[NYTr] Planting Nuclear Evidence in Iran the Hard Way: Discussion

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The best response and most optimistic forecast is by the very
intelligent and politically astute Robert Knight, former news director
at WBAI and host of "Earthwatch." The rest of the posts just
introduce the topic. See last item below for Robert Knight, with
references. We have removed all the e-mail addreses that were in the
original sent. -NYTransfer]

sent by Ed Pearl

[Hi.  Here's an exchange which should interest all.  Sadly, they're all 
correct. Its actual sequence is from the bottom-up but either
direction has value. It's from a Pacifica Radio blog for stalwarts.  I
mostly just read and follow events, nowadays.  -Ed]


Nov 26, 2007

Planting Nuclear Evidence in Iran the Hard Way: 

A Discussion Among Robert Knight, F. Frank LeFever and Liam Kirsher
(WBAI blog)

F. Frank Le Fever, Ph.D. wrote:

  If Bush uses "tactical" nuclear weapons in Iran, he can say
  he used conventional explosives and the radioactive residue
  is proof that he hit a nuclear-arms [something - chopped off]

  Frank LeFever
  WBAI Listener

                         ***

   Frank,

   I'm pretty sure the fallout from a nuclear explosion  would be very
   different from radioactivity that was dispersed by the impact of a
   conventional explosive.

 Also, a nuclear explosion has other effects --

   Blast damage
   Thermal radiation
   Electromagnetic pulse
   Ionizing radiation

   And, of course, it would be big.  I believe they leave a
   telltale seismic footprint.

  I read recently that there was money approved to refit airplanes so
  they could carry large conventional bunker busters.

 Liam Kirsher 


                               ***

On 11/26/07, F. Frank Le Fever, Ph.D. wrote:

  Bush would say--"details, details!  who needs those
  details? The place we hit is radioactive, what more do you
  need to know?"

  Liam Kirsher
  PGP: http://liam.numenet.com/pgp/


                                ***

Robert Knight replies:

The "frame Iran with a tactical nuclear weapon" scenario is sufficiently
implausible to deter the Bush administration from accepting even
Israel's urging for such an attack on Iran's Natanz nuclear energy
development site.

A US first launch of nuclear weapons would arouse such global
opprobrium and protest that professional military officials would be
strongly opposed to crossing that Rubicon.

Moreover, as others here have amply intimated, such an attack would
likely be ineffective in (1) breaching Natanz' hardened subterranean
walls, and (2) "framing" Iran with the claim that the residual fallout
was from a reactor, rather than an American nuclear weapon such as the
B61-11s currently in the US stockpile.

Here's why:

(1) The laws of conservation of momentum limit so-called "penetrator"
weapons to a maximum depth of ~100 feet before impact threatens to
prematurely destroy the nuclear warhead contained within the delivery
shell. As a result, such an imagined attack would likely be ineffective
in destroying the target; and the effective detonation depth would
inevitably release its telltale fallout into the atmosphere, where the
IAEA, and innumerable official and private nuclear researchers in the
region would pounce on the evidence of the airborne fallout plume.

(2) The fallout signature of the tactical nuke would be profoundly
different from Iran's uranium fuel designed for subcritical reactor
fission rather than a nuclear explosion. Nuclear weapon isotope
signatures would contauin a much higher proportion of short-half-life
isotopes peculiar to the detonation. The neutron flux and other
artefacts would easily identify the bomb fallout for what it is.

In summary, it's not that the Bush administration is insufficiently
evil to enact the suggested scenario. It's that they are insufficiently
stupid to do so.

Those seeking a scientific assessment of the scenario may benefit from
perusing:

  "Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons" By Robert W. Nelson
  http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm

  Wikipedia's "Nuclear Fallout"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout

  and

  "B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon"
  http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b61-11.htm

-Robert Knight