Sketching out a Uranium Deal with Iran

On the radar: Reactor fuel for halting enrichment; Plutonium facility on shaky ground; Ajad’s speech; A hotline to Iran; Updating a bomb for North Korea; Yellowcake in Libya; Steps toward the CTBT; Gen. Hayden on Syria; and Drunken fishermen ram submarine.

September 23, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

Ahmadinejad clarifies sales and cap deal - Iran offered to stop producing 20% enriched uranium if the U.S. agrees to sell Iran fuel for a reactor that produces medical isotopes. But Iran will continue making LEU and will not give up its stockpiles, Ahmadinejad said.

--The U.S. should pursue the deal says ISIS’ David Albright. "Take it as a small proposal, sell two years of fuel and cap enrichment at five percent. If you can curtail that, you are better off." http://ow.ly/6CS2Z

Nuclear facilities and earthquakes don’t mix - Los Alamos’ proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility is slated to be built in a seismically risky area, reports The New Mexican. “Escalating concerns about the earthquake hazard also have led to the rapid escalation of costs, from under a billion dollars in 2004 to the current range of $3.7 billion and $5.9 billion.”

--Before Fukushima, NNSA was almost finished with its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the new plutonium facility. Shortly after, they added “a great deal of additional information about the seismic environment” around the proposed multibillion-dollar nuclear facility. http://ow.ly/6CRKM

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Cliffs notes on Ahmadinejad’s speech - In case you walked out of the General Assembly, Barbara Slavin points out some interesting nuggets among Ajad’s platitudes and outright whoppers from New York.

--”This is not the Ahmadinejad of yore,” notes Slavin as she explains his decline and the blistering political assault he faces in Tehran. http://ow.ly/6CTrz

If only diplomacy were easy - The U.S. needs to overcome its reluctance towards dealing with nondemocratic countries and focus on high priorities like preventing a conflict between Iranian and U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, argues Ted Galen Carpenter. “Establishing a hotline would be a good first step.” http://ow.ly/6CXSV

Hardening an old bomb, eyeing North Korea - A better earth penetrating nuclear weapon could bolster deterrence with North Korea by allowing the U.S. to hold at risk more of the North’s hardened tunnels, argue Jeffrey Lewis and Eldridge Colby.

--How could the U.S. do it without testing or building a “new” bomb? Change the external casing of the B83, argue Lewis and Colby. http://ow.ly/6CRHW

Yellowcake in Libya - The discovery of what appears to be yellowcake uranium in an unguarded storage facility in southern Libya, just weeks after a State Department official stated that Libya’s nuclear materials have been secured, is “sobering and alarming,” said Joe Cirincione. http://ow.ly/6CTkT

--What does a facility potentially filled with tons of yellowcake look like? From @BenCNN: http://yfrog.com/nvmi9iwj

Steps toward the CTBT - The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is essential to preventing proliferation, and it’s time to work to overcome the final barriers to its entry into force. The US, China, and other key states should lead the way by ratifying the treaty, encouraging other hold-out states to ratify, and taking steps to strengthen the international monitoring system, writes Daryl Kimball. http://ow.ly/6CQ2b

Gen. Hayden on intel and the Syrian reactor - “We were wrong about Iraq’s nuclear program. Fair enough. History will tell how right or wrong we were about Iran. I can accept that. But we got al-Kibar right. And the debate in the U.S. government over its fate was informed by hard facts,” writes former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden, responding to recent accounts from Cheney and Woodward. http://ow.ly/6CW35

Drunken fishermen ram atomic submarine - With the entire crew drunk and below deck, a fishing boat rammed a surfaced Russian submarine off the coast of Kamchatka. http://ow.ly/6CRC1