the Viet Cong overran the area.
Only later was it determined that the engineers had made an embarrassing mistake: In the chaos of the mission, they took the wrong container. They hadn't rescued plutonium, but rather polonium-210, a radioactive material not as useful in weaponry (though the substance recently captured headlines when it killed a former KGB agent).
...
More on Eisenhower´s Atoms for Peace program here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnt7gKXUVWE
It was Uncle Sam who first gave Iran nuclear equipment
A nuclear reactor was sold to Iran as part of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program. But even then the US had concerns about what might happen if the Shah fell to 'domestic dissidents.'
For all the recent uproar over Iran's nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States.
In 1967, under the "Atoms for Peace" program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold the Shah of Iran's government a 5-megawatt, light-water type research reactor. This small dome-shaped structure, located in the Tehran suburbs, was the foundation of Iran's nuclear program. It remains at the center of the controversy over Iranian intentions, even today.
That is because Iran says it needs more fuel for the reactor, which it insists it uses for basic research, and to produce medical isotopes. And the Tehran Research Reactor runs on uranium that is some 20 percent U-235 – an enrichment level higher than that currently produced by Iran's Natanz enrichment facility.
Now Iran has agreed in principle to send most of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad, so that some other country – most likely Russia – can produce this more-highly enriched fuel for them. In any case, that is what US and European officials say occurred at this week's meeting between Iran and six western powers.
Such a move would consume some two-thirds of Iran's existing stockpile of 3,200 pounds of low-enriched uranium.
The Shah of Iran was a US ally. But even so, the US had qualms about providing him with nuclear technology. The worries were very like those of today: officials thought it possible that Iran would build on nuclear power programs to develop nuclear weapons technology.
A 1974 Defense Department memorandum, recently declassified and posted on-line by the National Security Archive, noted that stability in Iran depended heavily on the Shah's personality. Should he fall, "domestic dissidents or foreign terrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear materials stored in Iran for use in bombs".
Iran planned to obtain up to 20 large nuclear reactors in the next several decades, the memo noted. These might produce large quantities of material that could be converted for bomb use.
"An aggressive successor to the Shah might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establish Iran's complete military dominance of the region," noted the memo.
In 1978, President Carter and the Shah struck a deal that would have sent eight US-made light-water reactors to Iran, pending Congressional approval. A year later, the Iranian revolution forced the Shah from power and the deal fell apart.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2009/1002/p04s01-usfp.html
The following article puts Iran into a broader perspective:
I cut out some parts of this article, because it´s pretty long. You can read the complete article here. It has been published in two parts:
Part 1 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-061209atoms-day1-story,0,2034260.htmlstory
Part 2 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-061209atoms-day2-story,0,492356.htmlstory
Part 1: An atomic threat made in America
How the U.S. spread bomb-grade fuel worldwide — and failed to get it back. First of two parts.
...
For a time, in a misguided Cold War program called Atoms for Peace, the U.S. actually supplied this material--highly enriched uranium, a key component of nuclear weapons. The Soviets followed suit.
...
For a quarter-century, as the U.S. struggled to persuade friends and enemies alike to return the uranium in exchange for safer material, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago led the effort.
His undertaking, one that spanned six continents, mirrors America's troubled quest to reverse a mistaken policy that imperils the world to this day.
...
Romania is but one example in a world that reverberates from the fallout of the United States' Cold War folly known as Atoms for Peace, a program that distributed highly enriched uranium around the world.
That uranium was intended solely to be used as fuel in civilian research reactors. But it is potent enough to make nuclear bombs and can be found everywhere from Romania, now a crossroads for nuclear smuggling, to an Iranian research reactor at the center of that nation's controversial nuclear program.
Three dozen other nations also obtained highly enriched uranium from the U.S.
...
Even since 9/11, though, the worldwide mission to retrieve this uranium repeatedly has fallen short. Now, through exclusive access to the government archive chronicling the effort, the complete story behind that failure can be pieced together for the first time.
...
Atoms for Peace. Unveiled by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, the program promised to share some U.S. nuclear technology with foreign nations that vowed to forgo atomic weapons.
"It was the grand bargain," said Ellie Busick, who helped oversee non-proliferation efforts at the State Department in the 1980s and '90s. "We were way ahead in building bombs, but we were not naive enough to think that nobody could ever do this but us."
The Soviets started sharing nuclear technology, too, and a Cold War chess match ensued, with the two superpowers and a few other nations supplying uranium and dozens of nuclear research reactors to their allies. U.S. reactors, for instance, went to Iran, Pakistan and Colombia; Soviet reactors to Libya, Bulgaria and North Korea.
Romania, a Soviet satellite courted by the Americans, got two reactors: one from the U.S., another from the Russians.
Reactors became the equivalent of international status symbols; church groups funded some to win overseas converts. U.S. firms vied for lucrative contracts, and Argonne became the heart of Atoms for Peace research, building foreign-bound reactors dubbed Argonauts.
...
Suddenly, the U.S. wanted its most valuable nuclear material back.
One of its first attempts played out 10 months later, in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War. Two federal nuclear engineers volunteered for a daring raid in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The mission: rescue bombmaking plutonium from a research reactor supplied by the U.S.
With sniper fire crackling around them, the engineers sneaked inside the reactor, packaged the material and were airlifted to safety. Hours later, the Viet Cong overran the area.
Only later was it determined that the engineers had made an embarrassing mistake: In the chaos of the mission, they took the wrong container. They hadn't rescued plutonium, but rather polonium-210, a radioactive material not as useful in weaponry (though the substance recently captured headlines when it killed a former KGB agent).
...
More on Eisenhower´s Atoms for Peace program here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnt7gKXUVWE