AP Report Horrors! Iran Is Spinning Gas! AFP Report: Iran Can't Effectively Use the Old Centrifuges, Let Alone the New Centrifuges

The New York Times is hosting an AP report that is nearly chock full of worry over the dangerous threat of Iran actually spinning gas in their new P2 centrifuges, even though it backhandidly notes that it is only a few of the new ones and they are only using a little bit of gas.

In a study in contrast an AFP report hosted by Google shows why this is not much of a threat.

But even the AP report "Iran Begins Processing Uranium Gas, Diplomats Assert " notes:

Iranian leaders argued the country has a right to run a peaceful enrichment program to generate electricity

as indeed they do under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty they are party to.

The AFP report "Iran feeding uranium gas into centrifuges: diplomat " found at Google News 'splains a little more:

Last year, IAEA inspectors confirmed Iran's claim that it had 3,000 P1 centrifuges up and running at its Natanz nuclear facility, which is the amount needed, in ideal conditions, to produce enough material in one year to make a single atom bomb.

Nevertheless, the P1 centrifuges were currently estimated to be running at only 10 percent capacity.

...

Experts say that P2 second-generation centrifuges produce 2.5 times more enriched uranium than P1 centrifuges. But because foreign-made parts are difficult to come by given the trade embargo in place against the Islamic republic, Iran has had to design and build its own modified version.

Some experts believe that since Iran has so far failed to overcome the technical difficulties dogging the P1 centrifuges, it has little chance of getting the P2 machines fully up and running any time soon.

"It's a structured learning curve. You've got to do the P1s first," said Simon Henderson, a director at the Washington Institute.

"Until the P1s work properly, it won't be possible for the P2s to work properly," he said.

Yet, even after that the guys goes into the screaming horrors so often found in news reports from American mainstream press (AFP is European).  He some how deduces from the fact that the Iranians can't get the P1 spinners to work right, that ginning up some pseudo P2 centrifuges will give the Iranians a "BOMB" in a much less time than previously thought.  Maybe some idea of what the Washington Institute the guy is the director of will let us know why he thinks that way.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) is a Washington, DC-based think tank which concerns itself with U.S.-Middle East policy. It was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, a research director for AIPAC who would later be appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

tags: iran  nuclear spinners  centrifuges  uranium gas  iaea  al  

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