Iran's Nuclear Reactor To Be Completed In 2004

MONITOR Wire Services

The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the UN's nuclear watchdog, unanimously condemned Iran November 26 for its 18-year cover-up of atomic research that included making plutonium, a violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any future violations will not be tolerated, the IAEA said, but the Agency stopped short of recommending that Tehran face possible sanctions from the UN Security Council. (FULL STORY)

The final resolution was a compromise by five members of the 35-nation IAEA board of directors. Washington had wanted to take Iran immediately before the Security Council. Britain, France and Germany blocked that proposal, saying that Iran should be rewarded for allowing surprise inspections and agreeing to suspend, at least temporarily, uranium enrichment, a process to create material that can be used to make atomic bombs. (FULL STORY) Russia broke the deadlock by offering a deal to take all spent nuclear fuel.

The U.S. and Russia have been in conflict over this first nuclear plant in Iran, being built at the southwestern town of Bushehr. Washington has charged that Iran is seeking to make nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies. Russia has backed Iran, and President Vladimir Putin said recently that Iran has the right to process uranium. Russia is also constructing the reactor for Iran, and announced earlier this month that it plans to complete work ahead of schedule. The U.S. had demanded that Russia end all cooperation. But on the same day as the IAEA agreement was announced, the State Department also dropped its resistance to the project, saying it was up to Moscow to "...decide how to handle their cooperation during this particular period."

Iran's nuclear reactor is scheduled to be finished sometime next year

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported October 11 that Israel already has completed military plans for a pre-emptive bombing of Iran. The magazine quoted Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz saying that Iran's nuclear efforts constitute "the gravest danger to Israel's existence in the future. This is because Iran calls for Israel's annihilation. We must do out our utmost, under U.S. guidance, to delay or eliminate the prospect of the extremist regime [in Tehran] securing weapons of this sort."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also told the Israeli news service Maariv that "Iran is the greatest danger to Israel," and it is known that Israel and the U.S. have been discussing the issue for months. In August, Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland reported that Sharon brought Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant to his White House meeting with Bush that month, and a "worried-looking Bush" was presented with documents on Iran's nuclear program.

"We think that next summer, if Iran is not stopped, it will reach self-sufficiency and this is the point of no return. After this self-capability, it will take them some two years to make a nuclear bomb," IDF Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi said, according to Der Spiegel.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor that was under construction in a pre-emptive attack, although most experts believed that it would take Saddam at least five years to make a nuclear weapon once the plant was completed. Israel justified the attack be saying that it had to act before the plant was loaded with nuclear fuel. The Iraqi nuclear reactor program never recovered from the airstrike.

Iran has rattled its own swords. "Iran is not a small country like Iraq. Iran has a powerful artillery, a disciplined army, and skilled air defenses," Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told al-Jazeera last year.

Iran has the Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of about 800 miles and can reach Israel. The weapon was officially added to the arsenal of Iran's elite revolutionary guards in July, and the Pentagon believes that Iran is capable of firing several of these missles, but probably without great accuracy.

Israel is the Mideast's only nuclear power, and has recently modified the U.S.-made Harpoon cruise missles on its submarines to carry nuclear warheads.

In September, several Arab nations criticized the U.S. and UN for not requiring Israel to play by the same rules as were demanded of Iran. Israel is one of only three nations that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and will not confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons. Analysts have long assumed that Israel has up to 200 weapons of mass destruction.