Israel Strikes Iran: Operation Rising Lion with Edwin Black

In his book "Israel Strikes Iran: Operation Rising Lion," Edwin Black argues that, while Israel's Rising Lion and the US's Midnight Hammer operations obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability in the short erm, that nuclear capability can be reconstructed if the current regime remains in power.

Edwin Black is one of the first journalists to understand the gravity of this story and to share its urgency with the world. Do not miss the opportunity to learn the backstory of Operation Rising Lion from this renowned journalist.

ABOUT EDWIN BLACK

Edwin Black is the New York Times bestselling investigative author of 200 award-winning editions in 20 languages in 190 countries, as well as scores of newspaper and magazine articles in leading publications in the United States, Europe and Israel.

Editors have submitted Black’s work thirteen times for Pulitzer Prize nomination, and in recent years he has received top editorial awards.

Black has contributed to numerous anthologies worldwide, and he hosts the weekly Edwin Black Show. Black’s eleven award-winning bestselling books are IBM and the Holocaust (2001 and 2012), Financing the Flames (2013), British Petroleum and the Redline Agreement (2011), The Farhud (2010), Nazi Nexus (2009), The Plan (2008), Internal Combustion (2006), Banking on Baghdad (2004), War Against the Weak (2003 and 2012), The Transfer Agreement (1984 and 2009), and a 1999 novel, Format C:.
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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Tonight's discussion's gonna be with journalists and book author Edwin Black. And, um, he'll discuss the book that he published recently titled, Israel Strikes Iran, operation Rising Lion. Now, I'd like to introduce Edwin Black formally. He's a, a New York. He's a, he's a, a returning guest to empower you.
He's a New York Times bestselling author. Um, he's, he's written, he has 200 award-winning editions of books in 20 languages published in 190 countries. He's written a, a many, uh, news newspaper, magazine, articles in leading publications in the us, Europe, and Israel. He's been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize 13 times.
He has his own weekly show, the Edwin Black Show, and he's, uh, written 11 award-winning books, three of which, uh, are, are the IBM and the Holocaust, the Transfer Agreement, and the War Against the Week. So I wanna welcome you back, Edwin. Thanks for joining us. [00:01:00] Well, thank you very much for having me. And I want to echo what you said about supporting Empower You.
I support empower You, and as you know, I've appeared several times and I hope that, uh, your audience, uh, takes notice that you cover the important topics in an important way, and they have every, everything to gain. So now I'm going to talk about ladies and gentlemen, my latest book, which is, um, uh, Israel Strikes Iran, operation Rising Lion.
It's not a war diary, it's the, it's the 20 year backstory. Um, some of you might be able to get more information at the website, Israel strikes.com. It's kind of interesting. We originally took, uh, the, uh, um, the domain, Israel Strikes Iran, but the government would not allow us to have [00:02:00] a website with the word Iran in it.
So we changed it to Israel, strikes for the Web, uh, for the website. Uh, it came out just two weeks after the, um, end of the 12 Day War. It came out in two audio books, five eBooks. Um, two hardbacks, two paperbacks, and one commemorative edition. Uh, at, um, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, uh, everywhere in the world.
In 190 countries and people said, how in God's name did you write a book and get it published like that worldwide, just two weeks after the war was publishing history. And the answer is, I wrote the book two years ago. I was actually waiting for this strike. I've been waiting for this strike every morning, uh, for years.
And two years ago [00:03:00] I wrote the book and I just left off the final chapter and, um, and, uh, and the subtitle, and that's how I, um, uh, came to bring out Operation Rising, uh, lion, uh, Israel Strikes Iran. So actually what we see here is. 20 years of meticulous planning and practice that Israel undertook just for this extraordinary 12 day war.
The Jewish state used every tool it could muster from the clandestine forces of Mossad to its mighty air arsenal. It took almost two decades for America to develop the actual munitions and delivery system to finish the job. That was, of course, operation Midnight Hammer, but it was more than mere munitions.
[00:04:00] It was actually a mental trigger that made this war an explosive reality. The turning point for Israel, and remember, I've, I've been watching this every hour for the past few decades. The turning point was October 7th. Followed by a frightening certitude that Iran was just two weeks from nuclear readiness.
Iran's warhead was developed with the help of a Ukrainian nuclear scientist, uh, lov Don Leko is his name. Uh, he developed an R 2 65 shock generator, assembled in two hemispheres. Its surface was lined with five millimeter channels stuffed with PETN, and it was configured to simultaneously implode with massive force from all directions, which would be transduced into an exploding bridge.
Wire [00:05:00] fuse connected into a neutron initiator, primed to emit a single neutron into a metalized 90% U2 35 sphere at the core. To ignite this chain reaction, producing the mushroom cloud just as a Shahab three, uh, Iranian rocket carrying the warhead reached 550 millimeters. Excuse me, 550 meters above its target.
This bomb prototype had already been tested with tungsten and other metals in a giant bomb chamber, equipped with special high speed cameras to review the action already in 2024, the International Atomic Energy. Agency detected particles of uranium that were enriched to 83.9%. That's basically [00:06:00] equivalent to the famous 90% requisite for weapons grade, for, uh, to create a nuclear explosion in a, a, a final flurry of what I call murderous and engineering Iranian scientists at the Nan missile site north of Tehran.
Were trying to affix these warheads to an exo spheric GAM 100 space launched missile, which could attack Israel from above, and especially hard to intercept oblique. Angle. So the Shaha three, which is a modified nodong Korean missile, would come in a ballistic art, but this gay M 100 would go into outer space and come down at oblique angle, which would be very hard to intercept.
So Israel's realizations fused into action [00:07:00] under something they call the new coia. This is very important. The old Coia died on October 7th, 2023. The new conception was born on October 8th, 2023, and it held that it was better to be alive. Than to be loved and that the manners and mechanisms of Midtown Manhattan would not work in a volatile Middle East, which had been slitting throats for centuries.
