apparently even the Russians are horrified at the nuclear processing plant in Iran, and stand shoulder to shoulder in protest with the US.

Yes, that's the same Russians that ran Chernobyl (in the Ukraine) – considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.

you gotta love the double standards.

😉

Yep I bet we tell the Iranians all our secret plans before carrying them out. It's all hot air from the 'civilised' world. If they were really that worried about an Iranian nuclear threat there'd be a lot more smoke in the sky in the Middle East.

PS don't like Iran, any country run by fanatical power mad religous extremists isn't exactly that great either.

They shouldn't have to. It could of course, be just as they claim, a nuclear power plant although why the country with the second largest non-shale oil fields in the world would want to build a nuclear power plant is beyond me.

Therefore, obviously it is a weapons plant and they should be able to build as many of those as they want to just like the Americans have, but even so. The Americans are saying we should do something about it and since (See above), there's rather a lot of oil in Iran, I instantly dis-believe anything they tell us from now on.

it's not the Americans that deny the Holocaust and say Israel should be wiped off the map.

just the sorts you'd want with nuclear weapons?

Well Iran signed up to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

So if they are weaponising uranium then they are breaking international law. Simple as that.

it's not the Americans that deny the Holocaust and say Israel should be wiped off the map.

And it's not just Americans that believe deliberate mistranslations on Murdoch news product either.

any country run by fanatical power mad religous extremists isn't exactly that great either.

You must have loved the US under the Bush administration

'We're gonna round them up, put them in a field and bomb the b******s!'

General Cheeseburger

fanatical power mad religous extremists

Thank you BoardinBob. Yes, this phrase describes the American government to a tee. You could put 'oil loving'in the middle somewhere. I fail to see how the Americans are less jingoistic than any other country on the planet, I bet comparitively, a higher proportion of Iranians are more worldy and better educated than Americans.

Personally I think America's support of Israel has done more damage to world peace than anything other single action in the last 50 years. Israel has without prejudice, played a major part in destablising the middle east, a situation America has exploited to it's advantage.

Oh hang on, who made Israel? Who created an entirely new USA funded state in an area saturated in oil? Cripes, how deep does the rabbit hole go here?

Oh hang on, who made Israel?

oooh oooh I know. We did via the UN and the British Mandate of Palestine after World War I.

Do I win?

apparently even the Russians are horrified at the nuclear processing plant in Iran, and stand shoulder to shoulder in protest with the US.

Yes, that's the same Russians that ran Chernobyl (in the Ukraine) – considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.

you gotta love the double standards.

Either trying to troll or willing to demonstrate massive lack of understanding of either topics 'linked'. Try harder.

It is perfectly feasible that Iran should want to have nuclear power imo.

One of the arguments put forward by our government for building more nuclear power stations, despite the fact that Britain has sufficient coal to produce electricity for hundreds of years, is that it pollutes less.

Russia is the the second largest oil exporter in the world, but it doesn't stop them from having nuclear power stations. Why don't they burn their own oil, instead of exporting it ?

As far as Iran keeping it's nuclear plants secrete is concerned, that is really hardly surprising, Israel has pledged to bomb them – whether or not Iran reaches an agreement with the rest of the world.

.

Well Iran signed up to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

So has the US and Britain. But it doesn't stop them from developing new generations of nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Nor do they have any intention of slowly disarming themselves of nuclear weapons – another requirement of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

Certainly not a troll.

I don't agree with some of the things that go on in other parts of the world, most of them boil down to human rights in one form or another, but the more I find out about the motives and reasoning behind the way we in the so called "civilised west" do things, and the more the outrageous behaviour of people in our own country is exposed, from MP's down, the more I feel that we have little room to demand anything from anyone anywhere. And the americans are just as bad. It's the equivalent of as if the Chinese government was complaining about human rights in Zimbabwe.

Nor do they have any intention of slowly disarming themselves of nuclear weapons

we've cut the number of warheads from 200 to 160 and recently pledged to go from four to three Trident submarines.

Post-cold war negotations between US and Russia have already reduced stockpiles and aims to reduce them further.

Is that not "slowly disarming"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8270092.stm

"and recently pledged to go from four to three Trident submarines."

No we haven't- despite some of the media coverage.

No we are not 'slowly disarming'. When do you think completion date will be ? To be nuclear disarmed means not to have any nuclear weapons.

No we haven't- despite some of the media coverage.

well I'm only going from that BBC article that said:

The prime minister has told the United Nations that he is willing to cut the UK's fleet of Trident missile-carrying submarines from four to three.

if you have a link to the the article where he actually says "F*^k you Hans Brix!" then I'll gladly read it.

ernie: I can't honestly imagine ever getting to a stage where we have totally disarmed. and GB said as much in that article. But we are giving up our arms, which fits my definition of disarming, if not yours.

I don't know what the numbers are for nuclear arms, but I get the impression that instead of having say 10,000x the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, we will now only have 9000x. That's ok then. :-0

It's acceptable to feel ambiguous about this right? I can hate the hypocrisy of the British American international corporate war machine whilst fearing the prospect of a religious fanatic(who may or may not welcome the prospect of death for some virgin poontang) having nuclear weapons?

