February, 2008 | UN-Truth

What is Green Salt? What are these studies Iran is now being asked to explain?

I’m going on the possibly wrong assumption that, if the IAEA did not take this evidence seriously, the IAEA would not have asked Iran to give clarifications on the studies that “Member States” and “countries” [in the plural] finally allowed the Agency, as the IAEA likes to refer to itself, to put to Iran in two stages this month — just before completing its latest report on Iran’s past and present nuclear program, which will now be used to impose a third set of sanctions against the Islamic Republic for, at least, its “defiance” of previous UN Security Council sanctions resolutions.

That is, the IAEA must have done some checking on its own to see whether or not the evidence of these studies is credible, and clean –mustn’t it?

I mean, it wouldn’t just hold Iran up to these new measures, just on the basis of the word of one or possibly more major powers?

Or, even just to shut up the information being put out everywhere possible in the media saying that the evidence clearly shows that Iran did have a nuclear weaponization program at one point in the past, even if it might have changed its mind since?

Or, even just as leverage to push Iran to take the final step and ratify the Additional Protocol it drafted, and signed, in 2003 that — if ratified — would allow more intrusive and snap IAEA inspections in Iran?

The IAEA wouldn’t just be trying to become, or remain, a player in this dangerous drama, would it?

And, why wouldn’t Iran respond to the second set of IAEA queries about these studies in February? Was it just that Iran felt that all the questions put to it in the August 2007 Work Plan — which were supposed to be the final questions — had been answered? [“The Agency agreed to provide Iran with all remaining questions according to the above work plan. This means that after receiving the questions, no other questions are left. Iran will provide the Agency with the required clarifications and information”. The full Work Plan is posted here.]

Or was it more than that — was Iran informed about which specific “Member States” and “countries” had provided the “evidence” (apparently on a single Laptop) of these studies, and did Iran have objections to any dealings with these people?

[What is the Laptop? See this posting here, found through at-Largely here.]

Other perhaps more substantive questions were mentioned in a NYTimes report published Friday:”The most suspicious-looking document in the collection turned over to the IAEA was a schematic diagram showing what appeared to be the development of a warhead, with a layout of internal components. ‘This layout has been assessed by the agency as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device’, the IAEA wrote. But that does not prove it was a nuclear warhead, and Iran argued that its missile program used ‘warheads only’. The report referred to other documents drawn from the laptop — though the source of the material was never mentioned — that included documents describing how to test ‘high-voltage detonator firing equipment’ and technology to fire multiple detonators at one time, which is required to trigger a nuclear reaction by forcing a nuclear core to implode. The report also described work on whether a detonation could be triggered in a 400-meter-deep shaft from a distance of 10 kilometers, or about six miles, leading to suspicions that the Iranian scientists were already thinking about nuclear testing. But it is unclear whether the shaft would have been wide enough for a nuclear weapon … In a briefing for reporters and nuclear experts on Friday, a senior IAEA official said that the agency had reached no independent conclusions about whether the documents added up to an effort to build a nuclear weapon, or whether those efforts were suspended more than four years ago, as the National Intelligence Estimate concluded. ‘At this point in time we don’t make any conclusion’ about the documents, the official said. David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security, said that ‘The issue now is whether this is symptomatic of a comprehensive nuclear weapons effort, or just individual projects. Is it part of a plan to design and develop a weapon that can fit on a nuclear missile? And if so, why are so many pieces missing?’ ” This NYTimes report is posted here.

This NYTimes article, in addition, suggests that my assumptions are wrong, and the IAEA just put these questions to Iran without having made its own estimation of the validity of the “evidence”.

A recent article in the Washington Post pokes even more holes in the “evidence”: “Drawings of the unbuilt test site, not disclosed publicly before, appear to U.S. officials to signal at least the ambition to test a nuclear explosive. But U.S. and UN experts who have studied them said the undated drawings do not clearly fit into a larger picture. Nowhere, for example, does the word ‘nuclear’ appear on them. The authorship is unknown, and there is no evidence of an associated program to acquire, assemble and construct the components of such a site. ‘The diagram is consistent with a nuclear test-site schematic’, one senior U.S. source said, noting that the drawings envision a test control team parked a safe 10 kilometers — more than six miles — from the shaft. As far as U.S. intelligence knows, the idea has not left the drawing board … U.S. intelligence considers the laptop documents authentic but cannot prove it. Analysts cannot completely rule out the possibility that internal opponents of the Iranian leadership could have forged them to implicate the government, or that the documents were planted by Tehran itself to convince the West that its program remains at an immature stage. CIA analysts, some of whom had been involved only a year earlier on the flawed assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs, initially speculated that a third country, such as Israel, may have fabricated the evidence. But they eventually discounted that theory. British intelligence, asked for a second opinion, concurred last year that the documents appear authentic. German and French officials consider the information troubling, sources said, but Russian experts have dismissed it as inconclusive. IAEA inspectors, who were highly skeptical of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, have begun to pursue aspects of the laptop information that appear to bolster previous leads. ‘There is always a chance this could be the biggest scam perpetrated on U.S. intelligence’, one U.S. source acknowledged. ‘But it’s such a large body of documents and such strong indications of nuclear weapons intent, and nothing seems so inconsistent’ … Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the IAEA, said that after three years of investigation, he still cannot judge Iran‘s program ‘exclusively peaceful’. At the same time, Iran is ‘not an imminent threat’, he said in a recent interview. ‘To develop a nuclear weapon, you need a significant quantity of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and no one has seen that in Iran‘ … Over coffee in December in ElBaradei’s Vienna office, Iran‘s chief nuclear negotiator was asked about the drawings, sources said. Ali Larijani called them ‘baseless allegations’. When IAEA inspectors went to Iraq last month, the CIA agreed to let them confront Iran with some of the evidence. Iranian officials dismissed the material but said they would follow up with clarifications at a later date, according to an IAEA report issued yesterday [7 February]. Several sources with firsthand knowledge of the original documents said the facility, if constructed, would give Iran additional capabilities to produce a substance known as UF4, or ‘green salt‘, an intermediate product in the conversion of uranium to a gas. Further refined in a large-scale enrichment plant, such as the one Iran says it intends to build for its energy program, the material could become usable for the core of a bomb”…

This WPost article states that Iranian officials “learned 14 months ago that the United States had the documents on the laptop”. This WPost article is published here.