As for America, its own resolved. Reached a turning point on January 20, 20, 25, of course, when Donald Trump took the oath of office. Unquestionably, operation Rising Line from IS Israel in Operation Midnight. Hammer from the United States Obliterated Iran's nuclear program, Iran's three [00:08:00] central nuclear Linch linchpins.
That's for Naans and Isfahan. They all suffered 30,000 pound percussive. 14 uh, copies of A GBU 57 massive ordinance Penetrator. 30 plus submarine launched tomahawk missiles and hundreds of Israeli air assaults. More than 10,000 sensitive centrifuges plus enrichment and bomb assembly facilities were utterly destroyed.
Now, I was actually the reporter that first revealed the existence, uh, some years ago of the, um, uh, of the mop, the massive ordinance penetrator. The, the, the, the, uh, the the GBUF 57 A-B-G-B-U stands for Guided Bomb Unit. [00:09:00] And of course, it's a penetrator, so it goes down. And only after it goes down some 200 feet at least, perhaps more, does it explode.
So it's gotta have a very protected fuse. Um, it's, uh, being dropped from a B two or a B fifth or a B 52. It's got a lot of speed to it. It's got a lot of weight. It weighs 30,000 pounds. It jams down and explodes, and then another one follows it and it goes down and down and down until it takes everything with it.
So for all intents and purposes, even though they destroy these, uh, centrifuges, which take ordinary uranium and spin 'em until the, uh, lighter parts go off, and it reduces to this, uh, um, to this 90%, uh, um, uh, radioactive, uh, element, uh, for all intense. [00:10:00] The missing catch that you've heard about 400 kilo ki kilograms.
That's, um, about 881 pounds. 900 pounds of 60%. HEU would be useless. Remember, you've heard about this and I'll talk about it later. It would be useless unless it could be further enriched to 90% by additional cascades of ir six centrifuges, and then the residue must be turned into metal, and that metal must be machined.
It's a long, elaborate process, and it would take years to reassemble. That said, the frightening footnote is that 90% HEU is only required for warheads that are miniaturized to fit into a missile nose cone. And I, and I know that that's what all the experts on television and the newspapers will [00:11:00] say, but the truth is, if I Ram wanted to build a larger bomb the size of a VW bus, only 20% enrichment would be needed.
And how much. Would they need 400 kilograms? And how much is missing? 400 kilograms. So if they wanna deliver this by truck or by a container ship, they can do it now, but they still need to turn that 60% into a metalized bomb. Putting aside the, uh, fallacious low confidence, initial bomb damage assessment that you heard about that was leaked by a, um, uh, by a minor player in the security establishment who's since been fired, um, uh, the, uh, the nuclear bomb process has, has actually been disrupted for, uh, a long period of months.
And the experts [00:12:00] at the IAEA, that's the international. Uh, atomic Energy Agency, the CIA is Israel's intelligence community, and the top independent nuclear watch watchdogs. They all agree the damage created years of forced disruption of Iran's nuclear program. It's nuclear enterprise has indeed and I agree, been halted.
The question everybody wants to know is for how long has it been halted? What everyone wants to know is whether Iran is actually willing to call it quits, or whether it's heaven bent on restarting and completing its mission to destroy Israel. For those, for those who know the Twelver mindset, which envisions this is Shia, uh, Islam, which envisions the return of the 12th Imam, it is clear.
To all of us that the fanatical Shia regime will never give up [00:13:00] just because it has sustained, humiliating kinetic damage inflicted by both Israel and America, nor will Tehran exist now that it knows that it was fundamentally alone in its 12 day war. This is important. This was the linchpin, the access of resistance embodied by Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Hezbollah offshoots in Syria and Iraq, D Houthis in Yemen, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Gaza and branch operations sitting just over the fence in the West Bank.
All of these guys felt almost completely silent during the conflict. Israel had subdued or neutralized them all in advance. Ironically, this ring of terrorist organizations was in large measure, constructed and funded with more than a billion dollars in windfall from the [00:14:00] NAL defunct joint comprehensive plan of action.
The JC POA. Actually, it's not quite defunct because just earlier this week, the remnants of the, of the J-C-P-O-A, this, uh, nuclear plan that, um, uh, Obama agreed to 10 years ago, uh, that nuclear plan is, um, uh, the remnants are still in effect and the snapback sanctions just went in within the last 48 hours.
And these are punitive, very caustic and oppressive, uh, UN sanctions that will hurt. Iran economically more than anything you, uh, they have faced for many years. When US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, forced [00:15:00] this fatal pact through the international community and the American Congress, they both knew and they both admitted, they knew that the towers of money gushing into Iran's coffers would fund terrorists devoted to killing Jews.
And as a bonus, it assured Iran a bomb within 15 years. Within 15 years. In other words, at the end of this program it said you can make a bomb. And, uh, Obama and Kerry also knew that with cheating this 15 year timeframe could shrink to a mere decade. 10 years, 10 years. That means 2025. That means now. So as the smoke clears and the rubble is fully visualized, the fanatical theocracy in Iran shouts that it will rebuild its program and try [00:16:00] once again to construct and deliver its weapons of mass destruction.
Iran's parliament approved to measure banning all cooperation with the IAEA. That means nothing, uh uh because, uh, even though the bill was approved by the non-elected members of the so-called guardian council, thus becoming a law, there's a loophole in every law and that law per permits future inspection.
By the international, uh, safe safeguard agents if it's authorized by the Supreme National Security Council. When the measure was ratified, uh, the parliamentary speaker Mohammed Bakker, uh, Kaba promised Iran's nuclear program would be reconstituted of the IAEA inspectors fearful for their safety exited Iranian territory in early July, 2025.
