Image 01

Posts Tagged ‘Nuclear Warhead’

Israel Rattles Saber: Discloses Unmanned Drones that Can Reach Iran

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

An Israeli soldiers smiles as she stands next to an Israeli air force unmanned plane in the Tel Nof base, central Israel, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. Israel's air force has introduced a fleet of large unmanned planes that it says can fly as far as Iran. Air force officials say the Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making them the size of passenger jets. They say the planes can fly 20 consecutive hours, and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying payloads. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

As tensions are rising in the region with the unanticipated IAEA announcement that Iran is constructing a nuclear warhead fitted for missile delivery, Israel sent a message back to Iran today by unveiling a top-secret fleet of unmanned drones.   The newly disclosed unmanned fleet, as reported by the Jerusalem Post today, can reach the entirety of Iran and could be the weapon of choice should Israel decide to choose to preempt Iran’s nuclearization with a military strike on Iranian nuclear proliferation related  installations:

The Israel Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of large unmanned planes it claims can fly as far as Iran.

Air force officials said the Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 26 meters, making them the size of passenger jets. They said the planes can fly 20 consecutive hours, and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying payloads.

The drones, built by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, were first used during Israel’s Gaza war last year.

At an inauguration ceremony Sunday, officials refused to say how large the new fleet is or whether the planes were designed for use against Iran.

Israel has previously halted nuclear proliferation in Syria (2007) and Iraq (1981) by way of manned aircraft strikes on key nuclear-related installations in those countries. Iran’s nuclear program, however, will be much more difficult to substantially destroy than either Iraq’s or Syria’s because the Iranians have diffused various portions of the nuclear program into many hardened facilities. Simply put, probably no one except the Iranians knows where all of their nuclear facilities are.

Accordingly, this Israeli announcement may be purely saber rattling as a successful military strike may be beyond Israel’s means and therefore not truly under serious consideration in Tel Aviv. Regardless, today’s disclosure of the new unmanned capacity to strike by Israel mark a new level of tit-for-tat escalation of the war of words between Israel and Iran following Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s claim of heightened nuclear enrichment capacity last week and the IAEA’s subsequent confirmation of his statement.  This escalation is sure to impact the next moves of the Obama Administration on Iran policy as pressure builds on the White House to take a tougher line on Iran before Israel feels compelled to strike militarily.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Breaking: IAEA Confirms Iran Working on Construction of Nuclear Warhead For Placement in Missile Delivery System

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

IAEA Confirms Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Claim of Substantial Uranium Enrichment Capacity and Raise Fears of Iran's Work on Nuclear Missile


Agence France Press, CNN and other news organizations are now confirming that, for the first time, the IAEA, in a report dated tomorrow, warns that Iran is currently secretly developing a nuclear warhead for placement in a missile delivery system. This incredibly explosive development is sure to rile the debate on the merits of the Obama Administration’s engagement policy towards Iran, with pressure certain to rise for a tougher stance from Washington. AFP’s report:

VIENNA — The UN atomic watchdog is concerned that its information about Iran’s nuclear activities suggests Tehran may be working on a nuclear warhead, according to a restricted report obtained by AFP Thursday.

“The information available to the agency … raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” the watchdog’s chief Yukiya Amano wrote in his first report to its board of governors.

It was the first time the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had expressed such concern about Iran’s “current” activities.

The report also confirmed that Tehran had begun enriching uranium at higher levels, theoretically bringing it closer to levels needed for making an atomic bomb.

“Iran provided the agency with mass spectrometry results which indicate that enrichment levels of up to 19.8 percent (uranium) were obtained,” the report said.

The confirmation by the IAEA of enrichment levels of nearly 20% clearly support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent boasts about a 20% enrichment capacity. The Obama Administration’s response was to ridicule Ahmadinejad’s enrichment claims via Robert Gibbs:

“Quite frankly, what — what Ahmadinejad says — he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue,” Gbbs said. “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.

Clearly, the Obama Administration’s statement via Gibbs was off the mark and one can only hope a new, stronger statement and, more importantly, a tougher line from the Obama Administration on Iran’s nuclear proliferation activities is forthcoming soon.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,