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U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

bbc.co.uk

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Re: U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

#103
post #85

https://bsky.app/profile/brma64.bsky.social/post/3ls5ntn5bns... It could be worse. But this is still bad, may be illegal, and isn't over yet. We don't actually know what they hit, if those sites were empty, and what's happened to ~1/2 ton of highly-enriched uranium or the regime's ability to produce more.

Illegal? I don’t think that factors into any decision made here.

Re: U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

#104

[deleted - decided to stop asking questions]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

Probably something other than the one thing that would justify lifting the mid 90's fatwa declaring the creation, possession, and use of nuclear weapons against Islamic law.

How aware is this community of the Supreme Leader's staunch opposition to nuclear weapons?

This is pure imperialism.

Re: U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

#107
post #93

Yeah there was no good reason for that. The main thing I liked about Trump is that he didn't start any wars his first term, if he gets us into a war I'm going to be fucking mad.

I know he likes to insinuate that, but it’s simply not true.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike

While you are correct it wasn’t a war, but neither is this technically.

Re: U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

#108
Just about every intelligence agency and expert agrees on nearly all the data. The debate and the 'conflicting' reports are mainly a matter of definitions.

The data is that Iran has some weapons research, and have/had about 400kg of 60% enriched Uranium (no civilian use), an higher amount of lower grade enriched Uranium, and a certain number of centrifuges for enrichment.

The interpretation bit is regarding what's called 'weaponization' (aka taking all the materials and converting them to a bomg):

A modern bomb would use >90% (preferably >95%) Uranium and an implosion mechanism and be light and small enough to put on a common ballistic missile. While getting to 90% would have been easy for them (at one time they 'accidentally' enriched to 88%), they haven't done it yet, and it isn't entirely clear how close they are on miniaturization.

A hacky bomb could use a lower grade of Uranium (60% would barely do if they pooled all of it), be much heavier (it comes with the lower grade), possibly use a simpler gun-type mechanism, and would have to be delivered with some custom mechanism.

So 'weapons grade' could mean '90% and above', or it could mean 'enriched to a level that has no use apart from building weapons'. 'Distance to a bomb' could mean 'distance from what can be easily delivered' or 'distance from any fissile explosive'.

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