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09-22-2008, 04:23 PM
Report confirms Israel's nuclear arsenal
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:54:44 GMT
Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor
The Sunday Times has revealed that an Israeli factory beneath the Negev desert is manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons for atomic bombs.
The secrets of the subterranean factory have been uncovered by The Sunday Times Insight team.
Hidden beneath the Negev desert, the factory has been producing atomic warheads for the past 20 years. Now it has almost certainly begun manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons, with yields big enough to destroy entire cities, the report says.
Information about Israel's capacity to manufacture the bomb comes from the testimony of a former Dimona employee, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu.
Vanunu's testimony and pictures, confirm that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of nuclear warheads.
Israel has possessed its secret weapons factory for more than two decades, and its nuclear facility is equipped with French plutonium extracting technology, which transformed Dimona from a research establishment to a bomb production facility.
The nuclear scientists consulted by The Sunday Times calculate that at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying destructive power have been assembled - 10 times the previously estimated strength of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
The scientists include Theodore Taylor, who was taught by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and who went on to head the Pentagon's atomic weapons test program.
Taylor studied the photographs taken by Vanunu inside Dimona and a transcript of his evidence near Washington last week.
"There should no longer be any doubt that Israel is, and for at least a decade has been, a fully-fledged nuclear weapons state. The Israeli nuclear weapons program is considerably more advanced than indicated by any previous report or conjectures of which I am aware," Taylor said.
Taylor's assessments have been confirmed by other top nuclear scientists who were shown the pictures and evidence provided by Vanunu.
MSH/WY
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:54:44 GMT
Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor
The Sunday Times has revealed that an Israeli factory beneath the Negev desert is manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons for atomic bombs.
The secrets of the subterranean factory have been uncovered by The Sunday Times Insight team.
Hidden beneath the Negev desert, the factory has been producing atomic warheads for the past 20 years. Now it has almost certainly begun manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons, with yields big enough to destroy entire cities, the report says.
Information about Israel's capacity to manufacture the bomb comes from the testimony of a former Dimona employee, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu.
Vanunu's testimony and pictures, confirm that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of nuclear warheads.
Israel has possessed its secret weapons factory for more than two decades, and its nuclear facility is equipped with French plutonium extracting technology, which transformed Dimona from a research establishment to a bomb production facility.
The nuclear scientists consulted by The Sunday Times calculate that at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying destructive power have been assembled - 10 times the previously estimated strength of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
The scientists include Theodore Taylor, who was taught by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and who went on to head the Pentagon's atomic weapons test program.
Taylor studied the photographs taken by Vanunu inside Dimona and a transcript of his evidence near Washington last week.
"There should no longer be any doubt that Israel is, and for at least a decade has been, a fully-fledged nuclear weapons state. The Israeli nuclear weapons program is considerably more advanced than indicated by any previous report or conjectures of which I am aware," Taylor said.
Taylor's assessments have been confirmed by other top nuclear scientists who were shown the pictures and evidence provided by Vanunu.
MSH/WY