Bush threatens Iran over nukes as Israeli nuclear whistleblower is silenced

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable threat to peace in the Middle East and a mortal danger to Israel, President Bush said on Wednesday, adding that any such threat would be "dealt with" by the United States and its allies.
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"The development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is intolerable. And a program is intolerable. Otherwise they will be dealt with, starting through the United Nations."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=6&u=/nm/20040421/pl_nm/iran_usa_bush_dc

ASHKELON, Israel (AP) - Mordechai Vanunu walked out of prison on Wednesday, 18 years after exposing Israel's nuclear secrets, and immediately defied Israeli restrictions by speaking with international media to demand the Jewish state open its reactor to international inspection.
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Vanunu was a low-level technician at Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona before he gave descriptions and photos of the plant to The Sunday Times of London in 1986. Using his information, experts said Israel had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
A Mossad agent lured Vanunu to Rome, where he was seized, brought to Israel and put on trial for treason.
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Because Israel is not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency has no power to look into its nuclear program.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4004777,00.html

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Israel continues to produce atomic weapons and already has as many as 300 warheads, experts said today as the country released a man imprisoned for 18 years for leaking nuclear secrets.
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Israel neither denies nor confirms that it has nuclear weapons.
Through the end of 2003, Israel had enough nuclear material to make 100 to 200 weapons, said David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear inspector who runs the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
Even the low-end estimate "is huge" for a country in such a volatile region, Albright told The Associated Press.
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Israel continues to make nuclear weapons, said Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a former IAEA nuclear safety employee who now is a professor of physics at the University of Salzburg specializing in illicit trafficking and nuclear terrorism.

"One hundred and fifty is the best estimate at the moment" of how many weapons the country holds, Steinhaeusler said, adding that the figure hasn't been verified.

With air, sea and land-based launching systems, "they have the Middle East under control," he said.

Avner Cohen, an expert on Israel and nuclear weapons at the Center for International and Security Studies in Maryland, said ``there is a lot of uncertainty" about the number of weapons held by Israel.

"There are all kind of estimates, from the upper teens on the lower side to over 300 on the higher side," he said.

John Simpson, director of the Mountbatten Centre of International Studies at Britain's University of Southampton, estimated the number of atomic weapons held by Israel at no more than 200.

Simpson said his estimate was based on the presumed output of plutonium by a reactor in Dimona, and on the number of tunnels in cliffs from which the weapons could be deployed.

"What the Israelis might well have is the capability to test very rapidly . . . and that would enable them to move from a very conservative weapons design to a much less conservative weapons design," Simpson said. That would mean that the country quickly could increase its arsenal after beginning testing, he said.

The lack of debate within Israel about the country's nuclear weapons has created uncertainty about what the purpose of the arsenal is, Simpson added.

"It is not clear that these issues have been thought through," he said. "If there was a crisis, actions could be taken almost at the spur of the moment, without a clear analysis of the consequences."

Vanunu's release could be the focus point for a debate in Israel about the country's nuclear ambiguity, said Uzi Even, a former employee of Israel's nuclear research centre in Dimona who now is a professor at the University of Tel Aviv.

That policy now is outdated in part because of Libya's moves to abandon its nuclear program, Iran's co-operation with the IAEA and the lack of evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, Even said.

The Dimona reactor is aging and ought to be shut down soon, giving Israel a chance to use the closure as a "bargaining chip" in negotiations, he added.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky declined to comment on Israel, saying his agency has no jurisdiction there.

But ElBaradei said in a lecture delivered earlier this month at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, that the international community "cannot continue to have this imbalance in the region (with) Israel sitting on nuclear weapons and everybody else trying to stick to the Nonproliferation Treaty."

ElBaradei suggested that Israel was unlikely to readily change its stance.

"Nuclear deterrence or nuclear weapons (are) deeply ingrained in the Israeli psychology," he said. "They think . . . that as long as many people, individuals (and) groups continue to talk about the destruction of Israel, they just simply cannot afford to give up the nuclear option in the absence of a comprehensive peace accepted by the people of the region."

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