How Worried Should We Be about What Has Been Left in Iran Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah Stern:  Good afternoon. Welcome to yet another thoughtful and provocative Emet webinar. Today is day 656 of the war that Hamas waged against the Citizens of Israel on October 7th, 2023. After the 12-day war against the nuclear program in the Islamic Republic of Iran, there were claims that the US and Israel had destroyed Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The Islamic regime in Iran has been claiming that it’s restored its air defense systems. We’re also looking at some 400 kilograms or 882 pounds of highly enriched uranium at the 60% level. That very well may remain in Iranian hands. Once further enriched, which may be just a matter of days that’s enough for eight to 10 nuclear bombs. This is according to the very highly respected investigative journalist, historian, talk show host, and author, Edwin Black. Edwin Black has received numerous rewards for his copious non fiction New York Times bestselling books including IBM and the Holocaust, the transfer agreement, war against the weak, internal combustion, The Farhud, Nazi Nexus, banking on Baghdad, British Petroleum, and the Red Line Agreement and financing the flames.

He is has notable awards, have included the American Society of Journalists Award and author’s Best non fiction investigated a book of the year for IBM and the Holocaust in 2003. He’s read so many others or has received so many others we would simply run out of time if I named them all. He is right now coming out with a dramatic and gripping new book Israel Strikes Iran, Operation Rising Lion, the 20 year backstory. This is a historic investigative count of how the Islamic Republic of Iran labored for over two decades to launch missiles against the state of Israel and how palpably close they have been to acquiring new nuclear weaponry. It also describes how Israel and the United States together made a mad rush in the 11th hour to stop them in their pursuit of nuclear weaponry. All of this resulted in Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer this past June. But now as we’re in the immediate aftermath of that war, we’re looking at the astounding probability that Iran has managed to save 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium at the 60% level. Edwin, let me start with somewhat of an epistemological question, how do we know this and how do we know that the Iranians aren’t fluffing here?

Edwin Black: Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me, Sarah. It’s always a pleasure to work with Emet, which is our number one organization on Capitol Hill and a leading organization worldwide in pursuit of the principles and the goals that we all share. Now to this 400 kilograms, slightly less than 900 pounds of highly enriched 60% uranium we know that because it was registered and logged long ago by the International Atomic Energy Association. That has been stored. It allegedly was not further enhanced up to the so-called 90% weapons grade level, and we can talk about what a task that would be. It is currently sitting in a single B30, I believe it. It’s a B30 cylinder which is a special highly reinforced sturdy cylinder. It’s just one, the entire cylinder weighs about 3000 pounds. And the picture of all those Trucks that people thought were taking it away that’s completely got nothing to do with it. Those were cargo trucks.

This one cylinder could be transported in the back of an F-150. We knew it existed. The question is, where is it this moment. There’s two possible answers. One is that it’s at the bottom of an obliterated nuclear system in Fordow, Natanz or Isfahan. And the other is that somehow it has been retrieved or can be retrieved, and if that’s the case, it could be moved by the Iranians to an oil tanker to a barn, to another secret facility now being built at Pickax Mountain, just down the way from Natanz. It could be removed to Yemen. It does have enough nuclear material to make a number of bombs. Let me explain something about these percentages. Because they could be confusing. When you get uranium and you pulverize it you add a bunch of fluorides and it turns into this UF6 gas. This UF6 gas is the stuff that’s currently in this one canister that they’re worried about. This gas is more than 99% uranium 238, that’s the normal heavy uranium. When they put it in these centrifuges,

Sarah: Centrifuges

Edwin: Spinning at the rate of 90,000 RPM or about 14,000 revolutions per second, they spin off uranium 235. That’s the unstable distilled part. So they do that millions and millions of times to millions and millions of molecules, and eventually they get a store of uranium 235. Now 90% is of course typically acclaimed as weapons grade HEU, highly enriched uranium. This stuff is 60%. But it’s important for your listeners to know that if you compare this to a boiling pot of water, once you’ve reached 60%, you’re 90% of the way toward 90%. So I want people to understand it’s boiling water, and now you just want to make it a little more to be racing water. One of the things that I make clear in my book, and I should say right now, this is the very first copy from the very first box. I got it yesterday. I’m going to autograph this to Sarah right now and mail it to her right after the show. Just a minute. To Sarah. Is this the first time anyone has autographed a book on your show?