Heated reactions from Iranians to new material in IAEA report

Um, according to Agence France Presse, “top Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused the United States of unbalancing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s ‘mental state’ by submitting secret documents just days before the report. ‘The US has submitted a stack of documents to disrupt ElBaradei’s mental state and has been successful to some extent’, said the head of the elite clerical body the Assembly of Experts, according to the state news agency IRNA”. This AFP story is posted here.

Rafsanjani is also a former President of Iran.

The Associated Press reported that “a senior Iranian official on Sunday blamed the U.S. for Tehran’s refusal to respond to an International Atomic Energy Agency probe into whether Iran tried to make nuclear weapons in the past. Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief delegate to the IAEA, claimed information provided by Washington and used by the U.N. agency was fake and it came to Tehran too late for a proper review. The U.S. dismissed the complaint, saying Iran could have answered concerns about its nuclear program years ago … Most of the material shown to Iran by the IAEA in its investigation of the nation’s alleged attempts to make nuclear arms came from Washington, though some was provided by U.S. allies, diplomats told The Associated Press. The agency shared it with Tehran only after the nations gave their permission. But Soltanieh dismissed much of the material as false. In any case, he said, it came too late — three years after U.S. intelligence claimed it had material on a laptop computer smuggled out of Iran indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons. The data supposedly included missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads. ‘They should have given it to us three years ago’, Soltanieh said, suggesting Tehran would then have had a more substantive response. Instead, he said, Iran did not get an offer for a review until mid-February. By that time, he said, the deadline for the conclusion of the IAEA investigation into Iran’s nuclear past had passed and experts were already working on the agency’s report. ‘All of a sudden, the Americans notice this thing is going to be closed’, he said, referring to the investigation. Suddenly, he added, ‘they have additional and new documents — these dirty games should be stopped immediately’. The United States denied being at fault. ‘Iran did not need to wait for information to answer’ the accusations coming from many sides that it was trying to make nuclear arms, said Gregory L. Schulte, the top U.S. delegate to the IAEA. Soltanieh also acknowledged that his country’s uranium enrichment program was experiencing ‘ups and downs’. It appeared to be the first Iran admitted its enrichment activities were running into some difficulties”. This AP report is here.

Let us not forget …

The price of oil passed $100.01 per barrel a few days ago.

Of course, this will not deter those who, acting on high principle, are determined to make Iran forego its pursuit of advanced nuclear technology.

But, with thanks to the information in links about Iran’s opening of an oil bourse in which trading will be in Iranian rials and eventually in Euros but NOT in dollars (Iran has already made the transformation in its oil sales over a year ago), sent by my friend and colleague in Geneva, Robert James Parsons, I recalled that, as AP reported: “Iran produces more than 20 million tons of petrochemical products per year. Iran has already registered for another oil bourse, in which it has said it hopes to trade oil in Euros instead of dollars, to reduce any American influence over the Islamic Republic’s economy. A bourse official, Mahdi Karbasian, told the IRNA official news agency that such an oil market would begin operating within the next year. While most oil markets are traded in U.S. dollars, Iran first floated the idea of trading oil in euros in the early 2000s during the tenure of reformist president Mohammad Khatami. It gained new life after the nationalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005. As the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, Iran has a measure of influence over international oil markets. The country ranks second for output among OPEC countries, and controls about 5 per cent of the global oil supply … The UN Security Council is considering imposing a third set of sanctions on Iran for defying a request to halt uranium enrichment. But Tehran has expressed doubt that the world body would impose sanctions on the country’s oil sector, because such a move would likely drive global oil prices higher“. This AP report is posted here.

Another report kindly forwarded by RJP said that: “The Iranian Oil Bourse, a non-U.S. dollar forum established for the trade of oil, gas and petrochemicals, is set to open for business on Kish Island on Feb. 17, according to EIN News and Iranian television. The Bourse had been set to open during the [previous] week commemorating the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari, but the Internet communication breakdown delayed the launch”. here.

Some background to new sanctions push – Nick Burns on Iran

This is worth a read.

Remarks at Foreign Press Association in London
R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
London, England
February 11, 2008

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much. The question was about Iran. Let me just say, first of all, I agree with everything that Secretary Rice said here in London last week. I know you’re surprised to hear me say that. (Laughter) She’s my boss, so I agree with her.

Secondly, I thought there were two developments last week in Iran that were particularly interesting, noteworthy and troubling. The first was the attempt to launch a rocket . You all saw the photographs of President Ahmedinejad with his 3-D glasses. The FT had a cover-story on that. The second were the very interesting — and I would say troubling — press reports that appeared in the U.S. press on Friday – there was a New York Times story, I believe, there was an AP story – about a new centrifuge device, centrifuge mechanism that the Iranian government may or may not be employing at their plant in Natanz. Now, on the second story, we – the U.S. Government – have not corroborated that. These are press stories. But I think that both are troubling because the international community has sent a rather clear message to the Iranians
over the last three years.

The IAEA Board of Governors has twice passed resolutions calling on Iran to suspend all of its enrichment and reprocessing activities at Natanz. The Security Council has passed one resolution, in July of 2006, and since then two sanctions resolutions, Chapter 7, asking Iran to suspend its nuclear efforts at Natanz.

Iran seems to be willfully disregarding the Security Council, as well as the IAEA. It is now moving ahead, by its own admission, in broad daylight, to expand the number of centrifuges under operation at Natanz, and is not suspending in any way, shape or form. This tells us that a third sanctions resolution must now be passed by the Security Council. That resolution, presented by the European Union countries, is being debated in New York. I suspect we’ll have to debate it for a little bit of time in New York, but it is now imperative that it be passed, because Iran is so willfully out of compliance, and these are troubling developments.

I would then think that there would be a process, after the Security Council votes the sanctions resolution, of other countries stepping forward to sanction as well. We hope very much that the European Union, following the passage of a third sanctions resolution in New York, would adopt its own sanctions resolution, which would be obviously much tougher than what the Security Council will do. And we hope that other major trading partners of Iran, in Asia as well as the Middle East, will think about what they can do to contribute to this international sanctions effort. There has to be an international response to what the Iranian government is doing.

