The deadly truth about Tehran’s nuclear weapons program military dimensions

16 May 2014 by Stephen E Hughes Association of Geo-Strategic Analysis

IAEA 2011 Iran Safeguards Report: Iran’s Work and Foreign Assistance on a Multipoint Initiation System for a Nuclear Weapon.

The IAEA 2011 report summary noted that, “The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured program, and that some activities may still be ongoing.” [1]

“The military annexes to the November 2011 IAEA report indicated that Iran has made major progress in assembling all the technology and developing the manufacturing skills and equipment necessary to design a fission warhead. The annexes indicated that Iran is closer to building a warhead small enough to mount on a missile and test it through simulated explosive testing than has previously been publically reported. IAEA reporting since that time has provided more indicators that Iran is close to being able to test a Uranium fission device once it obtains weapons grade Uranium, and key US experts indicate that Iran may have acquired more weapons design and passive test data than the IAEA has yet announced.”

The Gulf Military Balance Volume II: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions and Options for Deterrence, Defense, Containment, and Preventive Strikes By Anthony H. Cordesman and Bryan Gold July 18, 2013 page 77, csis.org/files/publication/120222_Iran_Gulf_Mil_Bal_II_WMD.pdf

Professor Danilenko Vyacheslav IAEA 2011 Iran Safeguards Report: Iran’s Work and Foreign Assistance on a Multipoint Initiation System for a Nuclear Weapon. Most of that evidence surrounds one Professor Vyacheslav Danilenko, a high explosives expert from the Cold War era. The IAEA solidly confirmed that he was in Iran from 1996-2002 and returned to Russia. The IAEA verified through three separate sources, including the expert himself that he was in Islamic Republic during that time. Reuters reported that from the 1950s until his retirement, Danilenko worked at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF), which is a top secret Soviet nuclear weapons complex research center in the Ural Mountains. Yet it is strange he persists in claiming “I am not a nuclear physicist”. [2]

Russia is considered the world’s leader in the development of experimental explosive devices and techniques for the study of shock waves. It was not until the early 1990s that the actual details of these devices were first described in the open scientific literature. Professor Danilenko worked with many of the greats of Russian nuclear weapons scientists including Zababakhan, Krupnikov & Kuzl. Krupnikov, who helped develop the electrical contact shock wave diagnostics for the first Russian nuclear weapon,

According to Professor Danilenko he worked in the Islamic Republic for “ostensibly to assist Tehran in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultradispersed diamonds (UDD), where he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications.” To note , nanodiamond process is strikingly similar to the process that leads to the miniaturization of nuclear weapons detonators. He told the IAEA that he lectured and constructed an explosive firing cylinder which was not designed for experiments on spherical systems. [3] Professor Danilenko worked with leading Cold War era explosives experts in the Soviet nuclear weapons program and developed understanding of the fundamentals of detonation, including shock compression. He also has experience in the important area of the diagnostics of high explosions. His publications include work on high-speed photography and describe optical techniques by which fiber optic cables are used to capture the time of arrival of explosive shock waves.

R265 Shock Generator System: “The IAEA also obtained from member states details of the design, development, and possible testing of what is called in IAEA information the R265 shock generator system, which is a round multipoint initiation system that would fit inside the payload chamber of the Shahab 3 missile tri-conic nose cone. This device involves a hemispherical aluminum shell with an inside radius of 265 mm and wall thickness of 10 mm thick. Outer channels are cut into the outer surface of the shell, each channel one by one millimeter, and contain explosive material. Each channel terminates in a cylindrical hole, 5 mm in diameter, that is drilled though the shell and contains an explosive pellet. The geometrical pattern formed by channels and holes is arranged in quadrants on the outer hemispheric surface which allows a single central point of initiation and the simultaneous detonation of explosives in all the holes on the hemisphere. This in turn allows the simultaneous initiation of all the high explosives under the shell by one exploding bridgewire (EBW). If properly prepared, the R265 constitutes the outer part of an explosively driven implosion system for a nuclear device. The outer radius of the R265 system is 275 millimeters, or a diameter of 550 millimeters, less than the estimated diameter of about 600 millimeters available inside the payload chamber of a Shahab 3 (or the Sejjil-2 missile).” Institute for Science and International Security Washington D.C. [4]

1). Rethinking Our Approach to Iran’s Search for the Bomb By MAY 7, 2012 Anthony H. Cordesman http://csis.org/publication/rethinking-our-approach-irans-search-bomb

2). Soviet scientist denies helping Iran develop atomic bomb

By Guy Falconbridge MOSCOW | Thu Nov 10, 2011

(Reuters) – A Soviet scientist has denied being the brains behind Iran’s nuclear program, despite U.S. media reports that he helped put Tehran on the threshold of making an atomic bomb, a Russian newspaper said on Thursday. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/us-iran-nuclear-russia-idUSTRE7A91YL20111110

3) ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report: Part II – Iran’s Work and Foreign Assistance on a Multipoint Initiation System for a Nuclear Weapon by David Albright, Paul Brannan, Mark Gorwitz and Andrea Stricker November 13, 2011 http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/irans-work-and-foreign-assistance-on-a-multipoint-initiation-system-for-a-n/

4). Revisiting Danilenko and the Explosive Chamber at Parchin: A Review Based on Open Sources by David Albright and Robert Avagyan September 17, 2012 isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/revisiting-danilenko-and-the-explosive-chamber-at-parchin-a-review-based-on/