But we told that they've now come back [00:17:00] as Iran is nervous, it's worried, it doesn't know what to do, and how to forest all these severe, uh, sanctions, snapback sanctions, which are just worsening a situation of economic collapse and an extraordinary water shortage, which is driving the 70 to 80% of the.
Peace-loving population of Iran to stage some sort of an overthrow, which is a whole different conversation. So even though 70 to 80% of the population would like the AYA to go, they're not the ones with the goods. They even issued a fowa, uh, beseeching. Anyone the a did anyone to murder Donald Trump? So in an effort to discover all the epithelial embeds of Mossad, which still right now maintains a vast array of [00:18:00] operatives and unseen operations in Iran, the Tehran regime has a, has arrested close to a thousand su suspects.
Uh, and it rushed to execute seven, uh, within, uh, uh, three days, uh, of, of, of the war ending. And it's still arresting and. Rushing, uh, to the hangman's noose as many as they can, guilty or innocent. Um, they've imposed a nearly complete internet blackout. They've begun randomly stopping ci citizens on the streets, confiscating their phones.
Nuclear engineer Ruth Bedi, um, uh, was one of these guys. He was not killed in one of the, uh, Israeli actions, which took out almost all the nuclear scientists and almost all of the military brass in one sitting, uh, one nuclear. And this guy Ruth Bodi, admitted to his [00:19:00] spy activities for Mossad in a televised confession.
And then he was executed. At 4:00 AM the next morning without even a formal trial or a notification to family. Now we don't even know if this man was a spy, uh, because when you're tortured, you'll admit to anything. And what they want now is, is, is they want people that they can show, um, uh, have been executed among the targets for these random, uh, executions and roundups, uh, are many Jewish Iranians and anyone uttering a syllable of criticism toward this authoritarian regime.
Ordinary Iranians are now leaving their phones at home and living in fear of the knock at the door. Iran is desperate to save face, desperate to save its program of death and destruction, and desperate to save its [00:20:00] regime from the overwhelming majority of Iranians who reject their theocracy in the throes of dislocation and desperation.
On August 11th, 2025, Tehran President msu.
Ian has somehow broken with the MOAs just a little bit and told media executives that it would be futile for Tehran to rebuild its nuclear facilities because Trump would just bomb them again. That's correct. Trump will bomb them again and later on we'll talk about when he might bomb them again and Israel will bomb them again.
And when he made this statement, uh, trying to retreat from the nuclear program, the, uh, Tasnim News Agency, which is controlled by the radical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they issued a a a a rare public condemnation. They actually scolded him [00:21:00] with an editorial and said, quote, when the enemy hears these words, what decision will they make?
And what impression will they form of Iran? It added that such talk profits a weak and desperate view of the Ayatollah regime. So other friendly print and broadcast voices, friendly to the, um, mullahs joined in this condemnation and all this political fragmentation just illuminates how desperate Iran is and how desperate its recourse may, may become.
And this is important because we're talking about a desperate, fanatical regime on which is being cornered and on the edge while Ford on naan and Isfahan are indeed collapsed and shattered. Iran may try to reconstitute yes reconstitute, its demolished centrifuge manufacturing capability of that at [00:22:00] any of 24 other decentralized nuclear installations.
They may be burrowed into mountains such as a newly discovered site at pick x. Mountain located a short distance from the Todds, or there may be co covertly installed in an ordinary barn or in a massive hold of an oil tanker. They have, um, several militarized oil tankers, including, uh, the IRS Croi I-I-R-I-S Kurdistan, and the Shahid Bulgari.
So they've taken their, their tankers when they couldn't sell their oil and turned them into advanced military weapons. Tehran could even consider relocating secretly part of all of its bomb making process to a renegade territory outside the country, such as Yemen. Two things can be true at true at once.
Yes, Iran's nuclear capability [00:23:00] was obliterated and the brain trust behind it mainly killed off. But what has been obliterated can be reborn. Any fanatical apocalyptic regime that has spent decades and billions of dollars and endured global sanctions and national stagnation to engineer weapons of mass destruction can and will be willing to reconstruct its projects and harden its heart and harden its obsession, and therefore, so long as there is no regime change in Tehran, so long as it's muah, remain devoted to Iran's nuclear program return, or perhaps see another method of death and destruction, not even yet envisioned some other sort of biological or via or.
VI viral attack. Uh uh, we are facing danger. Iran has coily agreed to [00:24:00] negotiate on its nuclear program, but only if it retains the right to enrichment, which remains in their view, sacrosanct, which itself is an explicit if indirect pledge to resume bombing, uh, to resume building a bomb. IAEA experts have been invited to return to Teron for so-called technical talks, no access to the sites.
Some say there has been some trial access to the sites where they install cameras and listing devices, but at the same time, Teron has just relocated. Its remaining nuclear scientists and their next generation replacements to a secret location where they can live and work 24 7 away from their identifiable homes.
And the risk of Israeli reach, resuscitation of the suffocated axis of resistance is now underway. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being funneled through [00:25:00] Turkey to rebuild Hezbollah's attack capabilities. Even at the risk of sparking another civil war with a bold new Lebanese government that now demands Hezbollah completely disarmed.
We now even here, Iran, deny that a ceasefire with Israel was ever reached, only a huah, a mutual pause in military action. What's more? Iran has tried to fabricate a victory legend in which it falsely describes its conduct of the war as triumphant. Yet President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly promised they will strike again, and if they see signs of a reconstituted program, you can bet on it.
Nya loudly warned, we will treat Iran's nuclear program like a cancer that needs to be constantly monitored and possibly treated again true. The White House has been implying [00:26:00] that some sort of peace agreement with Iran may be in the off in the offing, but no one expects Iran to honor any negotiated commitment just as it refused to honor the J-C-P-O-A.
So the diplomatic verbiage is just ephemeral, sort of a clause between declarations of force, salient and all these discussions is that both the Israeli and American administrations remain skeptical and laser focused on Iran's promised resumption of its nuclear chess game. Tehran is already announced.
