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Israel to take out Iran's Nuke Facilities?

The focus of a considerable amount of controversy in the United States, the nuclear facility at Brushehr, Iran is being built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian governments for $800-million. Although originally intended to be the location of a German-built reactor in the 1970s, the new reactor will be built to Russian designs, though the original reactor buildings exterior appearance will remain essentially the same. There are two reactors at Bushehr, one is in an advanced stage of completion the other has not been worked on for some time and is not currently scheduled to be completed.

Recently acquired high resolution satellite imagery, from the Space Imaging IKONOS satellite, discloses that the external structure of the first reactor unit is substantially complete. In comparison with lower resolution imagery from the late 1990s, it is quite evident that substantial progress has been made in recent years in preparing this unit for the installation of the reactor and associated equipement. There is little evidence of progress towards completion of the second reactor unit.

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it has not ratified two additional protocols to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Program 93 + 2, which is designed to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons covertly despite IAEA inspections as Iraq was able to do prior to the Gulf War. Iran maintains that it will not ratify 93 + 2 due to it being denied civilian nuclear technology for Bushehr, despite its positive record with the IAEA.

Nuclear power industry contacts between Iran and Russia are based on the intergovernmental agreements of 25 August 1992, on cooperation in the civil use of nuclear energy and in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran.

On 23 February 1998, the US State Department reaffirmed US opposition to Iran's nuclear program. The United States has argued that Iran has sufficient oil and gas reserves for power generation, and that nuclear reactors are expensive, unnecessary, and could be used for military purposes. The United States strongly opposes the project, which was permitted under the NPT, and has in the past provided Russia with intelligence information pointing to the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite this, the Russians appeared to be proceeding with work on Bushehr.

US opposition to Russian construction of Bushehr rests on three issues; first that weapons grade plutonium could be extracted from the reactor allowing the Iranians to construct nuclear weapons. Secondly, the US fears that the Russians and the Iranians are using Bushehr as a cover for the transfer of other sensitive technology that would normally be prohibited. Finally, the US is concerned that the knowledge gained by Iranian scientists working at Bushehr could further Irans nuclear weapons program.

US pressure to prevent the construction of Brushehr has not been limited to Russia. On March 6, 1998, during a visit by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ukraine announced that it would not sell turbines for use with reactors at Bushehr. The contract had been worth $45 million. Five days later, Vice President Gore met with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and discussed, among other things, US concerns over Russian exports of nuclear and missile technology to Iran.

Iran claims that its nuclear power is for peaceful purposes and that it will help free up oil and gas resources for export, thus generating additional hard-currency revenues.

During a March 2001 Moscow summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Khatami confirmed plans to order a second reactor after the first is delivered, possibly by late 2002. Delays in delivering the first plant — first ordered in the mid-1990s — have been a source of friction between Iran and Russia. The Iranian leader signaled his intention to proceed with a second contract that could be worth up to $1 billion.

Iran has also been considering the construction of three to five additional reactor facilities, which may or may not be located at Bushehr, for an estimated cost of $3.2 billion. A Sept. 5, 2001 Moscow Times report indicates that the Russians will be submitting plans for the construction of additional reactors at Bushehr and that negotiations could begin as soon as December 2001, though the number of reactors being proposed is unclear nor is it apparrent how much the project might cost. It is estimated that the total cost of building the reactor complex at Bushehr may be roughly $4-6 billion since construction began in 1976.

A major question involved with the Brushehr site concerns the degree to which the site is complete and the estimated time until the facility becomes fully operational. The original contract signed by the Russians and the Iranians sets delivery to be no later than March 19, 2004 (or the end of the Iranian year 1382).

In April 2001 an Iranian News Agency report states that the main nuclear reactor had already been completed and was being transported from Russia to Bushehr. The reports also stated that as of April 2001, the first phase of the construction project was 51 percent complete, though it is unclear how many phases are involved in the projects construction.

A June 27, 2001 Interfax report claimed that the Bushehr facility is over 80 percent complete, despite numerous work slowdowns associated with the pouring of additional concrete so that the German building might properly house the Russian system, and it appears that the original blueprints for the facility had to be remade. Additionally, Russian and Iranian officils were as recently as August 2001 quoted as saying that the facility will be completed by the end of 2001. But Leningrad Metallurgy Plant stated in early August 2001 that the assembly of the main components of the 1,000 MW turbine will be complete in December 2001. It is unclear what the status of the rest of the system is, as officials in Tehran were quoted in the May 10, 2001 MEED Quarterly Report - Iran as saying that Bushehr may not come on line for three years.

On 04 September 2001 the Interfax News Agency bulletin quoted Deputy Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Reshetnikov as saying that Unit I will not be complete until early 2004, that the actual reactor will be sent to Bushehr in November 2001, and that the Russians have begun to install the main equipment, noting that the project was 55 to 60 percent complete.

Reports indicate that the core casing, the upper unit of the reactor and some other units were delivered to Iran in Nov. 2001.

In March 2002 Russian Nuclear Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that the Bushehr reactor would be completed by 2005 as planned, noting that "Iran has signed all required international agreements and undertaken full obligations on transparency and checks ... and unfailingly fulfilled them." He said that under a new law passed by the Russian parliament in 2001 which strengthened non-proliferation guarantees by allowing spent fuel from nuclear power plants abroad taken back to Russia for reprocessing, Russia "will ship nuclear fuel to Iran under the contract which envisages that the spent fuel will be taken back to Russia."