Sarah: Yes, it is the very first. I’m very honored.

Edwin: It’ll be mailed in an hour or two when I get off of here. It’s important to know that all the nuclear scientists and all the physicists and all the smart people are all going to say that you need 90% weapons grade HEU to make an actual atomic bomb. Now what is this nuclear bomb? They take this gas, then they add metals to it. They turn it into a metal, and then they turn it into a spheroid. They take that spheroid and I was the one to reveal the size and shape and design of the Iranian nuclear warhead some years ago, though it’s repeated in the book. They take that core and they put it into an R265 shock generator. Split up into hemispheres. It’s a perfect sphere. They put it in there, then they line that R265 shock generator with little grooves and fill it with PETN. Then they explode it with a huge completely simultaneous millions of a second implosion, and that comes down like this. All that force is accepted by a exploding bridge wire fuse. The exploding bridge wire fuse hits a neutron initiator. The neutron initiator fires one neutron into the unstable core, and out comes the mushroom cloud, and this is all delivered in the nose cone of a Shahab-3 missile, and it’s detonated 550 feet above ground.

The nuclear bomb doesn’t crash. It’s going to explode above ground. So they will all tell you you’d need 90% for this. But there’s a terrifying footnote here, and that is that you only need 90% to get this grapefruit-sized miniaturized core. If all you want is a big nuclear bomb about the size of a Volkswagen bus or the size of something that could be put in an ocean going container then you could settle for 60%. You could settle for 20%, you could settle for 40%. In other words, they have what they need now and how many kilograms at 60% would it take to create nuclear bombs? The answer is 400 kilograms. And how many kilograms are currently missing and we don’t know where they are, 400 kilograms. So this is what we’re facing. So we’re either facing, they’re going to give it up, which they’re not going to do because they’re apocalyptic twelvers, meaning they believe that they’re going to usher in paradise by destroying Israel and the Jewish people for some twisted religious reason.

Or if they try to reassemble they’re in Richmond, which they claim they’re going to do and they want to reassemble it and on Bret Baier, on Fox a couple of days ago the Prime Minister said well, this is so dear to us. It’s our national dignity to enrich. I never heard of such a thing. National dignity to make weapons grade. It’s an inherent right to make weapons grade. But if they decide to go a different route, because they’re desperate now. They are desperate. They say they’ve rebuilt their air defense. They have not rebuilt their air defense. These are liars. The air defense was the S 300 in some cases, they tried to get the S 400. All that stuff is tied up in the Russia, Ukraine War. Those were Russian systems. They have the Bavar system, that is homegrown. Those were destroyed, and if they try to redeploy them, they can be destroyed again and they know this. They’re desperate. And so we don’t know. I’ll be honest, we don’t know. The smart people don’t know whether or not they’re going to give it up. Which they’re not going to do, whether they’re going to try to reconstitute the entire elaborate system of enrichment which will require new halls and new systems and special procedures for taking that 400 kilograms out of the cylinder and into those cascades.

