Iran Re-opening Nuclear Facilities

Stardate 4377.7

U.N. inspectors removed the final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant in central Iran on Wednesday, paving the way for Iran to fully open the facility despite European and U.S. calls for it to maintain a suspension.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has finished installing surveillance equipment at the processing facility to monitor what exactly they are doing there. They really want Iran to voluntarily stop the uranium conversion and enrichment project but they can't force them to. They can however report them to the UN Security Council, but that seemed unlikely.

Conversion is a process that precedes enrichment. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons, while uranium enriched to a lower degree is used to produce energy.

It seems to me that Iran's capabilities are probably very slight at the moment. Being able to enrich low grade uranium would be an asset to any country wishing to explore alternate fuel sources and for energy, but maybe they are too far from producing high grade uranium.

Washington suspects Tehran of having a clandestine nuclear weapons program, and President Bush said Tuesday he was “deeply suspicious” about Iran’s intentions.

Of course they are deeply suspicious. They are deeply suspicious of almost everyone now, especially Nations that may somehow feebly challenge their power. The latest claim is that advanced weapons found in southern Iraq "definately" came from Iran, according to Rumsfeld, so it is no wonder they have ahuge hard-on for Iran. They are already guilty of producing WMDs, enriching uranium, handing weapons over to Iraqi resistance for use against US occupiers and not being "Good Ol' Boys"...