Word: reactors
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...absolute anomaly that you can operate a nuclear reactor in this country without an emergency plan," Hart said yesterday before the committee...
Inside the hangar, the guards discovered two ruined nuclear-reactor cores blasted apart by five charges of plastic explosives that had been strategically positioned and then detonated with a sophisticated fuse. The metal cores, built over a period of three years, had already been crated for delivery to their buyer, Iraq, and were due to be shipped only three days later. The reactor components were 60% destroyed; the damage was estimated at $23 million. French officials estimated that delivery would be delayed for two years, which would also postpone the shipment of 65 kilograms of enriched uranium fuel that France...
More serious theorists had a more obvious culprit-Israel. Fearful that Iraq would use the reactor to produce bombs rather than electricity, the Israelis have been protesting the proposed shipment for the past three years. The French had been stung many times before by MOSSAD, Israel's secret service, notably on Christmas morning 1969, when its agents piloted five embargoed gunboats from the port city of Cherbourg to Haifa in a daring and well-executed maneuver. Certainly, Israel benefits from the sabotage, but its officials have denied that they triggered the La Seyne explosion, branding such suggestions "anti-Semitism...
...about the contract. He feared France would not only be contributing to nuclear proliferation but would be blamed for intensifying tensions in the Middle East. But breaking the $350 million contract and risking Iraqi ire was unthinkable. Iraq is France's second largest supplier of oil, and the reactor deal has also helped keep the French trade deficit from spiraling higher...
Thanks to the substantial two-year delay in furnishing the reactor and its uranium, Giscard expects that by the new delivery date his nation's scientists will have perfected a nuclear fuel called "caramel," composed of 7%-enriched uranium that is unsuitable for making bombs. End result: lucrative contract is saved, international reputation is salvaged, Iraqis are appeased, if not pleased...