It’s all laboratory controlled or whether they’re just going to say, alright, let’s just use what we got and go for broke. And we just don’t know what they’re going to do. And this is why I think we’re looking at definitely a potential for a kinetic strike again. My first article on this appeared in J&S, Jewish News Service, which by the way is the most reliable. Jewish news service that the Jewish community can have. The article is entitled, The Lion Does Not Sleep Tonight. So The Rising Lion does not sleep tonight because we’re going to have to go back in. Remember the Iranians are masters of the fake negotiation. They’re masters of the falsity of the deception. I’ve looked at some of their important propaganda films put out by the government. I see they’ve got toy missiles put out. I did analysis on one of their shots of four missiles going off. They added one by a photoshop right in to the middle. So just think of the shook and just think of you’re trying to buy a valuable and teak. And this guy is saying, no, there’s four other guys who want it. No, you gotta do it now. And it goes back and forth and back and forth. The only solution, the only antidote, the only isotope which must be removed is the religious fervor and regime. Regime change is the only isotope antidote that will solve this. Regime change is much more complicated than you think because yes, 70 to 80% of the population are crying because the Ayatollahs have been left in power but on the other hand, this 20% is well armed. They’re highly authoritarian, they’re militarized, they’re hanging people. People are afraid to leave the house with their phones. They get stopped. Everyone is being accused. So right now Iran is a wounded animal. And it’s a wounded animal with 400 kilograms of 60% HEU.

Sarah: First of all, right now Iran as a wounded animal is running around arresting so many people saying that they’re all Mossad agents. They have recently hung, I think, about five people on the conviction of being Mossad agents. The IRGC, their secret police all have the weapons. It’s an atmosphere of total fear and we in the United States and the people of Israel certainly cannot make them have regime change. So under those conditions, how can they possibly change the regime?

Edwin: Decapitation?

Sarah: Explain.

Edwin: That’s it.

Sarah: Do you think that they have the weapons that they can rise up against the system[?]?

Edwin: No. They don’t have the weapons. We have the weapons. At all times, we knew where the Ayatollah was, at all times we knew where his mullah regime was hiding. The Trump administration made a decision that they could not decapitate the actual authentic, pardon the use of the word, head of state, which was the ayatollah colony. Israel also struggled with that potential because they could have done it. But if this continues, they’ll have no choice but to do what was ultimately done to Adolf Hitler, of course, they failed in the first attempt because the bomb was placed just on the wrong side of a table leg. But ultimately he was compelled to take his own life. I’m afraid we’re going to have to do that. There’s no other answer for it.

Sarah: We do get varying reports from the Israelis and the Americans about whether Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were destroyed. What do we know about this? And how can we know?

Edwin: Well, it depends what you want to call destroyed. If what you want to say, these cascades, these centrifuges. Especially the new IR sixes. They started with the IR ones and twos. But the IR sixes are homegrown. There rotators are made of carbon fiber. But they’re so delicate that even if you cut the power, and there’s an unanticipated slowdown. That’s what Stuxnet did. It slowed them up and it sped them up. They’re so delicate that they will be made inoperable by the severe blast. By the rubble by the fire. That was done. The IAEA, of course, they don’t have any way of measuring what’s going on because guess what? Their cameras and their devices were in the hall, so they’re destroyed as well.

Sarah: [inaudible]

Edwin: That’s one of our best understandings. In order to take that 400 kilograms, almost 900 pounds, 881 pounds of highly enriched uranium and continue the job, they’re going to have to set up new cascades, they’re going to have to have a hall, they’re going to have transport this cylinder, this blue cylinder, they’re going to have to, by the time they hear your show, they’ll probably repaint the cylinder red or something so no one will know where it is in case you decide to go in there, Sarah. They’ll have to have special, highly controlled porting system to take it out. Everything’s gotta be filtered and refiled and triple filtered, and then they’ll have to continue this process. If they could do all that, it would take them two to four weeks just to finish the enrichment. But then they have to metalize it. They’re going to have to have two specific laboratories. One to take this gas, add metals to it, turn it into a metallurgical mass, they call them dingits, and then another one to smelt it and to turn it into a solid ball. Then of course they have to insert it. But I can say this, if they try to move that stuff, if they try to port that stuff, it’ll be known. Because even though it’s in these big thick cylinders, just standing next to one of these cylinders for two hours is enough to give you a dental x-ray level of radiation. There are satellites, there are airplanes, there are cars, there are spies, and it would be observed. Now the problem is the Iranians know it’ll be observed. That’s why it’s part of their bluffing. I wonder if what they won’t try to do is not go for a miniaturized nuclear bomb, but something the size of a Volkswagen bus or something the size of an underground prototype and do that. When I hear this guy on Fox News saying, no our enrichment process has been damaged.