It's newly appointed head of the Armed Forces would remain anonymous for his own protection. Mossad quickly issued a message. We know his name and we know where he is. The Rising Lion, ladies and gentlemen, will not sleep tonight. Israel's leadership and the halls of Trump's White House know that the goblets of victory are not half full.
They are half [00:27:00] empty. And this ladies and gentlemen brings us to the issue of that pesky, uh, uh, uh, 400 kilograms. So this troubling re remnant that everyone is talking about, the 400 kilograms of UF six, uh, UF six is the, uh, um, is the reduced uranium, uh, down to 2 35. It's comprised now of 60% highly enriched uranium once further processed.
This amount, which is equal to about 881 pounds is sufficient to make as many as eight to 10 nuclear weapons. So 60% enrichment is 90% of the way. To 90% enrichment. I know this can be confusing, so just remember, it's like a pot of boiling water. It's boiling, and if you keep it on the [00:28:00] heat for a little bit more, it goes to a racing boil.
So experts differ somewhat. Uh, I, I, I will concede on how many kilograms are needed for a single nuclear device. But a grapefruit sized core of about 30 to 40 kilograms represents a mid-range approximation based on China's breakout times. And Iran's record of advanced weaponization to regime could plausibly produce deliverable bombs in about a month.
That's if it had its infrastructure in place. So now take a harder look at what is known and unknown about this. Uh. 400 kilograms of UF six, that's now in the public eye. UF six is the abbreviation, as I said, for uranium hexa fluoride. It's a key essential feedstock needed for a nuclear bomb. This compound is made by pulverizing uranium, [00:29:00] or they take the uranium or the rock, they pulverize it.
Then they treat it with chemicals, especially fluorides, to convert this solid substance into a gas. And that gas is UF six, comprised of about 99.3%, uh, harmless, relatively U2 38. The rest of the gas this, uh. Minute amount is bomb quality U2 35. So they start with U2 38 and they wanna bring it down to U2 35 subjecting.
This U five six gas to centrifugal force using centrifuges. Spinning is rapidly, is 1500 revolutions per second, or 90,000 revolutions per minute causes the heavier U 38 to fall to the bottom of the centrifuge. The [00:30:00] remaining U2 2 35 is the distilled bomb quality matter. It's kind of like, uh, distilling alcohol, spilling, spinning millions of molecules.
Millions of times in long cascades of linked ultra fast centrifuges slowly yields a quantity of potent U2 35. That's the nuclear bomb stuff. And when the processed UF six is enriched to 90% U2 35, that is the bomb grade. HEU speculation has now arisen about where Iran stock of UF six was and where it is now, and whether it is just whether it was moved just before Operation Midnight, hammer collapsed, everyth.
The three main facilities, four down the tons of Isfahan, many source satellite I, images of hauler trucks [00:31:00] lined up at the entrance to fordow. Experts have since concluded that these construction trucks were used to create a large last minute high performance reinforced concrete barrier above the facilities ventilation shafts.
You remember, uh uh, the Iranians figured out the Americans would come in through the ventilation, uh, shafts, but America's mops massive ordinance pen penetrators were not impeded, as they recently added large penetrator smart fuses, and they were adjusted so that they would explode at the right depth.
Remember the fuse. That explodes The bomb, uh, has gotta be protected as the mop bomb penetrates down and down from explosive, uh, um, force. And then when it gets to desired depth, that's when the big blasting occurs. Moving UF six ladies and gentlemen is [00:32:00] not an easy task. UF six, that's the dangerous stuff, is highly caustic, corrosive and all, all around dangerous inhalation can be fatal.
Contact with moisture changes its chemical structure. This is important yet room temperature, U have six is a solid. Generally displaying a snow white appearance only as its temperature increases does the compound become that rare gas needed for enrichment. Hence, the temperature of the stored UF six must be constantly and clinically regulated.
UF six is stored and transported and special. 30 B cylinders, that's. Uh, a nuclear industry, uh, uh, identified cylinder, uh, generally more than four feet tall, constructed of dense steel and other strong materials. Iran's nuclear and engineers usually [00:33:00] utilized a bright blue 30 B cylinder for easy recognition.
Uh, simply standing close to one of these closed, uh, airtight cylinders for two hours, generates enough radiation exposure, uh, to equal a dental X-ray so they're dangerous when loaded and ready for transport. These 30 B cylinders and they're, and they're packing crates, can weigh three tons each, only half of which is the actual UF six.
Iran would only need a single cylinder. To accommodate its 400 grams of HEU, and that quantity could be transported in a single F-150 pickup truck, equipped with a compact carrier offering proper temperature controls. Then what? And once again, these percentages can be confusing. The UF six must be further enriched.
The 60% must be further enriched to [00:34:00] 90%, but at 60% the task is already 90 to 95% complete, so they just need a little more spinning. The question is, where are those extra cascades of linked centrifuges? Needed for the final to finalize the enrichment. The complexes at Florida Naan Andis Fahan were destroyed by the tremendous percussive power of those 14 30,000 pound mops centrifuges, including the advanced homegrown IR sixes are so delicate that just slowing them down abruptly can cause a breakdown.
That's what the Snet virus did. It slowed them down, then sped them, sped up the centrifuge blades, which produced premature breakdowns. The three targeted facilities at four down the Tanzani Fahan may have collectively housed more than 18,000 centrifuges. Yes, but those are gone. [00:35:00] Israel also hit the Tehran Research Center, which manufactured these advanced advanced centrifuge rotors and they were created with carbon fiber to ensure their dur uh, durability.
A centrifuge manufacturing lab and garage was also bombed outta commission. So Iran has likely stored some centrifuges at some of its 24 other nuclear facilities. But to establish mo molecule by molecule cascade enrichment to achieve to achieve 90%, the stock of UF six would have to be siphoned out of its protective 30 B transport cylinder.