So, on the nuclear issue, I believe that that’s where the focus of the diplomacy is going to be – to strengthen the sanctions effort, both the overt sanctions, but also some of the efforts made through private financial institutions to dry up lending and investment activities in Iran. We’ve seen quite a bit of that over the last year.

There’s another issue concerning Iran. That is its outright support in arming and funding most of the Middle East terrorist groups, from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to the aleban in Afghanistan, to the Shia militant groups in Iraq. And there, think, there’s been universal, international condemnation of this Iranian policy to support the violent groups in the Middle East, in a region that clearly needs greater stability and greater peace.

I was interested to read The Economist, I’m a great admirer of The Economist, I think it’s one of the most intelligent news magazines, if not the most important news magazine in the world. But I disagreed with its cover story last week, when it essentially said that Iran has gotten the better of the international community diplomatically. I think that’s the conventional wisdom. That’s certainly the conventional wisdom in the press. But it’s hard to find a country in the world that’s more isolated than Iran right now. The only countries that are really sticking up for Iran: I think Syria does, I know that Cuba does, I know that Chavez and Venezuela does. But when you have an international reaction on the nuclear issue where China and Russia are the lead countries sanctioning Iran, with Britain, France, Germany, the United States; where all of the non-aligned partners of Iran are now sanctioning it: India, Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, just to name a few countries, are all, of course, fulfilling the UN sanctions regime, due to resolution 1737 and 47. So I think Iran is a country that is perilously in isolation from the rest of the world.

And these revelations last week – the rocket launch and the stories about the centrifuge — mean that the International Atomic Energy Agency needs to conduct a very vigorous and comprehensive review of what the Iranians have been up to. I know Doctor El-Baredei’s going to present a Report at some point in the month of February, and we’re looking forward To that report, we have great respect for him. But it really is ncumbent upon the IAEA to leave no stone unturned and to look at all These allegations and to make sure there’s a bright spotlight being shone upon the Iranian government.

…

AMBASSADOR BURNS: I would just say in response to your question that I don’t think anyone is gleeful about the IAEA reports. I don’t think anybody inside the IAEA is. The fact is that the IAEA is looking into some very serious questions. What is the extent of Iran’s past research and development into nuclear technology, into enrichment, P1, P2? What is the status of the Arak heavy water reactor? If you go Google the IAEA reports when you return to your office, and you read them, what really is striking about them is the number of times in the past reports that the IAEA has to say ‘Iran didn’t answer that question; Iran didn’t provide any information on that question’. So this is not just an American concern that Iran is not being straightforward. Physicists will tell you, and some leading European politicians will say, ‘Isn’t it curious that — in a country that has exactly one nearly functioning nuclear reactor, and that’s Bushehr, where Russia will ship in the fuel and take out the spent fuel — isn’t it curious that they should spend all this time and effort and flagrantly violate the UN resolutions to learn how to enrich and reprocess uranium?” One of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, not a single functioning indigenous nuclear reactor and they’re spending all this time and money and suffering these international sanctions and isolation to enrich and reprocess uranium. Doesn’t that lead you to believe that there’s something else happening here? That Iran is not actually telling the truth about its nuclear research? So that’s how I’d answer your very good question.

And the second way I’d answer your question would be to say — because you asked the question, it deserves a good answer and a full answer — is that the UN Security Council resolutions and the IAEA Board of Governors resolutions were not focused on the issue of weapons. Go back and look at them. They’re all focused on the issue of what Iran is doing in broad daylight — enrichment and reprocessing. IAEA and Security Council. What I’ve found as the American negotiator is that within two days of publication of the unclassified National Intelligence Estimate – the unclassified document that we released – within two days, all the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council had reconfirmed their interest in sanctions and a third sanctions resolution. And now you have Russia and China, Britain, France, Germany and the United States, all saying we need to sanction Iran because it’s wilfully ignoring what the Security Council has been saying. I think that’s a powerful argument.
…

Released on February 11, 2008

Israel says IAEA report "determines Iran is engaged in weaponization"

Immediately after the end of Shabbat on Saturday night, when things in Israel begin to stir, the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its concern about Iran, and urging hard pressure:
“International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s 22.2.08 report reaffirms the concerns of the State of Israel and the international community that Iran is continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The report also makes it clear that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and carry out other activities in violation of UN Security Council decisions. The report determines that Iran is engaged in weaponization, i.e. nuclear weapons development activity. This determination, along with others in the report, strengthens Israel’s view regarding the need for further comprehensive and thorough investigation of Iran’s overall nuclear activities. Since Iran continues to obstruct IAEA investigations and persists in flouting UN Security Council decisions, Israel believes that the international community must increase pressure on Iran in order to ensure that it will be denied the possibility of attaining nuclear weapons”. This statement was sent by email from the Israeli Government Press Office to journalists accredited in Israel.

It is not at all clear that the IAEA report — which has been leaked to several news agencies, but not published yet, as it was issued to a restricted circulation only — says this at all.

However, the Israelis are really going out on a limb, if it doesn’t say this. The UN News Centre [the UN uses British-English spellings] reported that IAEA Director General ElBaradei told journalists (apparently in Vienna on Friday) that “We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment programme”. However, ElBaradei also said that the IAEA has yet to get to the bottom of Iran’s alleged past weaponization studies, and he noted that although the IAEA has no indication that such studies pertained to nuclear material, it is crucial to clarify the issue. This UN News Centre story is posted here.

