"I can say with certainty that the plant won't be launched before late 2008," Sergei Shmatko, the head of the Atomstroiexport company building the nuclear plant, said on a trip to China, according to the ITAR-Tass, RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies.
Russia on Monday made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr plant, paving the way for the long-delayed startup of the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor.
Russian officials have said that fuel deliveries would begin about a half year before Bushehr was expected to go into service, but they remained coy about the precise launch date.
Once loaded with nuclear fuel, I assume that striking the facility is rather ruled out lest radiation escape and contaminate the area.
So fall 2008 is the last time to hit the facility with an air strike should that option be under consideration.
Still, that doesn't mean that the reactor is a no-go zone. We have many ways of taking out Iranian nuclear facilities. Perhaps a Marine Expeditionary Brigade gets the task of seizing the reactor located along the Gulf while technicians disable the reactor safely.
Could we withdraw the fuel, too, if we had a week to do so?
