Iran Receives Second Nuclear Fuel Shipment

Iran received another 11 tons of nuclear fuel from Russia on Friday to operate the Bushehr nuclear power plant now under construction in the south of the country, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2007).

The second batch of uranium fuel arrived based on a previously agreed schedule, said Ahmad Fayazbakhsh, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

“The amount of fuel delivered to Bushehr was equal to the previous shipment,” Iranian state media quoted Fayazbakhsh quoted as saying. “It was delivered within a specified timetable.”

Iranian media reported that Russia plans to send 82 tons of nuclear fuel to Iran over eight shipments.  The first shipment completed in mid-December and last week’s batch both consisted of 11 tons of uranium (Associated Press I/Google News, Dec. 28).

Tehran expects next summer to begin running the Bushehr plant at half of its 1,000-megawatt capacity, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday.

“Half of the capacity of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be launched in the summer of the coming year,” Mottaki said, according to Iran’s official news agency.

Mottaki said Russia plans to complete the remaining nuclear fuel shipments by mid-2008, allowing Iran to begin operating the light-water reactor.  A Russian firm is currently constructing at the Bushehr facility (Associated Press II/USA Today, Dec. 30).

Meanwhile, an independent study has found that a full-scale nuclear conflict between Israel and a nuclear-armed Iran would result in the annihilation of the Iranian state and the deaths of as many as 28 million Iranians while leaving open the possibility for Israel to survive, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Israel’s Arrow 2 missile defense system and an array of U.S.-built missile defenses would together intercept most nuclear-equipped missiles fired from Iran, capping Israeli deaths at 200,000.

Israel would also hold more than 200 nuclear weapons in such a conflict while Iran would hypothetically be limited to fewer than 50 weapons that would be far less powerful, according to the study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  High-resolution satellite photography would give Israeli missiles higher accuracy, the study added.

“Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term, though Israeli recovery is theoretically possible in population and economic terms,” analyst Anthony Cordesman said in the report.

The study said that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the threat of “mutually assured destruction” would prevent Tehran from using them against Israel as it prevented nuclear conflict from breaking out between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

If Syria joined with Iran, it could fire missiles loaded with mustard gas, nerve agents or anthrax at Israel, killing an additional 800,000 Israelis.  However, Israel’s retaliation to such an attack would claim as many as 18 million Syrian lives, the report said.

The study did not estimate potential long-term casualties that would result from radiation poisoning and other effects of a nuclear conflict (Andy Soltis, New York Post, Dec. 25).

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