Israel Plotting Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

I just wanted to add my two cents. I don't know if the attack will actually use nukes, but I do expect it to happen during or after the Troop Surge that will bring 10,000 to 30,000 troops into Kuwait and Iraq, the arrival of the two carrier battle groups enroute, and about the time frame for the Gulf Cooperation Council joint US exercise in Feb. That exercise is reported to end up being the largest one ever in the gulf. Any thoughts?

Like I said Israel has been planning dor this scenario for a while now and it can reach Iran (via several options) with no problem. That's not the issue however, the consideration is the global and long term fallout if they went ahead with such an attack.

Israel denies planning attacks The State. US
Israel denies UK report on planing nuclear strike on Iran CCTV, China
Israel denies plan to launch strike on Iran Irish Independent
Israel denies plan for Iran nuclear strike Scotsman, UK
Israel denies plan to hit Iran's nuclear program CTV, Canada
Israel denies plans for nuclear strike on Iran Malaysia Sun
Israel denies British reports of planning strike against Iran Radio Australia
Israel denies British report about plan to attack Iran European Jewish Press, Belgium
Israel denies plan to hit Iran enrichment plant with tactical nukes Haaretz, Israel

Super top secret rumor leaked out that "The Onion" has bought the UK Times, so maybe folks should post stories from there also.

- U.S. Intelligence Confirms: The Hillbillies Have the Bomb
- U.S. Intelligence: Nukehavistan May Have Nuclear Weapons
- Price Of Nuclear Secrets Plummeting

FredT,

As I recall, the deepest they ever sunk a -11 was some 16ft into the permafrost up in Alaska. Obviously that is not enough to couple to any significant distance down through the earth nor to cap the blast.

What you have to realize however is that if you treat the weapon as a super Have Void/BLU-109 type equivalent (machined case, superbly balanced fins, perfect aeros*) as a function of going through the front door or vents, once inside the complex, you get the equivalent of the Ultimate Thermobaric Effect.

Now, yes, they may have blast doors and isolation voids and channelizing geometry in place to help with that. But it won't be enough.

As a large percentage of the upper levels will likely collapse and a HUGE amount of reconstruction be required, just to dig a /new/ access route on a separate axis, which does not pass through tons of irradiated rubble.

And frankly, I think people are also underestimating the requirements both to get heavy equipment into and maintain a habitable environment within a 'super deep' complex. Indeed, by as little as the 400ft level you are dealing with all kinds of water table intrusion, local soil heating/expansion/contraction and gas issues which make the installation of large equipment galleries (look up Oak Ridge for the worlds largest building in WWII) required for a concerted nuke manufacturing effort.

This is what makes me wonder how much of a cottage-dispersaled industry approach the Iranians can be making.

But in any case, why hammer your way through a 70 /or/ 130ft thick tortoise shell defense when you can jam a soda straw down it's throat and blow it up from the inside with the nuclear equivalent of a Molten Mentos + Soda Pop Effect? They have to have heavy equipment surface access somewhere...


KPl.


*Indeed, I would be _very_ surprised if modern nuclear force maintenance these days did not in fact include adapting at least a shielded IAM strapon kit from the JDAM program for the primary freefall munitions.

Originally posted by Nygdan
The israelis are so good at war because they train to nearly the point of excess.

Didn't they lose the last one?

Lebanon

Hezbollah

Well what about this though??

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- The firm denial by Israel of a report in the London Sunday Times that its Air Force was training for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities was as predictable as it is hollow. There is no doubt that Israel's fighter-bombers have been training for a long-distance mission; NATO sources say they have for weeks been watching Israeli warplanes running flights the length of the Mediterranean to Gibraltar -- and nobody expects an Israeli strike on Gibraltar.

Source

It is worth adding that Ahmadinejad said: "The aim of the resolution, passed by the enemies, is to pave the ground for some elements in Iran … to scare our people and to weaken the nation's will." In response to the UN sanctions.

Interesting that he uses the word "enemies" in this context.

Meanwhile, pressure on Iran continues to mount, in other news links today:

U.S. names Iranian bank a weapons proliferator

Olmert's visit to touch upon Iran nuke issue, FM spokesman confirms

Interesting that he uses the word "enemies" in this context.

What do you think he views countries (Israël-USA) trying to destroy his country? As friends? That denies him to be equal to the superpowers, to have civilian and military advancement in nuclear energy? Because we are SO better than them, we are the axis of good after all and they are the axis of evil... if Bush said so it must be truth...

how do you feel about the nukes that are going to land in Iran this year? There will make the weather awfully hot given the fact that a nuclear enrichment facility - alleged to be breaking enrichment rules- is going to get hit with a neutron bomb! neutrons that will penetrate earth superbly reaching the highly enriched fissile material inside? How big could potentially the bang be?



It looks like that Israel is set on defending itself in the form of a preemptive nuclear strike so I am just curious to see if I can ascertain how much the cost of such a battle would be in toady's dollars?

can that money be invested in Iran paving the way to Iranians for getting rid of the current Iranian regime?




[edit on 9-1-2007 by zurvan]

That's a very interesting idea zurvan and I appreciate the apparent effort to understand nuclear weapons that it demonstrates, but there are several factors which make a chain reaction highly unlikely or flat out impossible.