The IAEA website gives a fuller version of ElBaradei’s remarks to journalists: “In addition to our work, to clarify Iran´s past nuclear activities, we have to make sure, naturally, that Iran´s current activities are also exclusively for peace purposes and for that we have been asking Iran to conclude the so called Additional Protocol, which gives us the additional authority to visit places, additional authority to have additional documents, to be able to provide assurance, not only that Iran´s declared activities are for peaceful purposes but that there are no undeclared nuclear activities. On that score, Iran in the last few months has provided us with visits to many places, that enable us to have a clearer picture of Iran´s current programme. However, that is not, in my view, sufficient. We need Iran to implement the Additional Protocol. We need to have that authority as a matter of law. That, I think, is a key for us to start being able to build progress in providing assurance that Iran´s past and current programmes are exclusively for peaceful purposes. So we have the Protocol issue and we have the weaponization, alleged weaponization studies. I should however add that in connection with the weaponization studies, we have not seen any indication that these studies were linked to nuclear material. So that gives us some satisfaction but the issue is still critical for us to be able to come to a determination as to the nature of Iran´s nuclear programme. As a result of Iran running an undeclared nuclear programme for almost two decades, there has been confidence deficit on the part of the international community about the intentions, future intentions of Iran´s nuclear programme. Therefore the Security Council asked Iran to suspend its enrichment-related activities. I hope that Iran will continue to work closely with the Security Council, to create the conditions for Iran and the international community to engage in comprehensive negotiation that would lead to a durable solution. A durable solution requires confidence about Iran´s nuclear programme, it requires a regional security arrangement, it requires normal trade relationship between Iran and the international community. As the Security Council stated, the ultimate aim should be normalization of relationships between Iran and the international community. Definitely the Agency will continue to do as much as we can to make sure that we also contribute to the confidence-building process with regard to the past and present nuclear activities in Iran, but naturally, we can not provide assurance about future intentions. That is inherently a diplomatic process that needs the engagement of all the parties.” These statements by ElBaradei are posted on the IAEA website here.

The IAEA website explains elsewhere that this “Additional Protocol is a legal document granting the IAEA complementary inspection authority to that provided in underlying safeguards agreements. A principal aim is to enable the IAEA inspectorate to provide assurance about both declared and possible undeclared activities. Under the Protocol, the IAEA is granted expanded rights of access to information and sites”. This information is posted here.

Just after the revelations of Iran’s undeclared nuclear activities (Iran argued it was not legally obliged to declare them at that point) in 2003 — after damaging revelations exposed by the armed opposition MEK movement — Iran did drafted an Additional Protocal agreement that was approved by the IAEA Board of Governors in November 2003, and signed it in December 2003 — but it has not yet been ratified by the Iranian Majlis. Iran is not the only country in the world that has not finished the process of concluding an Additional Protocol agreement with the IAEA (see list here ), but it is the only country under such suspicion.

However, these cool-headed aims of the IAEA do not apparently go very far towards reassuring Israel today.

Israel didn’t like Saddam Hussein one bit — they bombed his nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, then he shot missiles at Israel during the 1991 U.S.-led Desert Storm operation to get Iraq out of Kuwait, and a child was suffocated by a gas masque, while another citizen had a heart attack, among other casualties — but Israel never led a public campaign as strong or as frenzied against him as it is doing against Iran now.

At the Jerusalem Conference held in Jerusalem this week, Member of Knesset for the National Union Partier and Reserve Brigadier General Effie Eitam said in an interview with this reporter that “Many Israelis understand we are at square one as far as our survival in this region is concerned, like the first two decades of Israel’s existence, with the combination of nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranians, and the deployment of missiles on our borders….” Eitam added that “the Palestinians, if they ever had any independent agenda, they abandoned it a long time ago, and are functioning now as agents of the most bitter enemy of Israel — Iran … And Israel in the near time will have to take action on the ground — not surgery, not talking — to break down this iron hold on our neck. The entire population fears the missiles on our northern and southern border”.

In a panel discussion at the Jerusalem Conference, the former head of Israel’s Arrow-Homa Anti-Missile Defense Program, Uzi Rubin, said that “Israels foes have traded airpower and aerial domanance for rockets and missiles — there is no spot in Israel, even in Eilat, which is free of a missile threat”. Participating in the same panel, Effie Eitam said that it is important for Israel now to let it be known that “a country that puts our civilians under threat will be punished. Eitam said that “We missed an opportunity, in the last war, because we assented to a pattern of behavior [of threats to civilians]. During the Gulf War, tens of missiles were shot at us, and nobody knew what kind of warheads they carried — chemical, nuclear or conventional. The State of Israel did not demand a price for that, and this gave the impression that the State of Israel is not willing to defend itself…Now, we’re protecting our heads with a pillow….that simply depends on some kind of technology”. He called for a new military policy “if someone threates us, and our civilians, and our sovereignty … Our enemies should be in a position where they wouldn’t dare attack our cities”. Yes, he said, we need deterrence, yes, absolutely. But if our enemy would know that our response would be a terrible response, that he would suffer terribly…if he knew he would pay a terrible price, then he would think long and hard before attacking us”.

It is clear, from here, that the effort to push for a new stage of UNSC sanctions against Iran may also well be an effort to keep Israel from attacking Iran.

Rushing toward third level of UNSC sanctions against Iran

Even before the publication next week of the awaited International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s compliance with international demands for full disclosure of its nuclear program, Britain and France on Thursday evening tabled a draft resolution that would impose a third level of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, told journalists in New York on Friday that the six countries that have been working on the Iran nuclear program — the five permanent members of the UNSC (US, Russia, China, Britain and France) + Germany — want to have a vote in the Council to adopt the resolution by next Friday.

Representatives of these six countries will meet in Washington on Monday to discuss strategy.

Iran has not waivered from its insistence that it will produce its own (lightly) enriched uranium as fuel for its future power plants. It has even begun to work with more advanced centrifuge machines that can produce greater quantities of enriched uranium, faster.

Iran argues that, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has the right to develop and acquire advanced nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The U.S., on the other hand, says that the NPT confers no “right” to enrich.

Iran has apparently hoped that moves towards fully answering all outstanding questions about its previous nuclear programs — these questions have been mostly articulated by the U.S. — could lead to abandonment of the effort to pursue sanctions through the UN Security Council.

Highly enriched uranium used to make nuclear weapons is produced by extending exactly the same process used to make the lightly enriched uranium that Iran is determined to produce, but Iran has insisted it is not pursuing a weapons program.

Suspicions remain, however, and have even intensified.

Israel, in particular, believes that it is not only directly threatened by the current Iranian regime, but that the Iranian leadership is rushing headlong after arms that can be used against the Jewish State, which is widely believed to be an undeclared nuclear weapons power.

