Iran’s “Soviet Nuclear Scientist” Never Worked on Weapons

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/10/irans-soviet-nuclear-scientist-never-worked-on-weapons/

The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.

But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.

In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm.

It now appears that the IAEA and David Albright, the director of the International Institute for Science and Security in Washington, who was the source of the news reports about Danilenko, never bothered to check the accuracy of the original claim by an unnamed “Member State” on which the IAEA based its assertion about his nuclear weapons background.

More at the link --

[PoliticAverse]

1. Gee where have we seen this before ? n/t

[FarCenter]

2. Besides which, explosively formed metals are used in anti-armor warheads

Shaped charges and metal jet penetrators for anti-tank weapons are based on the same principles of high-explosives used to generate a shock wave that liquifies and compresses metal in a specific configuration.

So Iran has practical, conventional weapons applications for the kind of explosives expertise that Danilenko was reported to provide.

[CanSocDem]

3. WMD's, WMD's.....

It worked before so there is no reason not to try again. The American public is either painfully gullible or so cranked up to go to war that all rational thought goes out the window. In a thread yesterday, some posters were so sure that Iran was already armed with a nuclear bomb that I expected to read that "...they pulled a baby off of a respirator....".

We're all aware that almost everybody hates the American war machine but it would be nice if they would stick to actual facts, and not think that they have some divine right to control the planets oil reserves.

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