David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, has recently released a report with colleague Andrea Scheel entitled “Unprecedented Projected Nuclear Growth in the Middle East”.
According to the report, the “conflict-prone” region faces the reality that in the coming two decades, 12 to 13 nuclear power reactors are being constructed, with the ISIS estimating annual plutonium discharge at about 13,000 tons (kilograms) – pointing out that only 8 kilograms is required to construct a nuclear weapon. The report warns that by 2020, there may be adequate supplies of plutonium in the region to build 1,700 nuclear weapons.
Nuclear power is becoming increasingly popular in the region due to fears of power shortages as populations continue to grow, and the nuclear plants are planned as power stations, but nevertheless, there will be an ability to build weapons. ISIS feels that America has not adequately addressed nuclear concerns in the Mideast and with Iran’s continued defiance of UN sanctions; other countries are expected to launch similar projects towards construction of nuclear power stations.
Additional measures must be taken to prevent uranium enrichment and plutonium separation, pointing out that Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Algeria evaded detection of their clandestine nuclear programs. Less than half of the 15 Mideast countries that have expressed interest in nuclear power have signed or ratified the additional protocol.
Jordan, Libya, Turkey and Kuwait have the protocol in force and Iran, Iraq, Morocco, and Tunisia have signed it. The institute is calling on the incoming American administration of Barak Obama to push towards institutionalizing a new norm, that the supply of a nuclear reactor requires that state to have the Additional Protocol in place, permitting increased transparency and watchdog efforts by monitoring agencies.
The report continues to cite concerns; seeking increased regional cooperation towards a Mideast that one day will be a nuclear weapons free zone. Some Israeli officials fear the report may prompt the incoming US administration to begin pressuring Israel to rid itself of its nuclear arsenal.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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One Response
Populations actually are NOT growing! Populations are in decline in the Arab states of the middle east. In every Arab Muslim country that becomes more westernized with more interaction with the US and the West, the populations are influenced by Western cultural values and the birth rate drops significantly. The numbers bear this out. See here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1225036811974
There is NO reason whatsoever for these countries to turn nuclear EXCEPT that the western powers need an excuse to arm them with nuclear weapons INDIRECTLY as a proxy to destroy Israel without having to dirty their own hands. They want to lay the blame with the Arab “savages” even though it is the West who is finding every excuse to give these hostile states nuclear capabilities. Their populations are DECLINING!