Iran Playing "Hide and Seek" with its Nuke Program

Good points SweatM.
Remember though, in America, there are over 80 million registered gun owners. 'Invasion' always incorporates nationalism to the extreme.

Btw, after 6 pages, let's get back to the topic issue of: Iran Playing "Hide and Seek" with its Nuke Program, shall we?



seekerof

[edit on 4-12-2004 by Seekerof]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here but the U.S. has the ability to gather cell, microwave and landline communications at will and most likely can crack any code the Iranians come up with. Fiberoptic cables are good against eavesdropping but special forces can tap unless entire network is checked and guarded.

If the US/West is so good at gathering info, where is the shred of evidence that points to a nuclear weapon? Or have they moved them to Syria also? lol..

And I would love to know how these all-powerful SpecOps are supposed to "Tap" into a fibre optic. As soon as it is cut, the Rx is gonna lose transmission, and with any half decent network that will cause alarms. Also, whoever is receiving the signal will suddenly lose it. I work in telecoms, and I know for a fact that you cannot tap into a fibre without the network ops guys knowing about it.

Originally posted by stumason

If the US/West is so good at gathering info, where is the shred of evidence that points to a nuclear weapon? Or have they moved them to Syria also? lol..

And I would love to know how these all-powerful SpecOps are supposed to "Tap" into a fibre optic. As soon as it is cut, the Rx is gonna lose transmission, and with any half decent network that will cause alarms. Also, whoever is receiving the signal will suddenly lose it. I work in telecoms, and I know for a fact that you cannot tap into a fibre without the network ops guys knowing about it.

stumason I'm not in comms so I am flying by the seat of the pants so to speak - what happens if the fiber is cut in two places at the same time on the same line, one looking like an accident and in an obvious place, second cut to install monitoring device in an apparently undisturbed portion of the fiber line before a repair crew can fix the first break. Would that work?

Backhoes mess up all the time don't they? heh heh

As an answer to your first qestion about evidence you can refer to recent IAEA news by doing a google search - they did find plutonium traces after-all.

The best evidence of the Iranians playing hide and seek is visual...........




In the upper right of this image you can see the Iranians burying several 300,000 foot buildings under about ten meters of earth and concrete.
The buildings are suspected to be for uranium processing and enrichment.
This image is nearly two years old. The smaller building building in the center is not yet roofed and you can see supports.

Just what are they hiding? an aspirin factory?

Phoenix, just out of curiosity what is the name of the site? and about the asprin joke I have to say I didnt find it funny

[edit on 5-12-2004 by Sep]

Originally posted by Sep
Phoenix, just out of curiosity what is the name of the site?

Its Natanz (sp?) about 130 miles or so south of Tehran.

stumason I'm not in comms so I am flying by the seat of the pants so to speak - what happens if the fiber is cut in two places at the same time on the same line, one looking like an accident and in an obvious place, second cut to install monitoring device in an apparently undisturbed portion of the fiber line before a repair crew can fix the first break. Would that work?

As soon as the fibre is cut, it is useless. You either need to replace the whole thing or splice in a new portion. In answer to your question about the two breaks and placing monitoring on the line, this could be done, provided that:

a)the Spec Ops guys, in the middle of the night, in the desert, and have the right tools, can successfully splice the fibre and put their kit on in a reasonable amount of time, before being discovered. Splicing can take hours, so this is unlikely.

b)The monitoring tools do not attenuate the Tx so much that the signal is degraded (causing alarms or errors).

c) Your guys can actually find the fibre under feet of desert quick enough without being spotted by Dave the Goat Herder or one of his friends

This is also ignoring the fact that most (if not all) networks have some sort of protection path (using SDH or something similar), and the signal will be switched over to the secondary as soon as any alarms or errors interfere with the Tx, thereby negating the effort you went through to place the monitors on the line.

Originally posted by Phoenix
In the upper right of this image you can see the Iranians burying several 300,000 foot buildings under about ten meters of earth and concrete.
The buildings are suspected to be for uranium processing and enrichment.
This image is nearly two years old. The smaller building building in the center is not yet roofed and you can see supports.

Just what are they hiding? an aspirin factory?

If they had something to hide they wouldnt have invited IAEA to visit the site. And the IAEA inspectors visited the site on the 21 February 2003. Then General Mohamed ElBaradei visited the site. If they had something to hide then they would not have allowed the inspectors in. Maybe just maybe they are burring it because the Americans and Israelis have time and time again threatened to attack it but that might just be me.

PS: thanks for the name of the site.

Remember guys and gals the infamous IAEA was inspecting sites in N Korea, Pakistan, and India. Seems they all "confussed" the inspectors and got NUKES. Lybia has already come clean about their nuke program. IAEA missed that one too. Check into the IAEA procedures, you'll find it is a complete JOKE.

