Consider the Consequences of Bombing Iran=92s Nuclear Power Plants, and
Pray
By Floyd Rudmin
Global Research, April 29, 2008
The US government has recently increased the belligerence of its tone
towards Iran.
A string of re****ts in a variety of newspapers suggest war is on the
way: the Mail & Guardian April 1, the Rutland Herald April 4, the
Telegraph April 7, the International Herald Tribune April 11, the
Wa****ngton Post April 12, the Wa****ngton Times April 16, the
Progressive April 24, the Santa Monica Mirror April 24, Asia Times
April 25, the International Herald Tribune April 25, the Toronto Star
April 25, the Christian Science Monitor April 25, the Wa****ngton Post
April 26, the Wa****ngton Times April 26, First Post April 26, Los
Angeles Times April 26, the Wa****ngton Times April 26, and the
Telegraph April 26.
Two offensive aircraft carriers fleets are now on station near Iran
and another is re****tedly en route. In late March, Saudi Arabia
practiced how it will cope with nuclear fallout following a US attack
on Iran. In early April, Israel practiced how it will cope with
retaliatory missiles following a US attack on Iran. Everyone in the
region is getting ready for the bombing of Iran=92s nuclear power plant
and enrichment facilities. Iran, too, is ready for war.
The US is said to have 10,000 targets in Iran. Primary among these
are all nuclear facilities, including the nuclear power plant at
Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast near Kuwait, and the nuclear
enrichment facilities in Natanz near Esfahan. Bushehr is an
industrial city, with nearly 1 million residents. As many as 70,000
foreign engineers work in the region, which includes a large gas
field. Natanz is Iran=92s primary enrichment site, north of Esfahan,
which also has nuclear research facilities. Esfahan is a world
heritage city with a population of 2 million.
Iran=92s Bushehr nuclear reactor has 82 tons of enriched uranium (U235)
now loaded into it, according to Israeli and Chinese news re****ts.
The plant is scheduled to become operational this summer, producing
electricity. The Natanz enrichment facility is operating a full
capacity, enriching uranium for use in reactors according to IAEA
re****ts.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the uranium 235 used in
nuclear reactors has a half life of 700 million years. As nuclear
reactor fuel is used, it turns into uranium 238, which has a half life
of 4.5 billion years. These radioactive isotopes are dangerous to
health because they emit alpha particles and because they are
chemically toxic. When inhaled, they damage lung tissue. When
ingested, they damage kidneys and cause cancer in bones and in liver
tissues. According to a recent review of medical research, uranium
exposure causes babies to be deformed or born dead.
Never in history has it happened that nuclear power plants and nuclear
enrichment facilities have been deliberately bombed. Such facilities,
everywhere in the world, operate under severe safety conditions
because the release of radioactive materials is deadly, immediately
and also long after exposure. If the USA or Israel deliberately bomb
a fully fueled nuclear power plant or nuclear fuel enrichment
facilities, containment will be breached; radioactive elements will be
released into the environment. There will be horrific deaths for
families in the surrounding vicinity. The Union of Concerned
Scientists has estimated 3 million deaths would result in 3 weeks from
bombing the nuclear enrichment facilities near Esfahan, and the
contamination would cover Afghanistan, Pakistan, all the way to India.
Reactors and enrichment facilities are built of extra strong
concrete, often with multiple layers of containment domes, often built
underground. Bombing such facilities will require powerful
explosives, earth penetrator war heads, maybe nuclear warheads. The
explosions will blow the contamination high into the atmosphere.
Where will it go is a question that is difficult to predict.
During the January 1991 Gulf War, many oil wells in Kuwait were set
afire. According to the US State Department, =93black rains were
re****ted in Turkey, and black snow fell in the foothills of the
Himalaya Mountains=94. The radioactive plumes from bombing Iran=92s
nuclear facilities would reach the same destinations, in the same
weather conditions. But the radioactive plume might go north, into
Europe. During the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by the USA, UK,
Australia, and others, armour piercing shells and bombs tipped with
depleted uranium (U238) were used. It took 9 days for uranium
particles from these weapons in Iraq to reach England, where air
sample filters showed a 300% increase in uranium particles
attributable to the war. The weather patterns at the time that
carried the particles to England passed over central Turkey, the
Ukraine, Austria, Poland, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, to England,
then over Norway and Finland to the Arctic. This was re****ted by The
Times, summarizing a study in European Biology and
Bioelectromagnetics.
The nuclear fallout from bombing Iran will have a half life of 700
million years. That is a duration difficult to comprehend. Jesus
Christ was preaching a mere 2 thousand years ago. In the evolution of
humans, our earliest ape-like ancestors were walking upright a mere 5
million years ago. The Bush administration and its Israeli advisors
are now planning to contaminate the planet for 700 million years.
=46rom the rhetoric of Presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary
Clinton, they, too, think that is a good idea. The US media seem to
applaud.
Either Americans do not understand what it is they are preparing to
do, or they think themselves immune to the consequences. The planet
is not large. What goes around, comes around. Smoke from the Gulf
War oil fires went around the world and was detected in South
America. Radioactive fallout from bombing a nuclear reactor will also
go far, especially considering that it has millions of years to make
the trip.
The Persian Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran have
more than half the world=92s known oil reserves. The 1981 study by
Fetter and Tsipis in Scientific American on =93Catastrophic Releases of
Radioactivity=94 estimated that bombing a nuclear reactor would cause
8600 square miles around the reactor to be uninhabitable, depending on
which way the wind blows. Bombing the Bushehr reactor will mean half
of the world=92s oil is instantly inaccessible. Bombing Iran means that
Americans will not be driving cars any where, any more, for a long,
long time. The American Way of Life will be finished. An economic
collapse unimagined by Americans will follow. Mechanized farming and
food trans****t will be finished. Famine is a possibility. Food riots
are a certainty, in the land of plenty, with the fuel gauge on empty.
The nations of the world cannot rely on the USA and its Israeli
advisors to be rational about bombing reactors. It is insane to say,
=93All options are on the table=94, and it is a crime against humanity.
The USA and Israel are preparing the public to accept such insanity by
announcing that they successfully bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor,
with no ill effects. Israel has also recently released video of its
1981 bombing of the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq. See, it=92s easy.
Nothing bad happens. But those were both construction sites, not
loaded reactors full of tons of enriched uranium.
Peoples and governments in the Persian Gulf, in the Middle East, in
Europe, and down wind in India and China need to take effective
actions now to stop this insanity. Once radiation is released, UN
resolutions cannot put it back in containment.
Americans with family and friends serving in the military forces in
the Persian Gulf, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan need to wonder how
expendable the Bush administration considers them to be.
The planet pleads, =93Do not bomb nuclear reactors=94.
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Copyright Floyd Rudmin, Global Research, 2008
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