It may be that the rush to table and adopt a third layer of UN SC sanctions against Iran is, in part, an attempt to head of Israeli unilateral action against Iran.

The pursuit of an indigenous enriched uranium production capacity, combined with Iran’s feverish development of missile technologies that could deliver a nuclear payload to ever-more-distant targets, have convinced some critics that Iran is covertly pursuing an offensive nuclear weapons program.

The IAEA report has not been made public yet, but it has been leaked to the major news agencies.

The Associated Press reported that “IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who drew up the report, said his team had ‘made quite good progress in clarifying the outstanding issues that had to do with Iran‘s past nuclear activities, with the exception of one issue, and that is the alleged weaponization studies that supposedly Iran has conducted in the past’ … When confronted with some of the documentation from the U.S. and other on its alleged weapons experiments, Tehran ‘stated that the allegations were baseless and that the information … was fabricated’, the report said. Iran explained some of its activities linked by the Americans to a weapons program as work on ‘air bags and for the design of safety belts’, according to the report”. This AP report is posted here.

The IAEA report says that Iran continues its work on a heavy-water nuclear facilities.

An earlier AP story stated that the IAEA document said “Teheran had rejected as irrelevant some material forwarded by the agency that purportedly shows it working on tests of missile trajectories and high explosives, and research on a missile re-entry vehicle — activities that would most likely be part of weapons development. Questions also remained on how and why Iran came to possess diagrams showing how to mold uranium metal into warhead shape”.

In mid-February, the U.S. finally turned over to the IAEA evidence that the U.S. has cited but held in reserve since 2005, saying that its release could jeopardize intelligence sources. This evidence was reportedly contained on a laptop computer found in Iran.

This material apparently features prominently in the forthcoming IAEA report. Reuters reported that in the leaked copies, the IAEA said that “Iran had not so far explained documentation pointing to undeclared efforts to ‘weaponise’ nuclear materials by linking uranium processing with explosives and designing of a missile warhead. Publishing details of the intelligence, the IAEA described tests on a 400-metre (1,300 ft) firing shaft seen as ‘relevant’ to atomic arms research and a schematic layout of a missile cone ‘quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device’. ‘The (intelligence) studies are a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran‘s nuclear program’, said the report issued by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei. ‘The agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity on the nature of the alleged studies’.” This Reuters report is here.

What is particularly galling to Iran is that most of the major damning evidence has been provided by the Iranian exile group, Mujahediin -e-Khalk (MEK), which has fought against the Islamic Republic from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and whose fighters are still cantoned in a base area in Iraq. Its leadership is in Paris, and it has been classified by the U.S. as a terrorist group, though relations are maintained, and the U.S. military has protected the MEK fighters inside Iraq.

The NYTimes reported in mid-February that a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate published two months earlier “concluded, with what it terms ‘high confidence’, that Iran was designing a weapon through 2003. But the assessment indicated that Iranian officials ordered the work halted later that year, perhaps because they feared it would ultimately be discovered”. The NYTimes story noted that U.S. President George W. Bush said, in an interview with Fox News, “that he disagreed with the idea that the intelligence estimate lowered the threat from Iran. ‘Iran is a threat, and that’s what the N.I.E. said, if you read it carefully’, he said. ‘It showed they had a weapons — secret military weapons program, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have another secret weapons military program’. According to American and foreign officials interviewed about the contents of the laptop, the information found there included descriptions of the so-called Green Salt Project. That project, which involved uranium processing, high explosives and a missile warhead design, demonstrated what the agency suspected were links between Iran’s military and its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program. If that evidence were substantiated, it would undercut Iran’s claims that its program is aimed solely at producing electrical power. The documents on the laptop described two programs, termed L-101 and L-102 by the Iranians, describing designs and computer simulations that appeared to be related to weapons work. Iran, while dismissing as baseless the assertions that such a program existed, agreed to examine documents that the United States said pertained to Green Salt”. This NYTimes story is posted here.

Apparently after examining this U.S.-provided evidence on the laptop computer, Iranian officials still maintain it is “baseless”, and they say they are scandalized that further UN SC sanctions are being proposed.

Italian FM: Assassination of Mughniyeh was terror

Haaretz’s Meron Rapoport writes today that “Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema termed the assassination of Imad Mughniyah ‘terror’ in an interview to be published today in the popular Italian weekly L’espresso. He also said that Israeli assassinations of Hamas officials ‘serve as an alibi for terror’. Concerning Mughniyah’s killing, ‘by my definition, the car bomb in the middle of Damascus was terror’, he said … D’Alema also termed Israeli assassinations of Hamas operatives in Gaza an ‘unacceptable practice’. He said that ‘Targeted killings have not bolstered the West’s image, and they serve as an alibi for terror’. This is published today in Haaretz newspaper here.

Comments to the press are not Security Council Statements — so what is going on here?

Alerted again by Aletheia Kallos, who said “my guess is it means an ongoing pink alert stall rather than red flag”, I’ve just checked out this Agence France Presse (AFP) article, here.

This article states that “The Security Council took Eritrea to task Thursday for continuing to obstruct a planned evacuation of UN personnel caused by Asmara’s refusal to provide fuel and food. A statement issued by the council’s 15 members following closed-door consultations ‘condemned Eritrea’s systematic violations of successive Security Council resolutions as well as declarations of its president’. They expressed support for UN boss Ban Ki-moon’s efforts to resolve the situation and said they were awaiting a special report from him ‘to deal with this issue in a more comprehensive manner’.”

Either I am very confused, or something is very confusing.

I went searching for this UNSC statement, but found none. The official UN website reports nothing about any UN Security Council statement.

The UN News Centre [the UN uses British English spellings] reported exactly this:
“Edmond Mulet, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), briefed the Security Council today in a closed meeting on UNMEE’s temporary relocation efforts. In comments to the press following the briefing, Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias of Panama, which holds the rotating Council presidency, said the 15-member panel ‘condemned Eritrea’s systematic violations of successive Security Council resolutions’. Mr. Arias said the Council backed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s efforts to resolve the situation and was waiting now for his special report on the issue”.

Comments to the press are not the same as Security Council statements.

