Iran, Russia Sign Nuclear Fuel Deal Opposed by U.S., Rueters, Feb 27

"TEHRAN (Reuters) - Russia and Iran (news - web sites) signed a nuclear fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington Sunday, paving the way for Iran to start up its first atomic reactor next year.

The agreement, inked by the two countries' nuclear energy chiefs at the Bushehr atomic plant in southern Iran, came as Tehran faced heightened pressure from the United States, which accuses it of secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Iran, OPEC (news - web sites)'s second largest oil producer, denies the charge and has received strong backing from Moscow, which is keen to play a major role in expanding Iran's nuclear energy program.

"This is a very important incident in the ties between the two countries and in the near future a number of Russian experts will be sent to Bushehr to equip the power station," Iranian state television quoted Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, as saying.

A key part of the agreement obliges Tehran to repatriate all spent nuclear fuel to Russia. Moscow hopes this will allay U.S. worries that Iran may use the spent fuel, which could be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium, to develop arms."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...iran_russia_dc

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Classic American liberal

TIME ran an article talking about how Russia has as many, if not more, spies in Washington as it had during the Cold War.

Not only that, but Putin (ex-KGB by the way) seems to be hampering democratic reform in the country.

Now add the Iran dealings to the mix...

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

I dont really see how this changes our options much. If Iran builds them, we bomb them. Whats Russia going to do?

As far as I'm concerned, Russia is responsible for ANYTHING that happens as a result of this action.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

This is why it is a mistake to rely on the cooperation of other nations. This is why unilateral action is better.

i don't see what the problem here is. the waste gets returned to russia. russia si closer than the US - should they not be more scared - if threats were credible?

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

That's how india got started.

"Several countries, like the U.K., Canada and the U.S., offered technical help to India's fledgling nuclear program. The framework for U.S. aid was the Atoms for Peace program. Eisenhower initiated this to forestall criticism of the use of atomic energy for military purposes and to wean away third world countries from the Soviet Union. As part of this initiative, the U.S. offered $80 million as a low interest loan towards the cost of the first Indian nuclear reactor at Tarapur, constructed by General Electric. . . .

The second was the completion of a reprocessing plant and the CIRUS research reactor, which began operating in 1960. The CIRUS, India’s first heavy water reactor was originally called CIR for Canada-India-Reactor, because it was built with Canadian assistance. After the United States supplied the required heavy water for staring the reactor, it was renamed CIRUS. This gave India the ability to extract plutonium and thus to make nuclear weapons. The third event was the first Chinese nuclear test in 1964, barely two years after India lost the war with China. . . .

One of the key supporters of the development of nuclear weapons was the founder of the Indian nuclear program, Homi Bhabha. He was a successful theoretical physicist and a good institution builder. Bhabha belonged to the wealthy Parsi community, which migrated to the West Coast of India from Iran several centuries ago. After studying and working in Cambridge University, England, he worked for a few years at the Indian Institute of Science. Bhabha then started the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the birth place of the Indian nuclear program, in 1945. In a radio speech a week after the Chinese nuclear test, Bhabha claimed that nuclear weapons could be produced quickly and at a relatively low cost. Given Bhabha's prestige and influence, it was hard for others to argue against him.

However, after Bhabha's death in 1966, the Department of Atomic Energy slowed down the quest for nuclear weapons. Bhabha’s successor, Vikram Sarabhai, felt that developing nuclear energy was more important than the defense uses of nuclear weapons. Some analysts trace the actual timing of the decision to conduct India’s first nuclear test in 1974 to a few months after his death in 1971. Nevertheless, even during his tenure, scientists and technicians working in the nuclear establishment continued developing the capability to make nuclear weapons. Chief among them was actually separating Plutonium and setting up a research reactor called Purnima to study the behavior of fast neutrons, which was very useful in designing the 1974 device.

A little over a year after the NPT went into force, India and Pakistan fought their third war. During this war the US Seventh Fleet, led by the USS Enterprise, was sent into the Bay of Bengal. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State at the time, claimed the move was designed not only to 'assist' Pakistan, but also to 'back up the Chinese'. For the Indians, however, the 1971 intrusion was a form of "gunboat diplomacy" that was possibly nuclear. This is widely regarded as a factor in the decision to conduct India’s first nuclear test.

When Canada and the US agreed to provide assistance in building and operating India’s CIRUS research reactor, India pledged to use the facility and the fissile material coming out of it for purely peaceful purposes. By terming its test a peaceful nuclear explosion - which was well within the terms of nuclear discourse at that time - India maintained that it had not violated its pledge. Despite this, the test led to the withdrawal of practically all cooperation in nuclear technology with the US and Canada.

To avoid such problems in the future, India subsequently built a similar, but larger, research reactor called Dhruva. Dhruva started functioning in 1985. It has been estimated that India could have accumulated about 300-500 kgs of Plutonium from these two reactors. Judging from the sophistication of the recent tests, Indian designs probably use less than 5 kg of Plutonium for each nuclear bomb. Hence, India has sufficient stocks of fissile material for over 60 to 100 bombs."
http://members.tripod.com/~no_nukes_sa/precis.html

In 1998 it look like India tried to detonate a H-bomb and failed. But I assume they will get it right soon.

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1512/15120260.htm

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Classic American liberal

i see the logic in not wanting less desirable countries to have them, but at the same time - when they haven't done anything that suggests they would use them - then who are we to say how may/may not be suitable. I.e - if i was on the don't give them to dangerous stats thing, israel would be the last country i'd let aqquire them.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

Oh really? IF any country has proven such.....it would be Israel. Just look at how many times they've been attacked by the Palestinians and they haven't leveled them yet. Sometimes, I wonder where they get all that restraint?

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

i agree. but it still seems that they're in a more likely position to actually use them...when that restraint wears thin.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.