And into a working centrifuge cascade if one existed. And this means the Iranians would not only have to deploy the centrifuges from some storage and assembly area, but array them into a sophisticated [00:36:00] cascade, all connected under laboratory conditions. Plus a transfer mechanism would be needed. UF six transports in a solid crystalline mass.
It's crystal. Those crystals must be carefully warmed to sublimate into a gaseous form for the centrifuges. Finally, before being decanted into those cascades, the UF six must be purified via ultra-sensitive chemical traps to filter out trace impurities including hydrogen fluoride. And fluorine only after this purification can the gaseous UF six be ducted into the cascade of centrifuges.
To distill this U-turn 2 35, until they have enough at 90%. And all this action would set off clandestine radiation to detection systems that remain employed in place. Both they're on the ground, they're in orbit, they're in air [00:37:00] airplanes. The basad has got 'em. If and even if Tehran somehow reestablished an enrichment facility in some unseen corner, the potent UF six would then have to be ready for the next step.
Metalization transforming the UF six into a metal once it reaches 90% requires a complex chemical conversion, manufacturing and metallurgical assembly line. This is complicated folks. Such a facility is unlikely to remain undetected to Alize. This stuff, the UF six must first be converted into another substance.
Known as UF four engineers accomplish this by adding hydrogen, creating the UF four. You now know more than most of the, uh, journalists writing about this, creating UF four, and that is called uranium tetrafluoride, also known as green salt. This green salt [00:38:00] is that blended with magnesium or calcium metal chips.
The mix is then super heated in a special, highly reinforced bomb reduction vessel. That's what they call it. Nuclear engineers call this melting unit a bomb, even though no bomb effect is possible, they just called a bomb. The metal slag collects at the bottom of this vessel accretes into a dense direct reduction in ingot, known as a ingot.
So it's like little. Bits and pieces of slag, the process must be repeated and continually inspected for residues. Once enough of these little dingos, uh, lid like coins, they're shuttled to another furnace for smelting and ization. This is the final step shaping the mass to become the dangerous bomb core to be placed into the warhead.
Converting UF six [00:39:00] gas to crude metal, and then forming the slag into a sphere, as I say ladies and gentlemen, is a complex multi-step process that requires furnaces, ventilation, vacuum pumps, molds. Tooling special storage vessels and precise processing equipment. Two distinct separate labs would probably be needed, one to smelt and the other to shape the steroid.
Once elaborate metallurgy plants have been constructed. The smelting prop process, I admitted as rapid as little as 50 minutes, but the process may have to be repeated over and over again if impurities are. Detected and remember, we're talking about nuclear anatomic impurities. Finally, this dangerous ball must be delicately wedged into the R 2 65 shock generator war warhead lined with the PETN latent channels, which when a detonates creates [00:40:00] an implosion measured in microseconds, that's millions of a second, the monumental force of which is absorbed by this durable, exploding bridge wire fuse.
It takes all this power, which transduces that awesome, collected power into a neutron initiator. And that neutron initiator fires its single stray neutron into the unstable steroid core of 90% HEU. And that rocks nature and creates at 550 meters above sea level, uh, when it's delivered in the nose cone of a Shaha three missile, the mushroom cloud, which will incinerate everything within six to eight miles, maybe 10 miles, fatally poisoning and mass murdering so many more and devastating, so much more beyond the blast radius.
This process needed to convert to 400 missing kilograms that we've been talking about at BB Netanyahu just a few days ago. Said, I [00:41:00] finally know where it is and, um, did not explain, uh, how we would get at at it. But this whole process is too elaborate, too multi-stage, and too industrial to be executed surreptitiously, whether it's in a barn or in a new, mysterious, uh, nuclear facility Now.
Uh, on the under development at Pick X Mountain, just down the slope from the naans enrichment com complex, the errant UF six cylinder could feasibly be transported inside the hull of an Iranian oil tanker. As I've said, uh, Iran has militarized and prepared three of its oil tankers, at least to become attack vessels.
Tehran could even, as I said, secretly relocate all of this to some renegade area like Yemen, because remember, this UF six cylinder can travel by ship and go by rail truck as long as it rides in an environmentally [00:42:00] controlled case. Casing. The question is where the AYA are determined to reestablish the process and finish the job is now universally understood that if detection reveals a restart, Israeli kinetics will resume.
And if necessary, American resupply or strategic participation will amplify any post rising lion strike. And I'm here to assure you that in the last 72 hours, a lot of munitions have been running into Israel. A lot of us in the last, uh, 10 hours, a lot of American, um, fighter jets and Ariel Reed tankers have been streaming toward the Middle East.
And everything I've said to this point. It reflects the information that, as I said, most analysts and scientists will generally explain about HEU at 60% and the necessity to enrich at 90% to [00:43:00] produce a weapon strength core. But everything from here on that I'm gonna tell you offers a terrifying footnote that the most careful experts, they all know it, but they're not telling it to you 'cause they're afraid you're gonna get afraid.
That footnote cautions that although we commonly speak of weapons, grade HEU as a 90% enriched product, in many ways that's a frightening fallacy. Iran, as I said before, could make a nuclear bomb, uh, with enrich to only 20%. Surely with just 60% stock size matters. So mini miniaturization, as I said, is needed to fit the dents nuclear steroid into the compact two 60 R 2 65 warhead, designed to wedge into the tight confines of a 9.8 foot shaab three nose cone.
Or even if they decide to use this much more perilous, GAM one [00:44:00] hun hundred space launched missile capable of this oblique exosphere reentry. However, if Iran is willing to create a larger device. The size of a VW bus or of a shipping container or of an underground test prototype, it could easily do so.