Sarah: It’s just damaged.

Edwin: And right now we can’t enrich, I say to myself, if the devil swears he’s a liar, do you believe him? So it’s very hard you have to read between the lines with x-ray vision to know what these guys are saying.

Sarah: Yes.

Edwin: That is why, because it’s also tricky because the inspectors have been thrown out because whatever they say they’re lying. That’s the point. They’re lying and they feel they have a religious mandate to lie. They feel they have an obligation to lie. So they don’t feel they’re actually lying, they feel they’re defending their religious duty. Because they don’t make the same kind of guesstimations that you and I do benefit loss. They are just convinced that this is what they want to do. Who else would subject their population and their nation to decades of ostracization, of punitive damages of economic defeat of ization. Also, they could undertake this act of mass murder. It’s crazy people. And those crazy people have got to be eliminated. Under the new conceptzia, and you know this Sarah, the old conceptzia was headquartered in Midtown Manhattan and it says we could work it out. But the new conceptzia, which is headquartered in the ash of October 7th says it’s better to live than to be loved and there are some people we just can’t coexist with. That’s why the Israelis, I put this out in my book, how meticulously this was done. That’s why the Israelis they systematically took out the axis of resistance, they took out the Lebanese, they took out the Syrians, they took out the Iraqis, they neutralized to a certain degree, the Houthis and that led them to attack Iran. But I do not think that Israel is going to settle with coexistence with a mass murderer. You don’t coexist with a mass murderer. Europe tried that and they found out at Munich that that was not going to work.

Sarah: Wasabi conference. Do you think they have hidden the centrifuges somewhere?

Edwin: Well, the centrifuges were deployed. It was about 18,000 centrifuges. A large number of them were the new IR sixes. They have some extra. They’re hidden here. They’re hidden there. They’re stored here. They’re stored there. The assembly plant for the centrifuges was destroyed. The Tehran reactor was damaged. But it isn’t that they have these centrifuges in a closet and then they wheel them into a hall. They’ve got to be set up under climate controlled and extreme conditions. They’ve gotta be wired together. They have to have special ports to take this blue cylinder contents and put it in. There’s a great deal of quality control. This is a laboratory situation. I think it would take dozens of these centrifuges that were very, very well set up. You know you could accumulate all the rubber you want. And you could turn them into wheels. But before you can make a car, you’ve got to manufacture the chassis and the engine and everything else. So shouldn’t be hysterical about these 400 kilograms but we should be worried. God awful worried about what is possible. That’s why I think that you need to continue to watch the skies over Iran.

Sarah: President Trump has said if he sees any remnant of them lurching towards a nuclear bomb, he will go back. I know that the Israelis are willing to go back. But then again he says Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were totally eliminated. But we’re talking about, what is it, 640,000 square miles of Iran. It is a vast fast country. They can easily hide their nuclear program. Can they be working? I know that Israel eliminated 14 of their nuclear scientists during the sport. Could they be working with Pakistani or red Chinese nuclear scientists and redevelop?

Edwin: Well, they’ve already done that. One of the assets of their nuclear program is their knowledge base. Israel has killed off. Not just the 14 that they did in operation Narnia in the first hours of Operation Rising Lion, as you well know. But over the years, and I’ve given a list in the book of these many nuclear engineers who have been stopped in traffic and then a motorcycle comes up next to them and attaches a bomb to the car. So they’ve all been assassinated in many ways. But there still is some nuclear know-how. I don’t think they’ll be working with the Pakistanis. We know we are monitoring everyone who goes in and out. We know what’s going on. If they tried to do this, I have to emphasize this, they really can’t reestablish this in a matter of days without being detected. I believe Trump when he says he will hit him again, I believe Bebe, when he says he’s going to hit him again. What worries me more is whether they wouldn’t take the 400 kilograms put it in in an ocean going vessel and send it to Yemen and try to make a non miniaturized bomb somewhere in Yemen. We need to be worried and we need to watch. We are watching. But remember those molecules can be detected. The question is not whether we will know they’ve moved the goods. The question is whether we have the will and the resolve to take immediate action once we see it.