A Feb. 15 2002 Interfax News Agency report quotes sources within the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy that unit 1 of the facility will be operational in Sept 2003.

An April 17, 2002 IranMania.com report quotes the Head of the Iranian Parliament's Energy Commission who stated that the first phase of the Bushehr plant will become operational in Sept. 2002.

A May 10, 2002 Washington Times article by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough reports that severall batteries of US made Hawk (Improved) Surface-to-Air Missiles have been placed around Bushehr. The report cites leaked information from intelligence sources who claimed that recent satellite imagery showed the Hawks.

On 26 July 2002 the Russian government indicated that it planned to continue building new nuclear reactors in Iran as part of a draft plan outlining potential areas of economic, industrial and scientific cooperation with Iran over the coming decade. The document approved by Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov outlined plans to build three more reactors at the Bushehr site. The document also indicated that Russia would offer to build two more reactors at a new nuclear power station at Ahwaz, a city about 60 miles from Iran's border with Iraq. These plans were apparently shelved after complaints by the United States.

As of mid-2002 Russia had around 600 workers in Bushehr building the 1,000-megawatt reactor.

The installation of the reactor's main turbine was expected to begin as soon as August 2002.

On 25 December 2002 Iran and Russia signed an agreement to speed up the completion of the nuclear power plant. Under the one-billion-dollar deal, Russia had initially undertaken to finish the Bushehr plant by 2005, but the country later announced it could be completed by the end of 2003.

Taking part in a joint press conference on 25 December 2002, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Romyantsov and head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh said that the Bushehr nuclear site is to come on stream by the end of 2003, after Russia declared it was preparing to adjust the Bushehr site's equipment.

President Mohammad Khatami said on 23 December 2002 that Iran was committed to its obligations and had no intention to develop nuclear weapons. He said that Iran's willingness to send spent fuel back to Russia showed that it did not want to use it for weapons, since the nuclear waste from Bushire plant would be taken to Russia for safekeeping.

On 23 December 2002 Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that Novosibirsk enterprises of the Russia Nuclear Energy Ministry had manufactured 180 fuel rods for the first reactor unit of the nuclear power pant built in Bushehr. He added that the 'fuel rods will stay at the plant until the signing of an addendum to the acting agreement and equipping a storage facility for these elements in Iran by means of physical safeguarding at a level not lower than the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency'. Iran has begun work 'to prepare a room for fuel storage and its equipment by means of physical safeguarding'. The total weight of the irradiated fuel rods for the first loading of the Bushehr reactor is 90 tons. Russia will deliver them to Iran by four flights of transport planes.

Visiting Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov in a news conference on 11 March 2003 said Moscow would continue its nuclear-energy cooperation with Iran within the guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Bushehr nuclear power plant is to come on line during the "latter part" of the next Iranian year that begins on 21 March 2003, its manager Nasser Shariflu told the Persian daily "Iran" on 11 March. Shariflu said Iran and Russia have begun talks on building a second such plant in Bushehr. He said most of the construction work of the first plant is complete and that Iranian experts and more than 1,000 Russian technicians are now installing "peripheral" equipment. He said that 750 Iranian technicians who were trained in Russia will take over the operations of the plant, which Shariflu says will produce 1,000 megawatts of power during its first phase. ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian-Iranian coordination committee met in Novovoronezh on 11 March to discuss the training of Iranian personnel to work at the Bushehr nuclear reactor. By the time Bushehr becomes operational in 2004, more than 700 Iranians will have been trained in more than 30 nuclear specialties. More than 400 Iranians already have been trained. Training center Director Aleksandr Ivanchenko said, "They are good professionals with university degrees, also from European universities, who have been carefully selected for training." [ SOURCE]

Iran initially announced that it will receive its first shipment of 90 tons of enriched uranium from Russia in May 2003. However, on 12 June 2003 Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov stated that Russia would deliver nuclear fuel for the nuclear power station in Iran only after Tehran signs a memorandum binding it to return spent fuel to Russia. "As for the nuclear plant in Bushehr that is fully controlled by the IAEA, Russian fuel will be delivered there only in case Iran signs a memorandum obliging it to export the spent nuclear fuel back to Russia... We want Iran to observe all understandings with the IAEA. Iran itself should be interested in all programs being transparent and controllable so that there would be no ambiguity or variety of interpretation on the matter," Ivanov said. Russian statements conflicted as to whether the shipment of the fuel would be conditional on Iran signing the Additional Verfication Protocol, which would give IAEA inspectors access to non-declared facilities.

Iranian officials said they expect the reactor to come on line in late 2003 or early 2004. In early June 2003 Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev was reported to have said the Bushehr reactor was set to open in 2005, not 2004 as originally planned, because some equipment had to be replaced. Some observers suggested that the delay might indicate that Moscow had tacitly yielded to US pressure to slow down the project until Iran proves it is not covertly building nuclear weapons.

Normally for electrical power production the uranium fuel remains in the reactor for three to four years, which produces a plutonium of 60 percent or less Pu-239, 25 percent or more Pu-240, 10 percent or more Pu-241, and a few percent Pu-242. The Pu-240 has a high spontaneous rate of fission, and the amount of Pu-240 in weapons-grade plutonium generally does not exceed 6 percent, with the remaining 93 percent Pu-239. Higher concentrations of Pu-240 can result in pre-detonation of the weapon, significantly reducing yield and reliability. For the production of weapons-grade plutonium with lower Pu-240 concentrations, the fuel rods in a reactor have to be changed frequently, about every four months or less.