Since the spring of 2022, arms control experts at the United Nations and various governments have known that Iran crossed the burning threshold of 60% enrichment. Back then, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that Iran could adapt any bomb design to utilize its 20% and 60% enriched stocks and achieve breakout.
Within weeks its production rate of 60%, HEU amounted to 4.5 kilograms per month. Imagine how many molecules and how many millions of spins they had to do to achieve [00:45:00] 4.5 kilograms per month, and. Each one of those is enough for one oversized, uh, bomb unit every two months. Moreover, Iran learned at Fortal that its technicians could skip an older cascade and truncate.
The enrichment process by utilizing a single advanced IR six cascade, thus speeding up the bomb schedule. At this time, the newer and faster IR six centrifuges, uh, have been replacing the older IR one Centrifuges inspectors have discovered that Iran was converting its HEU gas into 5.8 gram metal plates.
Some 88 of these small bomb quality plates had already been cast. Accumulating enough of these small plates could make the 50 minutes smelting process yield to required steroid in a single day. In other words, [00:46:00] as shortcuts, warhood warhead designs differ radically. I admit that in scientific estimates vary with them, but number of experts conclude that a large enough accretion of just.
20%. U 35 is sufficient to create a deadly chain reaction, which will give us the mushroom cloud. How much? I've said it's 400 kilograms. And how much is missing? 400 kilograms. Military and historians remember well that little boy was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima that only contained 80%. HEU. At 60% HEU Arms control experts believe two or three non miniaturized bombs can be readied quickly depending upon their design and delivery method.
This means that the errant UF six is either midstream to weaponization, but in unusable because it is buried beneath tons [00:47:00] of rubble or stealthily relocated to another site where it can be later turned into a weapon of mass death and destruction. The key ingredient is not a radical radioactive isotope, but radical religious ferber, as long as the ayatollah regime is heaven bent on developing the worst weapons on earth to annihilate Israel, the only reliable act of nuclear disarmament for Iran, the sole chemical antidote to its HEU.
Regime change, and that would require a completely different chain reaction and critical mass. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and now I'll take your questions and yeah, thank you. That was fantastic. Thank you. I, I wanna let the, um, the audience know that Edwin said he'd take questions about Iran or any other Israel relevant issue if you, if you have additional questions, um, [00:48:00] I wanted to ask you.
Um. So, so you, you're saying, you, you just said that right now, you know for a fact that we're moving weapons over there Correct. To, to Israel preparing for as of the, as of the last 12 hours. Really. Wow. So it's an attack is imminent, like you said? No, an attack is being, is is being prepared. It's not, IM.
Until the imminence occurs. Remember, the fist is raised, but it hasn't made connection yet. But you've gotta be prepared. And Israel is, um, uh, um, the Thad Missile system, T-H-A-A-D, the terminal high altitude, uh, anti-missile defense, which, um, uh, will take these incoming missiles, especially the oblique ones.
Um, those missiles, uh, uh, the number of them have been, um, moved into Israeli, uh, uh, uh, um, territory. A lot of it's already prehistoric in a secret negative, um, [00:49:00] location that no one knows where it is except me. And now you and, uh, the, um, there are, um, more F 30 fives. Um. Hornets and, um, f sixteens with aerial tankers streaming toward the Middle East.
We're looking at humanity swivel events in these coming days. We're talking, I mean, you do understand that if one of these nuclear weapons managed to hit Israel, even a dirty one, Israel retains a second strike capability. They have a triad. They have non-existent nuclear weapons on submarines. They have non-existent nuclear weapons in, uh, missile tubes on land, and they have non-existent nuclear weapons that can be fired from, uh, F 15 Xs.
So, [00:50:00] um, we're looking at, uh, um, uh, a chain reaction. Had Israel not. Terminated this, and Trump had not finished a job. We could be looking at nucle at mushroom clouds right this minute. So I'm, I'm sorry, but I'm just a little confused. So you're saying we're sending, we're sending weapons over there and, and more planes.
But you're saying what, what's the catalytic of catalyzing vent that you're saying they're waiting for? They're waiting for Iran to make a threatening move. Okay. Iran would make a threatening move if it tried to utilize that, uh, those 400 kilograms. Uh, by reestablishing it would make another threatening move if it has already threatened loudly to hit the eastern shore of the United States with long range ICBMs launched from its tank, its [00:51:00] tankers, mid ocean.
If the snapback sanctions go in, they've threatened to launch against Europe. The snapback, Shang sanctions have gone in. Readiness is the first part of defense and offense. So, so essentially any, any intelligence that, that Israel gets that shows they are moving forward, right? Not, not that, not that they're close to having a weapon, but they're, they, they're taking the next step would be a catalytic event.
Any, any next step at this particular point? Okay. Would be a trigger or it could, or remember. Um, uh, Iran wanted to achieve annihilation of Israel in two ways. One with a nuclear bomb, if, if it, if it could be deployed, but the second was by launching 50,000. Missiles simultaneously at Israel. And Israel took out its missile capability and Trump has now said, do not rebuild it.
So [00:52:00] if Iran continues to rebuild its missiles and becomes a threat, we will take them out. Yes. And you're saying when, when, if this catalytic event occurs, catalyzing event occurs, and Israel and the US make a move to attack Iran, you're saying that's gonna be a huge world changing event. Is that what you were implying earlier?
It'll be a world changing event and that it prohibits a world changing event. I see. Okay. Because if there's a mushroom cloud. Mushroom clouds are infectious, right? And if, uh, uh, Russia is constantly threatening nuclear war, war warfare, if, um, uh, Saudi Arabia will immediately sue for a Pakistan bomb, and Pakistan says those, send it to 'em.
Poland and France say they want nuclear weapons. So the point is, our world would [00:53:00] be changed dramatically unless Iran is stopped. Iran was stopped, but Iran wants to regain its momentum and continue to threaten because there's no mad, no MAD no mutually assured destruction with Iran because Iran believes it achieves paradise by bringing the world to an apocalyptic, to an an apocalyptic future.