@DrHoracid

everything is a joke and usless when it goes against the wishes of certain people.

The fact is, the USA is going after Iraq/Iran/NK because they can still do something about them. In an ideal world nobody would have WMD, but that's not going to happen. But that doesn't mean we should let everybody have them - enough is enough. I'm all for the USA saying Iran/Iraq/NK can't have nukes, but they need to stop being so two-faced.

Maybe if they suggested Israel started to get rid of its nukes in an attempt to calm things down in the region instead of sending them billions of dollars to buy more weapons, that might help. Maybe if they tried to get China and Taiwan talking properly instead of just sending Taiwan tons of military equipment to point at China, that might help.

And that's what annoys so many people - with the USA it's all "take" and no "give", for want of a better expression. With the USA it's all about aggression all the time - you need to be strong when you have to, sure, but also be prepared to look at the causes of problems and learn from them. They really didn't learn anything from 9/11

Personally I think those barely covered up secret buildings could well be decoys to attract cruise missile fire, for all I know they could be centrifuging their stuff downtown Tehran under the busy marketsquares, while erecting some thick empty bunkers (or containing less critical studff) here and there....

[edit on 5-12-2004 by Countermeasures]

Originall posted by Stumason

a)the Spec Ops guys, in the middle of the night, in the desert, and have the right tools, can successfully splice the fibre and put their kit on in a reasonable amount of time, before being discovered. Splicing can take hours, so this is unlikely.

Thanks for the answer it helps to learn. Does that leave switching centers and signal boosting apparatus along the fiber line as the vulnerable points?



Originally posted by Sep

If they had something to hide they wouldnt have invited IAEA to visit the site. And the IAEA inspectors visited the site on the 21 February 2003. Then General Mohamed ElBaradei visited the site. If they had something to hide then they would not have allowed the inspectors in. Maybe just maybe they are burring it because the Americans and Israelis have time and time again threatened to attack it but that might just be me.

Sep to my understanding the underground facilities at Natanz were not completed nor would there have been time to do equipment fit-out by February 2003 - so the IAEA inspected what? made conclusions based on what? - empty and incomplete buildings. Sure I too would have invited the IAEA to my buildings under those circumstances.




Originally posted by DrHoracid

Remember guys and gals the infamous IAEA was inspecting sites in N Korea, Pakistan, and India. Seems they all "confussed" the inspectors and got NUKES. Lybia has already come clean about their nuke program. IAEA missed that one too. Check into the IAEA procedures, you'll find it is a complete JOKE.

You bring up a good point DrHoricid which is has the IAEA declared even one country a nuclear state in violation of the NPT before said country has exploded a weapon making their denials and obfucation moot. What is the IAEA's hesitation to bring these case's to the security council? One would think if the IAEA cared one whit for world peace and safety that they would be much more aggressive in their efforts. Sitting on the sidelines as it were, I would be hard pressed not to believe that the IAEA wants the third world to have parity with the existing nuclear club rather that stamping out these very dangerous programs.




Originally posted byCountermeasures

Personally I think those barely covered up secret buildings could well be decoys to attract cruise missile fire, for all I know they could be centrifuging their stuff downtown Tehran under the busy marketsquares, while erecting some thick empty bunkers (or containing less critical studff) here and there....

Um thats ok to think that until you work out the cost of such an endeavor.
Countermeasures you are looking at what amonts to a few billion worth of work in that sattellite image. Iran has oil income but even they do not have enough to throw around like that.

The design has layers of soil with multiple concrete slabs mixed in to defeat penetrating warheads before getting to the actual structure. This not being a reactor site that the Israeli's might attack "Osirak" style makes me wonder just what activity is valuable enough to protect in such a way for an obstensibly "peaceful" nuclear program. Can you deny that it just a wee bit strange to go to these efforts if there is nothing to hide.

If power generators in the U.S. spent money like this they would be held criminally negligent for waste of government and stockholders funds.

The argument that Iran is running a peaceful non-weapons related program are getting very thin when facilities such as Natanz are in existence.

The next argument that the Iranians have a "right" to nuclear weapons falls flat when that country is a signatory to the NPT and renounced these very actions.

The last argument of "Iran needs these weapons for self defence" falls flat when so many here have pointed out the futility of a conventional force invasion of Iran. I think its really funny when on the onehand a debator in this thread and threads like this justifies Iranian WMD as a defensive measure and then later points out the inability of a country as stong as the U.S. having the means to successfully invade Iran. Do you not see the fallacy of these arguments when combined?

Further evidence out in the last few days of the IAEA's obtuseness in regards to Irans intentions is the importation of large amounts of beryllium a metallic substance combined with polonium to make initiators for nuclear warheads. Again we are hearing "There are peaceful use's for this metal"
from the parties involved. When will people wake up to the lie?

