Iran is once again up to no good, this time signaling that there’s a rather major expansion currently underway in their most heavily guarded nuclear facility which could ultimately triple the sites current production of enriched uranium — don’t you dare let loose with an “Uranus” joke — that would provide Tehran with several new options for putting together a nuclear arsenal with speed and precision should it choose to. The information for this came from several confidential documents which were then analyzed by weapons experts.
A nation that routinely takes to the streets to shout “death to America” might be able to put a little extra giddy-up in their hitch and start popping out nukes like a Pez dispenser? I may need a change of pants.
Check out more details on this story from MSN:
Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed new construction activity inside the Fordow enrichment plant, just days after Tehran formally notified the nuclear watchdog of plans for a substantial upgrade at the underground facility built inside a mountain in north-central Iran.
Iran also disclosed plans for expanding production at its main enrichment plant near the city of Natanz. Both moves are certain to escalate tensions with Western governments and spur fears that Tehran is moving briskly toward becoming a threshold nuclear power, capable of making nuclear bombs rapidly if its leaders decide to do so.
At Fordow alone, the expansion could allow Iran to accumulate several bombs’ worth of nuclear fuel every month, according to a technical analysis provided to The Washington Post. Though it is the smaller of Iran’s two uranium enrichment facilities, Fordow is regarded as particularly significant because its subterranean setting makes it nearly invulnerable to airstrikes.
Iran currently owns a stockpile of 300 lbs of highly enriched uranium, which can now be further refined and transformed into weapons-grade fuel for a nuclear bomb in just a matter of weeks, maybe even days, according to intelligence officials in the U.S. And it seems the Iranians have also received some higher educations because they now possess the technological know-how to assemble the warhead and fit it onto a missile.
Well, that’s just not awesome.
Iran says it has no plans to make nuclear weapons. But in a striking shift, leaders of the country’s nuclear energy program have begun asserting publicly that their scientists now possess all the components and skills for nuclear bombs and could build one quickly if so ordered. In the past two years, Fordow has begun stockpiling a kind of highly enriched uranium that is close to weapons-grade, with a purity far higher than the low-enriched fuel commonly used in nuclear power plants.
While Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has been growing steadily since 2018, the planned expansion, if fully completed, would represent a leap in Iran’s capacity for producing the fissile fuel used in both nuclear power plants and — with additional refining — nuclear weapons.
How did Sleepy Joe Biden, our not-so-fearless leader, respond to the news about the expansion?
“Iran aims to continue expanding its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller went on to say in a statement released on Thursday. “These planned actions further undermine Iran’s claims to the contrary. If Iran implements these plans, we will respond accordingly.”
According to diplomats with access to confidential IAEA documents, Iran’s expansion plan also calls for installing equipment that is far more capable that the machines that now make most of Iran’s enriched uranium. At Fordow, only newer-model machines, known as IR-6s, were to be installed, reports show, a substantial upgrade from the IR-1 centrifuges currently in use there.
Anyone else just plain sick and tired of living in “unprecedented times?” I’m ready for regular, “precedented times” now. The whole world feels on the verge of a massive global conflict. Let’s pray I’m wrong.