US JCS chief says Iran has enough material to make a bomb according to multiple news reports. “based on US analysis of the IAEA data”. and “However, an IAEA official who asked not to be named cautioned against drawing such dramatic conclusions from the data, saying Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium would have to be turned into highly enriched uranium to qualify as weapons-grade material. That hasn’t been done, the official said.” Can anyone explain this to me? On the face of it, the statement is of course true-Iran has had enough U-238 in their stockpile to make many bombs. U-238 isn’t something that is made, it occurs naturally in Uranium. The trick is concentrating it enough to be able to make a weapon. As far as anyone can tell, Iran hasn’t concentrated it sufficiently to make a weapon. Is Adm. Mullen wordsmithing for public consumption or does he mean something significant? Does he mean that since they have produced enriched Uranium they can a) keep enriching it or b) fuel their reactor to make Pu. But neither path means they have enough U-238 to make a bomb. What is he talking about?
As no-one’s replied yet, thought I’d chip in.
I can’t answer the question, but I can correct you on something. It’s not U-238 that’s key for making bombs from, it’s U-235.
:smack::smack:
Oops! I knew that. I swear it was a typo in another article that got me backwards.
Thanks. Of course, U-235 is the fissile isotope of Uranium that is the cause for concern.
The primary statement is true :- Iran has refined enough uranium ore to give itself sufficient U-235 (as fuel-grade metal) to produce a uranium bomb.
The second statement is a clarification to the first statement :- To produce a bomb, they would have to further enrich that material (using centrifuges) into weapons grade material. This would take a significant period of time and far more centrifuges than they have at present (as I recall).
So the first statement is true (for a certain value of truth). The second is a more complete statement of the facts. You would have to analyse the motivations of politicians and reporters for presenting the data in the way they have.
Si