Sarah: What is to prevent them from making a dirty bomb, a small nuclear bomb that they could put in a briefcase somewhere and somehow crossing into Israel and detonating that?

Edwin: Well, nuclear bombs can be put into suitcases. The United States made the Davy Crockett nuclear grenade to go off. Remember there’ve been a thousand nuclear detonations in the United States. They used to do them on a regular basis outside Las Vegas, and rent out hotel rooms for people to see it. But the one they have in mind is configured to kill a million people within five to eight miles and then poison and destroy much, much more beyond that. It would change humanity would be finished. Because you wouldn’t just have one mushroom cloud. Israel has a second strike capability.
They have the Popeye, they have the the Jericho three. They have land sea and air capability for a second strike with their non-existent nuclear arsenal. That means that we would see a lot of bombs. We’d be living in a mushroom cloud environment. Other countries, perhaps Pakistan would get into it. So we did not just save Israel, we saved mankind. The question is, how long can we save mankind? Now, to go back to your suitcase bomb. A suitcase bomb is once again miniaturization. So you need to highly enrich this to 90%, and you need to have the metallurgy to change that gas. It goes from, I don’t want to get too technical, from a UF6 to a UF4.

You add metal magnesium to it. You mix it up, you melt the thing, you make slag and you turn that into a sphere. But if all you want is a dirty bomb, like you just said, that could be put in a Volkswagen bus. Because you can get a critical mass with 20%, with 50% with 60%. You just need to shoot more neutrons in. And they have the neutron initiators. They have hundreds of exploding bridge wires. So they could make this occur. They could put this in evokes in a car ship it to Ashrafia, which is Irish. I’m sure some of your listeners speak Irish. And they could put it into Haifa, like it just came in a Toyota or in a Mercedes bus or anything of that of that nature. They could explode this five miles shore from Haifa. There are lots of things that can be done. I think we would have detection. Because remember it was in last May I believe that the IAEA discovered, I think it was last May, two molecules, two particles that were 83.9% enriched. Now that’s very close to 90%.

Sarah: To 90%.

Edwin: Remember, people have Geiger counters and they get one stray molecule. It’s radiation. So radiation is detectable. So once again, if we detect it and we can detect it, can we move and can we move quickly? And that requires political and military resolve.

Sarah: One of our listeners wanted to know the name of the secret nuclear plant are now building. Do we know a name?

Edwin: It’s called Pickaxe. It’s also underground subterranean, and it’s never been inspected, so we don’t know much about it. It’s down the mountain slope from Natanz.

Sarah: According to Raphael Grossey, the IAEA inspectors are not allowed in right now.

Edwin: It’s not that they’re not allowed in, they’ve been expelled. So we’re getting more of these weird formulations. So the Parliament said it’s illegal. They passed a law. You cannot work with the IAEA. That law had to be approved by the Guardian Council. That was approved. But there’s a carve out and said the Supreme leader and the Supreme Mowers have got the right to work on this. So while everybody was saying, there’s no more inspectors, inspectors have just packed up and left in a hurry, which is true. The Prime Minister comes on Fox and he says, we’re happy to work with the IAEA. So remember, every sentence is a pretzel, every formulation is a maze, and even when the devil swears he’s lying, can you believe him?