W in, in your judgment, do you think that if and when the US and Israel make a, a move together to, to attack Iran, do you think one of the objectives will be regime change? Will they want to take out the leadership? You know, that's a hard question to answer because is Israel constantly knew where the Ayatollah was.
They, they, they decapitated Iran. They took out, its, uh, it, its [00:54:00] scientific, uh, management. They took out the complete senior management with the so-called Operation Red wedding where they got all these guys in a room. They found out where the room was. They destroyed the room, but they hesitated at actually taking out a chief of state and Ayatollah Khomeini is a chief of state.
They're now beyond that. They realized the first devastating punch was not sufficient to stop the ayatollah. He wants to regain his momentum. So I think they would try for regime change. And the way they would do it is he's gonna hide in a, in a bunker and that bunker's gonna go if this could all happen within 60 minutes.
Within 60 days, within 60 months, or never, we all prefer never. Right. [00:55:00] Do you have a sense for how, um, other, um, middle Eastern countries are viewing this, do you think they're gonna get, if, if, if Israel and the US were to attack Iran, do you think other Middle Eastern countries would be drawn in? No, they weren't drawn in in this first round.
Right. Uh, Saudi Arabia, remember, uh, the Iranians are not Arabs. They're Muslims, but they're not Arabs. And so they're not from, they're not descendants of the Arabian Peninsula, and so they're not Arabs. And so Conse, consequently, Lebanon did nothing. Iran did, uh, Iraq did nothing. Syria did nothing. Saudi Arabia did nothing.
No one even gave a peep. And so they're not gonna come in again, because right now there's a fervent effort to settle Middle East Peace in and around Gaza. [00:56:00] And the so-called Palestinians one I wanted to also ask you about that was, is it called snapback snapback sanctions? Uh, Iran has called them. The single most devastating diplomatic maneuver in the history of international law was actually devised by the Soviet Foreign Minister.
So at a time when all sort, when France, Germany, and England and the United States, uh, and, uh, and other leading members of the EU were saying, you won't be able to do any banking. You won't be able to, uh, do any, uh, trading, uh, a total, uh, blockade, economic and otherwise of, uh, your country, your companies, and the people in those companies.
Um, that's when they signed the J-C-P-O-A to take that off. But it had these snapback sanctions that [00:57:00] once Iran showed that it was not going to honor the J-C-P-O-A, which, uh, never envisioned. Enrichment up to 60, 80 and 90%, uh, for civilian use. And remember, when you enrich a rod for civilian use, it's 3.9%.
You just make it radioactive hot enough to boil water, to spin the tur, the, uh, tur the turbine. You could enrich it a little bit more to create certain types of bizarre pharmaceuticals. But the idea of 60%, the idea of of, of 90%, it's weapons grade. Everybody knows it's web, it's weapons grade, and so they are now cornered.
They did everything they could. China and Russia tried to stop the snapback. Snapback went in this week. So, so that's what I wanted to [00:58:00] clarify for the audience. So the, the, the, the snapback, those are sanctions that are being imposed on Iran. They, because they violated the, the, um, the 2015 agreement, right?
They were in place, they were lifted by the J-C-P-O-A right? And they can snap back by a unanimous vote of the EU countries. They took that vote, they threatened him. They gave him a couple of days to negotiate that passed. Uh, and uh, on Monday, the snapback sanctions went back into, uh, uh, into full forth.
Iran is cornered. So, so your point is that Iran, now with these, these sanctions now being imposed in the last few days being imposed in Iran, the, the, the leadership's probably gonna get desperate 'cause they're gonna be economically in terms of like the trade and their, their, their general economic wellbeing, they're gonna start to suffer and the population's gonna feel that suffering, right?
If you can't cash a check, [00:59:00] if, if, if, if, if you can't sell pistachios, if you can't, uh, uh, get dollars for the oil you're selling to China, uh, because no bank on the, on the planet is, uh, that uses the SWIFT system can work with you. You are a desperate regime. Now is so in that, in that state of desperation, is there anything that the US and Israel or or and Europe have said, um, that Iran can do for us to remove the sanctions?
Is there, is there something that they expect? Yes, there's one, uh, there's a, a very long. Uh, formulation. Ready? Yeah. Stop making a nuclear bomb. Okay. That's it. Okay. They can, they can scream death to America. All, all, uh, all they want. They just can't have a nuclear bomb. Now you can put that in five languages.
You could put it in, in [01:00:00] Farsi, in English, in French, in pig, in pig, Latin. Stop making nuclear bomb. In fact, I'm gonna take the opportunity in front of this beautiful audience of yours to tell you about the new secret to Middle East Peace. It isn't the 20 volume study. It isn't the overriding commission.
It's five words. Stop trying to kill Jews. That's it. As soon as you stop trying to kill the Jews, instant peace. Wow. Remember, if you wanna know if, if you, you wanna know what is on every Israeli's mind, just say hello, because hello is shalom and shalom means peace. And just to reinforce it on the way out, you could say goodbye and goodbye is also shalom.
So you got peace coming and going. If they could somehow manage it in, in, in between. Now, now, I know you said that Europe, my understanding it was, was it Germany, the UK and France, [01:01:00] that that voted to reimpose these sanctions? Is that Yes. Where does the, how, where does the rest of Europe stand on this? Do they, are they, well, it's a United, a security council move that normally the security council, which is feckless, which is worthless because the security council is controlled by five countries, France, ally of Nazi Germany, Eng England, and the United States.
Communist China, Stalinist, Russia, which became, uh, uh, the Russia that we know today. Normally they can veto any measure. That's why the Uyghurs are still punished. That's why the Philippines and Taiwan are threatened. That's why Russia can go into Ukraine. No international law, no cessation. But these were constructed in such a way that it prohibited their veto.
