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Bush and Bushehr

[Wall Street Journal] Editorial - After a year's delay, Russia announced this week that it will begin supplying 80 tons of uranium for the nuclear reactor it has built for Iran in Bushehr. Now we're supposed to believe that the Bushehr reactor will have a purely civilian purpose. Yet there is a good reason why the Bush Administration tried to stop the Russians from delivering fuel, and the Clinton Administration lobbied hard against Russia's initial decision to build Bushehr in the 1990s. John Carlson, until recently the chairman of the IAEA's Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation, has written that "during the normal operation of large light water reactors of the sort Iran is building at Bushehr, the reactor will produce 330 kilograms of near-weapons grade plutonium - enough to make over 50 crude nuclear bombs." Carlson added that the process of separating plutonium from spent fuel from the reactor "employs technology little more advanced than those required for the production of dairy products and the pouring of concrete."
2007-12-20 01:00:00
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