Sarah: On July 20th, Mohamed Musavi, the rare admiral claimed that Iran had replaced the air defenses destroyed by Israel during the past month’s 12 day war. He says, some of our air defenses were damaged that’s not something we can hide. But our colleagues have used domestic resources and replaced them with prearranged systems that were stored in pseudo pole locations in order to keep the air space secure. Do you believe this? And how long would it take for them to rebuild their air defenses?

Edwin: I wouldn’t believe that guy. If you told me today was Wednesday, and I think by this time you’ve already discovered it is Wednesday. Now, maybe he wants to. They were pretty good. Those bavar missile defense systems they’re still drone plants in massage drone plants hiding in Iran. When they tried to activate all of their air defenses and their retaliatory missiles many of them exploded as soon as they pulled the switch because they’ve been sabotaged. These guys who could replace your air defenses in one to three weeks. And even if you could, what makes you believe that they were not vulnerable to be immediately destroyed, once again from standoff missiles. Israel has the rampage. Israel’s it’s got the Delilah, it’s got AGMs and it could be over 200 miles away. The rampage is quasi hypersonic. It goes like this, it can find the stuff. Plus they have these little drones about the size of of a Bar Mitzvah gift and they come out of nowhere and they grab them on the land. Don’t worry about that. That’s just more poker playing more Cosby talk.

Sarah: We did also see and hear, and you made reference to Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Foreign Minister saying that the program is now stopped, meaning the Iranian nuclear program because yes, damages are serious and severe, but we cannot give up on our enrichment because it’s an achievement of our own scientists, and now more than ever it’s a point of national pride. But he also added, we’re ready to do any confidence building measure needed to prove that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever. Now I ask you, how could over 60% highly enriched uranium be peaceful?  When Iran is sitting on top of so much oil, why do they need this highly enriched uranium for peaceful purposes?

Edwin: Well, oil is not a very good way to generate electricity. As you know, I’ve investigated the history of fuel. But I can say this, that it is not the gift of modern science that Iran can claim that it enriched. All the countries have been able, who have a new part of the nuclear club have enriched. Every nuclear plant that is generating electricity has learned to enrich from up to 3.5 or 3.79%. Remember, they enrich these rods to make them hot. When they’re hot, they put them in water, they give off steam and they turn to turbines. So nuclear reactors are just water boilers connected to electricity.

Sarah: 3.7% is not 60%.

Edwin: No. And if you really wanted a civilian capability, which Rubio said, yeah, you want it fine. If you really wanted that, they could get it from Russia, they could get it from Germany, they could get it from the United States. They could ship the rods over the rods. Once they’re depleted, they can be taken away. They would be able to have that. But to say no, not only do we want to make enough to boil water, we also want enough to make nuclear bombs. It’s our national right. These people, Sarah, they’re nuts. I’m going to give you the technical term. They’re crazy and they are liars. By the way, I switched to my tripod camera. I hope that’s okay.

Sarah: It’s fine. They also are expecting the United States to lift sanctions. You know we’re in talks with them. With Turkey and Qatar as intermediaries, and the E3 is supposed to be meeting with them. Britain, France and Germany are going to employ snapback sanctions but first preemptively, they want to meet with China and Russia basically as some kind of backup to bolster them. In October of this year, the JCPOA is expiring. So you know, if the E3 wants to employ snapback sanctions, is there any time that is more important than today to do it?