BillyWhizz

I don't know what the numbers are for nuclear arms, but I get the impression that instead of having say 10,000x the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, we will now only have 9000x. That's ok then. :-0

Yeah but those 9000 are 1000 times more powerful. It's science.

you cant blame a relatively advanced and wealthy country from wanting to defend itself 'like for like' against aggressors i.e. Israel/USA

"well I'm only going from that BBC article that said:

The prime minister has told the United Nations that he is willing to cut the UK's fleet of Trident missile-carrying submarines from four to three."

Sorry, I can't work the bloody quotes.

Anyway, Gordon Brown has said we'd be willing, and he's ordered a report to investigate the possibility, but he's not said we'll actually do it. Big difference.

Course he'll do it. The whole reason he is mentioning it is because he wants to look like a hero when he cancels/scales back the Trident renewable programme. Nothing to do with the fact that we can't afford it anymore of course.

But we are giving up our arms, which fits my definition of disarming, if not yours.

Well let's forget my definition of disarming, and yours for that matter, and let's instead, just concentrate on how the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty defines disarmament.

Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – Article VI :

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The prime minister has told the United Nations that he is willing to cut the UK's fleet of Trident missile-carrying submarines from four to three."

I would guess the real reason they are cutting down is to save money.

Well Iran signed up to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

So if they are weaponising uranium then they are breaking international law. Simple as that.

Thats about the size of it…

After we (and the Yanks and Ruskis)had finished doing lots of things in Top, Top, Top Secret at Aldermaston, Christmas Island and the Australian outback, it was only natural that we didn't want everyone else to do the same – so we made it illegal under international law…

Oh, and did anyone ever find out how the Israelis got nukes – surely the vicious rumours of begged, borrowed or stolen from the US must be libelous???

It is interesting how we pick the countries that are ignoring the treaty and yet we say very little about the others to become nuclear since the treaty.
Israel India and Pakistan all have developed nuclear weapons in this time although none of these states actually signed the treaty. Did i miss the sanctions on them making them International pariahs?

Nuclear weapons are not terribly effectively offensively as they are just a way of committing mass suicide (which depsite what you may have read the Islamic fanatics are not keen on either). However they are a fantastic defensive weapon would we be in Iraq or Afghanistan if they had nuclear weapons?
Perhaps the main reason Iran wants nuclear weapons is because of the aggressive foreign policies of the West in the middle East? Perhaps they would like to ensure they are not next on the list for invasion and see nuclear weapons as a way of preventing it?

And while we're on the subject, if you want to see unstable, deluded, crackpot meglamanics with their fingers hovering over the big red button, look no further than the USA for the last 25 years. Regan/ GW may have been good white boys, but they were still led by and heard the voice of their "god" when they needed to . . . .

"Regan/ GW may have been good white boys, but they were still led by and heard the voice of their "god" when they needed to . . . . " you forgot to add that both Blair and Brown are complete God botherers who use it to guide their decisions, so we're just as **** as every other cuntry run by religious freaks.

If you truly believe that world was built in 7 days by a bloke with a beard who looks suspiciously like charlton Heston, then you shouldn't even be let out of a nice padded cell, never mind being given powers to start wars.

There were some good points about this on Any Questions? (Radio 4) last night.

I think it is repeated today. Worth catching.

Basically I agree we need to do more ourselves.

But Ahmed ImADinnerJacket (or however you spell it) is not someone who strikes me as terribly stable and causing a nuclear arms race in the most unstable region in the world would be generally a bad thing.

So I can understand why the UN is gravely concerned, despite any apparent hypocrisy.

oh yes we've got our share of god-nutters here too. "In the name of God" and "God will see us prevail" . . . No, actually better weapons and more soldiers might see us prevail, as long as we don't care how long it takes, how much it costs and how many people die in the process.

The funny thing is, if you hear god telling you to do it it's ok, but when you're in court and you say you heard satan telling you to do it you get locked up in a psychiatric hospital, and I believe in the popular fairytale you can't have one without the other?

In my fairytale you have neither 🙂

Perhaps the main reason Iran wants nuclear weapons is because of the aggressive foreign policies of the West in the middle East?

Well that would certainly make sense, however, the claim that Iran wants nuclear weapons appears to be a false one – there is no evidence at all, to back these claims up. There is however, plenty of evidence to suggest that Iran does not want to develop nuclear weapons.

"A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), issued in November 2007 by the sixteen US intelligence agencies, clarified that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program."

http://2bloggen.org/2009/02/14/us-intelligence-confirms-iran-not-developing-nuclear-bom/

"A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb."

And it is claimed that if Iran were to start/re-start a nuclear weapons program, it would take several years of development for them to have any effective nuclear weapons.

Interestingly enough, it would appear that Iran had a nuclear program 50 years ago when she was a strong and close ally of the United States. Indeed it was when Iran became an Islamic state, that the nuclear program was abandoned.

