Bloomberg – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who last week announced Iran’s enrichment of uranium, said his country’s forces will use “the latest technology” against enemies and “cut off the hand of any aggressor.”
…“The army must always be equipped and ready, and have mastered the latest technology, to respond to any aggression,” Ahmadinejad said today during a military parade south of Tehran, according to state-run news agencies. “In the face of enemies, it is like a meteorite. It will cut off the hand of any aggressor and leave the enemy covered in shame.”
Bloomberg – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who last week announced Iran’s enrichment of uranium, said his country’s forces will use “the latest technology” against enemies and “cut off the hand of any aggressor.”
Ahmadinejad’s hardened rhetoric on Army Day follows a week of increasing tension over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear plans, his anti-Israel comments and a vow to “have a dialogue from a position of power.” Envoys from the United Nations Security Council’s permanent members, and Germany, meet in Moscow today to discuss the dispute. Crude oil rose to a record $70.88 a barrel in New York on concern the issue will lead to military conflict.
“The army must always be equipped and ready, and have mastered the latest technology, to respond to any aggression,” Ahmadinejad said today during a military parade south of Tehran, according to state-run news agencies. “In the face of enemies, it is like a meteorite. It will cut off the hand of any aggressor and leave the enemy covered in shame.”
The Security Council demanded the suspension of Iran’s program by the end of this month, during which the UN’s nuclear agency is checking Iranian claims that it produced a supply of enriched uranium sufficient to fuel a reactor. The U.S. considers the program a front for the development of nuclear weapons. Iran, the world’s second-largest holder of oil and gas, maintains the program is intended only for the production of electricity.
Concealed Program
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency on March 8 referred the case to the Security Council after three years of IAEA inspections failed to conclude that Iran’s atomic work is peaceful. In November 2003, the IAEA had already condemned Iran for concealing parts of its nuclear program for 18 years.
Israel may need to take action to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Avigdor Lieberman, who may become the country’s internal security minister, said yesterday. Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel’s destruction, last week said the Jewish state was a “permanent threat,” in a speech in which he repeated his doubts about the reality of the Holocaust.
Israel’s UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, yesterday included Iran in an “axis of terror” that includes Syria and the Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Authority. His comments came during a Security Council meeting, which followed a suicide bombing that killed nine people in Tel Aviv.
Expanding Sites
Iran has expanded its underground nuclear sites in the cities of Isfahan and Natanz, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said in an April 14 report, citing recent commercial satellite imagery.
That may be a sign Iran is gearing up to resist U.S. military action. The New Yorker magazine on April 8 said in a report by Seymour Hersh that the U.S. may use air strikes and tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s suspected atomic weapons program, including underground facilities.
Olli Heinonen, deputy head of the IAEA, and a team of inspectors will visit Iran April 21 to investigate the country’s assertions that it enriched uranium, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said.
The Iranian government said 164 centrifuges were used to produce nuclear fuel on a laboratory scale. To reach industrial- scale production, Iran is planning to install 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant this year, and then expand to 54,000, Iran’s deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi said on April 12.
Thomas Fingar, deputy U.S. director of national intelligence, last week said Iran is still “some years away” from developing a nuclear bomb.