So that meant that three countries in the P five [01:02:00] could actually, um, uh, um, um, could actually invoke the snapback. Wow. So that was the France, Germany, and the uk. That's right. The recent vote. Wow. Let's take some questions. Yeah. I'm nobody's, I, I want to again, invite the audience. Nobody's posted any questions yet.
Well, was it that complicated folks?
I mean, there's the 60% and there's the 90%, but 60% is right here. And it's just very, very close. Okay. Keep asking questions. I, I love your dialogue. Well, I, I wanted to kind of pivot. Um, I, I know you, you know, you were in New York City with BB night Yahoo, and then you went to dc. Um, I'm just wondering if you were privy and you have anything you can share about the, uh, the Gaza Peace Plan?
Do you do, do they have, do you have a sense for whether they really feel Hamas will agree to it? I have a lot of [01:03:00] knowledge. So the first part of your question is, yes, I do. The second part of your question is, no, I can't, but I can give you some general information and that is this kind of resembles Oslo.
Which was a, a, a worthless piece of paper, uh, that is no longer observed, uh, which made Middle East peace. Remember the pal, I call 'em the so-called Palestinians because until May of 1964, the word Palestinian meant a Jewish Zionist. It was only after the KGB weaponized the PLO and changed their name to Palestinian that, um, they became the, uh, Palestinians.
Uh, the, um, right now the UN is being bi is being bypassed, uh, uh, and it's Trump who is who, who is, is leading the way, but you have [01:04:00] a jointly signed letter by the leading Arab nations. The leading Muslim nations. Remember, the most important, the largest Muslim, uh, populace is, uh, Indonesia and India has, uh, uh, a huge Muslim population that dwarfs the Arab population.
And so all these guys are signing on to it. And, um, uh, we will find out in 24 to 48 hours whether ha, Hamas agrees. Now, there's a difference today than a month ago why a 20,000 Hamas terrorists low, medium, and high are no longer on earth to stop the program. Second, the remaining guys are really in a gorilla group.
Their brigades have been taken down and next. Every [01:05:00] time, uh, I mean, the Biden administration said, don't go into Rafa. That's where all the hostages were. They went into Rafa. They said, don't go into Gaza. They've gone into Gaza. Gaza is half taken, and they are now surrounded. They're asking, some of them are asking, is Israel for safe passage out of the country?
So, um, uh, they are now squeezed militarily. The option for, um, uh, Gaza autocracy is, is there, they will not be part of it. So they've lost whether they are, uh, voluntarily disarming by exploding their tunnels, destroying their weapons, and they'll get safe passage out. All they gotta do is say those five words.
We won't [01:06:00] try to kill, I guess, six Jews. And if they could say that, remember, Israel's getting ready to make peace with Syria. Israel can't afford to hold the grudge. Anyone who wants to make peace with Israel, after the screaming and hollering goes down, they say, where do I sign? And the piece with e with Egypt has held, I know it's supposed to break down every Friday.
It's held for decades. The piece with Jordan has held for decades. The Aham Accords have held for, uh, um, many years, and they're about to be expanded. And so now there's greater oomph. And this includes Turkey. Remember, Hamas is headquartered not only in Qatar, which is a. Terrorist outpost and sponsor. But in Turkey, and this is very difficult 'cause Turkey's a member of nato and it's the largest [01:07:00] European military member of nato.
And Turkey is with, is with Russia and Turkey is with China. And Turkey bought the, uh, Russian radar system, the S 300, which is designed to defeat the F 35. It's very, very complicated. So, um, uh, but all these guys have now signed on to the Trump plan, and Trump is the kind of a guy, if you go along with him, he lavish you with praise and with gifts.
If you oppose him, he cuts you down. Even if your name is, uh, Vladimir Zelensky and you're in for a big meal, you're out before lunch starts and now they're buddies again. So only Trump could do this, and only Trump is bringing it together. And, uh, it's really an, an, an amazement. Your question [01:08:00] is, will Hamas accept?
And nobody knows that. But if they don't, uh, everyone has said, you've got the go ahead now and there won't be any. Um, and Gaza City, which is the only thing left in Gaza, uh, all Terra sites will be demolished. And that includes every tall building with a Hamas observation point on the rooftop and any other building with an accu with an access to the tunnels.
Remember, there's 450, uh, kilometers of tunnels and ga. No bomb shelters. Wow. Let me say that again. 450 kilometers of tunnels in, in, uh, in Gaza. Not one bomb shelter because it's hard to believe this, but this group believes in strategic starvation and they believe in [01:09:00] strategic casualties of their own civilian population.
Wow. Well, Edwin, it's, it's, uh, eight 15, so, uh, our time is up. But we, it was fascinating. We really, and it was a pleasure to have, it was exciting to have someone who just came from a meeting with Bibe and has all this inside info. So we really, really appreciate your coming back here. Well, I hope to come to come back and then again, and ladies, gentlemen, I'll just give you a, a small clue that I haven't told anyone else in about three weeks, sometime in October, I'm gonna publish, uh, uh, my next edition.
It's the 15th anniversary edition of Nazi Nexus, and you can find [email protected]. The book has been out for 15 years and provide the documentation on how, uh, Carnegie Rockefeller Ford. GM and IBM made all the difference to making the Holocaust come true [01:10:00] for, for the, for, for the Nazis. In my new append appendix, I'm going to, uh, expose how all these companies have carefully covered up what they did during the Nazi regime, and you could find out more about [email protected].
If you want a copy of Israel Strikes Iran, just go to any place where books are sold and uh, you could find that at Amazon, apple, whatever it is. And thank you very much for having me. I've really enjoyed it. Likewise. Thank, thank you very much. So, um, I want to thank the audience for attending tonight and, um, remind you that this Thursday we have an in-person class that'll also be live streamed, and that's with Congressman Ward Davison.
So thanks a lot and, uh, we'll see you then.