Meanwhile, reports from the region indicate, if it weren’t already clear, that the situation is serious. Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) filed a dispatch from Nairobi reporting that “The African Union (AU) said Friday it remains engaged in the border crisis between Eritrea and Ethiopia but said the two parties lack goodwill to bring an end to the dispute. A United Nations mission monitoring the disputed frontier since the end of a 1998-2000 border war fought between the neighbouring foes began relocating to the Eritrean capital Asmara last week after their fuel and food supplies were cut by Eritrea. ‘We are still there. The two parties are failing to arrive to a solution in spite of what we are doing’, said newly-elected AU chairman Jean Ping. ‘There is lack of goodwill to work toward a resolution’. Tiny Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but the disputed border town of Badme remained under contention and sparked the war that killed some 70,000 people … The frontier remains tense and with the withdrawal of the several thousand UN troops, observers fear a new war may break out”. This DPA report is posted here.

[Badme isn’t even listed on the map below, which can be seen at larger size here.]

CIA map found on relief web

The highlights (which are just outline notes) of Friday’s regular noon briefing for journalists at UNHQ/NY (given today by a deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq) says that “The Council had received a briefing yesterday afternoon by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet about the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). Afterwards, the Council President told the press that Council members condemned Eritrea’s systematic violations of successive Security Council resolutions”.

Comments to the press are not the same as Security Council statements. After the media reports (Reuters also mentioned a supposed UNSC statement in one of their stories), I wonder why the UN spokespersons office didn’t clarifiy this … then, I wondered if it were somehow deliberate? That is, did the members of the UN SC agree that the SC President could make a statement to the press, that would then be referred to as a Security Council statement (wink, wink)? And if so, why would they do this, instead of clearly issuing a statement?

Really, this is all a bit strange.

Friday’s highlights also report that “UNMEE says that UN peacekeepers in Eritrea are continuing to regroup in the capital Asmara. The Mission says there were no attempted or perceived obstructions of this effort yesterday. UN convoys en route to Asmara are moving troops, equipment and supplies from all sectors of the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Asked whether UNMEE is capable of performing its mandated tasks in the Eritrean part of the Temporary Security Zone, the Spokesperson said that, because of the fuel restrictions imposed by Eritrea, that work has been hindered. The Mission continues to try to fulfill its mandate as much as it can, but it is largely unable to do so on the Eritrean side of the TSZ. At the same time, he added, the Secretary-General has urged the Parties to respect the Temporary Security Zone. Asked what the United Nations is doing to inform Member States on options for UNMEE, Haq said that today, the Department for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) was providing a briefing for troop contributors about the situation on the ground”. These notes are posted here.

A nearly complete transcript of Thursday’s regular noon briefing shows that UN spokesperson Michele Montas told journalists that “The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea says that regrouping of peacekeepers and their equipment to Asmara continued yesterday and today. Even so, Eritrean militiamen have prevented a vehicle carrying two soldiers to travel Asmara from the Temporary Security Zone. The Mission says the two peacekeepers could not proceed until the militiamen holding them had received instructions from Eritrean authorities in Asmara. Meanwhile, the four armoured personnel carriers held up by militiamen since 17 February in Om Hajer were allowed to proceed to Asmara today”.

Then, there were questions from one or more journalists:
“Question: The letter from the Permanent Mission of Eritrea yesterday — they accused the UN Press Office specifically of levelling unfounded accusations against Eritrea, and they said they did not ask UNMEE to regroup in Asmara, that it was unilateral and that you guys have politicized the fuel issue. Do you have any reaction to that?
Spokesperson: We don’t have any reaction to that, no. As you know, due to the lack of cooperation by Eritrean authorities, UNMEE has been instructed to resort to other contingency plans and to regroup in Asmara. That is what is being done right now, and all the personnel present in Eritrea are being moved to Asmara. And this is to facilitate further relocation out of the country. This is all I can say.
Question: Just one follow-up. Do you have anything on any massive troop movements along the border on either side?
Spokesperson: It has not been reported to us, no”.
…
Question: Would the Secretary-General agree with Ambassador Churkin’s characterization that the situation in Eritrea is unprecedented in its obstruction of peacekeeping?
Spokesperson: Well, I don’t have an agreement or disagreement — I think we have the report that was done by the Secretariat. That will be done this afternoon, I think, it is going to be the meeting. You will get more information on what our own assessment is”. This transcript of Thursday’s briefing is posted here.

There has been no official statement issued by the UN Security Council.

And, comments to the press are not the same as Security Council statements.

U.S. satellite shoot-down

Does he look nervous or bothered? He just had ten seconds to get it right — the relatively junior U.S. Naval Officer who launched the missile that apparently shot down a falling U.S. satellite.

The Defense Department photo caption reads: “U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Jackson activates a modified tactical Standard Missile-3 from the Combat Information Center of the USS Lake Erie as the ship operates in the Pacific Ocean, Feb. 20, 2008. The Aegis cruiser launched the missile at a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph over the Pacific Ocean”.

Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Hight

The New York Times later reported that “During a Pentagon news conference Thursday morning, General Cartwright rebuffed those who said the mission was, at least in part, organized to showcase American missile defense or anti-satellite capabilities. He said the missile itself had to be reconfigured from its task of tracking and hitting an adversary’s warhead to instead find a cold, tumbling satellite. ”This was a one-time modification’, General Cartwright said. Sensors from the American missile defense system were an important part of this mission, though, he said“. This NYTimes report is here.

Dept of Defense photo by U.S. Navy

The U.S. Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Christina Rocca, has sent out a statement today saying that “A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth’s atmosphere. At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force. The objective was to rupture the fuel tank to dissipate the approximately 1,000 pounds (453 kg) of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth, before it entered into earth’s atmosphere. Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours. Due to the relatively low altitude of the satellite at the time of the engagement, debris will begin to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere immediately. Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days. The Department of Defense will conduct a press briefing at 7 a.m. EST to provide further information related to the operation. The briefing can be viewed live on www.Defenselink.mil through the Pentagon Channel”. (The DOD briefing is archived on the website and can be re-played.) This statement was received by email.

After clicking on the link to hear the Pentagon briefing, I heard General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say that “This is a one-time type of event”.