Edwin: You’re very right in the alarm that you’re describing. So Iran is nervous, they’re desperate and they’re trying their old shtikula[?], which Rubio said, what are we in third grade? We have to pass notes to each other. Sit down in the room and let’s talk about it. When he was on Bret Baier, on Fox, he said, well, we’re not ready to talk to the United States yet, and we’re not ready. We need confidence building. This is all baloney. These are killers playing for time and they’re trying to figure out what can they do, how fast can they do it, and how can they do it without detection. They’re trying to figure that out. Probably the most important thing they could do right now, I hope your listeners are taking notes here, if they can make an extreme climate controlled carrying device that they could take this UF6. Remember this gas in this blue cylinder at room temperature it’s a white crystal. Only when you raise the temperature does it turn into a gas. It’s gotta be temperature controlled. It can’t go in an open truck. It can’t go in those cargo trucks and those concrete trucks, those were there for other purposes. They’re playing for time and time is what we should not give them. What we need to do, excuse me if I speak Irish [foreign language]. Tell us what you want to do, sit at the table and let’s figure it out. But unless they agree to complete dismantlement and utter take down not only of the enrichment system, but of the ballistic missiles and of the axis of terror, it all goes together. And he said, no, we’re never going to give up on the axis of terror. We’re never going to give up on our ballistic missiles. So yes, there was an interview on Fox and yes, he said stuff, but all he did was provide a certified attestation to the fact that these are lying killers.

Sarah: One of our viewers asked, how can you say with any certitude that any of their nuclear material has been saved? And what speed would the bomb be finished? And also he asked, don’t you feel the boots on the ground are necessary? Do you feel boots on the ground are necessary to eliminate this?

Edwin: We had boots on the ground, but they were not wearing boots, they were wearing slippers. And so we had the Mossad. The Mossad was boots on the ground. Hundreds of guys. I can tell you something else, I have video of actual IDF units in uniform on Iranian soil performing certain maneuvers, which I have not written about, but which are still secret. We know for a certainty that they have this 400 kilograms because it was reported years ago and certified by the IAEA. The question is, is this hidden and obstructed by millions of tons of mountain rubble or did it escape? And I believe based on the intelligence that I’ve been exposed to, that it was buried and irretrievable. And there’s a 51% chance that I’m correct. But if there’s a 49% chance, I’m not correct and there’s no certitude in this business if they’re a able to move it around and to move it to pick X mountain or move it to a barn, for heaven’s sakes, their entire Ahmed project of five nuclear bombs was hidden in an archive down the street from an ice cream shop. So it doesn’t have to be a half mile underground.

They have three militarized oil tankers that have been converted into military ships. It could literally be anywhere. Remember, there was an effort to make such a facility in Syria and Israel bombed that. So Israel’s three for three right now and I don’t think that Israel is going to tolerate. Israel has excellent intelligence. I don’t think that Israel is going to tolerate the continued threat. They’re not going to say, we can live with this threat. They lived with the threat during Biden, but with Trump, they didn’t have to live with the threat. They took the steps and so I think the information I’ve given you is reliable. But with that reliability, one of the key points I’m stressing is ambiguity. There’s a lot we just don’t know.

Sarah: There’s a lot we just don’t know. It’s very hard to know at this point.

Edwin: Thank you for your question.

Sarah: This is amazing. If we have time, a couple of more questions. Someone’s asking how radioactive is 60% enrich uranium. And if the 400 kilograms of uranium is varied underneath the three bomb sites, how likely is it that the underground varied materials contaminate water in the area, especially around Isfahan which is a they’re populated area. Mr. Shamkhani, the head of the Iranian National Security Council, who escaped the IGF’s assassination only injured, said three months ago that they would remove the enriched uranium from the three sites if Iran is attacked. Is there any way to find out, I don’t know how, where the potentially removed materials are kept if removed from the sites through gamma detection.

Edwin: Well, that’s a lot. So where do I start? How radioactive is 60% uranium?

Sarah: 60%.

Edwin: The answer is 60%. With 60%, you’re 95% of the way toward making a weapons-grade mass which can then be added to metal and then melted and slagged into these ingots they called dingits[?], and then melted again and turned into a sphere and put in. But I want to say again, if you don’t want to miniaturize it, if you just want to put it into a Volkswagen bus or a Dodge Charger or perhaps a large Tesla. If you want to do any of that, then all you have to do if stick in the detonation system. They have those detonation systems. They’ve already experimented with those detonation systems in these giant detonation chambers. They were fitted with cameras. They have a big yellow exhaust tube. So were they able to check them out. I think they have more than 600 exploding bridge wires. Those are the fuses. They can be ignited in a variety of ways. It doesn’t have to be spheroid. It could be oblong. Remember little boy that we dropped on Japan was only 80%. It was not 90%. But if they’re buried down there and they’re irretrievable, then we got some luck.

