Iran watchIran launches plutonium path to the bomb
Iran makes an important — if symbolic — step toward joining the nuclear weapon club; the Busher plant will allow Iran to produce bombs from plutonium, in addition to bombs made from uranium enriched at a facility at Natanz
Iran made an important — if symbolic — step toward joining the nuclear weapon club by staging a dummy run of its long-delayed Bushehr reactor, built with Russian help. The plant’s inauguration took place with virtual fuel consisting of lead, which officials said was designed to simulate the enriched uranium needed to make it fully functional. The 1,000-megawatt reactor is not expected to come into proper operation until later this year.
Guardian’s Robert Tait writes that today’s launch was carried out with great fanfare in the presence of high-level dignitaries and foreign journalists, in an exercise apparently designed to send an international signal of Iran’s determination to achieve nuclear status. The reactor, when it becomes active, will allow Iran to use plutonium to produce nuclear weapons. ran already has an active uranium enrichment program at a facility at Natanz, and last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) admitted that Iran now has produced enough enriched uranium for at least one nuclear weapon.
Russia insists that the Bushehr plant it has built for Iran is purely civilian and cannot be used to make bombs. Russian involvement in the £700 million-project has been problematic, however, because of the country’s status as a permanent member of the UN security council, which has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran because of its failure to suspend uranium enrichment.
Russia completed nuclear fuel deliveries for Bushehr last year, after a series of delays blamed by Moscow on late payments but which Iran suspected was a Russian attempt to pressure them into concessions in its dispute with the security council.
Work on Bushehr originally started thirty-four years ago, during the reign of the shah with the help of the German contractor Siemens. It was suspended shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Siemens claimed it had not been paid. The mothballed plant sustained bomb damage during the 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq, when much of its equipment was looted.