" Iran has had a nuclear program for close to 50 years, beginning with a research reactor purchased from the United States in 1959. U.S. concerns that Iran could pursue a nuclear weapons program date back to at least the mid-1970s, as evidenced by U.S. intelligence reports from that decade.

During the 1970s, Tehran planned to build nuclear power reactors and actually began constructing a light-water moderated nuclear power reactor near the city of Bushehr. Iran also considered obtaining uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology. Iranian leaders halted the nuclear program after the 1979 Islamic revolution."

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-37345290_ITM

There is probably some truth in claiming that Iran would not want to develop nuclear weapons on religious grounds.

The point that Israel has a secrete stockpile of nuclear weapons (they have always publicly denied that they have any) is extremely valid. None of Israel's 'potential enemies' have any nuclear weapons, so it is clear that Israel does not posses them as a 'counter-balance'. They are simply weapons to be used against conventional forces.

Furthermore, the fact that Israel has always gone to great lengths to keep their nuclear weapons secrete, is really rather sinister. Clearly unlike all other countries in the world which have nuclear weapons, Israel does not use nuclear weapons as a deterrent against an attack – conventional or otherwise. So if Israel does not use it's secrete nuclear weapons for their deterrent value, then it can only expect to use them in a surprise attack.

If people are really interested in establishing a nuclear weapon-free Middle East, then they can start off by disarming Israel. And that argument extends to the rest of the world. Nuclear weapons are 1940s technology, plenty of countries in South America, Africa, and Asia are perfectly capable of developing them, and keeping the lid on all of them is simply not feasible (as can been seen by the amount of effort being applied to 'the Iranian problem') So the argument that one small 'select club' should be allowed to posses them is no longer valid.

the claim that Iran wants nuclear weapons appears to be a false one – there is no evidence at all, to back these claims up.

Well the "secret" facility exists and has been confirmed by Iran. So they have already breached the Subsidiary Arrangement (which they agreed to in 2003) that requires them to notify the International Atomic Energy Agency at the preliminary design stage.

What really matters is what the facility is for.
Trouble is that a lot of the equipment required to enrich uranium for power is exactly the same as the equipment to weaponise it.

If people are really interested in establishing a nuclear weapon-free Middle East, then they can start off by disarming Israel.

I agree.

Well the "secret" facility exists and has been confirmed by Iran.

Well I've just double-checked on the news, I can't find any evidence which claims Iran is manufacturing nuclear weapons. Certainly Iran has nuclear facilities, but everybody already knew that, didn't they ? As I have already said, it's hardly surprising that Iran has buried it in the side of a mountain, Israel has promised to bomb it, whether or not it's used for peaceful purposes.

TBH, I don't believe for a moment, that Iran expected the location of their nuclear facilities to remain "secrete" given the ability of US spy satellites – they're not exactly stupid. The best they could hope for, was to bury them deep somewhere away from potential bombs, and not invite the international press to take photographs of them.

How are Israel managing to hide their WMD's? Manufacture, storage, testing etc?

Who from BillyWhizz ……. the Americans ?

Actually Israel's nuclear weapons are an open secrete. And yet one which they still deny. As was the case with the Apartheid regime's program in South Africa. The truth is, countries cannot develop nuclear weapons without the rest of the world being aware.

Well I've just double-checked on the news, I can't find any evidence which claims Iran is manufacturing nuclear weapons.

But just by having a secret facility, regardless of it's intention, they have breached the IAEA rules.
They must immediately allow IAEA inspectors into the facility.

Certainly Iran has nuclear facilities, but everybody already knew that, didn't they ?

everyone knew about the existing, heavily monitored facility, not this new, secret, unmonitored facility.
If it is just for power then they are allowed it so why keep it secret? why not let it be openly monitored?

not this new, secret, unmonitored facility.

Of course they did. Do you think US intelligence reveals anything they know the moment they know it ? You can be sure they knew about Qom facility a very long time ago. They certainly would have known what was going on in November 2007 when the sixteen US intelligence agencies, "clarified that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program". This story smacks of political shenanigans imo. Why does the satellite picture which has been released to the press show so little detail – if I go onto google maps/satellite, I can clearly see my own car parked in my drive. There is no way Iran would have believed that the Qom facility would be 'secrete'.

You can be sure they knew about Qom facility a very long time ago.

intelligence services have no doubt known for a while. But the IAEA didn't, or at least not officially.

if I go onto google maps/satellite, I can clearly see my own car parked in my drive

that's not a satellite picture. It's from a plane. Iran don't like people flying planes over secret facilities and taking pictures.

Ernie – please, please spell secret correctly, you are driving me bonkers!

Your posts are intelligent and thoughtful but that one word is making me bite my bloody tongue in frustration!

In South Africa, within 2 minutes of getting off a plane, you would see the "Whites Only/Net Blankes" signs everywhere. Hardly a secret.
Big business and foreign governments motivated by money may have (ie did) turn blind eye to it, but it certainly was never a secret. It was official legal government policy.

🙂