But if they’ve got them, and they’ve got this one or two scientists who have not been killed yet. That’s like saying you have an automotive engineer now build the car. I’m trying to explain the enormity [crosstalk]

Sarah: Of the test.

Edwin: Of this process. But also the ambiguity of the task that they will do. Because as I say, if all they want to do is metalize a large mass, don’t spheroid it, make it as big as my body. Then throw it into a Volkswagen bus and detonate it they can do that. Here’s a question from Claire.

Sarah: Yes.

Edwin: Can you talk about the weaponization part? The Iranian nuclear weapons program that is warheads, they’ve been working on its sites. I’ve not seen reported as being hit. First of all, Claire, thanks for being on my show tomorrow. The weaponization that we have talked about, we talked about how this warhead works. It takes this simultaneous implosion of great force and they’ve got a fuse capable of accepting that force and that triggers this neutron initiator, which hits the unstable core. So we’ve talked about that. I know that you are concerned about the fact that they were not only going to put them on the traditional Shahab-3 nose cone, but also on the Gam 100 at those two missile sites in one of the provinces. And if they put them on the Gam, which is a problem because it’s got a different nose code configuration. That Gam goes straight up into outer space. It’s a launch vehicle, and it reenters at an extremely oblique angle. It’d be very hard for Israeli defenses [crosstalk]objection to take that down. Let me also add this terrifying footnote. Everybody write this down.

We don’t know that the extent of the threat is 400 kilograms of 60. For all we know, for all Clear knows, for all I know they have a good cache of 90 that they have already achieved. Well, they said we developed these 83.9% molecules by accident. It’s not by accident. What they did was they reconfigured some cascades and they’re able to skip one of the old centrifuges and go to a faster one that was producing more and more and they’ve got in accretion. We’re in a dangerous time, Claire. We’re in a dangerous time, Mustafah. There’s a lot that we know and the people who do know a lot know there’s a lot that we don’t know, which is why we’re talking about it now. This is why the only disarmament, which is reliable is going to be regime change.

Sarah: I love how you ended your recent article and the Times of Israel about should we be worried? We in the United States or Israel can create regime change only the people in Iran can. And they are the real soul chemical antidote to highly enrich uranium is regime change. And that would require a different sort of change reaction and critical mass from the people. The problem is do we have a critical mass of people that have the courage to take on this regime? We have to wait and see. This kind of nuclear technology in the hands of the dissidents would be so much better off for the world. But let’s hope that at least RCIA might be on the ground. It’s way above our pay grade, my pay grade to know whether or not they’re there helping the dissidents on the ground. But we have to hope that they are. Anyway, please I am asking everybody to get Edwin Black’s most recent book it is available on amazon.com. It’s Israel Strikes Iran. It talks about the decades and decades of work since 1979 that the Islamic Republic has been engaged in and developing nuclear weaponry and the missiles and drones to shoot at not just Israel but the United States. It’s a very, very important read.

I can’t wait to read it. I have read from our dear friend Shoshana O’Brien, who got a sneak copy, an excellent review of it. I cannot wait to read it myself. So please, everyone get the book and I should say every single day our staff is on Capitol Hill meeting with members of Congress who are really hungry for the facts. It’s a big world out there, and they can focus on the Emet on the truth that we give them. So we need to support them with the facts and you need to support us. So please, if you can give to emadonline.org. What we’re doing is essential and it is really vital for us to continue. So please support us to the best extent that you can. Edwin Black, I cannot thank you enough for your years and years of tireless research on this and so many other fields. You are truly a renaissance man. Thank you so much, Edwin.

Edwin: Thank you very much, Emet and Sarah Stern, and the audience.

Sarah: Thank you.

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