(Just like Kosovo)

General Cartwright was referring mainly to modifications (mostly softwear, he said, associated with sensors, with weapons and the ship, as well as some wiring) made to the missiles and to the navel ships involved in this operation. “The technical degree of difficulty was significant”, General Cartwright said. “The consequence-management part of this…is critical”.

This is one of those moments when you can feel that the world has irretrievably changed.

another Defense Dept photo by U.S. Navy

The Associated Press reported that “Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijing was asking the U.S. to ‘provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way’. And the overseas edition of People’s Daily excoriated Washington for opposing a recent Russian-Chinese proposal on demilitarizing space. ‘One cannot but worry for the future of space when a great nation with such a massive advantage in space military technology categorically refuses a measure to prevent the militarization of space’, the paper said”. This AP report is posted here.

China Hand took a brief break from his/her nearly-obsessive coverage of the Pakistani political scene on Wednesday (20 February) to discuss this then-impending satellite shoot-down. In a posting entitled The Drunken Old Guy’s Mind Isn’t Really on the Wine…Is the Pentagon Really Worried About the Hydrazine? So asks the Chinese Internet, China Hand wrote:
“By questioning the Pentagon’s narrative, the Chinese want to undercut America’s pretensions to responsible and honest space power-hood that it has claimed with its prior notification and the relative transparency surrounding the planned shootdown. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. media campaign was carefully designed to draw invidious comparisons between Chicom secrecy and recklessness and America’s careful stewardship of its space turf.) There is also barely suppressed hope in China that the United States will screw up, either by missing the satellite or creating an embarrassing shower of wreckage, so that the Chinese, still smarting from the PR debacle of their own ASAT test, can savor the sweet, sweet taste of schadenfreud. I find it rather ironic that the public US disarmament community is also unable to divine the actual motives for the U.S. shootdown. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is still dispute over why the Chinese knocked down their satellite. America’s continued desire to treat its pre-eminence in space as beyond challenge or discussion is well illustrated by the shootdown of USA 193—a unilateral piece of public-safety policing by the world’s self-appointed space sheriff. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s invocation of Star Wars as humanity’s shield against invading aliens and angry asteroids. China’s awareness of America’s strategic dominance in space, its desire to be treated as an equal in space—and its desire to have both its role and the American presence in space the subject of peer-to-peer negotiation–should not be dismissed as a motivation for its test. And yes, America’s rejection out of hand of the Russian and Chinese initiative at the UN disarmament conference last week to ban space weapons does seem to be on China’s mind“. China Hand’s blog, China Matters, is here.

Russia has not commented yet.

U.S. says missile successfully shot down falling satellite

So, this is perhaps good news, if true — at least for those who were worried about dangers from falling debris.

But it might be bad news for U.S. – Russian relations…

Just a couple of hours after a total lunar eclipse, the U.S. Navy reported it managed to shoot down the falling American satellite — on the first try.

[A second specially-souped-up missile was on-site, if needed, and a third was being transported to the site by another U.S. Navy ship]

The missile flew 130 miles before apparently hitting its target, according to the Washington Post, in a report published here. It was apparently, a three-stage missile, and not a two-stage missile as previously reported — would this make it nearly an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile? But, if so, it would be an ICBM without an explosive warhead, see CNN story below. [Nevertheless, in this case, the U.S. may really be testing Russia’s patience to the limit — the U.S. withdrew from its bilateral Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, despite Russia’s strong and repeated objections, in June 2001. The ABM treaty limits ballistic missile deployment areas and any qualitative improvements in the missile technology.]

The paper reports, cryptically, that the Navy will now dismantle the other two specially-modified missiles.

The WPost added that “The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates — not a military commander — made the decision to pull the trigger. Gates had arrived in Hawaii a few hours before the missile was launched. He was there to begin a round-the-world trip, not to monitor the missile operation. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters traveling with Gates that the defense chief gave the go-ahead at 1:40 p.m. EST while en route from Washington”.

CNN reported that “A network of land-, air-, sea- and space-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” a Department of Defense statement said. ‘At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie, fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3, hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph’. It was unknown whether the missile hit its precise target — the satellite’s full fuel tank. The Department of Defense said it wouldn’t know for certain for 24 hours whether the fuel tank had been hit. However, several defense officials told The Associated Press the missile did apparently destroy the fuel tank. ‘Debris will begin to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere immediately’, the department said. ‘Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days’. However, even if the missile didn’t score a direct hit, ‘any kind of hit provides a much better outcome than doing nothing at all’, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The missile didn’t carry a warhead, with authorities saying the impact was expected to be sufficient to destroy the fuel tank. Navy gunners had just a 10-second window to fire …the 10-second window would have occurred on each of the next nine or 10 days … One Pentagon official said that since early January, a team including 200 industry experts and scientists had worked furiously to modify the Aegis air-defense missile system so it could shoot down the satellite. Among the team’s challenges was modifying the sensors designed to detect the heat from an incoming warhead, as the satellite will be much cooler. The missile was to release a ‘kinetic kill vehicle’, enabling it to ‘see’ the satellite and adjust its course toward it if necessary, officials said. This CNN story is here.

The same CNN story added that “In 1989, a U.S. fighter jet destroyed a U.S. satellite by firing a modified air-to-air missile into space from an altitude of 80,000 feet. That adds to evidence that the U.S. acted Wednesday strictly to guard against the prospect of a potential disaster, said Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff”.

CNN also reported in another story that “The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon…Wednesday’s total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. It will begin around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises”. The CNN report on the total lunar eclipse is here.

The Associated Press noted that “The [U.S.] government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name ‘Burnt Frost’, to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere”. This AP report is here.

A story on Space.com suggests that some of the falling debris might be visible: ” ‘There is a possibility that if someone were to have clear skies in the Pacific Northwest or Canada, they might see some of the debris’, said Geoff Chester, public affairs officer for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. ‘We just don’t know. If the debris does enter the atmosphere then it’s actually quite possible to see it anywhere along the ground track of the satellite’. Because only two satellites have been shot down before, each under unique conditions [apparently, these would be the January 2007 Chinese test on one of its own “weather” satellites, and the previously-obscure 1989 event noted in the CNN story above], experts don’t have much experience to go on in predicting what to expect … The satellite’s path will take it east from Hawaii to the northwestern U.S. and British Columbia, then over the whole of Canada, down across the Atlantic, over West Africa, and back over the south Atlantic. The actual impact will not be visible to anyone, because it will occur over Hawaii during daylight, Chester said. Even if the Department of Defense does not attempt to shoot down the satellite tonight, all future attempts will also be during daylight over Hawaii”. This report is posted here.

