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Wednesday, November 18, 1987 / University Daily Kansar
Nation/World
Iran says Iraqi planes hit Iranian power site
The Associated Press
MANAMA, Bahrain — Iran said Iraqi warplanes attacked an unfinished Iranian nuclear power plant yesterday, killing 11 people and possibly triggering another Chernobyl.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Cyprus, quoted nuclear official Reza Amrollai as saying the plant contained nuclear material. He said that the raid might lead to "the same transfronter radioactive release and radiological consequences as the Chernobyl nuclear accident," the news agency said.
Iraq did not announce that it had bombed the plant, and there was no independent
confirmation of the attack. Baghdad reported that it bombed a chemical plant 37 miles away yesterday.
U. S. nuclear experts said that a Chernobyl-like disaster could not occur, even if the attack took place. They said that they had no reports of radioactivity emanating from the site. The Chernobyl accident was the explosion and fire at the Soviet nuclear plant in April 1986 which killed 31 Soviets and sent a cloud of radiation around the world.
Amrolliola, president of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, sent an "urgent protest note" to Hans Blix, director general of the Organisation for Agent Agency in Vienna, Austria, the news agency
He asked Blix to rush a team of experts to
the scene to monitor the effects of the raid, the news agency said.
In Vienna, a spokesman for the energy agency said that he knew nothing about a request for such a team. But the spokesman, James Daglish, said that a representative from the Iranian mission to the energy agency was seeking a meeting with Blix last night. No one answered the telephone at the Iranian mission.
The energy agency reported the air strike on the nuclear plant and accused Iraq of violating "international conventions". Iraq, which has been at war with Iran for seven years, has raided the plant at least five times since 1984.
Tehran radio said that among the 11 people.
killed at the unfinished nuclear facility were "one of the plant's top nuclear power experts" and a West German engineer.
Officials of the international energy agency said earlier that they could not confirm the claim about "fissionable material" because no on-site inspection was made.
Dan Butler, a Department of Energy spokesman in Washington, said, "There is no reactor in Iran. I've checked with three sources."
Scott Peters of the U.S. Committee on Energy Awareness, the former Atomic Industrial Forum, said, "As far as I know there are a couple of concrete shells there" and nothing in them.
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