First of all, a neutron bomb is highly unlikely to be used because it would not be sufficient to destroy a hardened target in most cases. They function by using a fissile core to trigger tritium-deuterium fusion, which allows them to be smaller and have less fallout while still generating free neutrons, but even with the fusion boost they are relatively small, and get most of their extra neutron power through design rather than fuel, specifically by omitting the neutron reflective shell which is normally used to increase the efficiency of nuclear weapons. The practical upshot of this is that they just don't have to pack much punch to do their job- they are primarily anti-personel weapons. They wouldn't move earth the way you'd need to to bust a bunker (in fact some seem to think, and I think they might be right, that depending on how deep the facility is, even one strategic nuke may not do it) (incidentally, speaking of strategic weapons, i figured out why the bombing run is being talked about- Israel's missiles are based on America's Pershing missiles and, at least for the Jericho I, the CEP is 1,000 meters.)

Second, even if a neutron bomb were used, a chain reaction is unlikely because of the distance between the exposion and the fissile material. Very careful engineering goes into nuclear weapons- surface area is minimized to provide depth, increasing the probability of any one neutron striking a nucleus on its way through the mass, and reflectors are used to take advantage of ricochet. This is necessary because an atom is mostly empty space- you can fire a neutron right between the electron shell and the nucleus and not trigger a reaction. Probability equations are available on wikipedia but I don't pretend to understand the math.

The upshot of this is that because neutrons are being radiated at a distance, relatively few of them will even strike the fissile material beneath, much in the way that the farther you get away from a sprinkler, the less spray you get on you, even if you are still within the sprinkler's range.

The fissile material will not be arrayed to maximize hit probability- most of it will be randomly distributed as Uranium Hexaflouride gas, more will be in yellow cake form (both of which will have an enrichment quality well below weapons grade) and relatively little of the material actually inside the facility is likely to be weapons grade, fully enriched, meaning that even if a neutron were to strike a U-235 nucleus (as opposed to a U-238 nucleus, in which case it would just create a an unstable U-239 atom which would eventually but non-explosively decay into a Plutonium atom) the split U-235's free neutrons would be relatively unlikely to inturn strike other U-235 nuclei, and a chain reaction would be extremely unlikely to an extent that most people would simply call it impossible.



I'd be happy to help you research the cost of a war on Iran, but you'll have to specify what kind of war (air strikes and let it all fall apart, ground invasion, lengthy occupation, etc) and who the participants would be.

Originally posted by The Vagabond

I'd be happy to help you research the cost of a war on Iran, but you'll have to specify what kind of war (air strikes and let it all fall apart, ground invasion, lengthy occupation, etc) and who the participants would be.

Thanks

Well good question, lets go with this hyposiis: Israel strikes irans facilties using tachtical nuclear weapons on some. I am not sure but who do you think will end up on whom side? lets go with the assumption that Iran is in it alone?

how much money do you think will be spend before the region reaches another stable state in which the war with Iran would have stopped. Please also include cost of damage caused and the repair cost to allicance to go into a nuclear war in Iran?



[edit on 10-1-2007 by zurvan]

Now that is a difficult war to put a price tag on. Figuring out how many troops will be used and what it costs to deploy them is failry easy, and one can always average past economic damage in war to get answers there...

A war between Israel and Iran could take several forms, and so we need to talk about how the war plays out before we can try to figure out what it would cost.

In order to really have a respectable war, they'd have to try and go through Iraq and possibly Syria to get to one another, unless Iran deployed troops to Syria well in advance of the war in a more peaceable manner. That seems rather unlikely.


Iran can and almost certainly would throw everything its missile forces have, right down to their steel-toed boots, right at Israel, and for the most part the accuracy of these attacks would not be very specific. Unlike ancient artillery rockets used by Hizbollah, they probably would hit people, but they wouldn't likely to hit the building or even necessarily the neighborhood they were shooting for in a lot of cases.

You'd see significant damage to Israeli cities which may not be all that easy to project a cost for, although I think the most likely method is to try and determine how much more accurate the missles would be compared to Hizbollah's attacks, how many more would be fired, and try to project a cost from that. We could also check this against bomb damage to Iraqi civilian infrastructure in 1991-92 by dividing out the total damage over the number of sortees and then adjusting for accuracy and average payload. Of course I think PPP might play a role in that calculation since all buildings are not equal from country to country, so no promises that it'll be spot on- I'm no economist.

The big question though is whether or not Israel would retaliate with strategic nuclear weapons, airstrikes on oil fields, etc. Israel actually doesn't have the conventional missile forces or inflict all that much damage. This kind of war has just never been a priority to them because they have a nuclear deterrent and the ability to defend their borders and don't necessarily need long range missile forces to an extent that would justify the cost.

I'll try to pull some numbers together soon.

why do you think the usa is sending more troops, cause they know that something is going to happen over there and they want to protect their assets such as OIL. we have a large battlegroup stationed out there right now. how convenient don't you think. we do not need any more gulf war senarios of burnning of oil wells. so we send more troops to be in the middle or between isreal and iran. which iraq is anyways. more how convenient the iran president visited venezualla. why,,,, oil. i told you that these problems will all start in february and time magazine will give tips on the going ons over there. don't you find it funny the big oil people are getting together in february. this is when it begins. in february sometime. it will occurr like domminos falling. this stupid bush bill, better not be anacted either. 18-42 to draft. im not going, they can fight their own money power wars im staying home. they can all get ffffffffffffff. send them over to fight their own money power wars. the usa don't care if isreal bombs iran or not, just as long as it does nothing to the oil wells.