After the Russians started loading uranium rods into the Bushehr reactor in Iran, Egypt could wait no longer. A nuclear Shiite state would be an affront to non-nuclear Egypt.
So Mubarak rushed to revive an old project: constructing a nuclear reactor near El Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast. Construction will begin in a year, which is unthinkable speed for Egypt. Like its Iranian counterpart, the Egyptian reactor will produce plutonium for nuclear warheads.