Another story on Space.com gives some interesting analysis of this event: ” ‘The spy agency doesn’t want some part of the satellite to fall into the wrong hands,” said Coyle [former assistant secretary of defense Philip Coyle], now a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information. ‘I don’t think that’s being emphasized enough as a motivation for NRO to want this thing to be shot down’. [That might be because all American officials are denying it, and saying that the only intent is to save human life, which might be at risk if the fuel tank survives re-entry intact. It is apparently full, as the satellite misfunctioned immediately after being launched, and it contains substances that would be toxic if inhaled…] In order of importance to the NRO, Coyle named two other reasons for the attempted shoot-down: ‘Number two, poke the Chinese, because we’re showing them not only that we can shoot down a satellite in a test without creating a lot of debris like they did. But we’re also showing them we can do it any place in the world, because we’re doing it from the ocean‘, Coyle said, referring to a similar satellite destruction by the Chinese. ‘And a third reason is to show off our missile-defense capabilities such as this, though this is much easier than hitting an enemy warhead’ … Coyle, the former Defense Department official, doesn’t think the hydrazine tank is a big enough safety issue in the first place, stating that the U.S. produces about 36 million pounds (about 16 million kilograms) of hydrazine each year. ‘If we’re so worried about hydrazine we oughtn’t to be trucking it around on U.S. highways and on rail cars the way we do, if that’s really our concern’, Coyle told SPACE.com … The satellite and missile would close on one another at a velocity of about 22,783 mph (36,667 kph). Hitting the bus-sized target is just half the battle. To be completely successful, the missile must also destroy the satellite’s fuel tank, which holds about 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of toxic hydrazine. Pentagon officials have argued that if the satellite were to fall through the atmosphere with no missile interference the hydrazine tank could survive the fiery descent to reach Earth’s surface intact, spewing toxic gas over an area about the size of two football fields. Those who inhaled it would need medical attention. ‘In this case, we have some historical background that we can work against for the tank that contains the hydrazine’, said Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright during a Feb. 14 press briefing. ‘We had a similar one on Columbia that survived re-entry. We have a pretty reasonable understanding that, if the tank is left intact, it would survive the re-entry’. However, destroying the fuel tank and dispersing the hydrazine requires a direct hit on the possibly tumbling satellite. The high closing speeds for the satellite intercept and the uncertainty of puncturing the fuel tank could make that goal questionable, according to an analysis done by Geoffrey Forden, an MIT physicist and space expert. ‘If they do shoot at it, even if they hit it, there’s just a 30 percent chance that the shrapnel connected by the intersection hits the hydrazine tank’, Forden said … The attempted shoot down of the satellite will undoubtedly send a political message. Both Russia and China have expressed concerns regarding the U.S. attempt, with Russia labeling it a weapons test of the missile defense system. ‘The timing of it is very interesting, coming after [the Russia-China] proposal on banning space weapons’, said Roger Launius, National Air and Space Museum senior curator. He added that the U.S. attempt could be a response to China’s anti-satellite test last year that ‘we can do this too’, and take out satellites if necessary. ‘The potential political cost of shooting down this satellite is high’, said Laura Grego, an astrophysicist with the Union of Concerned Scientist’s Global Security Program. ‘Whatever the motivation for it, demonstrating an anti-satellite weapon is counterproductive to U.S. long-term interests, given that the United States has the most to gain from an international space weapons ban. Instead, it should be taking the lead in negotiating a treaty’. A U.S. attempt that fails to destroy the satellite could also send a message – although not one the U.S. would like. China and the rest of the world could assume the miss was a fluke, or they could also see failure as evidence that the U.S. technological lead in space has declined, according to Launius Forden calculated the risks of the hydrazine tank killing or injuring someone at 3.5 percent if it survived re-entry. However, he stated his belief that the political consequences of the attempted shoot-down could be worse, by further opening up the international arena for future anti-satellite tests and possible conflict in space. ‘You have to weigh the chance of [the satellite] killing or injuring someone against legitimizing China’s ASAT [anti-satellite] test’, Forden said … The future of space as a battlefield could mean clouds of debris from destroyed satellites. That would add to some 17,000-plus objects that are already being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. According to the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office at the space agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for the past 45 years, the average number of cataloged object re-entries has been one per day. ‘Stuff will hang up there until gravity brings it down’, noted Launius. ‘If you get enough of that up there, just getting through it could be an issue for mission launches’.” This interesting Space.com analysis is posted here.

By purest coincidence, this event coincides with the launch of a new website at the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva here — specifically on matters relating to the Conference on Disarmament, where China and Russia have been lobbying for years for the launch of talks on the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS), and the U.S. has been refusing. The website launch was announced by email on Wednesday 20 February.

As the first CNN story mentioned above reported today, “The military timed its shootdown attempt so that resulting debris would tumble into the atmosphere and not interfere with other satellites, said Christina Rocca, a U.S. diplomat and expert on disarmament. Her comments were included in an online United Nations report on this month’s Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland. The military also timed its efforts to minimize the chances that debris would hit populated areas. But the United States is ‘prepared to offer assistance to governments to mitigate the consequences of any satellite debris impacts on their territory’, according to a report of Rocca’s remarks on the Web site of the Geneva office of the UN”. This CNN story is posted here.

See Ambassador Christina Rocca’s fascinating 15 February statement to the Conference on Disarmament plenary meeting on this then-impending satellite shoot-down — where she says: “We have recently modified three SM-3 missiles and three U.S. Navy ships to perform this mission … Our transparency in notifying foreign governments and the broader international community is consistent with our commitment to safe and responsible space operations. This extraordinary engagement is an emergency response to prevent the possible loss of life. This engagement is not part of an anti-satellite development and testing program, we do not intend to retain the technical capability resulting from the modifications required to carry out the engagement.” — here.