An earlier draft of the IAEA report, seen by The Telegraph, said that Iran had manufactured material to use with the beryllium that it had purchased as a "nuclear initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons".

A spokesman for the IAEA conceded that the agency had removed any mention of beryllium from its report, but said that the change was insignificant. She said: "There are all kinds of technical details in first drafts which are later removed. That's part of the drafting process."

Jacky Sanders, the American ambassador to the IAEA, however, said that Iran's assertions that it has never acquired or used beryllium were no longer reliable.

UK Telegraph

Whats it going to take for people to to seriously stop proliferation, Tel Aviv or another city going up in a flash, a U.S. carrier battle group attacked with a nuclear warhead or a terror attack out of the blue with a warhead supplied by radical elements of the Mullacracy.

It baffles me to watch the machinations some will go through to justify what the Iranians are up to - how much more obvious does it have to get before "convincing" everyone that this is a dangerous development for the world as a whole?

Originally posted by Curio
And that's what annoys so many people - with the USA it's all "take" and no "give", for want of a better expression. With the USA it's all about aggression all the time - you need to be strong when you have to, sure, but also be prepared to look at the causes of problems and learn from them. They really didn't learn anything from 9/11

Very good point. That to me is very disheartening. How did we learn nothing from something like 9/11? It's something we're taught as children, learn from your mistakes and failures. Yes, 9/11 was our failure/mistake. The terrorists got what they wanted.

Phoenix,

So are you gonna hire a mercenary force to destroy those facilities in Iran or what?

Thanks for the answer it helps to learn. Does that leave switching centers and signal boosting apparatus along the fiber line as the vulnerable points?

They tend to be the weak points in the network,yes, but also those with the highest security. I can only speak for UK Telecoms, but getting into a switch/SNAP or whatever is nigh on impossible, unless you force your way in and that won't be pretty! Police will be notified straight away, and there are all mannner of secuirty doors, systems and alarms to hinder you.

Same goes for switches when it comes to alarms as for fibres. Although the circuit will terminate there, so it would be a matter of attaching your kit between the end of the fibre and the mux for example, as soon as you disconnect the circuit, it will alarm.

They even have alarms to tell the NMC that a cabinet door is open, let alone that something is up with the circuit!

Providing they could get access to the switch, locate the correct circuit out of many, and quickly attach their kit, reconnect the circuit and get out again, then yes, they could do that.

But, the chances of the bugging equipment being discovered is greatly increased, as an engineer will notice an odd bit of kit sticking out of his cabinet! And then you have to hope that you kit doesn't interfere with the signal in the first place!

On the whole, a fibre optic link is very secure, but its major drawback is the distance in which it can carry a signal before needing to be boosted, so in the end, a radio link is better for long distance.

So in the desrt regions of Iran, i doubt there will be many fibres running, but they will (i hope out of common sense for security) have all their major sites that are relativley near to each other connected by private wire fibre optic links.

However, if they break out onto a public network, say for example they are not using a point to point link, but one that would go over the PSTN, then thats where the hackers come in, and they can try and intercept traffic. So it would depend then on the level of encryption the iranians use, as to the security level. But again, i would assume that for links between Nuclear/Military sites would be a point to point link, with no other access points.

Originally posted by Phoenix
Sep to my understanding the underground facilities at Natanz were not completed nor would there have been time to do equipment fit-out by February 2003 - so the IAEA inspected what? made conclusions based on what? - empty and incomplete buildings. Sure I too would have invited the IAEA to my buildings under those circumstances.

Just last post you said that hiding the facilities, but at the same time as that picture was taken the IAEA inspectors and even Director General Mohamed ElBarade, visited the site. So what I am saying is that they havnt hid anything as you posted a little while ago. The inspectors are still free to visit the site at 2 hour notice. As the Director General put it "we have received access to every facility we asked for in Iran"

It seems like it would take a massive bombing campaign to forcefully wipe out Irans nuclear capability. A massive bombing campaign taking out multiple power plants research areas and military bases. I dont think were talking a few surgical strikes here.

What are we going to to do bomb them then walk away?
Do you think that the Iranians will accept this? Wouldnt this only more firmly cement the political hold of the old conservative regime and stifle any hopes of a more moderate government taking control through elections? I mean its already been demonstrated that a people who feel they are under attack will stick with the devil they know over the devil they don't. The leardership "strong enough" to stand up to foreign aggressors in other words. We do care about fomenting freedom in the mid-east right I mean that was the point of this little excapade in Iraq right?

So would we invade instead?
Overthrow the Ayatollahs goons and hold new elections?
What happens when more or less the same goons get voted back into power?