Administration and Congress Tightening Sanctions on Iran

July 13, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Pressure valve still open - Congress is working on legislation to add another round of sanctions on Iran, even as negotiation efforts are ongoing. ”The proposals, some of which could carry financial risks for U.S. allies as well, have attracted scores of Republican and Democratic sponsors, who say they will push for passage before the August recess,” according to the Washington Post. http://wapo.st/SejV9C

Tweet - @IISS_org: Nukes aside, ‪#Iran‬ sanctions are forcing Tehran to put long-range missile programme on ice. bit.ly/ShnsUK

And more - Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is taking steps to prevent Iran from getting around the sanctions already in place. The Treasury Department said yesterday it was taking steps to freeze American assets of the National Iranian Tanker Co. and its alleged front companies.

--The NITC was trying “to evade sanctions through the use of front companies, as well as its attempts to conceal its tanker fleet by repainting, reflagging, or disabling GPS devices”, according to the Treasury Department statement. Bloomberg Weekly has the story.http://buswk.co/Mm4jBW

Siren - “Syria has begun moving parts of its vast arsenal of chemical weapons out of storage facilities, U.S. officials said, in a development that has alarmed many in Washington.” Julian Barnes, Jay Solomon and Adam Entous have the story at the WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/P4lt5Z

TLAM numbers - Turns out, the Navy has been publishing its inventory of Tomahawk cruise missiles in the defense budget for years. Between 1997 and 2000, it also published the number of W80 nuclear warheads associated with those missiles. The existence of this public data surprised Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk, who argues that this level of transparency would make the return to SLCM data exchanges between the U.S. and Russia a lot easier. http://bit.ly/NShOWd

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Only a flight test - In 2010, the Pentagon’s Iran military report said Iran could produce a missile “capable of reaching the United States by 2015.” The latest report walks that back, saying only that Iran may be capable of flight-testing an ICBM by that time. Robert Beckhusen at Danger Room continues the parsing of the DoD report. http://bit.ly/Shraxy

Two years - Britain’s intelligence chief, Sir John Sawers, was quoted in a British paper saying that that Iran is two years away from acquiring the capability necessary to build a nuclear weapon.

--”According to The Daily Telegraph, the remarks were Sir John’s first publicly reported assessment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions since his appointment as head of MI6 in 2009.” The New York Times has the story. http://nyti.ms/NlJH8B

Careful - A new report by the Department of Energy inspector general revealed that contractors handling explosives at four government nuclear sites did not fully-comply with the mandated safety procedures. The sites include the Los Alamos, Idaho and Sandia National Laboratories, as well as the Savannah River Site.

--”The report said that management at the sites ‘took immediate action’ in response to the inspector general recommendations, resolving many of the issues the report details. Among these issues were incorrect signage that misrepresented explosive hazards and the storage of combustible material in explosives bunkers.” Mia Steinle has the story at POGO. http://bit.ly/NoUrEJ

MOX-laced lemonade - Ryan Alexander agrees that the Department of Energy’s MOX program might sound like a good deal. “It blends plutonium with depleted uranium and turns it into something that can be fed into a normal nuclear reactor. We can dispose of plutonium while simultaneously creating energy, ” she writes in Eurasia Review. However, the costs and downsides outweigh any proposed benefits.

--“Turning lemons into lemonade sounds appealing, but it’s pointless if no one wants to drink it. MOX has failed to prove itself viable on the open market, and there’s no need to waste taxpayer dollars on another research program when safer and more affordable plutonium disposal options already exist.” http://bit.ly/NuWnsh

Listening to the bomb - Most films of nuclear explosions are dubbed or have their audio altered. This makes it hard to know what the bomb really sounds like. Alex Wellerstein at Restricted Data found footage of an Upshot Knothole nuclear explosion that has audio in the raw.

--”Murmurs in anticipation; the slow countdown over a megaphone; the reaction at the flash of the bomb; and finally — a sharp bang, followed by a long, thundering growl. That’s the sound of the bomb.” http://bit.ly/Nuvwwm