Attacking Iran could speed up nuclear programme
Pastor Dale Morgan
Monday March 5, 8:07 AM
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Attacking Iran could speed up nuclear programme*
Pre-emptive military strikes on Iran could accelerate rather than hinder
Tehran's production of atomic weapons, a report by a British global
security think-tank said Monday.
Backed by the former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, the
Oxford Research Group said Iran could respond to an attack by launching
a "crash programme" and build a crude nuclear device within months.
"If Iran is moving towards a nuclear weapons capacity it is doing it
relatively slowly, most estimates put it at least five years away," said
one of the report's authors, leading British nuclear scientist Frank
Barnaby.
"However attacking Iran -- far from setting back their progress towards
a bomb -- would almost certainly lead to a fast-track programme to
develop a small number of nuclear devices as quickly as possible.
"It would be a bit like deciding to build a car from spare parts instead
of building the entire car factory. Put simply, military attacks could
speed Iran's progress to a nuclear bomb."
The report suggests air strikes, like those reportedly being considered
by the United States and Israel, would harden Iranian attitudes and
political resistance to outside pressure to stop uranium enrichment.
The Islamic republic would then focus on manufacturing one or two
nuclear devices, leading to a nuclear-armed Iran within one or two
years, it added.
Blix, who headed the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in Iraq and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), backs the report's assessment.
He wrote in the report's foreword: "Armed attacks on Iran would very
likely lead to the result they were meant to avoid -- the building of
nuclear weapons within a few years."
The report argued that military action would probably result in a high
number of civilian casualties, as a surprise attack would inevitably
catch many people unawares and unprotected.
Air strikes would have to hit many well-protected targets across Iran,
including the Kalaye Electric Company, which produces components for gas
centrifuges used in uranium enrichment.
Other targets would include the Bushehr nuclear reactor, the Arak heavy
water reactor and heavy water production plant, uranium enrichment
facilities at Natanz, uranium mines at Saghand and the research reactors
at Isfahan.
But the report said there was a "real possibility" Iran had built secret
facilities elsewhere as well as "false targets" in anticipation of air
strikes.
"With inadequate intelligence, it is unlikely that it would be possible
to identify and subsequently destroy the number of targets needed to set
back Iran's nuclear programme for a significant period," it said.
The report suggested that Iran could salvage enough material for a bomb
from the reactor at Bushehr after any attack, or turn to the black
market, where small amounts of uranium or plutonium would be easy to
smuggle.
Alternatively, the Iranians may already set have up clandestine
facilities with centrifuges that could escape an attack.
"It is a mistake to believe that Iran can be deterred from attaining a
nuclear weapons capability by bombing its facilities," the report said.
"In the aftermath of a military strike, if Iran devoted maximum effort
and resources to building one nuclear bomb, it could achieve this in a
relatively short amount of time: some months rather than years."
The group's executive director, John Sloboda, said: "This report doesn't
get into the rights and wrongs of military strikes. It asks whether they
will achieve their objectives...
"The conclusions should be food for thought for even the most hawkish:
military strikes against Iran will simply not work. Indeed they could
even bring a nuclear-armed Iran closer."